The other two opposed to my leadership were naturally Lauren and Rose, but it made sense.
"Alright, it's been about 2 hours roughly in the labyrinth, meaning we have an hour or two to get to the center of the labyrinth, and kill the minotaur."
"Also how are your rations doing?"
"We're doing fine."
"How long do you think those rations could last?"
"Maybe 3 days if we stretch it."
Yikes.
"Alright."
"Why do you ask, did you already run through your portion?"
"No, something just tells me, we're going to need all the food we can get."
"Is that something your stomach?"
That got laughs from the peanut gallery.
I wasn't really mad about that comment though.
The group was happy so we were okay.
As we made our way through the barracks, Charlotte's group was amazed out our clearing speed.
"It's like you guys have been in a dungeon before."
"Well, this is actually thanks to Lucas, who trained us in our roles, and what to do and expect."
The other group aside from Charlotte looked at me in a new light.
"So have you been in a dungeon before Luke?"
Claudia asked.
"Claudia, stop harrassing Lucas, even Aura doesn't call him that."
"For the record, I have been in a dungeon, also I'm going to have to agree with Charlotte."
The surprise use of my nickname aside from Charlotte or the Svarmet family was odd.
"Fine, you know what, Lucas you can call me Claudie, or Dia, and I get to call you Luke. How about that?"
"I mean, there aren't any problems from me, but I feel like my name is honestly easier to stick with than shortening it to Luke."
"True, but it gives that sort of intimacy you know?"
Bonk.
Charlotte chopped Claudia's head.
"Lottie, that wasn't very nice."
I turned away snickering at the nickname.
Charlotte did too.
She hit Claudia again.
"You're very mischevious Ms. Claudia, I can see why the two of you are friends."
I had the jaws of everyone except Charlotte and Claudia, hitting the pavement.
"Lucas, did you just insult the princess? You know you can be beheaded for that?"
"Calm down. If Charlotte wanted me dead for a petty crime like lese-majesty, I would've been dead at the ripe old age of 14."
"How much further Lucas?"
Aisha pushed into the conversation.
"Only about 20 more minutes."
"I can walk for 20 if you can shut your mouth for 20."
With that we continued our march towards the center.
A fair point.
Morgan sped up to get shoulder and shoulder with me.
"Aisha's worried you'll say something and get the rest of us killed."
"Charlotte's not like that, I've known her for 6 years."
"But we haven't. I know that your word is solid Lucas, we know at least that much, but she and to some extent I, can't trust that she wouldn't do anything to us out of spite."
"I get it, so I'll just show you her good side then."
"We would appreciate that."
I guess even in a dungeon personal relationships in the outside world still matter.
"Charlotte, stop."
I called out.
"We're at the entrance to the colosseum. If we go any further we'll have to face him head on."
"So what's the plan leader?"
She teased.
"I can almost be certain of your team composition, but just to be sure, who's who?"
"Naturally Claudia is our leader and strategist. I am the main attacker, Rose is our resident long distance fighter, and Lauren is our support and healer."
"Aside from Lauren I everything else right, but I also assumed that she would take up the tanking role."
"That's okay."
"So then here's what we'll do, Aisha and I will aggro the Minotaur onto us first."
"The six of you will go from behind and attack the Minotaur."
"Lauren and Harry, you'll both be playing support."
"Morgan, Rose, if you wouldn't mind please be their long range assists."
"Finally, the two of you should start engaging him, the main point is to stay safe."
"Don't get greedy with your damage dealt."
"In the scenario someone gets hurt, I will begin to fight the Minotaur and draw all aggro, Aisha and Lauren will break off to heal."
"Aside from that, everyone else but the four of us, stay out of range of all of his attacks."
"I have a question."
Rose said.
"How do we communicate between teams?"
"Do you guys have a communication artifact?" I asked Claudia.
She nodded.
"Then I'll contact Charlotte and she'll relay my information."
"Got it."
With that Aisha and I set off towards the front area of the colosseum.
"Ready?"
We walked out in front of the Minotaur.
He had two double sided axes.
He also carried a shield on his forearms too.
Whoever armed him for this test knew his weaknesses well.
Harry had let me know that the weakest parts of the Minotaur were where the body was thinnest, so near the hooves and nest to the hands.
The shields blocked our view of the wrists and forearms, so I decided to shoot his legs.
With that the beast charged at the two of us.
Charlotte and Claudia made their to the arena floor where, Aisha and I were already engaged in the fight.
They started to launch thier own attacks at the beast.
Charlotte in particular was really letting go.
Her aura blades sometimes missed the beast and nearly hit us.
Fighting the minotaur as the two were closing the gap was a little difficult.
Aisha and I were almost dancing our way through the attacks of both our teammates and the monster.
"Lighten up with the attacks would you? You're going to hit us."
I yelled to Charlotte.
"Sorry."
Charlotte yelled back as Claudia's staffed knocked on the top of her head.
The rate of attacks from the two slowed down a little, and it showed.
The accuracy of the attacks shot up, mostly on Charlotte's side.
The two closed the distance as I put up a mana barrier and Aisha held up her mana reinforced shield.
The minotaur's swing hit the two off us and glanced off.
Thankfully we didn't take too much damage.
"We're here!"
Charlotte yelled cheerfully as she jumped and let out a stabbing fury onto the mintotaurs back.
Harry, Morgan, Lauren, and Rose also emerged from the audience seating entrance.
"Move out of the way guys!"
Harry yelled.
Morgan had casted a massive fireball.
If I had to wage a bet I would guess it was a dimuntized version of
Probably a mix of
If I activated my magic eye ability I probably could have known, but dodging away from the general area of the fireball's aoe, was more important.
Rose jumped out of the audience stands at the same time, swinging her longsword in a wide arc creating a large aura slash, likely meant to connect with the fire ball.
