"I can be the knight."
Seeing the other two agreeing to it, Katherine handed Alex a rounded wooden shield and a wooden sword.
"Remember, you still can cast magic while in melee. Just be more careful with it."
Alex nodded, walking all the way to the front while the other two girls followed right behind.
With Katherine taking a step back, she vanished right before their eyes as Alex turned back around to march forward.
Minutes later...
As the road ahead slowly turns darker and darker, they could suddenly hear a loud noise coming from the back.
With their surrounding pitch black, Sophia quickly cast a small light spell to illuminate a few steps in front of Alex.
The once confident and excitement was starting to die down as they continued marching down the mysterious, narrow hallway.
"What do you guys think is going to be inside this cave?" Alex asked as he scanned ahead with his mana.
"I don't know... Probably just some low-level slime? Surely nothing big since Mom already cleared it in the past."
Just as Sophia answered back, they finally exited the rough cave-like hallway. But rather than being in somewhere new, they were just entering another hallway again.
The only difference was the rough stone wall had turned into black, polished stone tiles that barely reflected any light.
It was starting to rapidly mess with their visibility as Sophia's light spell barely could illuminate the path ahead.
"How deep is this dungeon?"
Mary complained, her legs starting to get a little tired from the amount of walking she did.
Sophia and Alex didn't answer back. Both of them walked in silence, their excitement vanishing with every step.
They didn't know the answer to her question. The only thing they know now is there's only one way forward for them.
---
After walking for who knows how long, they finally encountered something other than just endless hallway made out of smooth tiles.
It was some sort of skeleton, standing still, looking away from the three until it heard their footsteps.
The excitement on all three of the kids' faces re-emerges as the skeleton turned its head, revealing a blue flame glowing in its eyes.
Without saying any words, the skeleton began charging at them with no weapons in hand.
"I'll block——"
Before Alex could finish talking, Sophia had already cast a fireball, crushing the skeleton into pieces.
"That was easy," Sophia murmured as Alex walked up closer to check if it was fully dead.
The blue flame in its eyes was gone, indicating the skeleton had been killed completely.
"Let's keep going."
As the three continued down the path, they were also hit by several familiar looking skeletons.
This time, they were armed with actual swords, with two of them having shields.
Still, it was no match for the two girls as they easily destroyed them with a wind blade to avoid causing smoke.
Alex didn't even need to do anything as he walked forward to check the skeleton's body.
Just as he expected, the blue flame was gone. But when he tried to pick one of the swords, it immediately broke into ashes.
"Huh... I guess these swords aren't real objects." Alex murmured as he could feel the dark element within it.
After defeating a few more skeletons down the hallway, Alex was starting to get a little bored. He couldn't contribute anything to the fight as both of his sisters casted their spell much faster than him.
However, before he could complain about it, they finally encounter something much more exciting.
It was a giant room at the end of the hallway, wide enough to accommodate an entire soccer field.
Right in the middle was a giant blue slime, almost ten times their size, slowly jumping towards them after noticing Alex in the front.
With zero hesitation, Sophia and Mary cast their fireball and wind blade together, directing them directly at the slime.
But to their surprise, the slime easily absorbs the spell damage, neutralizing their magic completely.
"Try light and dark magic and condense it. I'll try to stall for time!" Alex ordered.
Both of them nodded as Mary began casting a ball that glowed dark light, while Sophia started casting a blinding light ball.
"Yo dumbass slime, come over here if you want to fight me."
As Alex charged forward, he quickly released a small pebble right at the slime. It worked perfectly as planned as the slime started chasing after him.
With each jump of the slime, Alex could feel the ground shaking, causing him to almost trip as he scrambled to continue running forward.
After running in circles for almost a whole minute, the slime suddenly turned around, jumping towards two mages at the entrance.
Alex immediately noticed it and turned around, charging forward, raising his wooden sword right at the slime.
"Please work!"
To his surprise, the wooden sword that Katherine made didn't snap in half. Instead, it sliced right through like hot butter.
As Alex pulled out his sword and ran as far back as he could, the giant slime suddenly jumped into the air all the way to the ceiling.
