Ren cursed out loud when he saw Hestia barge into his perception range once again. That idiot was heading straight for him!
"Quick, quick, quick! Bite down on your potion bags and drink while you run! That girl is catching up!" Ren urged, immediately breaking into a sprint while cursing up a storm in his head.
*What the hell? Did Hestia notice us? Is that why she's running this way? You've got to be kidding me!* Ren wanted absolutely nothing to do with this mess.
Seeing Ren bolt again, Asuna and the other two girls were dumbfounded. Not daring to be careless, they hastily bit down on their potion bags, cast [Lightness Technique], and quickly chased after him.
"Wait for me! Help! Don't run away!" As they fled, Asuna heard a young girl's voice calling out from behind them, causing the three girls to falter for a moment.
"Don't look back, just run! Ignore her! She's got a massive horde of monsters tailing her, and they're from the deeper floors!" Ren had naturally heard the cries as well, turning his head to shout a warning to Asuna and the others.
Hearing this, Asuna and the girls turned green in the face. No wonder Ren had instantly chosen to flee. Monsters from the deeper floors? How the hell were they supposed to fight that?
Gritting their teeth, the three of them put on a burst of speed. Catching up to Ren, Asuna anxiously asked, "She keeps following us! What should we do?"
Running like this wasn't a sustainable solution. They would eventually run out of stamina. They needed a plan fast, or they might all meet their end here today.
Hearing Asuna's words, Ren took a deep breath, channeled True Qi through his entire body, and roared at the top of his lungs, "Sensei, help! The monsters are rioting!!!"
Amplified by his True Qi, his voice echoed throughout the sixth floor. In mere moments, many people heard Ren's shout, causing the expressions of Shizuka Hiratsuka and the other teachers to instantly change.
Shin-sensei instantly pushed his perception abilities to the maximum, quickly locking onto Ren's location. Through his senses, he also spotted the young girl being hunted by the monster horde.
Upon seeing this stranger, Shin-sensei's expression became quite colorful. Her attire... she clearly wasn't from this world. Was she a human native to the Dungeon? Or someone from another world entirely?
Regardless, the situation had already spiraled out of their control. Shin-sensei made a split-second decision. "Jin-sensei, go gather the rest of the students. Hiratsuka-sensei and I will go support Ren."
With that, he dashed forward, taking the lead. Seeing this, Shizuka followed closely behind. Jin-sensei pushed up his glasses, drew his magic staff, cast [Lightness Technique] on himself, and vanished from his spot.
He headed straight for the other students. Fortunately, they hadn't wandered too far apart, otherwise rounding them up would have been a massive headache.
Back on Ren's side, he immediately sensed the perception ability sweeping over him. Having locked onto their position, Ren spoke in a low voice to Asuna and the others, "Follow me. The teachers are coming."
With that said, he rapidly mobilized his True Qi. Using his bodily control talents, he concentrated all of it into his fist. Locking onto a specific direction, he charged forward and threw a devastating punch.
In front of him was a wall, and a rather thick one at that. Although Ren could have taken a detour, he chose to take a straight line!
After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. He didn't want to waste time running around. While he could endure the extra distance, Asuna and the girls would definitely die of exhaustion, and that walking disaster behind them would catch up.
*Boom!* Ren's fist slammed into the wall. In an instant, terrifying power erupted, completely blowing through the obstacle in front of him. Covered in a layer of True Qi, Ren charged right through the rubble.
Watching Ren's brute-force method, Asuna and the other two were utterly stunned. *Good lord, if a punch like that hit us, we'd be coughing up blood on the spot...*
Yukino, in particular, was reminded of the time Ren had punched her in the stomach... It gave her a lingering psychological trauma regarding this guy's fists.
"Let's go!" Megumi was the most level-headed of the bunch. She called out and hurriedly followed Ren, chasing after him through the newly made path.
From then on, Ren acted as the vanguard, carving a path straight through the Dungeon while Asuna and the others followed closely behind. For the walls that were too tough to break in one punch, he simply threw two.
This wanton destruction seemed to draw the Dungeon's ire, as monsters began spawning continuously right in front of Ren. Facing these creatures, Asuna and the other two girls charged forward and swiftly dispatched them, clearing the space so Ren could continue breaking through walls.
