As the party walked out onto the dungeons first floor, the confining tower walls disappeared completely. Instead, they were met with a vast grassy plain and open skies above their heads. A ball of pure light mana flew high in the sky, illuminating the space.
The edge of the plains were marked by an unceremonious drop straight into nothingness. When seen from the outside, the first floor was nothing more than a city sized rock floating in an enormous void.
"Are we still in the dungeon?" Anna asked.
"Probably. Researchers are still trying to figure out if dungeons use magic to distort the space inside them, or if they take you somewhere else entirely." Lena answered casually as she watched their shocked expressions, a soft smile growing on her face.
Even as a veteran who had seen it a thousand times, the sight still amazed her.
"The first floor is pretty straight forward. The only monsters here are Dono birds and Bavalts, and as you can see the exit is right in front of us." Lena said.
She points to a staircase on the far side of the field that ascends to nowhere.
"Since this is floor one, we'll let you two go at it alone. We'll only step in if you get in trouble. Whenever you're ready." She explained as she stepped back while gesturing them forward.
With a deep gulp, Reid readies his spear. He nods to Anna. She studied his expression for a moment before giving a small nod in return. The girl moved forward, taking point in their two-man formation.
With their formation set, they moved forward. The short grass of the open plain left very little area for monsters to hide. In the distance they could see monsters all around them. Most were over 500 meters away, too far for monsters to notice or care about their presence. Directly in their path, however, was a group of three Bavalts only 200 meters away.
The creature's heads all perked up at the same time and turned sharply toward the young hunters. The Bavalts, an advanced species of Balt that were slightly larger and more aggressive, pawed at the ground as they prepared to charge. Air began to whip around the beasts before they suddenly shot forward.
"Same as last time?" Reid asks for confirmation.
"Not exactly, it would be an inefficient use of my mana to create three separate stone pillars. Instead…" Amadeus explained his plan quickly as the Bavalts continued their charge.
"Got it!" Anna replied.
The advanced D rank monsters closed the distance between them at a terrifying pace. The force their large frames could generate at full speed was enough to trample trees. A full horde of the creatures have been known to level entire forests.
As the beasts got within 50 meters of the hunters Reid dropped down and placed a hand on the ground. Two runic magic circles rushed forward, a simple white geometric patterns in the first and a complex brown arrangement close behind.
The white rune ignited first, causing a sheet of ice to spread forth in a giant patch on the ground. The Bavalts were unable to stop themselves mid charge and ran straight onto the slippery ground. The hooves of the massive bison like creatures could find no traction and began to stumble dramatically, threatening to fall at any moment.
The complex brown rune ignited shortly after. A massive earthen spike shot from the ground, directly in front of the middle Bavalt, whose momentum carried it forward with lethal intent. The sharpened earth easily pierced its hide and drove straight through, effectively skewering the giant monster.
The remaining two Bavalts weren't able to keep their footing amidst the slick ice. Their feet were swept out from underneath, causing them to crash hard on their side. The massive creatures roared while trying to return to their feet, but their hurried pace wasn't enough as they could already feel enemies closing in.
Reid rushed the monster to the left. He ran in a wide arc, positioning himself to be directly in front of the beasts face. The ground shook as he slammed his feet into the earth with spirit energy and stared directly into the Bavalt's eyes. The beast shook its head violently as it realized the impending danger. Reid took a moment to charge his weapon before thrusting his spear straight into the creature's skull, killing it instantly.
At the same time, Anna rushed the other monster. She pushed past its exposed underbelly and went for the head, slashing the neck as she passed before retracting her spear back and thrusting it into the creature's eye. She went to rip her weapon out of the beast, but almost stumbled from a lack of resistance as the creature was already turning to ashe.
Two novice hunters had just fought three D rank monsters, and after a short few seconds of combat, the only things remaining were ashes and monster cores.
"They weren't kidding when they said they have potential." Ida commented.
"No kidding. If they keep this up, we can retire even earlier than we thought!" Lena noted with glee while revealing her true intentions.
After picking up the monster cores, the young hunters continued forward. They encountered more Bavalt's as they went, but they weren't grouped like the first three had been. With only a single enemy charging at a time, they decided to switch their strategy to conserve Amadeus' mana reserves.
