"Hey, Hey! Ash! Calm down…" Damien walked up to Ash and grabbed him by the hands, "LISTEN TO ME ASH, CALM YOURSELF FIRST!" he yelled at Ash whose body was still a bit shaky from panic.
Well, if anything, it was Damien and Isaac that were taking things calmly, and not Ash overreacting, after all, their friends had literally just died in their arms.
While Isaac tried to save Linda and Ashley, Damien was trying his best to drag out Ray and Lucy, but to no avail in the end.
"We need to calm down and think instead of letting ourselves to be clouded by grief." Damien said boldly.
"Damien is right," Isaac walked towards the two boys wearing a serious expression that could bore a hole through the very forest itself. Based off looks alone, he was more pissed than the others, and it looked like he was in some state of grief.
"How can you two be so calm? They died in your arms, while… while I didn't even help…" Ash murmured the last part to himself.
"Damien, you deal with your friends crumbling mental state. Also, they aren't dead, so stop mopping and focus on how we rescue them." Isaac said. He sounded so sure about what he said, catching the attention of the other two.
"How can you be sure about that?" Damien asked.
"Well, first off, their bodies aren't here, that's odd. That means they were dragged away somewhere. That means they'll die instead, if we don't get there on time, wherever they are."
"We have to make our way to that place first." Damien said, looking at Ash who was still seated on the ground looking hopeless.
"That's our only path as it is now, also, notice how those monsters suddenly disappeared."
"They achieved their goal."
"Yeah."
. . .
"This place is a bit weird."
"You seem to get that feeling a lot, Aug." Reiner said.
"Seems like your friend is right this time, this place is indeed strange, there's some kind of formation activated around the area that is messing with our senses," Solomon pointed at a tree to the side.
"We've passed this place before, but now we're back here." Reiner noticed what Solomon was hinting at.
"That's either the effect of a formation or the skill of the enemy, so stay alert." Solomon said as they moved ahead.
"We won't need to." Reiner stood still while bringing both hands to his chest.
'He has a skill to counter such a situation? That's fantastic, I need to make something like that also.' Ren thought to himself. Perhaps, he had been too focused trying to make battle ready skills that he forgot about such practical skills to defend himself from such sadistic attacks, well, this one was nothing, just a simple illusion skill to confuse the mind.
Under a few seconds, they all felt their mind clear of a certain fog that was covering it. It felt even weirder that it was even there in the first place and they never knew when it happened.
'This has to be a high level formation if it can cloud my mind, we have to be careful.' Solomon thought to himself as they proceeded. He was what people would call a monster, but he was nothing close to a monster upstairs.
Aug was eager to brag about how Reiner had so many skills in his repertoire without even being asked. Whether he said it or not, Reiner did fit the category of the perfect support anyone could ask for, if not for anything, then for his balance.
"It's strange, we still haven't gotten any system notification about the clear condition for this dungeon." Ren stated. He had noticed it for a while now but decided to keep to himself for the time being, but since no one was saying anything about it, he decided to speak up, maybe he was the only one in the dark about an important piece of information.
"Oh yeah, I guess you haven't learnt that yet. See, some dungeons won't give you the clear condition and you have to explore and find out yourself by looking for clues and whatnot. Normally, labyrinth type dungeons are the ones that do that, and seeing as we are yet to encounter any monster, this fits the criteria for a labyrinth more than anything." Aug explained.
Well, Ren already suspected this to be that kind of dungeon, but it was nice getting credible confirmation.
At the moment, they were headed in a particular direction, and according to the seniors, the fact that they fell prey to the illusion earlier that was meant to stall them meant that they were headed in the right direction.
It didn't take too long before they came before a door that had stairs leading underground. From where they could see, the place looked completely dark inside, luckily, they had Reiner with them to provide good illumination.
Reiner raised his hand to activate an illumination skill, but he was stopped by Solomon half way through. Instead of wasting his force on something like illumination, Solomon preferred he saved it for something better, so Solomon provided the team with lamps. Following the names as they were called lamps, they functioned just like a lamp would, only that their light shone brighter than a typical lamp, maybe the same brightness as a table lamp, and it could be adjusted to the intensity of a normal light bulb.
'Runs on its own energy and the crystals can be extracted and the lamp abandoned, nice.'
"Alright, let's head in now. I'll be at the front, Aug follow behind me, Reiner, then Ren." They all agreed before entering the door leading underground.
As soon as they entered, a window appeared before their eyes,
[Dungeon of Noir]
-Clear condition-
Kill the Black Demons