Ren and his group steadily made their way toward Shizuka and the others. This scene was observed by Shin-sensei, making him suspicious. *Could it be that Ren also possesses perception abilities?*
Otherwise, how could he so easily lock onto their exact location? Though he had many questions, seeing Ren's brute-force tactics gave Shin-sensei an idea.
"Hiratsuka-sensei, this way! Straight ahead!" Shin-sensei pointed at a spot in front of them and shouted. The next moment, Shizuka enveloped herself in True Qi and charged forward, tackling the wall head-on!
With a loud *crash*, Shizuka's impact forcefully smashed a tunnel right through the stone. Without pausing for even a second, she continued her forward charge.
Shizuka's wall-demolishing speed was much faster than Ren's. Because of this, it didn't take long for the two groups to converge. Seeing Shizuka and Shin-sensei, Ren finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The two teachers rushed up and, without looking back, charged straight past them toward the rear. As Shin-sensei passed by Ren, he quickly ordered, "Take over for Jin-sensei. Lead the rest of the students up to the fifth floor."
Hearing his instructions, Ren nodded. Without looking back, he led Asuna and the girls down the tunnel Shizuka had just carved out.
The four of them could finally relax a little. *That was terrifyingly close.* Ren just hoped Shizuka and Shin-sensei could handle the swarm. The group quickly evacuated the area, and it wasn't long before Ren sensed Jin-sensei's location.
Ren hurriedly led Asuna and the others over to regroup. By the time they reached Jin-sensei, all the other students had already gathered there.
Seeing Ren's group arrive, Jin-sensei quickly said, "Ren, take everyone back to the fifth floor. I'm going to support Shin-sensei and the others."
His thought process was clearly the same as Shin-sensei's. After saying his piece, he vanished. Seeing this, Ren turned to the rest of the class. "Let's go. We're heading up."
With that, Ren took the lead, guiding them back toward the fifth floor. They weren't far from it to begin with; Ren could already sense the entrance.
The students still had no idea what was going on, but seeing how urgent both Jin-sensei and Ren were, they didn't ask any questions and hurriedly followed Ren back up to the fifth floor.
Meanwhile, Shizuka and Shin-sensei had already intercepted Hestia. The goddess, who had been relentlessly pursued, was now shielded behind the two teachers.
Although Shizuka and Shin-sensei didn't know what this young girl's deal was, the fact that she had appeared from within the Dungeon meant this was no trivial matter.
Not to mention, she seemed to be from another world. Either way, she warranted their full attention. Shin-sensei, in particular, sensed an incredibly terrifying power radiating from Hestia. It was a power he wasn't unfamiliar with—it was divine power!
However, it seemed her power had been self-sealed? There was no doubt about it; there was something up with this girl, something major.
The strongest monsters hunting Hestia were only at the Tier 4 level; they hadn't actually come from the deep floors. It was just that their sheer numbers were overwhelming, which was exactly why Ren had chosen to run away immediately.
If there had been fewer monsters, Ren would have just fought them head-on. But with numbers like that, staying behind would have been a losing battle. After all, getting dragged down and killed by a war of attrition would be way too embarrassing.
Hestia had been chasing Ren the entire time, and the monsters had been chasing Hestia. The tunnel Ren had punched out wasn't actually that wide.
It was fine for Hestia to pass through, but it posed a massive bottleneck for the pursuing monsters. In a way, this inadvertently blocked off a large portion of the horde for Hestia.
It also provided Shizuka and Shin-sensei with an excellent tactical chokepoint. The two of them only needed to block the tunnel entrance, standing their ground and continuously slaughtering the monsters that funneled through.
Hestia, meanwhile, sat slumped on the ground, panting heavily. *I'm finally saved.* Her anxious heart finally settled down.
Just then, Jin-sensei arrived on the scene. Seeing him, Shin-sensei immediately called out, "Hiratsuka-sensei, take her back upstairs and get out of here! Leave the rest to us."
Hearing Shin-sensei's words, Shizuka nodded. She stepped back from the frontline, letting Jin-sensei take her place, and walked over to Hestia. Scooping the goddess up into her arms, she said, "Hold on tight."
Before Hestia could even process what was happening, she was being carried as Shizuka broke into a wild sprint. Instinctively, Hestia wrapped her arms around Shizuka's neck.
