Not long after walking inside the forest-like dungeon, they arrived at a place that have a big circle-shaped weird inscription on the ground and a white altar at the centre of the inscription.
Ares felt annoyed despite his face didn't show it. He was annoyed not because of the mess in the area but because Cedric wasn't there at all!!!
'Where the hell is the protagonist?! Aren't you the one that is supposed to clean this up?' Ares suddenly felt his shoulders becoming heavy.
Ares didn't care if Cedric wanted his help and he would help if necessary but currently, Cedric wasn't there and he have to do it himself.
Ares looked around the area and saw a few Demonic Monster Trees seemingly busy absorbing the demonic energy from a few large cracks on the ground. The area was filled with dark red gases and the cracks on the ground were where the gas came from.
Ares was looking at the centre of the area and found a red stone the size of a newborn baby, fixed on the ground. That stone was a dangerous thing.
'Demonic Seed'
This seed was what created the Demonic Sacred Tree. It's like the World Tree the elves protected but the demon version.
The tree would spread demonic energy upon reaching maturity. It was described as a calamity if the tree managed to reach maturity since the demonic energy could be spread all over the world.
Since it was inside a dungeon, this might cause a dungeon break and all the contaminated monsters that managed to evolve into demonic creatures would sprawl out into the human world.
They would be harder to kill since the demonic energy function as a mixture of a doping drug for those monsters. They would become strong mindless creatures.
They would go berserk due to the contamination by demonic energy.
"Hey what should we do here?" Ares asked Prince Theo.
"Just clear up the demonic gas and let the other do the cleanup."
"I....like that idea," Ares agreed reluctantly.
As a Zanuki, it was weird for him to reject Prince Theo's suggestion.
Prince Theo asked Ares to close the cracks and blocked more demonic smoke or gas from coming out. Since they have to close the cracks, they have to kill the Demonic monster trees which are in a stupor because of the Demonic energy they absorbed.
With simple sword slashes and magic spells, the monsters collapsed. It didn't take a long time before they managed to close the cracks by blocking them with huge stones.
"So what next?" Ares asked calmly as if he didn't do anything suspicious. He knew Prince Theo might have realised that he took the Demonic Seed.
Since Prince Theo didn't show any curiosity, he(A) also didn't intend to tell him(PT).
"Since both of us don't have holy power, why not we go and search for Cedric?" Prince Theo suggested while looking at the reddish faint smoke around the area.
"Ok" Ares answered slightly.
But before that, Prince Theo sat down a bit as if he wanted to take a break and let Ares roam around the area. He decided to act like he didn't notice anything that Ares did. Even though he didn't observe Ares, his elemental would report to him and Ares couldn't see or hear his elemental.
Ares already took the Demonic Seed, the sample of the dirt around the area and the picture of the weird inscription on the ground. Prince Theo didn't know what Ares wanted to do nor did he intend to ask him.
He prefer Ares telling him himself but Prince Theo knew that wouldn't happen for the time being. Both of them seem close but also still cautious with each other. He knew Ares realized that his action wasn't hidden from him but he acted like he did nothing.
Prince Theo already realized this long ago, every time Ares wasn't sure where to go, he would ask him(PT) to lead the way as if he(A) was so confident that he(PT) knew where to go. It became more obvious since inside the dungeon test before.
Ares seem to know where the two hidden tasks were despite having to look around the details of the area multiple times as if he wanted to confirm something.
He only asked him(PT) to lead the way to find the teleportation portal. As someone with an elemental, it wasn't hard for me to find something thus he wouldn't ever get lost anywhere but Ares didn't know about his elemental.
'No one would know I have an elemental unless I tell them or they also contracted with an elemental. But both scenarios didn't apply to Ares since I never told him and Ares couldn't be contracted to an elemental since he wasn't an elf.'
Suddenly a possibility struck inside Prince Theo's mind.
'Wait, what if this bastard friend of mine is actually half-elf?! No one knew who his father was so it wasn't entirely impossible...No no, my elemental might already tell me if Ares really has an elemental.'
They continue walking around silently, both of them immersed in their own thoughts.
Prince Theo's elemental already found Cedric and two girls at a nearby river stream. They have to change paths and walked around a little bit to avoid stumbling upon other Demonic monsters.
