"Master, should we fight it?" Leon asked Gapar for his opinion.
The Glintstone Dragon Smarag roared thunderously, but it kept circling high in the distant sky, unwilling to descend. It seemed to understand just how dangerous these humans were.
If this had happened before, Gapar would definitely have wanted to experience the thrill of hunting a dragon.
In ancient times, simply defeating a dragon was enough to make someone a hero.
If you slew a dragon and bathed in its blood, your deeds might even be written into legend and sung about by wandering bards.
But in modern times, because wyverns existed, the prestige of "dragon slaying" had dropped slightly.
Only four-legged dragons counted as true dragons.
Two-legged ones were merely impure-blooded wyverns.
But by that logic, Smarag should count as a two-legged wyvern as well.
Yet the feeling it gave Gapar was far stronger than those trash-tier wyverns.
So the question became awkward:
Did killing Smarag count as slaying a dragon… or not?
Gapar didn't answer.
He simply waved his hand, indicating he had no mood to fight right now.
Leon nodded immediately in understanding.
Coincidentally, he didn't want to fight either.
"Leave it to you," he said, handing the stink bomb to Stella.
She once again prepared to perform her "shooting a dragon with a bow" act.
Her archery movements were extremely focused, as if every second she spent practicing was helping her absorb experience.
The urgency in her actions made it seem as though she had stepped into an intense rhythm of training.
What had made her so eager to improve her archery?
Nothing major had happened in Bedford City recently.
"Rooaaar?"
Smarag had just mentally prepared to dive down and attack the humans when it suddenly noticed Stella preparing to fire something extremely unpleasant at it.
For the first time ever, humans witnessed a very human expression appear on a dragon's face—
Pure disgust.
Smarag flapped its wings and turned away.
It had absolutely no interest in fighting people who threw around feces and stink bombs.
What if its scales got dirty?
"Huh?"
Stella hadn't even fired her arrow yet, and the target had already turned around and flown away.
The sudden change was faster than a child switching moods.
After hesitating for a moment, she lowered her bow and burned the stink-coated arrow to ashes using a fire magic stone.
"Is that dragon really that intelligent?" Stella wondered.
"Well, it is a dragon," Leon chuckled.
"If it runs away when it sees stink bombs, maybe we can specialize in using smells against it in the future. That counts as strategy, right?"
Roger silently complained in his head:
If ordinary people tried copying your strategy, they'd probably just die horribly.
You really think the dragon left because it was disgusted?
Fortunately, Leon had only been joking.
He knew perfectly well that it was actually Gapar's intimidating presence—combined with the unpleasant stink—that convinced Smarag to leave.
Leon picked up the purple light that had appeared in the dragon's nest.
Sure enough—it was an Academy Glintstone Key.
Five slots.
There were four people in the team.
With Stella included, that made exactly five.
They could now open the gates of Raya Lucaria Academy.
At that moment, Gapar made his decision and told Tursey and the others his plan.
He would leave through the portal and travel from the ruins of Val City back to Bedford City.
There should still be Count Charon's soldiers stationed near the ruins handling the aftermath.
He could likely borrow some mount monsters from them.
From there it wouldn't take long to reach the city.
If Professor Set had come along, it would have been even easier.
One of Set's wind-attribute spells could transform magical power into a horse, which was much faster than ordinary mounts.
"Couldn't we go back through Liurnia of the Lakes to reach Bedford—"
Tursey stopped mid-sentence as she suddenly realized the problem.
They had entered Liurnia of the Lakes through a seal guarded by Carian Knights.
The seal allowed people to enter, but not leave.
And they hadn't even found the exact location of the seal anyway.
Maybe someday they would discover a fast route back to the city.
But right now, no one had found one.
Adventurers had only explored single-digit percentages of the Val Dungeon.
"Kind of a pain," someone muttered.
"It takes two or three days to travel back and forth."
"No," Leon replied.
"Only going back to Bedford takes time. If you want to come here, you can just enter through the Sein Dungeon."
After discussing the details, Gapar's group prepared to leave and said goodbye.
"Goodbye, Master!" Leon waved obediently like a well-behaved student.
If he were in school, he would definitely be a model student.
"I haven't guided your swordsmanship in a while," Gapar said just before fully stepping through the portal.
