“If my blunder to be aware of my surroundings is the reason for your decision, Narias, then I promise I’ll be more careful from now,” Ileena apologized sincerely.
“No, no. It was our fault for allowing that Rhabitooth to get away from us. We are the ones to blame here, Ileena” Emilia disagreed, taking the blame for it.
“Yes, I’m so sorry, Ileena. I should’ve been better with my aim to hit that Rhabitooth. I promise I will try my hardest to not let that happen again, Narias,” Nicky joined it.
“It was my responsibility as well. I feel so bad I couldn’t keep my cool and let the monster evade my spell,” Vivia couldn’t stay silent as well.
“Tougher monsters. Need to fight harder,” Growly added his own comment.
“That’s just how Growly said, we need to fight harder. There shouldn’t be any problems going forward,” Flavia insisted, agreeing with Growly.
“Hey, hey, don’t be so harsh on yourselves. I know everyone was doing their best. And I am not blaming anyone here.” Narias waved with his hands, trying to calm everyone down. “I believe you three did a great job for not letting the Rhabitooth get close to you. That was an excellent work on your part. Yes, the Rhabitooth got away and attacked Ileena, but that’s not the main reason I suggested to go back. The problem is, we’re not functioning very well as a team, but that’s not because someone is doing something wrong.”
“Not functioning very well as a team?” Emilia still had that same, self-blame look on her face.
“What are you saying, Narias? We did very well up to… well… up to the point when you had to save my butt but… but I knew you’d come for me. I trusted you would,” Flavia tried to throw an argument.
“Yes, I had my eyes on you and the monsters we were fighting, but unfortunately, I couldn’t track what Emilia, Nicky and Flavia were doing. They were too far from us for me to go check on them. All I could do was to trust them. Our fight went well, and I was certain we would’ve taken down all those three Shadowleaf Boars without much problem. In the beginning, each of us had our targets assigned and we knew what to do, but all that changed when new monsters leaped out of their cover to ambush us. If it was five of us, we would’ve sticked closer to each other, helping one another to take down one monster at a time. It would’ve been much easier for us to coordinate who had to do what,” Narias started explaining the whole reason why he thought it wasn’t such a good idea to go forward.
“I see. Because we were too far away from each other, we couldn’t communicate and coordinate our attacks very well,” Ileena was quick to get the point Narias was trying to make.
“Yeah, but… but we were doing extremely well on the first floor of the Magic Dungeon. We never even once had any trouble with the monsters all the way until we reached the Fanged Whitemane Wolf’s lair. And even then, we took down the boss monster rather easily,” Flavia sort of agreed with Narias, but still wanted to argue.
“That’s true, but the Fanged Wolves and the Dungeon Crawlers are much weaker monsters. We are strong enough to take them down with a single hit. That’s why we had no problem with them. The monsters on the second floor are much stronger, however. One hit is not enough to kill them, and in the Rhabitooth’s case, the monster is so fast, it was hard for us to land a hit on it. We needed a better coordination and a better teamwork to kill the monsters effectively.” Narias continued with his explanation.
“So, what you’re saying is, there are too many of us to work together effectively? If all seven of us would stay close, we’d also get in each other’s way, making it more difficult to fight as well?” Nicky added thoughtfully, phrasing her thoughts as questions.
“Exactly,” Narias agreed with a smile.
“Smart,” Growly scratched his cheek, looking away. It wasn’t clear who his compliment was addressed to, however.
“Well, aarghmm… I get it, but…” everyone could tell Flavia wanted to explore the second floor of the Magic Dungeon a little longer, even if she agreed with everything that had been said.
“We can take this fight as a learning experience and use it to improve our training to get stronger for the next time we come down to the Magic Dungeon. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are strong enough to deal with the monsters on the second floor fast enough and… I don’t want to put any of you in danger either…” Narias rubbed the back of his head, his eyes shooting mostly between his three girlfriends.