When it landed onto the ground, it sent a massive shockwave, forcing him to fall onto his back as the slimes jumped again.
"Shit!"
With barely any time to get back up, Alex quickly raised his sword and shield as a last ditch effort.
Luckily, a light orb and dark orb arrived just in the nick of time, traveling right through the slime's body.
"Holy shit!"
As energy orbs shattered the slime's inner core, so did the slime's body dismantle itself all at once.
"Alex! You okay?"
Both girls quickly ran over to Alex to check, whose body was almost covered in blue goo.
"I-I'm fine. Are you two fine?" Alex asked as he lowered his shield and stood back up.
"Yeah, we're fine..."
Unable to get the blue goo off his body, Alex quickly cast a water spell right above him, letting it wash all over his body.
The blue goo finally started to detach from his skin and clothes as it fell onto the floor, forcing the two of them to take a few steps back.
"Why didn't you cast a barrier for yourself?" Mary curiously asked out loud as the two of them stood in the distance.
"How am I supposed to cast a barrier that fast? That was like only one second there."
After shaking his hair a little, the stickiness on his body was mostly gone except for a few lingering spots on his back.
"No wonder why knights always wear full armor when they are fighting. This role sucks..."
Alex complained as he cast an evaporation spell that Katherine had taught in the past.
"Too bad your magic skill is the worst out of us... Anyway, you ready to go?"
Sophia asked as she and Mary helped him search for spots that he might have missed.
"Just give a few more seconds..."
After Alex washed his sword and shield with water, all the blue goo on the floor started to seep into the cracks before vanishing.
"Good job everyone! You guys just have a few more obstacles, and you'll find the exit!"
Katherine's voice suddenly appeared from the back as the three of them walked towards the exit of the giant room.
All three of them didn't say anything back, but their faces showed a hint of pride as they marched forward.
---
After walking past the giant open room, they arrived in more smooth tile hallways once again.
But this time, they were hit with a crossroad right at the start, with two paths ahead of them.
"Mom, do we turn left or right?" Alex asked, trying to sneak in an answer from her.
Hearing no response from Katherine, the three knew they had to decide it among themselves.
"We can't split up. We should just pick one of them." Sophia pointed out.
Both nodded, but the question remained. The left and right paths looked the same, with zero differences.
"How about we just take the right one?" Alex suggested.
With no other options, they accepted Alex's decision and took the right path.
After walking for a bit, they arrived at another crossroads ahead of them. Once again, they decided to go right.
Seeing another crossroad ahead of them, Alex decided to go right without even asking.
The two of them didn't say anything, letting him pick the right path every time they encountered a crossroads.
Eventually, Sophia forced both Alex and Mary to stop as she dragged their sleeves.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked.
"I think we are in a maze right now... Doesn't it feel like we're walking in a circle?" Sophia pointed out.
Both of them fell into silence, their brains realizing it as they thought back to what they had walked through.
Everything looked the same, with almost zero differences in each of the crossroads.
"Let's leave a rock here and keep going."
Alex quickly cast a rock spell, leaving it as a landmark as they continued picking the right path.
To their surprise, Sophia's prediction was correct as the rock once again, despite clearly walking away from it.
"How about we try the left side instead?" Mary suggested.
"Sure."
Alex led the two with the left side this time, but they still ended up with the rock they had placed earlier.
"Shit. We really are stuck in a maze..."
As all three of them fell into silence, they realized the trouble they were in. Their surroundings offered zero clues, as everything around them was just smooth stone tiles.
"Let's try a different pattern and see if it works," Alex suggested.
Both of them nodded in agreement, following him to lead as they began alternating the path instead of sticking to one side.
However, just like every other attempt, they ended up in the same spot as where they started.
Even with different kinds of patterns, it always ended in the same spot again and again.
"Fuck. This isn't just a normal maze at all." Alex murmured as they tried out all the paths possible.
"This doesn't make any sense. Is there no way out at all?" Sophia complained, her brain running blank.
"Mom! Can you help us?" Mary pleaded, her face filled with fear as she looked to the back.
"Sorry! This is to test your critical thinking! You guys have to solve it yourself."