"When you return, come see me."
"I'll take you to fight the Golden Lion."
The Golden Lion?
Recently many people had been discussing that monster.
It must provide quite a thrilling battle.
Leon happily agreed, nodding like a woodpecker pecking a tree.
Before Gapar's group completely disappeared through the portal, Roger's voice echoed out.
"Hey! Once we get back and publish this information, we'll be the discoverers of a huge piece of intel!"
"Professor, if we compile all the findings here and sell them, we'll gain both fame and a lot of funding!"
"I'm not interested in that small amount of money," Tursey said flatly.
"Too troublesome. Do it yourself if you want," Gapar added without interest.
"…Alright, I'll handle it myself."
Hearing Roger's discouraged voice fade away, Leon couldn't help feeling a little sympathetic.
If Leon had been his teammate, he might have considered that suggestion.
But the Sword Saint and the professors operated on a much higher level than ordinary Silver-rank adventurers.
Things that seemed extremely important to them often meant nothing to powerful figures.
Suddenly Leon felt that Roger must be quite miserable in this team.
How had he even managed to join such a squad?
Then Leon suddenly remembered something.
Roger's plan probably wouldn't work anyway.
Even if he compiled information about Liurnia of the Lakes, it wouldn't cause much of a sensation.
Because—
Before Gapar's group arrived, two teams had already been here.
Besides Leon's team, the other one was Luluwo's team.
"Those guys probably already spread the news about Liurnia throughout the city," Leon said.
"They work extremely fast."
"Oh right—they're not called the Raid Team anymore. They changed their name."
Leon shook his head and stopped thinking about it.
"Let's go," he said to the others.
"We have our own mission."
They had rested well.
Now it was time to explore the academy.
The first time they came here, every single one of them had been ambushed horribly.
Terl had been shot full of holes by the giant lobster's water cannon.
Drew lost consciousness after being hit by Stupefy and Sectumsempra.
Maru got carried off by those creepy ghost enemies straight out of Dark Souls.
As for Leon himself…
He was too embarrassed to talk about it.
At that time, he had bought a brand-new shield—an excellent one that could easily block the slashes of soul-draining demons.
But in Liurnia, that shield shattered.
And Leon's life shattered along with it.
The culprit could be described in just two words—
A slap.
After that painful lesson, whenever Leon encountered ghost-type monsters in this lake region, he simply avoided them whenever possible.
Whoosh!
An arrow whistled through the air and blew apart the head of an Albinauric in the distance.
Brains splattered everywhere.
A golden stream of light flowed from the corpse and entered Stella's body.
This was the visual effect of obtaining a monster's soul.
But in the Sein Dungeon, absorbing souls had never produced any special effect before.
And why was it golden?
Souls were supposed to be white, weren't they?
Even Wade, the dungeon's creator, couldn't figure it out.
Maybe it was because Liurnia came from Elden Ring.
In that world, "souls" were actually Runes, which appeared as golden light.
Fortunately, the change didn't seem to cause any problems.
So it could be ignored for now.
"Wow, your archery is getting better and better," Maru praised.
She was always the team's morale booster.
Stella smiled slightly, a little proud.
But beneath that pride, there was also anxiety.
Not the life-or-death kind.
More like the anxiety of a student who suddenly remembered they hadn't done their homework just before the teacher checked.
Yes—
Homework panic.
For students, that kind of stress could feel worse than death.
"Your people would be shocked if they saw this," Maru said excitedly.
"There's nothing cooler than showing off in front of people who know you!"
Stella sighed.
Her long hair drooped weakly, giving her the appearance of a melancholy beauty.
The reason she was so anxious was simple.
People from the Elven Forest were coming.
More precisely—
Her relatives were coming.
Including sisters, cousins, aunts—basically a whole group that made her feel extremely awkward.
And the reason they were coming…
Was actually her own fault.
A month or two earlier, when Stella had first entered the mutated Sein Dungeon, she had been tortured by monsters like Crucible Knights and Basilisks until she nearly lost her sanity.
At that time, she had a dark thought:
If I'm suffering, others should suffer too.
So she wrote an invitation letter to the Elven Forest.
In the letter she described how horrible the dungeon was and how miserable she felt.