“You’re right. I believe we should go back for now and… I’m sorry for making you worry, Narias,” Ileena touched one of her flushed cheeks, brushing her unruly hair from her face away, realizing that her boyfriend was worried about her.
“I’m sorry too, Narias. I should’ve been more thoughtful,” Emilia apologized again, adding that charming smile of hers too. Her frost covered lips sparked with glimmer, adding to the Ice Princess’ adorable flush.
“Well, if you put it this way, partner,” Flavia pursed her lips, knowing full well what Narias was implying.
“I mean, we still have enough supplies with us, so we could explore some more of the first floor of the Magic Dungeon,” Narias knew it’d be a waste to just leave. Killing monsters and finding some more loot was still an option, since they hadn’t fully explored the first floor of the dungeon.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” that cheered Flavia up in an instant.
“How about we eat something before going leave here then?” Narias suggested, to which everyone agreed.
Surprisingly, Ileena, Emilia and Flavia sat down some distance away just the three of them, eating, chatting, and sometimes whispering something among themselves. Growly joined Nicky and Vivia. The bear boy pulled out a carefully wrapped package, surprising the girls with some sweet treats he was willing to share. Nicky seemed to appreciate his such generous gesture. Narias wasn’t eating for some reason. He had a bottle of water in his hands that he would take a sip from once in a while, staring at the different parts of the cave in the meantime.
“You like being by yourself, eh?” Ranga Dreknor came to talk to him.
“Instructor Dreknor? Oh, no, that’s not it. I was just trying to learn something,” the student responded.
“Learn something?” Ranga was curious.
“Yeah. The Shadowleaf Boars have plants growing on their backs, which provides a great cover when they hide under the plants around here. I was just trying to remember how the plants on the monster’s back look to see if I could spot the difference between the two,” Narias explained why he was sitting here by himself.
“Oh, I see,” the big, black tiger beast-man rubbed his chin with one hand. “That was quite a pinch you were in back there by the way. I must confess, it made my skin crawl when I saw that Rhabitooth jump at the girl, but I was too far to make it in time and was afraid it will end badly. I feel ashamed for allowing myself to be so negligent. I apologize.”
“What are you saying, Instructor Dreknor? If anyone was at fault there, that would be me. Everyone put their trust in me as the group’s leader. I should’ve done a better job in observing the fight and preventing from that kind of situation to happen in the first place.” Narias wanted to take all the blame on himself, however.
“Even if you say that, it falls under my responsibility as your party’s guide. I probably shouldn’t have allowed for your team to come to the second floor of the Magic Dungeon,” the teacher said it quiet enough, so other students wouldn’t hear it.
“But then we wouldn’t had learnt a valuable lesson,” Narias countered with the best possible argument.
“Hah, grrr…” Ranga smirked, being caught off guard by such response. He then stood tall, crossing his arms in front of him. “I shouldn’t be surprised hearing something like that from you I suppose.”
“Huh? What do you mean, Instructor Dreknor?” Narias was puzzled.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Ranga grinned wider. “One question, did you really not think about that your Whitemane Leather Armor will protect you from the Rhabitooth’s bite when you jumped in to intercept it? I must say, you have a much better control of your Wind Pressure Blast spell too. That was a very well calculated jump.”
“Thank you, Instructor Dreknor. But to answer your question, all I thought about at that moment was that I had to protect Ileena. I didn’t care if the Rhabitooth was to bite my arm off. All I cared about was Ileena’s safety. I understand it was reckless on my part, but…” Narias lowered his head, scratching his cheek with one finger.
“That wasn’t reckless at all.” Ranga commented when Narias made a pause. “I would’ve done the same thing if I were you. You know what? I take back what I had said earlier. You are free to stay on the second floor if you so wish to. I will help you fight the monsters even. And don’t worry, it won’t affect your exploration score.”
“Thank you, Instructor Dreknor, but I would like for us to go back for now. I have to stick to my decision,” it was a lucrative offer, but Narias felt he should keep his word he made to his team.
