Infinite Competitive Dungeon Society - Chapter 269

Chapter 269

Chapter 269 . Kahar (3)

Just like how it was when I went to Luka continent, I expected to find myself inside a palace when I used Dimensional Travel . I was right . After using Dimensional Travel, Lotte, Licorice, and I found ourselves in the middle of a vast hall filled with knights and magicians . When I looked around, I didn’t see any other Dimensional Mercenaries . Just when I was thinking that they had already left, one of the knights murmuring amongst themselves approached me .

“You’re a Dimensional Mercenary, right? Do you know how many more are coming?”

“I’m the last one . ”

“Are you Kang Shin-nim?”

“… Yes . ”

What’s this? They know who I am? As if to prove my suspicion, the knight then bowed respectfully .

“Crown Prince is waiting for you . Follow me . ”

“Crown Prince…?”

I widened my eyes . The Crown Prince is waiting for me, a Dimensional Mercenary? Could it be…? I shut my mouth and followed the knight . I didn’t need to think too much about it . After all, I would soon see it with my own eyes .

“Dear Husband, the people here are pretty strong . ”

“They’re doing well against their invaders, so it makes sense . ”

“Their gazes are annoying . Hero, can I pull their eyes out?”

“It’s because you two are pretty . Just ignore them . ”

In this place full of men, Lotte and Licorice stood out too much . As we followed the knight, I could feel everyone’s gazes locking onto us . In most cases, stares fixed on women shifted to the man they were traveling with . It was truly annoying . Even on a Dimensional Mercenary mission, I was receiving gazes full of envy . Just focus on your war, damn it!

“Please don’t mind them . They’re just mentally exhausted from repeated battles . When they see Kang Shin-nim traveling with two beautiful women, it’s natural that they…”

“Lotte and Licorice are fighters too… Well, whatever . ”

We arrived in front of the audience chamber . The knight stopped and announced our arrival . A voice of a young man then told us to enter . When the door opened, we walked in in a straight line . In the fairly large audience chamber, there was one man sitting at the head of a long table .

“Oh, you’re really here . It’s been a long time!”

“Yeah… Paul!?”

I almost fell over from the surprise . The man wearing a fancy armor and sitting at the head of the table was undoubtedly Ellos’ party member, Paul . Seeing me speechless, Paul seemed a bit down .

“Don’t be so openly shocked . Did you expect Ellos to be here?”

“Well, yeah . ”

Paul smiled bitterly at my honest reply .

“To be honest, I also think that he’s more fitting for this position . But even if he’s the party leader in the dungeon, in the Edias continent’s Cravis Empire, he is my royal guard as Count Kasina’s eldest son . ”

“And you’re a crown prince? Ah, I remember now, your last name was Cravis . ”

“That’s right . First, come on in . Ellos will be here soon . ”

Like he said, Ellos did arrive soon . He was fully armored and wore a stiff expression . When he saw me, his expression lightened slightly .

“Friend, you really came!”

“Sorry that I came so late, Ellos . It looks like the other mercenaries already left . ”

“Right . They already separated into their own teams . But to be honest, a part of them are dummies . Because the invaders are also looking for the Hero, we have to move secretly and cautiously . ”

Looking at Ellos’ serious expression and Paul’s lax expression, I couldn’t help but compare the two . I wanted to ask if they were pulling a prank on me by pretending to play the other’s role, but I also remembered Ren being a crown prince . If Ren was a crown prince, I had to acknowledge Paul as one too .

“By the way, who are they?”

“Ah, this is Licorice and this is Lotte . Licorice is a Succubus Queen and Lotte is a Blaze Queen, a stronger variety of wyverns . They’re… my allies . ”

“Hi, I heard you’re Dear Husband’s friend . Nice to meet you . ”

“Hmph . ”

As expected of a succubus, Licorice greeted them with a charming smile . Lotte, on the other hand, looked uncomfortable . While I was looking at them and making a wry smile, Paul and Ellos whispered to each other with stiff expressions .

“Succubus Queen? Wyvern? They’re both look like beautiful women… Amazing . ”

“The far-reaching rumors of Revival’s guild master doesn’t even come close to the truth…”

I wondered what rumors about me were spreading, but now wasn’t the time to ask . After whispering with Ellos, Paul looked at me with a more spirited face .

“Let me explain to you the details . ”

“Good . ”

“Then… Ellos . ”

“Un . ”

Ellos is explaining!?

“I explained how we had a huge battle, right? Our continent’s Hero is a great warrior who’s broken through to the First Dungeon’s 92nd floor . In that great battle, he cut down countless invaders and brought victory to our continent’s allied force . The leader of the invaders is a man called ‘Kain’ . At the time of the battle, his strength was similar to the Hero’s . On top of the countless corpses of invaders and of our continent’s inhabitants, they fought fiercely . In the end, neither side came out victorious, and the invader’s retreated . Paul, do you have a map?”

“On the wall, here . ”

Ellos congealed mana on his finger and touched a point on the map . A small mark was left by a burn .

“From here to here is the invaders’ territory . Here’s our empire . Here and here are independent nations that are allied with us . They ally with us whenever a huge battle is imminent . Although several countries have already fallen, most of the survivors came together and formed an army . Now, they’re a part of us . We’ve been even in size of forces . For the final battle, we planned on using a Dimensional Mercenary request to bring many Dimensional Mercenaries . Until that happened . ”

“The Hero going missing?”