Then she listed many acquaintances she didn't get along with and praised their strength one by one.
Finally she revealed her real intention:
"Please come help me.
This hellish dungeon is killing me.
Please, brothers and sisters…"
And then she added:
"Anyone who doesn't come is a bastard!"
Whether it was the first sentence or the second that worked—
Her relatives actually came.
And all of them were people who had small grudges with her.
Not enemies exactly, but the type who couldn't resist teasing each other.
Obviously—
They came to watch her embarrass herself.
"When I didn't get a reply, I thought they weren't coming…"
When Stella later received a letter saying everyone was already on their way and asking her to arrange lodging, her expression had been completely stunned.
When she wrote the letter months ago, she had been driven by dark emotions.
But after calming down, that feeling disappeared.
For her now—
Being an adventurer was just a job.
The Sein Dungeon was basically her office.
If the elves from her hometown came here—
It would feel like your entire extended family suddenly visiting your workplace.
Utterly awkward.
Even though she hurriedly sent another letter asking them not to come, they were already halfway there.
So Stella had no choice but to accept the consequences of her own actions.
After thinking about it carefully, she decided she shouldn't trick them.
When they arrived, she would personally guide them through the dungeon along a safe route, treating it like a sightseeing tour.
Let them look around and then send them home quickly.
But choosing the route became another problem.
Many of her relatives were already old.
She couldn't take them to Farron Keep to breathe poison gas.
If safety was the goal, she could take them to the Gourmet Zone.
But that area was too safe.
They might mock her:
"So this is where you suffered so much?
Did the yellow rat kill you, or the garlic turtle?"
Absolutely unacceptable.
Stella still had the shy pride of a young girl.
She cared about saving face.
So the route had to be:
Not too dangerous.
But difficult enough to make her relatives understand the hardship of her job.
Deep down, she still wanted them to suffer a little.
But her morals restrained her.
Just when she was worrying about this—
Leon came to her.
He said they had discovered a new area and needed a ranger for scouting.
When Stella saw Liurnia of the Lakes under the moonlight, she gasped.
"It's beautiful… like the divine realm of the Moon God from legend."
She immediately decided:
Her relatives would visit Liurnia.
But first she had to scout it with Leon's team.
Otherwise she might get killed by traps herself.
Just imagine:
Her relatives struggling through a hellish dungeon while she calmly rescued them and explained every trap.
Her sense of pride and self-worth would skyrocket.
"I must completely understand this area," Stella muttered, clenching her fist.
"Come on, Stella. You can protect your dignity!"
The Battle to Protect Her Pride had officially begun.
Though…
There was one possibility she didn't want to consider.
Her dignity might have already disappeared the moment that letter reached the Elven Forest.
She refused to think about it.
Absolutely refused.
In short—
The Sein Dungeon, or rather the Val Dungeon, was about to welcome a new group of mana providers.
Elves were extremely rare.
Among adventurers, the most common races were humans and dwarves, followed by half-orcs.
Pure orcs were already rare.
Elves were even rarer.
You could say they were like SR-tier purple cards.
"Looks like the monsters have respawned," someone said.
While Stella had been lost in thought, the group had returned to the foot of the academy mountain.
Carian soldiers and flame chariots had already revived and rebuilt an impenetrable defense line.
"Everyone get ready," Leon said, drawing his sword.
"Now it's our turn to fight."
"We can't fall behind Master!"
"Charge!"
Their energetic shouts echoed as fierce battle erupted at the foot of the mountain.
---
Meanwhile, outside the Val Dungeon—
Gapar's group found the soldiers stationed there and borrowed several fast horses.
After a short rest, they rode straight toward Bedford without stopping.
"Heh… now it's my turn to be the strategy guide writer."
Bouncing on the horse's back, Roger wrote furiously.
He recorded everything he saw in Liurnia and the Magic Classroom.
From the general layout of the map to the number of hairs on a glintstone mage's legs.
Useful or not, he wrote down everything.
After all—
The more words there were, the more authentic the report would look!
Too bad his female wyvern Hathaway was sleeping at home.
Otherwise he could have flown back on dragonback.
But at the same time—
This news had already spread across Bedford.
People in the streets and alleys were all discussing the Magic Classroom and Liurnia of the Lakes.