“Alright,” the teacher had an intimidatingly satisfied smile on his face. “I’ll leave you be for now. Let me know when you want to move out.”
Hah, he’s on his way to become quite a dungeon explorer. I didn’t expect him to see the flaw of them having too many people in the team from a single fight. Not after how easily they were dispatching the monsters on the first floor. I’ve seen too many times when a little success would get into a student’s head. The next thing I knew, they were putting themselves and their team in danger during the next monster encounter. With this boy however, he not only took responsibility for what happened as the team’s leader, but managed to figure out what went wrong and learn from it. He's way too mature for his age. Not that it’s a bad thing, really. Ghm… Mature, eh? Humph… No wonder so many girls find him attractive… or women. Grr… Ranga grinned to himself, reviewing a few things quietly in his head.
After the break was over, the group turned around to leave the second floor of the Magic Dungeon. They went only so far as to reach the first open cave from the main entrance, so it didn’t take them long to get to the, now empty, Fanged Whitemane Wolf’s den. Once they were back on the first floor, the party took a different path to leave the Magic Dungeon. All the students were in good shape and they had enough supplies to last them an extra half a day or so, which allowed the party to stick around longer.
They chose the same path they used to reach the boss monster’s lair when they came here with Belinda Salroze. The students knew if they stick to the left path all the time, they’ll end up at the Magic Dungeon entrance eventually. A Supply Point room was on their way too, as well as the same dead-end room where Growly had found that hidden chest back then. There were no treasure chests found this time, unfortunately, but Growly dug up a Crystalized Mold ore which was blue quality too. That was more than enough to make the students happy.
Including the stop the group had to made at the Supply Point room, it took them about another eight or nine hours to get to the main entrance of the Magic Dungeon. The students felt relieved, and excited at the same time, when they finally found themselves in front of the entrance room. The magic barrier on the exit was covered by a yellowish mist, which everyone knew why that was so. They have killed the boss monster on the first floor and were locked inside the current Magic Dungeon’s Reset Cycle.
“Well done everyone. It’s time to leave now. After you, kiddos,” Ranga motioned for the students to go through the magic barrier first. The teacher went through the magic barrier last.
On their way back, Narias’s party has killed many more monsters on the first floor, netting them a handful of Magic Crystals as a result. Growly has found three Crystalized Mold ores, two green and one blue in quality, which added to the total loot for the Magic Research student club. Two Magic Crystals from level three monsters, two chunks of Soft Steel Ore, with the Bone Fang and the bigger Magic Crystal from the Whitemane Fanged Wolf made quite a haul in the end.
It was night time when the huge gates to the Magic Dungeon opened. The two guards were surprised, as well as relieved to see Ranga Dreknor and the students come out of the dungeon. Those weren’t the same guards who let them inside, or knew about Narias group’s exploration when they went into the dungeon with Belinda Salrose. The men on duty were told that one group was staying inside the Magic Dungeon for longer than any average student group would, so they were worried. Ranga reassured the guards everyone was fine to make them feel at ease.
The students were tired, and it was nighttime too, but Instructor Dreknor urged them to go register their dungeon exploration loot before they go back to their dorms. The teacher assured the students they will be excused from the classes the next day, so they could have a long, well-deserved rest. The group followed the teacher’s suggestion and went to report their achievements first. After that, everyone was looking forward to a good, long sleep.
Niuniax
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Thank you for reading. Leave a comment and favorite the chapter if you enjoyed it. Apologies in advance if you find a weird sounding phrase or a grammar error. These are draft chapters after all.
Read 10+ extra chapters on my Patreon (including the artwork not available anywhere else) – Extra Chapters on Patreon
━━━━━━━━━
Extra thanks to nonomo4 and Lynderyn for extra support and help.
━━━━━━━━━
I have another series going. It’s an isekai dungeon exploration adventure with an added haremlit lewdness (just a tiny bit, though /evulgrin).