Their new strategy was simple. Anna would draw its attention while Reid would attack the distracted creature. The girl's quick and fluid movements made her the perfect candidate to dodge the charge, while Reid's powerful burst of spirit energy would allow him to deal devastating damage.
Reid moved to be directly behind Anna as the monster began to move. Wind flowed through the beast as it rushed forward. The young girl held her ground, drawing more and more spirit energy into her spear. The weapon began to glow with a dull blue light as her water element manifested.
When the Bavalt was only meters away, Anna made her move. She took a quick step to the right, shifting her weight and launching a full powered slash. As her spear impacted the creature's horn, her spirit energy followed. A torrent of blue wisps crashed into the beast with the force of a raging river. The horn shattered and the spear followed through and slashed the beasts skull. Blood splattered from the gauged flesh.
The momentum of her powerful strike caused Anna to spin. With carefully placed steps, she took advantage of the movement to dodge out of the Bavalt's path. At the same time, the massive force caused the monster to veer left, involuntarily. It lost a considerable amount of momentum as it shook its head, trying to recover. Unfortunately, it was now the boy's turn.
The Bavalt had no idea Reid was waiting behind the girl, like a deadly shadow waiting for his opportunity to strike. With the creature slowed and distracted he made his move. His spear shot forward with lethal accuracy. His target; the open gash on the beasts head. The weapon found its mark and penetrated the damaged flesh with ease. The monster jerked its head back at the last second, narrowly avoiding a fatal blow.
The heavily wounded monster crashed into the ground as blood spewed from its head. It began thrashing its limbs wildly. The boy stepped forward without mercy, preparing to end the dying creature. He approached from its exposed flank and drove his spear deep into the beast's neck. Blood splattered the boy as the light faded from the monster's eyes. A moment later, it turned to ashe.
"Aww man!" Reid shouted. "I just got soaked! How bad is it?" He asked while Anna walked up.
"Oohh… Well we were going to have to do laundry anyway so…" Her face cringed while looking at his gear.
"Dammit…" He says while his body deflates.
"Just kidding! There's no blood on you at all. Probably disintegrated along with the monster." Anna explains with a big grin on her face.
He stops for a second before looking down to check for himself. Just as she said, there was no blood at all.
He lets out a small chuckle before he starts. "You got me."
He leans down to pick up the monster core before continuing.
"Ready to keep going."
"Yeah." She answered in a flat tone.
The boy's underwhelming reaction was disappointing. Anna didn't know it, but years of verbal abuse as a child had made Reid virtually immune to those kinds of pranks. Though, if she did know, she wouldn't have teased him that way in the first place.
"I really wanted to see his cute reaction… Is flirting really the only way to make him react?" The girl wondered.
By the time they were closing in on the stairway to the next floor, they had slain six Bavalts in total. The average hunting party on the first floor, usually consisting of four D rank hunters, would only be able to slay eight monsters in a single dive. In that regard, Reid and Anna were well above average, although the dive hadn't been easy by any means.
Sweat started to bead on their foreheads as their breaths had become more labored. Their strategy had been working well, but it was taking a lot of physical stamina to maintain. Especially for Anna, since it required her to channel and expel a large amount of elemental spirit energy with every encounter. Her current reserves were less than half of her normal capacity, when combined with her physical exhaustion, her combat potential dropped significantly.
They began discussing ways to adjust their strategy to take some of the brunt away from Anna when Reid suddenly stopped. He held up his hand to signal the others to stop as well.
The boy took a deep breath while closing his eyes. He focused on his ears, listening for any small vibration in the world around him. With their conversations done and footsteps stopped, the noise became obvious to him. There were four creatures approaching from their 10 o'clock. They were about fifteen meters away, advancing slowly but surely.
"There are four of them sneaking up. Get some spells ready, we're gonna take them by surprise." Reid instructed Amadeus.
"I'll have four copies of flare and bolt ready. I'll determine which spell to use once they get close enough to see them with soul sense." Amadeus replied.
The veteran hunters sat in the back, wondering what they were waiting for. There weren't any Bavalts for at least 200 meters, and at that distance the creatures wouldn't aggro onto them. They had yet to see any Dono birds, but the large flightless birds were always easy to find because they screeched constantly to announce their presence and mark their territory.
