Dungeon of Demise

It was still early in the day and thanks to the sudden rise of stronger adventurers, the forest near the city was basically emptied out of the more common and low level monsters. The air was still fresh and even though Velios was still a little tired from the training, his senses couldn't pick up on any other life form except the adventurers at least a few hundred meters out and the other people within the city's wall. "Hey, Velios. What is it that the head of the guild wanted? It's not like I meant to but I did overhear him asking us for help." Yotsuya was walking besides Velios, looking around them trying to find where they were headed. "Oh, that's what you wanted to know about? You could have just asked me, you've been quiet ever since we left town." Yotsuya just looked into Velios general direction but unable to stare into his eyes directly. "Well, I should be the one most used to it by now but I'm still a little bit shocked about the pressure that you emit. It felt like a different kind of pressure then the time in the restaurant a week ago, but the one earlier today just emitted some kind of unmeasurable strength, something unknown, something unreachable." Velios just sort of half smiled at what Yotsuya said. I guess that's how other people feel faced with greater strength, I don't really understand it though. When I was faced with that monster from before and even that bear, I only felt excitement. "You said you wanted to know where we are going, correct." Yotsuya answered with only a short nod. "So basically, that old man wanted us to take care of something "Dunjon" or something. Apparently it's something common in these types of games. He said something about strong monsters and all of that. Oh, I think the name was something like "Dunjon of demise", apparently it supposed to be famous or something."

The shock from hearing Velios talk about it so lightly made him turn his head to face Velios' who looked like he was dozing off. Yotsuya was so shocked that he couldn't even speak. What is Velios talking about?! I had no idea what he was talking about but now I know for certain that he was talking about THAT dungeon. I am the strongest registered adventurer in this city and I was too scared and afraid to even take it on. The most recent expedition was only two days ago, a group of adventurers, hand-picked by that guy of the adventurer guild. A whole day later when they hadn't showed any signs of coming back, some staff of the adventurers guild were sent to check up on them and all they found was six of them dead outside the actual dungeon and the other 10 still missing, presumed dead. I know that Velios is strong, but that old man probably sent us here expecting us to die. "Hey, Velios, are you sure that this is a good idea?" The question out of the blue made Velios look like he had just woken up. "You won't have to worry, Yotsuya. If anything goes wrong or if anything happens, you can both rely on me and take all the responsibility. That's what a leader would do, right?" Hearing that made Yotsuya fully come back to his senses. Yotsuya alone would have a pretty big chance at winning if he went up against all of the 16 people. Not saying that they are weak, but implying that Yotsuya has a natural fighting ability accompanied with sword skill with years of practice would stand a pretty good chance against a group where everybody is at least some levels weaker than him. Yotsuya needed courage in that moment and he got it thanks to the words from Velios. They could do it.

The dungeon entrance was like any other cave entrance to a mountain but only a little bit on the bigger side. Velios was pumped up about the fact that he had a chance to try out his new strength but something was bugging him a little. It seemed like there was either something blocking the usage of skills or that it was only hard to use his senses and the skills while being deeper underground. Either way, it didn't really bug him too much since he was confident in his own fighting ability either. So far, they had only gone a short distance but there were no signs of any monsters in the area. The domain so far was like any other cavern but somehow it was light as if there were torches scattered across the walls. Everything so far seemed to be only a bit abnormal since it was still a dungeon but Velios had experienced much weirder and worse scenarios so the situation hadn't bugged him at all. Yotsuya however was a little bit more nervous. Both of them felt that it was getting drastically hotter and hotter but Yotsuya seemed to be the only one who cared. Velios was walking slowly with his arms and head hanging low. "Where are all the monsters! Gimme monsters!" Velios had become restless. He just wanted to test his abilities in combat but Velios has had to wait for far too long according to his own standards. Little did he know that the fun was just going to begin.

What Velios and Yotsuya saw before them was something far too big to comprehend, a change far too sudden. They had followed the path since they had entered the dungeon and it was only a few minutes before that they had seen a "light" at the end of the tunnel. Upon closing the gap, they saw that the little cave tunnel that they had followed had turned into a big cavern with multiple pillars and countless stalactites and stalagmites. It would have been like any other cavern, but it was almost as if the sun had access to it. The cavern was fully lit and something felt off. Not only that, but Velios' extraordinary senses were almost completely dull. He could probably not sense anything, even if there was to be a monster right behind him. His senses were now that of a normal human. "Yotsuya! Keep your guard up and immediately notify of any strange or sudden changes." Yotsuya only answered with a nod while both of them continued to look around as they slowly walked forwards. Yotsuya wasn't able to see or sense anything so he only followed Velios' orders blindly while Velios knew that something was incredibly wrong. He couldn't pinpoint if it was a monster or if this was how dungeons usually were and acted, the two of them wouldn't find out before it was too late.

A gigantic beam of fire was launched directly at them. Velios barely had any time to react since his senses were to no help, the only thing he could rely on was his speed. With his durability and his improved healing, he would at least survive, but that wasn't the case for Yotsuya. Yotsuya stared at the giant sea of flames that were about to incinerate them with not a single word being able to get out. Yotsuya instead felt a sharp pain going through his side and back, launching him just outside the reach of the beam of fire. As he crashed into the ground and looked at what had happened, he couldn't stop himself from reacting. "Ve-Velios!" Yotsuya reached his arm out as he couldn't do anything but to desperately reach forth his hand. The fire had soon disappeared and what was left of it was smoke that rose and gathered up at the roof of the cavern. He looked around desperately to try and find Velios, but he couldn't. Then, he heard a sudden voice coming from the other side at the cavern, at the far wall, Velios had barely managed to escape. "Yotsuya! I'm fine, it's only some small burn wounds, I'll be fine!" That was the first mistake he had made in the dungeon, a fatal flaw that left them at a huge disadvantage. He got too focused on informing Yotsuya that he was fine so much so that his guard was completely down. Velios had no time to react to the sudden event that was following. Velios had severely underestimated the difficulty of the dungeon and because of that he had paid the price. The attack was done so quickly that not even Velios himself had noticed anything as soon as it happened, but it was clear exactly what had happened. Velios' right arm was completely missing.