Clearing even the third layer wasn't easy, and until now some stray demons still remained hidden in the shadows and unexplored rooms of this strangely intertwined cave system of a dungeon.
Liam tapped Alice's shoulder, "Always give old wizards their respect. With how exclusive they are, no one knows the limit of what spells they could pull. I've heard tales of dying old wizards causing enough mayhem with a single spell chanted with their dying breath to shift the tides of entire battles." It's stupid for an old wizard to be a B-ranker, they usually drop all the way to G or F rank.
The guild's ranking system works based on finished quests within a certain time. The more active an adventurer is, the higher their rank will rise. The game is simple, finish more quests, and of higher ranking to rank up and make more money. The problem is when adventurers stop taking quests due to age, retirement, or sickness, their ranking starts dropping after some years. Fighters usually keep healthy bodies even at the later years so they could still take lower-ranking quests and keep their rank, but the unfit wizards usually become too frail to withstand travel and long dungeon expeditions.
"Gatom, what was the highest ranking you got?" Liam asked him with a smile.
"You sneaking lad, I'm not telling you. I can see it in your eyes and through the magic dancing around you; you've been staring at me for a while." Gatom laughed, combing his beard. "I'm just another old man who lost his power with age; all I can do now is offer basic support spells and what little wisdom remains in my aging mind." He approached Liam and patted his head. "Live your life to the fullest, lad, and you'll never regret it."
Liam stared back at Gatom as he went around the corner to answer nature's call. Out of everyone here, he might have the nastiest single move to unleash.
"Liam, everyone is fine. We should head back." Alice approached Liam with a smile.
Liam nodded and looked at Jamile, "Did you find the stairs to the next layer?"
Jamile nodded, "Yeah, the wizards did check and they weren't a trap. That room in the first layer was the first and only trap room we found. The demons on the next layer are supposed to be ground sharks."
"Do you know how to deal with them?" Liam stared at him with sweat dripping across his face. "Those are ground sharks."
"We'll try attacking the inside of their mouths. That's the only soft spot blades can cut. We can also use poison." Jamile smiled.
Liam approached Alice. "Can I borrow that book about demons?"
She nodded with a smile and pulled it from her backpack. Liam took the book at threw it at Jamile's face, hitting him in the forehead. "Page 314: ground shark. They are four-legged demons that resemble a fat armored alligator. It's true that the inside of their mouths is soft, but it's dangerous to attack it."
"Then how do you kill them?" Jamile asked.
"Read the damn book." Liam sighed, "They have a sharp fin they use as a blade on their backs. The fin's back side is soft and linked straight to the spine. Cutting it out, the shark would be stunned for several minutes. You can easily do that by having some people run in the front and you attacking the shark from the back."
"But I should be wary of the tail…"
"With your stats, level, and armor, I bet you can tank a few hits." Liam sighed and started walking away with Alice.
"Liam, I want my book back." She poked his shoulder.
Liam stopped and went back to retrieve the book. Jamile should already know how to deal with the demons. Even though they were supposed to be simple and humble supply transporters, they ended up working like advisors for the party leader.
As the supplies team left, the main force stood led by Jamile. "Thanks to c-rankers Liam and Alice we now know a new method of dealing with ground sharks that's much better than the one we were going to use. I know some of you might be opposed to taking advice from someone of lower rank, but an adventurer's life is that of learning and growing." He tapped his armor with his sword. "Who wants to give it a try?"
"I'll try it." Gatom said with a smile and everyone cheered after him. "If Gramps is going for it so we are! Let's give it a try!" The other all banded together to keep going deeper.
As Jamile led the party he smiled. I'll recommend those two to be ranked up to B-rank early after this mission is over. They are too talented to remain as C-rankers. I was reluctant to accept two strangers who strangely ranked up fast in the past few weeks, but it seems their skill was the reason.
He giggled, "I was the one who accused Selena of trying to send two failures who ranked up with bribes, and now it seems I'm helping them rank even faster. I should apologize to her when I get back."
As they went into the fourth layer they found the ground sharks waiting for them. Jamile walked in the front, they could see the demon's fin peeking out of the ground as it swam in the dirt and stone toward them at a terrifying speed. The demon jumped out of the ground, opening its massive maw with a bite toward Jamile.
He dodged to the side and swung his sword at the demon's back aiming at the fin's backside. Usually, swords bounce right off this demon's hard scales, but right now, his blade cleaves the fin right off. The ground shark never moved again after falling to the ground, and it was an easy kill for the other adventurers.
Such a powerful demon, yet it died so easily… Jamile looked at the other adventurers, "Call Pita, those sharks are pricy." He smiled.
With his words, a Halfling wizard rushed in with a small wooden wand with metal rings around it. "Daigo…Daigo…I call a way of Daigo…" He waved the wand and tapped the demon with it.
The demon's corpse disappeared with a green glow, sent straight to the surface for the guild's butcher. This wand was the creation of a wizard called Daigo and he's selling them to the guild as loot-collecting items. It's a one-way teleportation for inanimate objects, it works on anything from stones to monsters and human corpses, but if you tried to teleport anything that's alive, the spell would fail.
Liam stood on the surface beside Alice waiting for the other to fill the boxes so they could rush back in when they heard a large scream from the butcher tent. The two rushed in and jumped inside, seeing the woman there stuck beneath the corpse of a ground shark.
"Help me!" She cried.
Liam used his halberd as a lever to lift the carcass and push it back while Alice dragged the woman away. "It suddenly fell from the frame… I was so scared." The woman pointed at a large cubic metal frame that was two meters in all directions.
Since the shark was bigger than the frame it fell out on the woman.
The woman looked at the shark, it was nearly undamaged with only the fin severed and a stab inside its mouth that reached the brain. "Such a clean kill, they must be doing well down there." The woman smiled as she pulled her knife. But then a second shark fell on her and her knife rolled away.
"Another one…" She cried, "They must be doing really well."
A third shark fell out, and she screamed, "You two! Take the frame out of the tent right now!"
Liam and Alice scrambled to pull the frame out where it started spitting one shark after another. Jamile must be having a field day with the adventurers farming for money.