“Right . ”

Ellos nodded and bit his lips . His eyes seemed to be burning .

“Ellos became the Hero’s disciple a little while ago . ”

“Ah . ”

I remembered Ellos telling me about catching the Hero’s attention . Still, I didn’t think that he’d become his disciple . I checked out Ellos once more . Indeed, I couldn’t tell what league he was in, but he had a formidable spirit . Plus, it was hard to feel his presence . If that’s what I felt, Ellos must have grown immensely .

The dungeon wasn’t the only place to grow stronger . It was like that for me, too .

“If we can’t rescue the Hero, there’s no future for Edias . I want to believe he hasn’t been captured by the invaders, but…”

“If he was captured, he would have been killed on the spot . Don’t worry, Ellos, he should be fine . ”

Ellos made a strange smile at my encouraging words . It was the type of smile that tried to mask sadness . Ellos then nodded and drew mana on his hand once more .

“We have a few places in mind . ”

He drew points on the map one by one . They were all in the invaders’ territory .

“After the great battle, when we were retreating, we learned that the Hero had gone missing . ”

“In the middle, huh . ”

“One thing we know for sure is that the Hero fought them . Our enemies operate with groups of skilled assassins . I don’t know how they lured the Hero from the barracks, but it’s likely that…”

“A hostage?”

“It’s possible . ”

Paul’s expression was completely stiff . It didn’t fit his character at all .

“The Hero used to be a wandering knight . He came to our empire when he became a Hero, so we don’t really know his history . He always said he was an orphan, but that might have been false . Maybe, the invaders took his relative hostage and lured him out . ”

“Regardless of how, after luring him out, they must have ambushed him, and although they failed, they most likely injured the Hero greatly . ”

“To the point, he couldn’t return to the barracks?”

Ellos nodded silently . Paul then continued .

“Many people speculated where the Hero could be hiding . The easiest place to hide is…”

“The Dungeon . ”

“But in their territory, you can’t enter the dungeon nor use its messaging system . ”

“What!?”

My eyes shot open . Their territory? In this area covering half the map, you couldn’t enter the dungeon or message anyone? For a moment, I thought of Lespina . However, there was a clear difference in their range .

Why were these things happening so often nowadays? I doubt all worlds’ enemies use this method .

As a confirmation, I asked .

“Are the explorers’ power suppressed in their territory?”

“How did you know? It’s not by a lot, but everyone has their power suppressed by about 10% . ”

10% . Thankfully, it wasn’t a large amount . Still, the range of their suppression was shocking . When I closed my mouth, Ellos continued his explanation .

“They’re proficient in the science of magic . They must have analyzed something about explorers through countless battles . Or maybe, they captured explorers to experiment on them . In the last battle, we found out about their ability . It’ll be dangerous if we let them be . If they reduce explorers’ power by another 10%, their chance of victory will skyrocket . ”

“That aside, the reason the Hero can’t go to the dungeon is that he’s stuck in their territory?”

“Yeah . So he must have found a place to hide . After careful consideration…”

He pointed a few spots on the map . Although the circles he drew were small compared to the map, since the map was of the entire continent, the region encompassed by the circles must be fairly big .

“A mountain range and a forest, both with complex topographies . They’re the easiest places to hide . There are also wastelands and rocky mountains, but they’re unlikely . When we realized the Hero went missing, we immediately sent our troops out to search for him . As you can guess, we couldn’t find him . We couldn’t stay in the enemy’s territory for long, so the search didn’t last long . If we stayed too long, we might have been annihilated before we could find the Hero . In the end, we split off a part of the army to search for the Hero, and the rest retreated . ”

“And you still couldn’t find him . ”

“Yeah . ”

Paul added .

“And the ones that remained were all killed . The invaders also sent out troops to find the Hero before us . ”

“It’s just one thing after another, huh . ”

“If they capture the Hero, it’s all over . ”

Ellos spoke with a stiff voice .

“That’s why we had to rely on Dimensional Mercenaries . With each of them being so powerful, they’re highly mobile, and they have the strength to resist the invaders if they encountered them . ”

“Makes sense . ”

As Dimensional Mercenaries, they were most likely used to missions like this . It was the same for me . As long as I didn’t meet the world’s enemy, I had the confidence to come out unscathed no matter how many enemies I faced .

“We managed to contact an administrative guild, and we even received a magical tool to help locate the Hero . That’s the paper you have, Shin . ”

“I heard . This paper apparently tells me where the Hero is?”

“The problem is that the Hero’s signal is coming from multiple places . ”

… I thought of a certain ninja’s Shadow Clone Technique, but I stayed quiet . If I said anything, it would end with me being hit .

“We think it has to do with the explorers’ power being suppressed in their territory . After all, the administrative guild is part of the dungeon . Still, we couldn’t just disregard it . The only choice we had was searching all the areas pointed out by the magical tool . ”

I asked .

“And what area am I in charge of?”

“Sorry, Shin . It’ll be slightly dangerous . ”

“I didn’t think it wouldn’t be . Just tell me, where is it?”

Fighting the world’s enemy was also in my consideration . The words ‘slightly dangerous’ didn’t bother me at all . Did Ellos know about this? He nodded and pointed at the map . It was a large mountain big enough to appear on the continental map .

“Peruta Mountain Range . It’s the most dangerous mountain range in the continent and a place with the highest density of mana in the continent . That’s where we’re going . ”