On the other side of the dungeon. A man with a bloody face, next to the lifeless bodies of his companions, finds himself shot to death by the assailants...
'Stop it, I told you I didn't know,' says the man who is being held captive.
- Hey you, stop shouting with your stinking mouth! First of all, why are you young people so used to screaming at the slightest contact with sharp objects? (said the red-haired man in his thirties, who, after cutting off his thumb, made the young soldier he was torturing scream).
- The woman was masked with a full veil, topped off with a cloth revealing only a slit for her eyes. She was hanging on a high pillar, in the same group as the men who were torturing the child. She said: 'Why not finish him off quickly? There's another group of soldiers a few hundred metres from here that I had to spot. This one's no use to us, plus he's from Dinyle. We're looking for anyone who knows more about Pheoris' soldiers.'
- Too bad, I wanted to have a bit more fun and tell myself what would happen if I cut your vocal cords with my knife, then cut your tongue out and feed it to you. These words terrified the young soldier.
As a result, another member joined them on the spot.
- Hey guys, you're making trouble (while advancing towards the unknown men).
'Ah Dave, is that you? You finally got what you were looking for on that front. What's more, I see that pregnant lady helped you play your part well?' asked the man who was torturing the recruit with his bloody knife in hand.
- Wash your hands, you stink of blood and disgusting things, Renji.
- Ha ha ha! It's called vomit and urine,' laughed a short woman with far too much make-up on her face. Replied a woman about 160 cm tall and wearing way too much make-up.
-Renji, shut up, Iki. Sorry mate, I had to get him to talk, seeing as he was the youngest of his gang. I preferred to go with him last, just to scare him a bit more. One of his men brought him a towel and he started to clean himself with it.
- Kill this kid, he's no use to us and we don't have time for your whims.
Renji: All right, all right, I'll calm down, I understand. My scalpel will make do with his soldiers for now. (And he went to slit the recruit's throat).
-So that's what you are? Why are you doing this? Why do you do it? What do you get out of doing this to me, you bastards?' shouted the man who had suffered too much.
He then received an ultra-fast projectile attack from the masked lady that put him out of his misery.
-Renji: Wow, well, thanks for the help.
-Dave: Ah, I've been looking for you, KAGERO. How long have you been here?
-I joined the rest of the group just as I located this group fighting the Jengu Hypopotamus with Goki in their midst.
Renji: What? You've already found Goki so quickly?
-Kagero: Of course, what did you expect?
-OK, so we've got the stone we need? All we have to do now is get the one from this dungeon? (He says this with a very big smile on his face, as if he's just made an extraordinary discovery).
- Dave: No, the snake you sent devoured him and his weapon immediately.
Renji: What? You found Goki and you blew your chance to get him, all because of your peaceful solution, you had to attack them every chance you got instead of babysitting them.
- Shut up, we're talking about a member of the Kosuga. Dave interrupted, his tone autumnal and angry.
- And according to the information provided, Goki is supposed to be about 15 or 17 years old. All you had to do was decapitate him and that's it,' he said in a self-satisfied, angry tone.
-And that was it? I should also inform you that there were two Kosuga and that the big snake that Kagero had sent was supposed to kill whoever got the stone with great concentration.
-Kagero: Because it wasn't?
- Dave: No, because you know what your pet did? He wanted to eat the other Kosuga.
- Kagero: Maybe because he had the most powerful stone with him.
-Dave: Well, he didn't have anything, because Zed searched him right in front of me.
-Kagero: I can't help it, the animals I control are subject to my orders. Either Zed didn't search him properly.
-Dave: Or you haven't done your job properly.
-Kagero: And now you're going to tell me you're questioning my skills, which he himself chose?
He then gave him a hard blow, knocking both his knees to the ground, and said: 'You're lucky you're in this dungeon and I need you to hold a weapon properly. Otherwise, I'd have all your fingers chopped off as we speak.'
Zed: Sorry Dave, but I can assure you I didn't find anything when I searched him.
-Renji: Oh, dear, I wanted you to let me cut off his fat fingers, that might have been fun.
-Dave: Shut up and go and search me and bring me that stone from his remains.
-Zed: All right, Dave.
-And this time, make sure you get home with that stone.
-Iki: Aren't you going with him? What are you going to do?
-Dave: Find the thirty or so soldiers we still have to kill, and then go and finish this dungeon by the Challenge Gate.
Renji: Thirty or so? You slaughtered them all? So quickly?
