Chapter 467: Splitting Up
All of us proceed after we broke through the steel door. There were supposed to be some expert level earth mages in the fight in front of the door. But none of them managed to break the door. That"s just shows how powerful Celestine has become. Even Angela asked her to teach it to her later. And Sara who is still an advanced level earth mage is also interested.
As for Kayla, once she heard about it, she will ask Celestine about it. And then, she will ask Victoria and learn it in no time. Soon, Celestine won"t be the strongest earth mage we have anymore.
Well, I doubt about that. Kayla is still focusing on her healing element and light element as well. So, Celestine who only need to focus on her earth element might still be able to get stronger.
"Let"s proceed. Shelia and I will be at the front, and Graham will be right behind us. In the middle, Celestine will stay with Candy and Wendy. After that, Sara and Angela will be on the back."
Sara is good with her eyes and her aim. Although my Divine Vision is better, if it"s without using ability, she has better eyesight. Putting her there means that if we got attacked from behind, and Angela didn"t manage to defeat the enemies from behind, Sara can take care of it.
Celestine will be guarding for Candy and Wendy. As for me and the familiar, we"ll be the vanguard.
"Okay. But if there"s a fork in the path, we need to split into teams. Roy will go with me, Celestine, and Shelia. Wendy, Angela, Sara, and Graham will take another path. If there"s a need to split up again, Roy will go with Celestine and I will go with Shelia. Wendy will go with Graham, and Angela will go with Sara. Am I clear?" Candy organized us into groups. And I think that"s pretty balanced group.
"Clear. Let"s do that. But we will stay as is until there"s a split on the way," Wendy replied.
It"s very balanced. Wendy, Candy, Sara, and I will be split because we"re good at investigating. Though I"m not as good as the other three, my Divine Vision would help a lot.
Sara needs to go with Angela because she"s the weakest here. She"s only advanced level while the rest of the mages, other than me, are already expert level. That"s why she was put with the strongest.
Even though those two just got summoned here, they are ready to fight. Well, everyone is ready to fight. After all, I"m the one who prepared them.
Though for now, the tunnel is linear so we don"t need to split up at all.
We proceed deeper into the tunnel, and we entered a big room with a group of monsters waiting for us. In through that room, there are four paths to take. I guess it"s great that we have prepared our group.
"Wait. I smell a lot of monsters," Shelia said.
"Yeah. I can see them now as well. Shelia, is your smell affected by the fact that we"re in a dungeon?" I asked Shelia.
"Probably. There were various smells inside the tunnel, so it"s difficult for me to tell which is which."
When I noticed that there are monsters ahead, I already concluded that this place is a dungeon. And a high leveled one at that. After all, the monsters here are enough to even cause A-ranked hunters a problem.
"Can we pa.s.s them without fighting them?" Candy asked.
"That"s possible, but it might be difficult. If they are monsters that have been controlled by the cult, they will chase after us if we let them alive," I said.
"I guess we should defeat them quickly. It"s a big room, but with so many monsters and us using magic left and right, it will be difficult. Only use small magic to defeat them or we will end up getting caved in," Candy said.
"Understood," Angela replied.
"Graham, Shelia, and I will approach them. Make sure to not hit us," I said.
With me and my familiars at the front, we faced the monsters ahead. Though before we reached them, some of them have fallen because of the others" magic. That makes it easier for us to defeat the fallen monsters.
I don"t know what kind of monsters they are, but I have seen some of them. They were there during the war that got me killed in the end.
At that time, it was difficult for many A and B-ranked hunters to defeat even one of them. But now, we can defeat them easily.
Maybe because they are not strong enough yet that we can defeat them. That"s good. That"s why it"s best to defeat the cult early before they can raise their power even more.
Although there are some unknown variables such as the mohawks, the known variables are weaker in this time than when I died in my previous life. I will use as many advantages that I can get to destroy the cult and have a peace of mind.
The monsters that I had difficulty to slash using Victosword in my past life, was so easy to cut now. That"s just how big difference it is from then and now. Especially since I have two former Aura users as my teachers.
And seems like these monsters have some resistance against magic attack. Although I told Angela to limit her strength to that of advanced level mage, it was supposed to be easy for her to defeat several of them in one go. But since the monsters are not normal, they only stumble and fall after being hit by Angela"s magic.
But we can still kill them once they have fallen.
I hope the monsters here are stronger than the monsters we will fight on the rest of this mission. That way, we can finish the job faster after knowing the strength of the enemies.
"Candy, after investigating the underground lab before, do you think the Professor is working his research and experiment in that place?"
I asked Candy after we finished the monsters.
"…That"s what I"m thinking too. For someone with high status in the cult, there"s no place well-equipped for him to do his research. Even the queen"s lab is more advanced. Rather than for him, that previous place we investigated was used for collective research than for individual research. It"s possible that we"re going to the place that the Professor is currently located. Though my guess is that he already escaped and regrouped with the archbishop and the rest of the higher ups of the cult," Candy said.
I also agree with her. For someone with high status, there"s no place for him in the lab. I guess we will find out soon after we investigate the whole place.
"Alright. There are four paths ahead. Celestine, which path should we take?" I asked Celestine since she will come with me.
As for me, I don"t have any path that I want to go to. With my Divine Vision, what I can see through those four paths are limited. Just a tunnel going deeper.
"I"m kind of curious with the second path from the left. Let"s take that one," Celestine said.
"Graham and I will take the fourth path," Wendy said.
"Then, Shelia and I will take the third path, while Angela and Sara will go to the first path on the left," Candy said.
Everyone agreed with the arrangement. But before we enter the path, it"s best to use air magic on them all first in case they ran out of breath. We don"t know if the dungeon has been blocked or not on the other side.
"I"ll do it. Roy"s magic is more important than mine. His portal will be used a lot for this mission, so it"s best for him to reserve some mana. As for me, I"ll be going with Angela. She will take care of the fighting, while I only need to focus on supporting her and investigation," Sara said.
That"s good. This way, I can save more mana for when I use the portals. And in case some of them are in danger, I might need to use more portals than I thought. But I think they will be fine. Unless there"s a powerful master level mage on the way, they should be able to defeat anything in the way.
"How long will your magic help us breathe?" I asked Sara.
"Six hours."
"…That"s twice more than me. As expected, I"m not talented in magic despite being in the same level," I sighed.
"But you can use different types of gas that I don"t understand," Sara tried to console me.
"Yeah, but after I teach you later, you will understand to use it right away. Well, let"s just finish this job first so we can go home earlier," I said.
We split up into four group as arranged. If they are in trouble, they can just destroy a Blobby that I gave them. Victoria will receive the signal and I will know if they are in danger.. But if they can also get Sonia to inform us about what they find, and if they need our help.