I look around at my team. Sakura is trying to wrestle Josh to the ground. From the looks of it, she wants to wipe the dirt off his face, but Josh valiantly struggles against her. To my other side stands Shinobu, who looks like she's about to cry. I can see her eyes shining wet with tears. I almost forgot because we are working so well together, but these three people are my teammates. We may be exploring with Ironhead at the moment, but after this, it'll be back to just the four of us again. We need to look out for our own first. Although we're just a group of kids, we can't afford to let people take advantage of us.
"I'm not good at negotiations. Why don't you take care of it, Shinobu?" The air splits with shock; I don't know how people expected me to react to this situation, but it apparently wasn't like that. The blond noble's eyes light up from the responsibility I've placed on her shoulders. I can't help but rub my forehead.
[Why haven't I been relying on her to handle negotiations? She's clearly much better at this kind of thing than me, and it should have been obvious if I'd thought about it for even a minute. Why am I trying to do everything myself when I have such talented teammates?]
I glance over to the newlyweds who have disentangled themselves and are now running circles around the goblin camp. If I hadn't witnessed it myself, I would have never believed that they had just survived a life or death struggle.
[They've grown so fast. I wonder how strong they'll be a few years from now?]
My mind drifts off to the distant future. The two kids, now adults, fighting side by side.
[It'll be a sight to see, that's for sure.]
With the negotiations being hashed out by Shinobu and the kids distracted, I take this opportunity to snoop around the camp. From what I can tell, the tents are made from animal hide. I take a closer look and notice the evenly spaced stitches holding the leather together.
Six similarly sized tents are set up in a circle. At the center is a fire pit that seems to have been recently cleaned as there's very little ash accumulated at the bottom.
[Where's the refuse? A group of goblins this size should be producing a fair amount of waste.]
I search inside each tent but find nothing other than a few boxes. There are several sleeping spots but not enough to accommodate that many Goblins.
[It's a trap!]
In all likelihood, the Goblins we killed are the only ambushers we need to worry about, but better safe than sorry. I burst through the tent flap to the outside. In the center of the ring of tents, Shinobu is still arguing with Ironhead.
"We need to go. This is a trap," I say as I interrupt their conversation.
"What?!" Yuki exclaims.
"There's no signs of anything living here. This is clearly just a fake campsite made to ambush people."
"That explains why we were attacked as soon as we got here," Travis says as he places his hand on Yuki's shoulder to calm her down.
"There are no signs of refuse or waste that would build up from monsters staying here, the tents are mostly barren, and the fire pit has basically never been used before." I throw together my findings to crush any dissenting opinions before they have a chance to form.
"Let's move out immediately. We can't be sure that there aren't more Goblins coming." Our teacher picks up on my urgency and quickly rallies everyone together. In less than a minute, we're in formation, ready to move.
"Enemy approaching!" Jim cries. My blood is pumping hot from the rising anxiety. "It looks like there's only one."
"It's a scout!" Yuki bolts forward to kill the Goblin before it can escape but disappears right before our eyes. Several arrows fly through the spot where it stood but only make contact with the ground.
"Damn, it can use Electromagnetic magic." Travis curses under his breath.
"Electromagnetic magic can make you invisible?" I ask, partly out of shock.
"Yes, you can use it to bend the light around you. Think of it like a boulder sitting in a river; the water moves freely around the boulder without completely blocking the flow. You can do something similar to the light around you to become invisible." Travis explains. Despite what Jezabel says about him, he sure knows his stuff.
"But it can't hide footsteps or muffle sounds." My mind immediately jumps to possible countermeasures.
"Exactly. It isn't too hard to deal with as long as you're paying attention."
"I lost him." Jim frowns.
"It's fine. We just need to get out of here before it can gather reinforcements." Our party runs back up the spiraling maze of pathways while maintaining our formation. I can't stop looking behind me due to the growing anxiety filling my stomach.
"What was that?" Jim spins around with a look of terror on his face.
"What is it?" Travis halts our movement so his archer can focus.
"I don't know. I thought I heard rumbling coming from behind us." We stand breathless for several moments as Jim strains his ears. I hear a faint noise coming from the depths of the dungeon. "Whatever it is, it's huge."
I hear someone gasp behind me.
"Nick, do you know anything about this?" Travis looks at me with his brow furrowed. My memories flash back to the behemoth that stalked us during the early days of our dungeon exploration.
"Could it be that spider?" I whisper under my breath.
"I thought that thing disappeared!" Sakura jumps away just at the mention of our now reoccurring nightmare.
"What spider?" Travis tilts his head in confusion.
"I don't know what it is, but it's big. We've only seen it once, and it didn't attack us, but it was monstrous."
"I swear to all that is holy, Travis, if we make it out of here alive, I'm going to kick your fucking ass!" Sam shouts with a bright red face at our teacher.
"We need to keep moving. We still have a long way to go to the exit." I urge everyone forward. We don't have time to argue.
"Right. Keep moving." Travis agrees and increases our pace. The twists and turns of our ascent make the journey seem all that much longer. It only took us a couple of hours to make it down, but it feels like years are passing as we go back up. To make things worse, the rumbling steadily grows louder. I can hear the tattered breathing of our mages, struggling to keep up with our pace.