Check it out
“If my blunder to be aware of my surroundings is the reason for your decision, Narias, then I promise I’ll be more careful from now,” Ileena apologized sincerely.
“No, no. It was our fault for allowing that Rhabitooth to get away from us. We are the ones to blame here, Ileena” Emilia disagreed, taking the blame for it.
“Yes, I’m so sorry, Ileena. I should’ve been better with my aim to hit that Rhabitooth. I promise I will try my hardest to not let that happen again, Narias,” Nicky joined it.
“It was my responsibility as well. I feel so bad I couldn’t keep my cool and let the monster evade my spell,” Vivia couldn’t stay silent as well.
“Tougher monsters. Need to fight harder,” Growly added his own comment.
“That’s just how Growly said, we need to fight harder. There shouldn’t be any problems going forward,” Flavia insisted, agreeing with Growly.
“Hey, hey, don’t be so harsh on yourselves. I know everyone was doing their best. And I am not blaming anyone here.” Narias waved with his hands, trying to calm everyone down. “I believe you three did a great job for not letting the Rhabitooth get close to you. That was an excellent work on your part. Yes, the Rhabitooth got away and attacked Ileena, but that’s not the main reason I suggested to go back. The problem is, we’re not functioning very well as a team, but that’s not because someone is doing something wrong.”
“Not functioning very well as a team?” Emilia still had that same, self-blame look on her face.
“What are you saying, Narias? We did very well up to… well… up to the point when you had to save my butt but… but I knew you’d come for me. I trusted you would,” Flavia tried to throw an argument.
“Yes, I had my eyes on you and the monsters we were fighting, but unfortunately, I couldn’t track what Emilia, Nicky and Flavia were doing. They were too far from us for me to go check on them. All I could do was to trust them. Our fight went well, and I was certain we would’ve taken down all those three Shadowleaf Boars without much problem. In the beginning, each of us had our targets assigned and we knew what to do, but all that changed when new monsters leaped out of their cover to ambush us. If it was five of us, we would’ve sticked closer to each other, helping one another to take down one monster at a time. It would’ve been much easier for us to coordinate who had to do what,” Narias started explaining the whole reason why he thought it wasn’t such a good idea to go forward.
“I see. Because we were too far away from each other, we couldn’t communicate and coordinate our attacks very well,” Ileena was quick to get the point Narias was trying to make.
“Yeah, but… but we were doing extremely well on the first floor of the Magic Dungeon. We never even once had any trouble with the monsters all the way until we reached the Fanged Whitemane Wolf’s lair. And even then, we took down the boss monster rather easily,” Flavia sort of agreed with Narias, but still wanted to argue.
“That’s true, but the Fanged Wolves and the Dungeon Crawlers are much weaker monsters. We are strong enough to take them down with a single hit. That’s why we had no problem with them. The monsters on the second floor are much stronger, however. One hit is not enough to kill them, and in the Rhabitooth’s case, the monster is so fast, it was hard for us to land a hit on it. We needed a better coordination and a better teamwork to kill the monsters effectively.” Narias continued with his explanation.
“So, what you’re saying is, there are too many of us to work together effectively? If all seven of us would stay close, we’d also get in each other’s way, making it more difficult to fight as well?” Nicky added thoughtfully, phrasing her thoughts as questions.
“Exactly,” Narias agreed with a smile.
“Smart,” Growly scratched his cheek, looking away. It wasn’t clear who his compliment was addressed to, however.
“Well, aarghmm… I get it, but…” everyone could tell Flavia wanted to explore the second floor of the Magic Dungeon a little longer, even if she agreed with everything that had been said.
“We can take this fight as a learning experience and use it to improve our training to get stronger for the next time we come down to the Magic Dungeon. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are strong enough to deal with the monsters on the second floor fast enough and… I don’t want to put any of you in danger either…” Narias rubbed the back of his head, his eyes shooting mostly between his three girlfriends.