Not knowing how long they going to be inside this dungeon, they have to conserve their energy.
However, not long after that, both of them frowned when they felt that the Demonic energy seemed to thicken the more they walked. Prince Theo and Ares glanced at each other.
"Is it because of the weird stone from before?" Prince Theo asked. He didn't know the function of that weird red stone but it seem to have a certain function from the way it was put at the centre of the weird inscription.
"No. That thing's only function is to absorb demonic energy, not vice versa thus there must be something else that spread or create demonic energy inside this dungeon" Ares explained since he knew from the novel that Cedric didn't do anything to the Demonic Seed which meant that seed currently didn't pose any harm.
On the other hand, in the novel, Cedric destroyed weird inscriptions on the ground every time he found them. Those inscriptions might be the cause. There was also must be some kind of tools set up around the dungeon.
Prince Theo nodded slightly and didn't ask why Ares sounded confident with what he said. However, even though black mages could withstand demonic energy to a certain extent but it would affect them if the demonic energy is denser and exposed to them for a long time.
They quickened their pace to find Cedric. Later they saw a bright white light emanating not far from them and quickly felt the feeling coming from holy energy.
"There he is. Let's go" Prince Theo seemed relieved a bit.
**********************************
[POV: Cedric Hel]
I looked around the ominous looking forest. There was thin fog everywhere and the trees looked wilted. The sky also look cloudy like it was going to rain anytime soon.
I walked around mindlessly since I didn't know where I was and what kind of beings were there.
-Crack
I suddenly heard the sound of wood breaking behind me and quickly turned around. The previous trees that looked normal suddenly moved around like it was alive.
The tree branches and roots started to become long and tried to catch me. The long tree vines scattered all over the place and no matter how much I cut them, a new one would emerge.
I decided to burn them off instead and it seems to work.
"Arghhh!"
Suddenly I heard the sound of human shouting not far from my place, thus I decided to head over there.
Unfortunately, I was a bit late because the students had all been entangled by the monster tree vines.
The monster trees started to pull out their roots and began moving as if they were walking. The students that had been caught all turned into something similar to undead but their skins were all turned into wood.
The monster trees seem to control the undead as they also tried to attack me.
'Fuck'
I was surrounded by both undead and monster trees nearby a white sacrificial altar. An ominous feeling crept up in my heart.
I cut down every monster tree and undead as I could before suddenly something stabbed my right arm. My arm started to become greenish pale and I felt something trying to take over my body.
-Ting!
[User's body is infected with demonic energy. Use holy power to purify the energy before the user turned into an undead.]
Suddenly my system showed a notification and after I finished reading it, I quickly flowed my holy power more actively all over my body.
My arm turned back to normal.
"This is hard. I won't survive if suddenly there's a Djinn joined this fight."
Coating my sword with holy flames, I started to fight to my limit by destroying everything that needed to be destroyed. The altar ground cracked all over.
The weird inscriptions also seemed to mess up a bit due to the fight. My body started to sweat a lot because I was continuously using holy power during this fight since it was the most efficient way.
-Boom!
When I'm almost finished cutting down all the trees, a loud explosion occurred and from the cracks, a black purplish gas started to come out.
"What...."
-Ting
[Demonic gas detected. The user is advised to quickly run to safety.]
Despite having holy power, I would still be affected by Demonic energy to a certain extent thus I quickly distanced myself.
The remaining monster trees started to swarm towards the cracks that had demonic gas and started absorbing the gas.
The monster trees seemed to evolve. They became bigger and their tree trunks became pitch black.
Having no choice, I ran as quick as I could, mindlessly. I had to observe the situation first since the things here happened too rapidly.
"Huh?"
From far away, I could see the white crystal hair of my female classmate, Selina Senjun. The moment I saw her, she also seem to sense me and turned around.
"You-"
"There are a group of demonic trees and also demonic gas over there," I said to her while panting for air.
"Did you see Ares?"
She asked me an unexpected question but without thinking much I just answered honestly.
"Me, Ares and Prince Theo were sucked into the weird teleportation portal together at the same time but we were separated so I don't know where he is right now."
"Then let's find him. We don't know when we will be saved but we need him to fight those demonic beings."
