"You people and [Galeheaven]," the woman muttered as she collected my badge and bent to pick up a piece of paper from behind her desk, "You're already the fifth person to come here today with the request, and since you're a D rank, I guess you can just join their team. They are all part of one team so they shouldn't hold you back. Although I think you're the one that will hold them back instead."
I rose a brow as the woman stamped the permit and handed it to me along with my badge and a map of the dungeon, "What do you mean that there are others?" I asked.
"You didn't think that we would let a D ranker go into a D rank dungeon on his own, did you?"
'I actually thought that I would be going in here on my own,' I thought.
I haven't seen something like this happening before. In my last life, when I wanted to go into the dungeon, I went in alone because there was no one else that wanted to go into the [Galeheaven] with me. Everyone was too focused on going to the other dungeons that were flourishing with weaker monsters.
"Oh, there they are right now," the receptionist signaled to a group walking down the hallways and they all came towards us, "Those are your teammates for this hunt," she said.
There were three men and a girl on the team. The girl looked close to my age, but the three men were older than I was. The girl extended her hand out to me, "So you're the add-on," she said with a wide grin, "Nice to have you on the team."
She was a beautiful dark-skinned girl with blindingly white teeth. Her eyes were yellow and there was a small black mole under the right side of her mouth. She wore armor that looked simple, but on closer look, I could tell that it was extremely expensive. It is at least a B rank armor and this showed that she had more than enough money to spend on things like these even though she was only a D rank.
B rank armor costs about ten silver coins or more and that was not the kind of money that a D rank should have. Even B ranks won't have that much money. I stared at the hand for a second before I calmly took it. Was she the leader? From what I could see, the other three men were more than happy to let her do all the talking, so I assumed that she was the leader, "I didn't expect anyone else to be going into the [Galeheaven] dungeon," I said," Is there any reason you decided to go there?"
"The same as you of course," she answered with a smile, "I want to get stronger."
That answer shocked and I immediately became suspicious. That was not eh sort of answer I would expect from someone that was on the fourth floor. I thought that she would say something like 'I want more money' or 'There were no other dungeons open'. But for her to want to get stronger was a surprise.
"Miss, we have to go," one of the men behind her said, she turned around and hushed him quickly before turning back and smiling at me. There was obviously something that she was hiding from me. It didn't seem like it was something that would put me in danger, but I decided to remain cautious, just in case.
"Shall we go?" she asked and I nodded and followed behind her as we left the guild house. We made our way toward the dungeon [Galaheaven] and we showed the guard at the entrance our badges and the permits.
"Are you new around this floor," the girl suddenly spoke to me as we were just entering the dungeon and I nodded to her, "What floor were you on before?"
"The first floor," I answered and the girl's eyes widened.
"Are you serious?" she asked in surprise, "You were a D rank on the first floor? I thought there were only E and F rankers on the first floor?" I shrugged at her question and she smiled when she realized that I wasn't going to answer her anymore, "So you're the mysterious type?"
"Not as mysterious as you are," I said and she laughed.
"You think I'm mysterious?" she asked with an excited smile dancing on her face, "Have you been watching me that closely?"
"I'm just good at noticing unusual things," I said as I looked her in the eye with an intense gaze, 'Like the fact that your teammates are really not teammates at all."
The girl went silent at that and we just continued our walk through the dungeon. D rank dungeons are very different from F ranked dungeons. Unlike the F ranked dungeons that are very small, D ranked dungeons are large enough to be classified as small cities. Moving from one end to the other end would take almost a full day and it is difficult to find the boss room because it could be anywhere in the entire city-like dungeon.
[Galeheaven] was a forest of resplendent trees scattered about a grand landscape. From the position that we started, we couldn't really appreciate the surroundings because it was covered by trees, but I have looked at [Galeheaven] from a high point before and the scene was absolutely breathtaking.
Most times, rankers would have to climb to a high point and look around to try and find where they were because of how easy it is to get lost in the trees. Even the map is not always useful.
I knew I could handle this dungeon on my own if I wanted to, but I was part of this team and I wasn't in a hurry to clear the dungeon, so I will just stay with them. I would just use them to reach C rank and then I will dive into more D ranked dungeons on my own.
"What do you mean they are not my teammates," the girl suddenly asked after a long period of silence. I actually thought that she would no longer speak to me. Her eyes were narrowed and there was a small frown on her face as she spoke, "They are my teammates."
'So she was still going with that lie?' I thought as I watched the three men that were leading us.
"You must've brought them down from a higher floor so that the tower's penalty will make them look weaker than they are. But you aren't fooling anyone," I said, "Those men are not D rankers that are trying to gain power like you. They are probably C or B rankers. Firstly, how in the world do they know what the inside of this dungeon looks like while you look completely lost?"
"The map," she said
"That they haven't looked at once since they came in here," I retorted and she went silent again, "Even if they memorized it outside, there are too many trees for you to know your way around perfectly just like that. And maybe if you want to bring bodyguards to protect you in a dungeon you should tell them not to refer to you as 'miss'. Teammates don't do that, and once someone hears it, they'll immediately know that there is something wrong with the four of you. Ad tell me, how much was that armor? Twenty silver? D rankers don't have that kind of money, miss."
The girl was left stunned for a few seconds after I spoke before she put her hand on her chin to think and she finally hit her fist into her palm, "Yeah, I've decided," she said, "I want to employ you."
"What?" I said in disbelief, "You want to employ me?"
"Yes," the girl said with a nod, "That was an amazing deduction. I didn't think that anyone would notice my B ranked armor since I disguised it so well, but you still did. It is very impressive and I want to employ you," When I still didn't say anything in return, she snapped her finger like she just discovered something, "Oh right, you don't know me," she laughed, 'My name is Terra Gaia. I'm the second daughter of the Gaiaclan."
My steps slowed as I turned curiously to look at the girl beside me. Did she just say she was the 'second' daughter? I racked my brain desperately to try and understand what was going on here, but no matter how much I tried to rectify this mystery, I couldn't understand it. Because as far as I can remember from the future, the Gaiaclan only have one daughter, and this is sure as hell not her.