Just as Lena moved to ask Reid why he stopped them, four complex yellow runic circles appeared in an arc arranged above the boy. They ignited the moment they fully materialized, each circle sending a bolt of electricity racing toward the plains. The bolts were small, but their speed was incredible.
In the blink of an eye, the four bolt's had hit their mark's. From the seemingly normal grass, four silhouettes shot up as they shrieked in pain. Strange birdlike creatures, with feathers dyed a light green that matched the plains below, writhed in pain from the electric shock.
"Camo Dono's!" Lena shouted as her eyes went wide.
The Dono's had just regained control of their bodies when Reid arrived in front of them. The boy thrust his spear at the closest bird, impaling and killing it instantly. The dono closest to the first prepared to counterattack, wreathing its large angled beak in wind magic. With its weapon ready it charged forward like a drill, while it's two allies in the rear attempted to run around and flank the boy.
The monster's beak was too slow as Reid easily sidestepped and brought his spear down onto its extended neck, decapitating it. At the same time two complex red magic runes appeared overhead. They each ignited to launch a concentrated ball of fire at the flanking birds. The dono's saw the approaching ball of fire out of the corner of their eyes but were helpless to stop it. They tried to wreath their entire bodies in wind magic, but the fireballs were too dense and penetrated straight through.
The flare spell detonated with pop, like a playful firework, but the effect was anything but. The force of the impact threw the dono's to the ground as a fist sized hole ran deep into their flanks.
Anna arrived a moment later, but it was already over. The ambushers had been beaten at their own game as the four short flightless birds dissolved into ashe.
"You could've told me we were going in." Anna complained.
"Sorry, I didn't want to lose the element of surprise by talking." Reid replied.
"Then why not have Amadeus tell me the plan telepathically?" She asked.
"I… Oh…" He stopped and put a hand to his chin.
He realized she was right. Why hadn't he included her in the plan?
"Sorry, I didn't even think about that. I guess I was too focused on my own moves that I forgot about the party. My bad." He apologized again.
"Good assessment!" Lena called out from behind Anna.
"It's important to realize and admit your own mistakes. Just make sure you learn from them. If this had been a more serious threat and you acted on your own like that, you could have put the whole party in danger." Her criticism was harsh but fair.
"Yeah. My bad." The wolf ears on top of his head droop down onto his head.
"Don't take it too hard kid. It's your first day, you're gonna make mistakes. That's why we're here, so you can make mistakes, get in trouble, and still have us to keep you safe and bail you out!" Ida explained.
"Besides," he continued, "You just kicked some ass! You can at least take pride in that, right?"
"Yeah. I guess I can." He replied as his ears popped back up.
"By the way Reid, how did you know there were enemies closing in?" Lena asked.
"Oh, I thought I heard some rustling, so I had everyone stop so I could listen for it more clearly." He replied.
"Are you serious? Camo Dono's make almost zero noise when they move. They can manipulate the wind magic around their body's to muffle any sounds they would produce."
"Oh, well I didn't hear them exactly. I heard the grass as it was shifting around." His reply was calm, as if he hadn't just said something ridiculous.
Everyone present stared at the boy.
"What?"
"Reid, I couldn't hear grass shifting if my ear was right next to it. Do you realize how insane it is to hear it from that far away!" Anna tried speaking some sense into her partner.
"Yeah, I know, but think about it this way. Originally, my only talent was enhanced senses, so of course they would be extra enhanced."
"Huh. In a way, that kind of makes sense." The girl admitted.
"If that's the case your potential as a scout is first class." Lena explained.
The elf woman looked over to the staircase in front of the party.
"We're almost at the second floor now. When we get to the staircase we'll take a break. It'll be short, since we won't be waiting for you two to regen your mana and spirit."
"Why not? Shouldn't we be at full strength to take on the next floor?" Anna was confused by the decision that seemed to violate the fundamentals of hunting her previous hunters had drilled into her.
"Because you two won't be fighting. Ida and I are gonna take over. Think of it as our chance to show off a little." The woman answered with a wicked grin.