"What do you mean we need him?"
"Don't you know Zanuki won't be affected by Demonic energy but I'm not sure about him since people said he's a halfling. It's worth trying to ask him to fight them."
"You! Did you want to sacrifice him? What happened if he becomes contaminated later?"
"I don't know what will happen but it's worth it. Our chance of surviving can increase."
"....."
Such a cold person. She didn't hesitate to sacrifice someone just for other people to survive. What Ares would feel when he heard this?
After walking for around half an hour, they didn't meet anyone or even any monsters. They arrived at a river stream that had cloudy blackish water.
"I don't think we could drink this," I said disappointed since I planned on refilling my water bottle.
"Obviously. Are you thirsty? Drink this instead"
Suddenly a ball of ice formed from Selina's hand. It was the normal ice ball that I've seen in shops before.
"This is my ability. I could absorb moisture in the air and turned them into the water like this or ice like this ball using my mana"
A strip of water came out from her index finger before it went into her mouth like nothing.
"Will your mana be fine?"
"I can't use this too often since I'm still not proficient enough and I'm afraid the moisture in the forest might already be contaminated with demonic energy so this is the last ice ball I reserved."
"Oh thanks"
I put the ice ball inside my water bottle since I'm not that thirsty and we didn't know how long we would be here.
"Selina!"
Suddenly a girl's voice came from behind the thick bushes and Gina appeared in front of Cedric and Selina who were taking a break by the river stream.
Before Cedric managed to say anything, Gina told them in a hurried tone, "The Demonic energy becoming thicker around the forest and fortunately, I found you guys here."
After hearing that, Cedric suddenly got a notification from his system:
[Demonic energy density in the air around the dungeon becoming thicker. User must be careful]
"Sigh, in this situation even a Zanuki can't do anything" Selina muttered.
Seeing his two classmates' worried faces and sensing the demonic energy becoming more apparent, Cedric suddenly recalled his other classmates that have been contaminated with demonic energy that he encountered before.
'I can't let more people die, do I?'
Cedric quickly set up a dome-like shape barrier using his holy power. Fortunately, his holy power increased by bound after he absorbed the holy beast's core.
"Cedric, I didn't know you have holy power," Selina asked after a brief moment of shock seeing a holy barrier formed around them.
Her previously exhausted and heavy feeling suddenly lightened since the barrier purified the demonic energy within its vicinity.
"Not many people knew-" before Cedric managed to finish his sentence, two figures appeared, and one of them was the person they tried to find.
"Aha, found you," Prince Theo said pointing towards Cedric and there was a dead Demonic Monster Tree in Ares's hand.
It seems Prince Theo and Ares encountered those monsters along the way here.
"Second Prince quick come in. The demonic energy has become thicker" Selina said.
As if ignoring Selina, Prince Theo asked Ares," So what are we going to do now?"
Ares looked at Cedric and then glanced at Selina and Gina before clicking his tongue.
"Troublesome" Ares muttered slowly but since no one talking, everyone there could hear the words clearly.
Everyone seem to know who he meant by that word. He was saying that Selina and Gina were troublesome.
"Hey who are you saying that?" Selina asked seemingly displeased.
It was the first time she was treated negatively by the opposite gender because due to her beauty, she was always treated nicely. Some girls might insult her due to envy but no one ever told her she was a burden or a troublesome thing.
"Hmm we think there was something that causes the Demonic energy to become thicker, thus we needed Cedric to come with us and didn't expect two extra people with him," Prince Theo explained instead of Ares since he knew Ares wouldn't waste his energy explaining.
"I can help with that but I couldn't move this barrier," Cedric said solemnly.
"Ares, Prince Theo why not you guys come in the barrier first and we discuss" Gina suggested in a low voice. She seems worried about the two of them being exposed to Demonic energy.
"Zanuki isn't affected by Demonic energy right?" Selina said seemingly wanting to taunt Ares.
Ares on the other didn't feel anything at all with Selina's childish taunt.
-Boom!!
Suddenly an explosion reverberated from inside the forest not far from them. All of them were stunts.
"No more chit chat. Everyone listens to my commands if you guys want to survive," sensing the serious tone in Ares's voice everyone nodded slightly.
"Sure" Prince Theo replied calmly.