As the doors slammed behind the group they all stood alert and began looking around the room. Brutas showed a frown before turning to Aron and speaking.
"You, check for anything out of the ordinary here." He ordered and Aron pointed to his legs where a dark circle had begun to emerge.
"Like that?" He asked and everyone immediately noticed a total of six black circles emerge. They quickly expanded before the same abominations Aron had faced crawled out. Three of them having four arms while the other three having only two.
"What is that thing?" Henry asked as he drew his blade. The others followed suit and unsheathed their weapons while raising their guard.
Brutas was the first to act as he charged directly at them with a frightening speed. Aron made sure to observe keenly as he did so as to measure their strength before deciding whether to act directly himself or not.
Brutas like Aron had managed to reach one of them and land a strike, however this had no effect as the creature only let out a screech before kicking him back.
'This weapon can even slice tier 3 grade armour like it's nothing... but I couldn't even scratch it.' Brutas thought to himself as he furrowed his eyebrows.
"They're nothing to scoff at" Brutas muttered to the others but none looked fazed and so the fight began.
.....
Aron had moved to one of the walls and avoided all confrontations and simply observed. The fight carried on far longer than his own. 'Their strategy is near perfect and their forms have few flaws but none of them wish to accept that they might be weaker than those creatures and so they keep attacking, except that one…' Aron thought to himself before continuing to watch.
His gaze soon stopped on Juliet who had managed to disarm the creature she fought. After this, she quickly picked up its blade and threw it towards another creature.
It was only then that they realized that their weapons were the problem and began to shift the tide of the battle with that information.
'I guess they aren't all just battling blindly.' Aron thought before sighing. This action was noticed by Brutas whose pride was hurt from the way the battle had played out, especially after he received some thrashing when he began to move slower after tiring.
"What the hell are you sighing in relief for? Tsk, all you did was cower and avoid the battle. Weaklings like you have no place going to Galos Academy!" Brutas began speaking while slowly approaching him but was stopped by Henry speaking.
"Stop, let's check keep going first before more of them returned." Brutas wasn't happy about the decision but even he knew that it's not the time for arguing so he turned and walked away.
"Just what in the world were these things?" Emilia asked as she looked at the bodies oddly but Esmeralda simply sneered at them and walked by.
"I prefer to not know more than I need about these disgusting things. Let's quickly go get what we came for and leave, I'll need a long bath after this." She complained as she followed the others walking towards the treasure room.
After encountering the same situation Aron had, they each picked one item after careful selection and began heading for the exit. It was only then that Brutas noticed Aron was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is that peasant?" He asked angrily but Esmeralda simply chuckled at him while shrugging.
"What? Did you expect him to wait for you to return so you could make him suffer?" She mocked him as they approached the two large doors before opening them and exiting.
All seemed well when suddenly as they were exiting a large glyph appeared right below them. Before anyone could react, they felt a large force weight them down and bring them to their knees.
"What... is this...." Sebastian who had been quiet and without presence most of the journey seemed to have the most trouble facing this as he asked with a concerned expression on his face.
"I think we triggered a trap... that much is obvious." Henry muttered as he tried his best to rise but to no avail.
Soon everyone's attention shifted to the footsteps of someone approaching them slowly from the front. When they finally recognized it was Aron, they looked somewhat at ease as they feared it might have been the creatures.
"You useless peasant! Who told you could leave? Tsk, never mind just quickly find a way to disable this trap." Despite his situation, Brutas still acted as arrogant as he always did and didn't immediately suspect Aron. How could his blind prejudice allow him to credit such a trap to a commoner.
Thats just how some aristocrats saw themselves, even if they were at a disadvantage they didn't believe a commoner would dare to make an enemy out of their family and in fact they were right. But unfortunately for them this wasn't an average commoner born from their world.
"Leave? No. I was simply waiting for the you all to trigger the trap. Although a battle would have been interesting, I have no time to waste on the likes of you." Aron expressed bluntly as he showed them all a cold gaze. In truth he very did want to kill Brutas especially but he worried about the image projection, after all he wasn't completely certain they weren't being watched in all areas.
"You dar-" Brutas was about to say something when Aron suddenly pulled out his sword and stabbed it right through his hand. Brutas let out a pained scream and gritted his teeth trying to raise his hand but Aron walked closer and drove it deeper.
"Do not misunderstand, it's your own foolishness that lead you to believe I was just another harmless commoner you could toy with. But now look at you groveling under me, pathetic." Aron snickered before raising his sword and proceeding to collect the items they had just taken.
Unlike them, the crushing weight was nothing to Aron who they thought was unaffected by the trap. But little did they know it was all set by him, once again their prejudice blinded them from seeing the obvious conclusion right in front of them.
"I apologize on Brutas's behalf for his treatment towards you earlier. If you release us I guarantee nothing will happen to you and I'll even reward you handsomely. I swear by my name." Henry offered sincerely but Aron only showed a small unimpressed smile.
"You really are rather dull." Aron muttered as if disappointed, he of course didn't reveal he was the one that set it up so as to have them underestimate him again after this encounter.
"There's practically a small army of talented warriors and mages outside, hand over the mana crystal and I won't only let you keep the other items but I'll make an oath swearing to protect your life and reward you accordingly." Henry's usually calm demeanour was all but forgotten as he blurted this out without hesitation.
"The Hoffenheim family will reward you double, no triple whatever your price." Esmeralda quickly spoke as well not willing to just watch.
"The trap will lose it's power soon so I'll be taking my leave. I'd say organize a proper offer but I'm sure you're all thinking of hunting me down the second you're free so anymore talking is pointless, I'm sure you'll reconsider once you exit the cave however." Aron spoke vaguely before starting to walk away, ignoring any attempts at calling for him.
'I suppose it's time to test how capable these mana infused bullets are.' Aron thought to himself as he walked away smiling.