“You’re right. I believe we should go back for now and… I’m sorry for making you worry, Narias,” Ileena touched one of her flushed cheeks, brushing her unruly hair from her face away, realizing that her boyfriend was worried about her.
“I’m sorry too, Narias. I should’ve been more thoughtful,” Emilia apologized again, adding that charming smile of hers too. Her frost covered lips sparked with glimmer, adding to the Ice Princess’ adorable flush.
“Well, if you put it this way, partner,” Flavia pursed her lips, knowing full well what Narias was implying.
“I mean, we still have enough supplies with us, so we could explore some more of the first floor of the Magic Dungeon,” Narias knew it’d be a waste to just leave. Killing monsters and finding some more loot was still an option, since they hadn’t fully explored the first floor of the dungeon.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” that cheered Flavia up in an instant.
“How about we eat something before going leave here then?” Narias suggested, to which everyone agreed.
Surprisingly, Ileena, Emilia and Flavia sat down some distance away just the three of them, eating, chatting, and sometimes whispering something among themselves. Growly joined Nicky and Vivia. The bear boy pulled out a carefully wrapped package, surprising the girls with some sweet treats he was willing to share. Nicky seemed to appreciate his such generous gesture. Narias wasn’t eating for some reason. He had a bottle of water in his hands that he would take a sip from once in a while, staring at the different parts of the cave in the meantime.
“You like being by yourself, eh?” Ranga Dreknor came to talk to him.
“Instructor Dreknor? Oh, no, that’s not it. I was just trying to learn something,” the student responded.
“Learn something?” Ranga was curious.
“Yeah. The Shadowleaf Boars have plants growing on their backs, which provides a great cover when they hide under the plants around here. I was just trying to remember how the plants on the monster’s back look to see if I could spot the difference between the two,” Narias explained why he was sitting here by himself.
“Oh, I see,” the big, black tiger beast-man rubbed his chin with one hand. “That was quite a pinch you were in back there by the way. I must confess, it made my skin crawl when I saw that Rhabitooth jump at the girl, but I was too far to make it in time and was afraid it will end badly. I feel ashamed for allowing myself to be so negligent. I apologize.”
“What are you saying, Instructor Dreknor? If anyone was at fault there, that would be me. Everyone put their trust in me as the group’s leader. I should’ve done a better job in observing the fight and preventing from that kind of situation to happen in the first place.” Narias wanted to take all the blame on himself, however.
“Even if you say that, it falls under my responsibility as your party’s guide. I probably shouldn’t have allowed for your team to come to the second floor of the Magic Dungeon,” the teacher said it quiet enough, so other students wouldn’t hear it.
“But then we wouldn’t had learnt a valuable lesson,” Narias countered with the best possible argument.
“Hah, grrr…” Ranga smirked, being caught off guard by such response. He then stood tall, crossing his arms in front of him. “I shouldn’t be surprised hearing something like that from you I suppose.”
“Huh? What do you mean, Instructor Dreknor?” Narias was puzzled.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Ranga grinned wider. “One question, did you really not think about that your Whitemane Leather Armor will protect you from the Rhabitooth’s bite when you jumped in to intercept it? I must say, you have a much better control of your Wind Pressure Blast spell too. That was a very well calculated jump.”
“Thank you, Instructor Dreknor. But to answer your question, all I thought about at that moment was that I had to protect Ileena. I didn’t care if the Rhabitooth was to bite my arm off. All I cared about was Ileena’s safety. I understand it was reckless on my part, but…” Narias lowered his head, scratching his cheek with one finger.
“That wasn’t reckless at all.” Ranga commented when Narias made a pause. “I would’ve done the same thing if I were you. You know what? I take back what I had said earlier. You are free to stay on the second floor if you so wish to. I will help you fight the monsters even. And don’t worry, it won’t affect your exploration score.”
“Thank you, Instructor Dreknor, but I would like for us to go back for now. I have to stick to my decision,” it was a lucrative offer, but Narias felt he should keep his word he made to his team.