- Dave: No, there don't seem to be that many of them. There were only about thirty of them.
-Renji: That's the opposite of what this kid told me after I tortured him. According to him, they came here by the hundreds.
Dave: So that means...
Dave realised that Uli and his friends had guessed from the start that he and his gang were impostors.
- Ehhh shit, you bastard Uli and Frederico. You're going to pay for getting me into this mess. Kagero!
Yes, Dave?
Let go of all the creatures in this dungeon! Command them or influence them to follow the waves of the low-powered arcane stones.
-Kagero: But it'll come down on us.
- Dave: We'll manage, and you, Iki, go with Zed.
Iki: OK, Dave, what are you going to do?
- I'm going to make sure none of these kids make it to the Challenge Gate and then meet up with me once you've finished with Kosuga's group. You, Kagero, come with me and search through all these strange beasts for the one with the Goki sword and bring it back to the entrance of the Gate of Challenges.
Kagero: But it would take far too much time, concentration and energy to order them to attack everything and bring me the stone.
- Dave: Don't worry, I've got your back. You know our organisation really needs it, and we have to have it at all costs.
-Kagero: Right.
-Dave: I want determination and blood on our opponents, sparing no one.
- all his men replied briskly: AGREE!!! (Faced with Dave's anger at the trickery of Uli and his gang).
Then he felt a hand strike him with below-average force. When he looked down, he saw that it was the young recruit that Kagero had thrown at him. She had pierced part of his skull with a projectile.
-Dave: What's he still doing crawling around on the ground? Wasn't he supposed to be dead? (Having just finished saying that, he gave Renji a cold look).
-Renji: What? Don't look at me like that. It was Kagero who wanted to finish her off, and she did her job badly.
-No, why is he still up? And he wanted to hit me after so much torture from you? Why is he taking it out on me?
- Ah, that's certainly a rare phenomenon. Often you find people with a strong will. Like when I was in charge of torture in the army's special unit. Sometimes I found men and women who could stand the pain until they lost all their limbs. And yet they still wanted to fight. To kill me. And it was from that day on that I spared the eyes or punctured them last, because when I looked into their eyes, I always saw pity, and for the strong souls, I saw the desire to fight, and that drove me to go all out and make my torture sessions more thrilling than ever. (And it was with an ecstatic air that Renji pronounced his words).
-This made Dave smile.
-KAGERO: What? Are you going to start torturing people too? Like that sick Renji?
Renji: Hey, I'm listening.
-DAVE: Get Morgana over here and get her close to that walking corpse next to me.
-Iki: It's working, what's he going to do.
His men brought in MORGANA the pregnant woman, and in front of him stood Dave.
-Morgana: Release me, I've suffered enough, please kill me.
-Dave: Well, you haven't finished playing your part in my quest yet.
Drawing his sceptre, he began to make incantations and a red light appeared. It illuminated the space where Dave was standing: 'To you, god of blood, to you, despair, oh you who read the depths of the wounded hearts of men, to you who bring back cruelty in its most abject state, to you who give the chosen the strength to fulfil their destinies. - I give you these sacrifices and make me achieve my goal, and consume his three lives.
Red blood left the ground and perforated the recruit's heart, then Morgana's stomach and chest, which then connected to Dave's sceptre, making it as big as it was red, like Morgan's and the young man's blood.
-Dave: Thank you Renji. Thanks to you, I've understood what I want to do with my objective. And to thank you, you've got carte blanche over all our enemies. Don't hold back.
-I can't thank you enough Dave (a smile on his face, eager to spill some blood!). Our two men and their allies did not bode well for what was to come, with our heroes and the innocents who had come to take their tests to become the saviours of humanity).
*On the side where Hiruko is*.
-Frederico: Hiruko, haven't you heard of the arcane stones found in the dungeons you have to explore?
- EUHH NO (it was the first time he'd heard that word, the arcane stones in the dungeons).
- FREDERICO: I'm obliged to remind you, listen carefully, this world governed by magic must obey certain rules, such that only with normal arcane stones and mutation stones is a human being able to produce magic. These stones often have basic characteristics or results, something like allowing you to make great leaps of several metres, cut concrete with your blade and no more, and that's when humanity started to take an interest in dungeons. In your opinion, Hiruko, why do soldiers and men go to such lengths to conquer dungeons?
-Hiruko: I don't know, to try and be strong after experiencing them?