"Um, excuse me..." Being carried at such high speeds, Hestia looked up at Shizuka, wanting to ask something, but she was immediately cut off.
"Don't speak yet. I'm taking you upstairs first. We can talk later," Shizuka interrupted. She had figured it out by now—this young girl was being hunted by the entire Dungeon.
Because monsters were already spawning right in front of her, and they were charging straight for them—or more accurately, straight for the Hestia in her arms.
Facing these low-level monsters, Shizuka didn't even bat an eye. With True Qi surging around her body, she charged right through, kicking them away one by one without breaking stride as she continued toward the fifth floor.
"What exactly is going on, Ren?" Back on Ren's side, he had already led the students to the fifth floor. One of the students couldn't hold back anymore and stepped forward to ask.
"A loli spawned in the Dungeon, and she's being chased by monsters. Way more than the ones we fought yesterday," Ren replied, glancing at the student and giving a simplified version of events.
Hearing Ren say that a loli had spawned in the Dungeon, everyone was a bit bewildered. *What the hell? The Dungeon can spawn lolis?* Quite a few of the male students even had their eyes light up.
After all... lolicons existed everywhere. They had truly never imagined that the Dungeon could spawn lolis. Wasn't that just fantastic?
"Tch, lolicons!" Seeing the boys' reactions, some of the girls in the class glared at them as if they were looking at degenerates. *Their eyes light up the moment a loli is mentioned, huh?*
"Nonsense! We're not lolicons, we just like petite girls!!" Faced with their classmates' slander, the boys naturally had to defend themselves. *We just like them small, how does that make us lolicons?!*
"So what do we do now?" Asuna spoke up at this moment. With such a massive incident happening below, continuing their exploration was no longer realistic.
As someone who had been running away alongside Ren, the sheer number of those monsters had left a deep impression on her. It was absolutely not something they could handle right now.
"We wait. What else can we do? We wait for the teachers to clear out those monsters," Ren said, sitting down directly on the ground and pulling out a Red Potion to recover. "What I'm most afraid of is that even more monsters are spawning further down."
*What a joke.* A deity had appeared in the Dungeon, causing the entire place to riot. It was highly likely that the people exploring the deeper floors were currently facing a life-threatening crisis.
The best course of action right now was to leave immediately. However, he couldn't say that out loud. If he shared this information, he wouldn't be able to explain how he, Ren Isana, knew about such things.
The Dungeon had only just appeared, yet he knew so much about it? That would definitely raise suspicions. Because of this, it was best to just play dumb.
Hearing Ren's words, the crowd nodded. Everyone sat down on the ground and began to rest and recover. Asuna, Megumi, and Yukino, in particular, were completely exhausted.
After drinking both Red and Blue Potions, the group entered a state of meditation. As for the other students who were still in good condition, they took the initiative to stand guard and keep watch over the surroundings.
About ten minutes later, Shizuka finally returned to the fifth floor. Carrying Hestia, she headed straight for Ren and the others.
Ren's group hadn't gone very far, choosing to stay near the passage leading down to the sixth floor. Furthermore, Ren had kept his perception abilities active the entire time.
Because of this, Ren was the first to notice the two of them approaching. He also noticed... the spawning monsters. Seeing monsters spawn like they were free the moment Shizuka stepped onto the fifth floor, Ren felt completely numb.
"Let's go! Everyone, evacuate the Dungeon! Do not linger here, we need to get outside first!!" Shizuka had naturally noticed the spawning monsters as well. Running over to Ren's group, she ordered everyone to retreat.
The monsters in this Dungeon were acting far too strangely. The spawn rate was absurdly high. If she wasn't mistaken, it was entirely because of the young girl she was carrying.
Setting Hestia down, Shizuka told her, "Follow these people. I'll cover the rear." She then turned to Ren. "Ren, get her out of here safely!"
Although Shizuka didn't know this girl's background, the most important thing right now was to get her outside. Once they were out, someone would naturally handle the situation.
"Understood. Follow me!" Ren agreed without hesitation, though he was a bit reluctant. After all, bringing this walking disaster along guaranteed they'd run into a ton of trouble.
Hestia also understood the severity of the situation. She knew better than anyone how much trouble her presence in the Dungeon would cause, especially since... she had used a bit of divine power when she first arrived...