Click. Clink. Click. Clink.
The sounds of tapping wooden soles and moving metal echo in the interior of an enclosed space. A company of a hundred warriors is wandering around the first floor of the newly discovered dungeon, led by Geoffrey and his party.
While the heroes' party is guided by Agatha's bright light magic spell, the ones behind are either lit by a few light spells or torches.
After passing the empty hallway, the group just descended through a five-meter-wide spiral stone staircase before landing on the first floor of the dungeon, which is below the black pyramid.
The staircase is quite deep, and they take a long time to see the end. The cartographer in the group speculates it to be a hundred meters deep. Once they reached the first floor, they felt the slight temperature increase.
Upon stepping foot on the first floor, the heroes' party finds themselves standing before another hallway, but this time each side is a hundred meters wide. Even the hero is stunned by how huge and spacious this dungeon can be.
"This is only the first floor... but this is too massive for a single floor..."
Everyone in the company peers up and looks at the astonishingly high stone ceiling. The hallway is so spacious that Agatha's light barely touches the top.
Just like the hallway on the surface, the walls, floor, and ceiling are made of these huge stone slabs, with each slab measuring two by one meters. The material is the same for every other dungeon: an extremely hard and durable black bedrock. It reportedly has to be indestructible and immune to magic. Not even Geoffrey's powerful strikes could scratch it.
"I have never seen a dungeon something this huge." One woman in the heroes' party voices her thoughts. "This even is probably larger than the deepest floor of the biggest dungeon in the kingdom.
"Hmm." Geoffrey nods in agreement. "That is undeniably true, Shirley."
The woman who just spoke is the support of the party. Her name is Shirley Dales. She has long, straight white hair and a petite build. She is clad in a white robe with blue and golden accents and equipped with a two-foot-long golden-colored scepter with a large blue gem on top held by four prongs.
She is specialized in healing and casting buffs on her colleagues. In terms of firepower, Shirley is not as powerful as Agatha, but she outclasses her in terms of mana reserve.
She is one of the most prominent clerics in the kingdom despite being the same age as Geoffrey. Shirley had shown potential from an early age due to her naturally large mana pool, and she was then scouted by the temple. Since she was born to a commoner family, Shirley took the temple's offer to help her family.
Shirley is not the party's support; she is also one of Geoffrey's childhood friends alongside David. She and the hero have always been close since they were young. In fact, Geoffrey's family also helps Shirley reach her potential.
Geoffrey and Shirley are so close that many thought that they were going to end up with one another until Geoffrey was hailed as the hero, which greatly enlarged the societal gap between them. A hero as big as Geoffrey marrying a mere commoner is not always a good sight to the eyes of the kingdom's nobility.
Deep within, even though they always failed to voice it, they are aware that they have feelings for each other. However, they mutually and nonverbally agreed to treat each other professionally to avoid the consequences.
If one were to confess, the news would spread like wildfire. If it reached the ears of the nobility, they would be highly likely to use their political power to separate the two and bombard Geoffrey with marriage proposals.
One of the reasons why Geoffrey accepts this mission is to have his party earn great achievement. If they were lucky enough, Geoffrey wanted to clear out the dungeon and make a settlement around it.
As per the kingdom's rule, Geoffrey may have a high chance of owning the dungeon once his party clears it. When that happens, Geoffrey would become a lord of a new territory, which means he could freely take a spouse of any origin.
But before he could do any of that, he had to fulfill his mission and find the Great Sorceress as soon as possible.
◆◇◆◇◆◇
"Let me take that one, Sir Hero!"
"Go on."
"Take this, you little piece of shit!"
A male adventurer charges at a monster, which is a regular three-foot-tall goblin, and pierces his spear into its chest.
"Shiek!!"
The adventurer lifts the skewed green monster before throwing it to an incoming slime. He next swings his spear to slit the throat of another one.
Still exploring the first floor, the hero, his party, the knights, and the adventurers are currently fighting a wave of monsters. They have been easily fending off these monsters for a few minutes so far.
As they explore, they discover that the first floor is a labyrinth-type of floor. There is only one passageway with opened rooms where monsters spawn. Currently, according to their scout, they are about to reach the staircase to the next floor.
Since the monsters spawning on this floor are low-level monsters like goblins, slimes, and mandrakes, the heroes and the knights are just walking peacefully as the adventurers clear the way for them. As they do, Russell, who is walking behind Geoffrey, continues his conversation with the hero.
"As expected, this floor is still relatively safe for experienced explorers and low-level adventurers. The Great Sorceress and the others must have been lost in the deeper floors."
"Yeah." Geoffrey replies. "Even though we could conclude that this dungeon is going to be a combination of labyrinths and mazes, we have yet to determine the size and the number of floors of this dungeon. It might be a lot bigger than we initially thought."
"Sir Hero, if this dungeon is going to be a lot bigger and more dangerous than any dungeon in the kingdom, do you think you would be able to get to the bottom?"
"That's a tough question, but..." Geoffrey then turns his face behind. "I have many reasons why not to do that, you know?"
Seeing the hero's gentle smile, Russell's doubts immediately lift off, and he smiles. "I see. You are as heroic as the tales, Sir Hero."
"Oh, really? If that's what you think."
Not long before they reach the end of the labyrinth and safely descend to the next floor.