“Alright,” the teacher had an intimidatingly satisfied smile on his face. “I’ll leave you be for now. Let me know when you want to move out.”
Hah, he’s on his way to become quite a dungeon explorer. I didn’t expect him to see the flaw of them having too many people in the team from a single fight. Not after how easily they were dispatching the monsters on the first floor. I’ve seen too many times when a little success would get into a student’s head. The next thing I knew, they were putting themselves and their team in danger during the next monster encounter. With this boy however, he not only took responsibility for what happened as the team’s leader, but managed to figure out what went wrong and learn from it. He's way too mature for his age. Not that it’s a bad thing, really. Ghm… Mature, eh? Humph… No wonder so many girls find him attractive… or women. Grr… Ranga grinned to himself, reviewing a few things quietly in his head.
After the break was over, the group turned around to leave the second floor of the Magic Dungeon. They went only so far as to reach the first open cave from the main entrance, so it didn’t take them long to get to the, now empty, Fanged Whitemane Wolf’s den. Once they were back on the first floor, the party took a different path to leave the Magic Dungeon. All the students were in good shape and they had enough supplies to last them an extra half a day or so, which allowed the party to stick around longer.
They chose the same path they used to reach the boss monster’s lair when they came here with Belinda Salroze. The students knew if they stick to the left path all the time, they’ll end up at the Magic Dungeon entrance eventually. A Supply Point room was on their way too, as well as the same dead-end room where Growly had found that hidden chest back then. There were no treasure chests found this time, unfortunately, but Growly dug up a Crystalized Mold ore which was blue quality too. That was more than enough to make the students happy.
Including the stop the group had to made at the Supply Point room, it took them about another eight or nine hours to get to the main entrance of the Magic Dungeon. The students felt relieved, and excited at the same time, when they finally found themselves in front of the entrance room. The magic barrier on the exit was covered by a yellowish mist, which everyone knew why that was so. They have killed the boss monster on the first floor and were locked inside the current Magic Dungeon’s Reset Cycle.
“Well done everyone. It’s time to leave now. After you, kiddos,” Ranga motioned for the students to go through the magic barrier first. The teacher went through the magic barrier last.
On their way back, Narias’s party has killed many more monsters on the first floor, netting them a handful of Magic Crystals as a result. Growly has found three Crystalized Mold ores, two green and one blue in quality, which added to the total loot for the Magic Research student club. Two Magic Crystals from level three monsters, two chunks of Soft Steel Ore, with the Bone Fang and the bigger Magic Crystal from the Whitemane Fanged Wolf made quite a haul in the end.
It was night time when the huge gates to the Magic Dungeon opened. The two guards were surprised, as well as relieved to see Ranga Dreknor and the students come out of the dungeon. Those weren’t the same guards who let them inside, or knew about Narias group’s exploration when they went into the dungeon with Belinda Salrose. The men on duty were told that one group was staying inside the Magic Dungeon for longer than any average student group would, so they were worried. Ranga reassured the guards everyone was fine to make them feel at ease.
The students were tired, and it was nighttime too, but Instructor Dreknor urged them to go register their dungeon exploration loot before they go back to their dorms. The teacher assured the students they will be excused from the classes the next day, so they could have a long, well-deserved rest. The group followed the teacher’s suggestion and went to report their achievements first. After that, everyone was looking forward to a good, long sleep.
Niuniax
━━━━━━━━━
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment and favorite the chapter if you enjoyed it. Apologies in advance if you find a weird sounding phrase or a grammar error. These are draft chapters after all.
Read 10+ extra chapters on my Patreon (including the artwork not available anywhere else) – Extra Chapters on Patreon
━━━━━━━━━
Extra thanks to nonomo4 and Lynderyn for extra support and help.
━━━━━━━━━
I have another series going. It’s an isekai dungeon exploration adventure with an added haremlit lewdness (just a tiny bit, though /evulgrin).
Check it out
