With several kills and not-so-great gains, the top floor of the expedition was cleared. After retrieving the monsters' gems and harvesting the bodies of the dead, Katarina leads the warriors and mages out of the dungeon.
As I leave the dungeon, I see the blue sky and the city air. We only spent a few hours in the dungeon, so the sun is still shining brightly in the sky as the Menfis family adventurers take the spoils to the Menfis family compound.
Irina and Mia have invited me to talk to them at a nearby bar, it seems they don't have to escort the expedition's spoils, and with the deaths they've had they won't be able to make a second expedition today.
It seems that Katarina either underestimated the dungeon or just had bad luck, but anyway there are several deaths in that dungeon. The warriors' death is not a big problem, the problem is in the magician's death he didn't die because of his mistake but because he wasn't protected by the warriors or by the other magicians.
Not only do mages have fewer numbers than fighters, they are also more expensive to nurture. Not only is the mage's death a greater loss than the warriors, it also means more, it and a mark of Katarina's incompetence may have been her lack of preparation or lack of command skills.
But the magician's death has become a dark mark in Katarina's history, from what Deneve and Hilda told me Katarina has already had three expeditions before this one, but this and the first one where she suffers a bad result like this.
She didn't gain anything special; she lost several warriors and a mage was killed while being defended by the warriors.
When I was about to give my answer to Irina and Mia, I felt a shiver and an arm hooked into mine. Hilda basically hugged me in front of the two and with a deadly smile she pushed the two archers away.
"Darling are you ready to go? Hi girls unfortunately Ulric and I already have plans, maybe next time."
Both Irina and Mia were paralyzed by the sudden appearance of Hilda and her having refused the invitation that was made to me and basically threatening them both. Hilda is unleashing a pretty intense murderous intent right now.
"Of course, it's for another day. We'd better take the train to the complex; don't you think Mia?"
"Yes, we better go."
Even though Irina was a green core warrior she was still intimidated by Hilda. Which is normal, Irina works for the Menfis family, she won't pick a fight with the matriarch's granddaughter, over a trivial matter like me.
When the two walked away I turned to Hilda, who was now staring at me with a deadly look, only a few inches between our faces, so I took the chance and lightly kissed her lips. And that just made her angrier with me.
"Why the jealousy? Isn't it common for you to be like that?"
"Idiot, and you should be apologizing instead of asking stupid questions, why are you flirting with those two bitches?"
"Flirting? Bitches? I think you're imagining things that don't exist."
"I saw you flirting with them, isn't there a better place to go after bitches than a dungeon? They're meant to be a deadly challenge, not for you to be flirting with bitches."
"I wasn't flirting with them; I was talking to them. These are different things, although they may look the same when you're away and not listening to the content of the conversation, we were talking about elemental arts for archers, I was interested to hear their opinion on that."
"I only hear excuses, from a guy caught in the act."
"Are you exaggerating now Hilda?"
"What if I have?"
"This means that I will have to take action to correct it."
Hilda's fighting spirit has awakened, she is basically emanating aggression now.
"Excellent! I want to see how you can fix me." Before she could attack me, I attack her aiming at the spots that mature of hers is open and I tickle her, this is one of Hilda's embarrassments she is really sensitive, she loses control easily when I tickle her.
I keep my attack solid and persistent against Hilda. She starts laughing and squirming, it doesn't take long for her to ask me to stop.
"Stop! Stop Ulrico! People are looking at us."
When I stop, Hilda starts to recover. I realize she was right; we both became a focal point for the people around us.
The people that call my attention the most are Ingredi who is embarrassed, she looks away and pretends she doesn't know us which is difficult since she and Hilda are twins. Deneve is beside her laughing, this is the first time I see her having any emotion other than the serious face and lunge or the predatory smile she has as she fights.
The rest of the people just laugh at a couple of teenagers playing in a childish way, but always the exceptions aside from the jealousy I see on the faces of some warriors and I see the dark look of Katarina that is a little far away from us.
She is not happy with the expedition and seems even more annoyed when she sees Hilda's happiness and shame. I have no idea what's going through her head, I just know she's not happy—her face and pure anger and frustration right now.
Deneve approached us, and she pulled Ingredi along.
"You guys should be intimate indoors, not on the street in front of a dungeon. Don't you agree with me?
"Yes, sister is not right to behave like this in public."
Hilda recovering from my attack, wraps her in my arms and turns her face to Ingredi.
"I'm jealous of you, Ingredi. Maybe you want a certain warrior of few words to hug you like Ulric is hugging me, and Deneve is just jealous because her boyfriend is out of town on a mission."
"Little girl, you only have a boyfriend for five minutes. Come talk about my personal life when you become a grown woman, and who is this warrior of few words Ingredi? Did you also get a little boyfriend?"
"Not! I don't know what this crazy woman is talking about, I don't have a boyfriend!"
"Then why are you panicking? It looks like you've fallen in love with a boy, but it looks like you're afraid of being rejected. That's normal Ingredi, but not even a man who likes girls would refuse his feelings and interest Ingredi, unless he likes boys, so you were unlucky."
Ingredi ran away, she disappeared so fast I could barely see her movements.
"Does she really have a boy she likes or were you just playing with your sister?"
"Yes, but I don't know if anything will happen between them, Ingredi is too embarrassed and the idiot barely completes a sentence normally. I think they match, but the problem is how to start their relationship."
"You're exaggerating Hilda, Sten only speaks very little to the rest of the people he and Ingredi convert a lot, but usually it's about runes or complaints about you."
"Hey! Ingredi wouldn't speak ill of her lovely and adorable older sister."
"Of course, she wouldn't talk bad about you, but I didn't know you had a boyfriend."
"Why would you know?"
"True, but do you know Katarina?"
"Yes, I've been part of the group led by her a few times, why the question?"
"During the expedition I didn't see her giving many orders, was everything arranged before or she just doesn't care?"
"Don't let her hear this, if she heard your question now, she would kill you. Katarina cares a lot about the members of her expedition, it took several hours of planning and she had an extremely long meeting yesterday to explain the strategy during the dungeon, and a shame that in the end it went very wrong for her."
"I know losing a mage is tricky, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem to find a replacement." Hilda pinches me with all her strength, I thought she was going to tear off a piece of my skin.
"Idiot, the problem is not replacing Mark, but his death. Most mages are glass cannons, and few of them decide to do anything about it, most are left with the warriors, and Mark's death means Katarina is unreliable."
"A bit of an exaggeration in my opinion, the fifteenth-floor guardians were tricky and assassins always target mages,"
"That's not and something will disappear with a simple, ' it was bad luck '. Katarina will be reprimanded when she returns to the Menfis family compound and if she makes another mistake of this level, she will lose the ability to do expeditions. And the fifteenth-floor guardian wasn't that strong they were just annoying, I've had to face stronger and more dangerous enemies than some hobgoblin assassins, and you two will also face worse enemies than those hobgoblins and just explore a few more dungeons. "
"I didn't think it would be that serious, that explains why Katarina is so angry."
"She must be very angry, and that makes me very happy. How about we go away Ulric, only the three of us are left here, Deneve do you want to go celebrate? Ulric will pay today."
"Why am I going to pay? I'm the one with the least money here."
"It's up to next time Hilda, I have some things to do today. Vincent comes back tomorrow, so I want to take my day off tomorrow."
"Okay, we'll meet when there's another expedition."
With Deneve gone, I took Hilda to the institute to clean us up, and then go out to celebrate getting off our first expedition in one piece.