Eldritz's death didn't affect Fae as much as she initially thought. On the contrary, she felt slightly indifferent to it, since she was more worried about Felix right now.
After opening the door, it turns out that there was a wide staircase in front of them, with a single path leading upwards. The stairs could fit at least fit a few people walking side by side, and it was high enough where even Dan, the tallest member in their group, wouldn't have any problems walking through it.
"Where are we right now?"
Kaori asked, as she was curious about this place. The staircase had sufficient lighting, as there were a few lanterns embedded within the walls every couple of meters.
Since Dan was the one that distributed the Return Stones to them, it was normal for Kaori to direct her question to him.
"We're at the basement of the adventurer's guild. There needs to be a sufficiently large space for the teleportation location, in case multiple people used the Return Stone at the same time."
"Why can't you just teleport to a courtyard or something that's above ground?"
"There are too many risks associated with teleporting to a public space. Didn't you see what Fae did to that guy while he was in the middle of teleporting?"
"Oh."
Kaori remembered the sight of Fae shooting a few arrows at Eldritz the moment she recognized him. He didn't even have a chance to defend himself, as he could only react after he finished teleporting.
Throughout the path in the stairway, there were traces of dried blood all over the walls and floor, signifying what kind of battle must've occurred in this place. However, since the area was pretty dim even with the lanterns, only Dan had noticed it with his keen observation.
At the end of the staircase, they came upon another closed door. However, as if Dan had predicted it already, he could smell the scent of blood leaking through the gaps around it.
"Shit."
"What happened?"
Kaori and the other girls didn't know why Dan suddenly cursed out loud, since they were still a few steps behind him. However, when they got close enough to the door, they figured out the reason for it.
"Urg… This smell..."
The girls were already able to distinguish the smell of blood due to their frequent exposure to it within the last couple of days.
"Yea… I think we should prepare for the worst on the other side of this door. Fae, can I rely on you to keep the girls safe?"
"Yes, I'll do my best to assist you as well."
"Alright. I'm going to keep a few weapons around you girls like before."
After opening the door, what greeted them was the sight of many half-eaten bodies littered across the lobby.
There were also about 20 zombies in the area, although these ones were filled with injuries all over their bodies compared to the ones before. Slash marks were visible on their armor and rotten skin, while some of them were even missing parts of their limbs.
Similarly, the bodies that were already dead on the ground had the same kind of slash wounds on them, as if a battle occurred here previously.
Before any of them could figure out what happened here, Dan already took out his weapons and directed them towards the zombies that were closer to him.
The sight of these swords and spears flying towards the zombies woke Fae from her daze. She took aim with her bow and shot at some of the zombies that were further away, since she was confident in her accuracy at this range.
The battle was a lot easier compared to the previous one, since nobody made any loud noises while Dan and Fae killed the zombies one by one. Another reason why they didn't experience much difficulty was because the zombies were still busy feasting on the dead corpses on the floor.
After clearing the lobby of zombies, Dan led the girls out of the stairs and closed the door behind him. He then took a few minutes to make sure the lobby was safe before he started looting the dead bodies.
Previously, in the room where they arrived, he also briefly checked the dead bodies. However, the only useful things he found were a few coins and elemental stones, along with weapons and armor that had poor quality.
Nobody wanted to remove the armor from the dead bodies, so they just left them there. Meanwhile, Dan just casually stored the weapons in his Item Box. Even if the quality wasn't as good as the ones he owned, he could still make use of them with his skill.
He did the same thing with the bodies in the lobby, as he mainly took the weapons and other miscellaneous items. To his disappointment, none of these adventurers had an Item Box. Dan wanted to give one each to Mary and Fae. Since Kaori had her own inventory skill, she didn't really need one, and Luna already had an Item Box.
After they took about an hour to finish looting, they then moved the bodies to a separate room on the main floor. The room was originally used to appraise monster parts, since Dan had been there multiple times in the past.
After that was done, although the stench was still present, it wasn't as unbearable as before. Dan wanted to clear the lobby in case they needed to use it as a temporary base.
Since even the adventurer's guild had become like this, Dan could only assume the worst outside in the city.
He then took the girls upstairs as he wanted to fully explore the adventurer's guild to make sure there were no other threats in here. He knew Kaori and Luna wanted to stay here to wait for Kio and Miyu, so he had to make adequate preparations to ensure this place was safe.
Since the adventurer's guild only had 3 floors in total, he figured it wouldn't take much time to finish checking this place. The basement only had that one room they arrived in at the start, and they had finished checking the main floor just now.
Leading the way, Dan carefully opened each door on the second floor one by one. Although there were traces of the rooms being used, there was nobody inside.
"..."
"..s"
As they reached the last door, Dan sensed the presence of people behind it. The girls also noticed it once they got closer, since there were noises coming from the inside.
"Shh."
Dan signaled for the girls to not make any noise as he sneakily walked closer to the door and pressed his ear against it. He wanted to check whether the people behind the door are still alive.
"...we can't do that."
"But if we stay here any longer, we're just going to starve to death."
"You're right, but we all know that it's dangerous outside."
Just listening to the conversation for a short moment allowed Dan to confirm that there are humans inside, so he gently knocked on it. He didn't want to smash the door open since the survivors inside could provide him with the information he needed at the moment. If he acted violently, the people inside could become hostile towards them and refuse to cooperate.
*Knock*
"!!"
"What was that sound? Could it be that the people from earlier came back?"
"Shall we remove the barricade and open it?"
"No! Don't you remember what happened to some of those people? They turned mad and started biting each other!"
"You're right. Let's just ignore it then."
As Dan heard their conversation behind the door, even though he could understand their reasoning, he wasn't pleased by it.
"Ahem. All of the zombies inside the building have already been killed. The people inside the room, you don't have to worry anymore, so please open up."
"?!"
"Did you hear that? That person outside said all those zombies or whatever have been killed!"
"Hah. You're willing to believe in his bullshit? Anyone could say the same thing. For all we know, maybe he just wants to trick us into opening the door before eating all of us."
"..."
Dan and the girls were dumbfounded as they listened to their reasoning. They didn't even know enough about these zombies before they started making things up.
"Ahem. If you guys don't want to open up, I won't be polite anymore. I could just easily break down the door and force my way inside."
"Wha?! W-wait! Why do you want to come inside in the first place? Can't you just leave us alone?"
"We just arrived here by using a Return Stone and want to know the situation. I promise we have no ulterior motives."
*Clatter*
"H-how did you come from the basement? There should've been tons of rabid people down there!"
"Well, it wasn't easy, but there's only one way we could've done it."
"???"
"We killed them all, since they already turned into zombies."