The other two seemed a little confused by Alex's suggestion, but they followed through with it as they began walking back to Katherine.
"You guys gave up?"
Seeing Alex shaking his head, Katherine was a little confused until he said out his choice.
"The exit to this maze is just walking back, right?"
After a short silence, Katherine suddenly started clapping.
"You guys finally figure it out. There is no exit no matter how many times you keep trying."
"I knew it——"
"How, though? Weren't we not walking away from the starting point? It doesn't make sense for us to end up in the same place."
Mary was still a little confused as they all began to walk down the path where they came from.
"You're right. It doesn't make sense if you just think it normally... But it's a dungeon.
If you guys had been more careful, you could have simply shot a spell down the hall.
Then the spell would have teleported right into your faces... You get how it works now?"
All three of them realized what Katherine meant. Now, it was clear that each of the path's ends had a hidden teleporter that made the loop.
"But how come we didn't notice any mana being cast? Wouldn't teleportation cause the mana to become unstable?"
Sophia raised a question that had been bothering her mind as they had arrived back in the massive room earlier.
"Not all teleportation requires mana, just like how scrolls can work without mana.
The spell carved underneath the ground only absorbed the nearby dark element hidden underground."
As Katherine led to the middle of the room, passing all the blue goo, the ground suddenly shook a little.
To the kids' surprise, the section of the ground below them broke from the rest of the floor as it started to rise.
The ceiling above them also opened, revealing a small hole that matched the tiles that were giving them a lift.
After they reached the second floor, they were in a much smaller room, just wide enough for them to stretch out their arms side by side.
"Where are we now?" Mary asked in confusion, as the room did not have an exit or any sort of door.
The only thing they could see was just smooth slate tiles on the wall, on the ground, and the ceiling.
Katherine didn't answer, making the three wait as everywhere around them suddenly started to shake.
After a few seconds, it finally stopped, revealing a small hole big enough for one person to crawl into.
"Down this hole will be the final boss of this dungeon. Inside, there will be a level-two monster in there.
It's up to you if you guys want to fight it or leave now——"
"We're fighting it."
All three of them interrupted at the same time, their face full of excitement as they had been waiting for this moment.
"Very well... Remember, just because I'm here doesn't mean you can just take risks.
I'll block the attack if your guy's lives are in danger, but this trip will also end when that happens."
All three nodded in agreement before Katherine crawled into the hole first, letting the other three follow behind this time.
As Alex followed right behind Katherine, he tried his best to look away, but her thighs were right before him.
Soon, he could feel his body starting to act up, making it impossible to hide the moment he stepped out of this tunnel.
After crawling for a bit, they finally reached the end.
As Katherine jumped down to the floor, she instantly chanted something out loud.
"Shadowbind!"
Alex could see the giant room suddenly surrounded by dark elements, with the monster ahead completely frozen in place as he jumped down.
The other two also jumped down, and they were a little confused as to why the giant monster ahead was not moving.
Much to Alex's relief, none of them noticed anything different about him as he tried to hide himself a little.
"You three ready?"
As soon as the three nodded, all the dark elements vanished, revealing the monster ahead of them.
It was a giant spider, almost triple their size but still smaller than the slime that they fought.
Alex immediately rushed forward with his shield raised, with Sophia and Mary already casting their spell.
With enough space created, he decided to charge forward even more, reaching almost to the spider's feet.
Still, despite being so close, Alex didn't take out his sword, focusing all his attention on the shield instead.
The giant spider immediately raised its feel and stepped right on top of Alex, only for him to block it with the shield.
Just as he predicted, the shield was able to block it completely without even making a dent.
However, he could feel his arms about to break as he quickly ran back to keep a distance.
"God damn, this thing hurts," Alex murmured as he finally took out his sword.
"Watch out!"
Alex immediately rolled to the side as soon as he heard Sophia's voice, letting the wind blade fly right by him.
The blade cuts right into one of the spider's legs, causing a small cut wound as blood begins to flow out.
Alex immediately charged in again, drawing the giant spider's attention away from the two.
This time, he didn't try to limit-test as he moved back just enough to dodge the spider's leg stab before slashing his sword forward.
Once again, the wooden sword cut the spider's leg like butter, causing another of its legs to bleed as he ran back again.
"Alex, stall for a little longer! We're going to try to finish it in one shot!"
"Easy for you to say——"
Alex quickly rolled to the side as the spider suddenly lunged itself towards him, dodging it just narrowly.
Just as the spider was about to bite forward with its mouth, Alex raised his shield on top of casting a water barrier.
He could feel the bone in his left arm almost snap in half as the barrier easily broke and hit the shield, but it was still successfully blocked.
Not wasting the opportunity, he stabbed its mouth with his sword before quickly letting his sword go as the spider shrieked in agony.
With only the shield left, he quickly got back up and began running back toward the two.
However, just as he reached halfway, he ducked down as a fireball double his size flew toward him.
A loud bang echoed in the room as it hit the spider in the face, followed by an even louder shriek.
"Holy shit, this thing is so high-pitched!"
Alex complained as he covered both of his ears. Mary and Sophia were doing the same as the spider kept shrieking its voice.
Only after it stopped did they finally let go of their ears, being able to examine the giant spider before them.
A massive part of its body was completely blown off, with blood flowing all over the floor.
Still, it was alive, with its eyes full of anger as it started to shoot the web to form a wall.
Alex didn't run in this time, opting to stay with them as he only had a shield left in his hand.
"Brother, you remember the lesson in class, right?" Sophia asked as both of them had already started casting a spell.
"Of course I do."
As he took a step back behind Sophia, just like Mary, he began to transfer his mana over to Sophia.
This time, a large rock began to form above them, condensing over and over again until it became a small marble ball.
Then, rapidly, it began to expand in size as fire appeared, all the way until it reached even bigger than last time.
"Take this!"
As Sophia directed the fireball at the spider, it flew through the wall like butter and continued flying towards where the spider was.
But to their surprise, behind the wall, the spider was covered in its web, almost like a caterpillar wrapping itself to become a butterfly.
"Alex, what should we do? Should we keep throwing spells at it?"
Sophia asked, seemingly a little lost as their strongest spell combined didn't make a dent in the web covering the spider.
"Let's just wait and catch up with our mana... It has to get out of the web at some point."
After waiting for a bit, the giant spider finally revealed itself as the web began peeling itself out of the skin.
"What is this? Why is it so small now?" Alex questioned.
All three of them were shocked to see that the spider had somehow gone from triple their size to almost the same size as them.
More importantly, it had a humanoid body with disturbing eight eyes and eight hairy spider legs attached to it.
"You three, step back. I'll handle this."
The three quickly ran behind Katherine just as the spider started to shoot its web into the ceiling, pulling itself up as it rapidly crawled toward them.
At the same time, they could feel a surge of dark elements all traveling towards Katherine before it all suddenly disappeared.
Just as Alex blinked once, the spider's body had dropped onto the floor, with blood spilling all over the place.