The four of us near the minotaur backed up.
Even if this didn't connect directly this would hurt.
As the fireball and slash connected a massive burst of mana engulfed the minotaur.
Claudia had effectively shielded Charlotte and herself I assumed, while Aisha and I worked together to create a near impenetrable shield by 5th rank spells.
When the second long flash of light ended, the minotaur moved his head and arms, his shields had protected most of his upper body, head, and arms.
However, his back and legs were torched.
The minotaur grabbed a piece of the arena floor and chucked it at the stands.
Clearly the attack did too much damage, and stole the aggro from me and Aisha.
With that, I snuck back in underneath the minotaur and slashed deep into it's right leg.
It roared as it fell down to one knee.
As it fell I began to wind up an aura blade stab to go straight to the head to finish the fight early.
"Lucas move!"
Charlotte yelled.
I quickly backstepped towards Aisha.
A huge black figure had slithered off of the ceiling and dropped right onto the minotaur.
The tyrant fell onto the kneeling minotaur crushing part of it's body.
A shame we couldn't finish the fight.
That's when I heard it.
A roar.
The minotaur wasn't dead, just pinned under the two feet of the tyrant.
"Run! This is too strong a monster for it to be part of the test."
I yelled to Aisha and the orb in my hands.
Claudia and Charlotte sped towards Rose as Aisha began to move towards the exit.
"Go to the barracks, use the flares to get other students, we need to make sure all 513 of us leave."
With that I leaped towards the tyrant.
Only one eye had opened and it was already too much for me alone.
I shot myself into the air and aimed for it's 5th eye.
Even if I missed, surely I could hit another.
Fortunately I landed right where I wanted to and stabbed it right in the 5th eye.
Good, one eye down, one less worry.
The monster roared and grabbed me.
I saw it's second eye open.
Well, shit.
This was too early.
We should have had enough time to kill the minotaur and escape, in fact we probably still had 30 minutes to go.
What changed?
That thought was quickly interrupted as the grip on me tightened and magic strengthened the tyrant's arm.
Usually in a fight with a tyrant, for every eye open, is an eye destroyed, luckily two were unopened and 1 was basically unusable.
That meant however the two eyes that were open, were very real and present threats.
I, the only one still fighting realized that I was the only target of it's attacks.
Lauren, Harry, and Morgan had already begun to climb the stairs out of the colosseum.
Rose, Charlotte, and Claudia were nearing the exit as well.
The tyrant's arm began to pull back with me still in it.
And then he swung his arm and pitched me into the other exit's wall.
I flew past the running Aisha and was plunged deep into the wall.
"Run."
I said turning to her.
She looked terrified.
Whether it was how I looked, or the monster, or my voice, I honestly couldn't tell.
I was definitely bleeding, all over my head and body.
I fell down from the crater in the wall I had made with my body's impact and began to push Aisha into the coloseum exit.
The monster began to run at us,
Thankfully it's third eye wasn't open otherwise, it would have flew.
Thankfully or really, unfortunately the intelligence eye was truly an effective tool in the tyrant's arsenal.
Because if it had been open, the fight would have been more of a sacrifice.
"Lucas."
She began to cast healing magic.
"Not now."
I said, picking her up by the waist and running like I had a statue in hand.
The monster was approaching far too fast.
The monster had begun it's swing and we were on the cusp of leaving.
The beast's claws scraped against the coloseum walls as it was swiping towards the two of us.
I set her down and tried to tackle the two of us into the exit doorway.
She made it out.
Not because I collided with her, but the largest claw hit her torso sending her into the wall adjacent to the exit doorway.
I on the other hand was slammed into the wall and ground, like a highspeed tumbleweed.
The healing magics or arts Aisha had cast was part of the attributeless category.
Two decent spells for any healing mage worth their salt, and probably the only thing keeping me from not dying on impact from the swipe attack.
I was once again bleeding.
'Isla?'
'Master, it doesn't bode well right now.'
'Yea, I can see that.'
I focused my eyes on the monster.
It smiled it's creepy smile as it turned.
It's third eye had opened.
Well, that is wonderfully disastrous.
I stared it down as it stared at me.
'Isla?'
'Yes, Master, the rest of them are gone.'
'Even Aisha has been picked up by Claudia and the rest.'
'I see.'
'Master I would advise you run now.'
'Understood.'
The emaciated monstrosity peeled back from the sitting stance it had been in.
To reach me, who had just about made it to the exit, it had really stopped, crouched, before swinging so it could hit me.
This was real. This wasn't like the game at all, the unnerving look the beast had was completely different to that of the demons.
It wasn't smiling out of insanity or because it knew I was prey.
It was enjoying the fear.
I honestly thought I would die right there, as my heart skipped a beat.
The beast started to move towards me, slowly, I began to back away.
Then it revealed it's wings, and began to rush towards me.
I ran for the exit, pushing magic out to propel myself forwards.
But I wasn't faster than the tyrant.
It positioned itself between me and the exit.
I had one chance to dupe it and leave.
The minotaur was still there, although it was passed out.
I looked quickly to the other exit, the tyrant began to understand.
I was going to run to the other side of the arena, back to where I originally was going to escape from.
With that I turned on my heel and began to rush, the tyrant seizing my chance started to fly away to the other side at ground level, but before I could even make a second step, I pivoted and ran into the exit.
I baited the monster into thinking I was going to try the other exit again, and ran into this one.
The tyrant screamed, or howled, or whatever it is humanoid wendigo dragon monsters do.
I sat up against the exit wall more than 8 feet thick and slowed my breathing.
'Isla. Tell me everything.'
"Guys, I made it out, I'm at the exit Charlotte's team left."
With that I passed out.