-Wrong, but first I have to tell you about the links between the dungeons and this world. They're as old as the time when the ancestor punished humanity with the arrival of the draugr.
It's true that arcane stones were used, but as you've seen with the giant Jengu Hypopotamus that we faced recently, they won't be enough to fight these creatures. That's when the ancient Priestesses of Destiny told the men to go into the dungeons and conquer them, returning with new and even more powerful powers. These powers came from the arcane stones of the dungeons. You're probably asking yourself: what's the difference with the stones you know? Well, let me tell you, they're even more fantastic than the basic arcane stones, which wear out after a while. With these dungeon arcane stones, if you find the right stone, you'll be able to use the magic buried deep within you, like elemental magic, which allows the user to use fire, ice, wind, earth, plants and so on. They can also be used to develop abilities such as lucidity and intelligence, making the user omnicient. And although the effects are the same as with basic arcane stones, they are fantastic, which is why so many mages, soldiers and mercenaries are prepared to risk their lives to conquer dungeons.
- Hiruko: You said that these stones also need to be compatible?
-Frederico: Exactly my dear
-Hiruko: So that's why big brother Arima conquered so many dungeons, because he didn't think the stones the dungeons gave him were compatible?
-Frederico: You've got it right.
-Hiruko: That explains why people go into the dungeons without knowing what to expect, what kind of stone they'll get or whether it's compatible or not.
-Fred: Yes, but the mages have found a way of estimating how much magic the dungeon will be able to give the stone.
-Selene: And how?
Hiruko: I see I'm not the only one who's ignorant any more. Now you want to know too? (He gets a slap in the face from his team-mate.)
-Fred: Come on, come on you two, the method determined by the mages expert in class 03 magic lucidity was that the dungeon already tells you which magic will be its stone by the trials it makes you overcome.
-Konrad: And how?
-Hiruko: Huh? Another learner? You'd think so (he got a few more slaps in the face from Selene).
-Frederico: Well, for example, if you enter a dungeon and you notice, strangely enough, the reality it imposes on you by turning the dungeon into a snowy place, that's only at the end of the challenges. After the challenges, you'll get a stone that can produce ice or a stone that can raise or lower the temperature.
-Hiruko, Selene, Konrad, Uli: Wow!
- Isn't the history and mysteries of this world great, Hiruko?
Hiruko: Oh no, that's pointless and silly, sorry.
-Konrad, Uli, Selene: WHAT? (All astonished)
-Hiruko: I don't see why we should risk our lives just for some stones that we're not sure will be compatible with us. And to test your level against the draugrs, I'd never risk my life exploring a dungeon.
-Frederico: You know, Kosuga, don't say that, because for some people it's a dream, and that's precisely what dreams are for: to take us back to our childhood days, when we're all grown up and powerful, just for the tiniest things that, somewhere inside us, we already know the answer to.
-Hiruko noticed that Frederico had touched a part of him and that he was right.
-Hiruko: And if the stone is found not to be compatible with the person, what does he do?
-Well, you sell them at arcane exhibitions or you keep them as family treasures until you find an heir or someone compatible with the stone that you can pass on to them.
-I understand.
- Frederico: And often, wealthy nobles notice an affinity between their children and magic, and they go to arcane exhibitions to find a good stone for themselves or their children. If you're hungry or unlucky enough to find yourself penniless, sell the arcane stones from the dungeons you've conquered; they cost a lot of gold coins.
-Hiruko: That's a good idea, and I can already see how big brother Arima is making a lot of money while I'm struggling with this traitor.
? Hiruko: Why are you calling that idiot Arima a traitor?
They were all astonished by the person dressed as a gentleman who had spoken to them.
-Calm down, it's me, I'm on your side, it's me, Colonel Klaus from the kingdom of Pheoris.
Hiruko, Selene and Uli: Huh? A colonel who comes to a high-risk dungeon, unarmed and wearing a three-piece suit?
Klaus: Sorry, I don't know how to explain it. By the way, I didn't have time (with a smile that showed he wasn't really convinced of what he'd just said).
The colonel, seeing the three youngsters jumping on him and kicking him, 'Uli: you're an impostor, Dave sent you, Hiruko: who allowed you to insult big brother Arima, Selene: we're going to put you back in your hole with your three-piece suit, where did you think you were, at a masked ball?
Konrad: Stop it!
-Frederico: Goodness gracious, you three idiots. It's Colonel Klaus himself!