บท 23: In For It
"Did you hear that?" a girl whose orange hair was haphazardly tied into a ponytail stuck her ear out.
"Hear what?" Another girl of similar stature, but with slicked back blonde hair, revealing a big forehead questioned her with a sigh.
"Clack, clack, clack?"
"Clack? What do you mean clack? Like something falling? Like a door?" the word used to describe the noise was rather broad indeed.
"Huuuh, like clapping, but with hard things?" the red-headed girl's poor usage of her gift to express herself wasn't doing much to help her case.
"That's- That's what clack means" the blonde girl rubbed her temples with her worn out gloves.
"Do you still hear it?" a third person joined the conversation, a woman dressed in a purplish robe that had seen better days, she didn't seem much older than the other two, if at all, but she certainly had a more mature presence.
"No, it suddenly stopped" the one with a ponytail was called Cassi, it wasn't a nickname, or rather, everyone, including herself and her parents, had forgotten what her full name actually was.
As for the one with the big forehead, her name was Lynn, with two N's because her parents believed that it looked cooler.
"So anyways, instead of making up sounds, why don't you explain what the hell this is?" Lynn gestured at the recently uncovered entrance of what appeared to look like a more than mundane cave.
"Indeed, you are the one who dragged us all here Cassi, it wasn't to show off a cool cave and suggest that we make a base in it I hope, you are a bit old for such things" Cassi coughed at the words spoken by the one wearing a robe.
The woman in a robe had messy short brown hair, as though an entire team of dedicated professionals was put in charge of making certain it looked like her way of combing her hair was getting shocked by electricity.
Her name was Eppie and she was the unfortunate leader of this group of four adventurers.
Though that implied that they went on adventures, which was as far removed from the truth as was possible.
Them and other adventurers for that matter, were more like a bunch of idiots ready to do any odd jobs, and sometimes do adventurer stuff.
Clearing her throat, Cassi smiled proudly and proceeded to also gesture toward the cave.
"Ladies, this here is no ordinary cave-" she paused to think of what she was going to do next, her presentation sounded much cooler and definitely more fluid in her head "-It's a special cave, wait, what's the word again?"
She closed her eyes for a second, then another, and another…
"Dungeon?" Lynn's eyes brightened up as she threw her guess.
"Yes! That thing!" Cassi slapped her thigh in excitement.
"A dungeon? Are you certain? Why did you bring us here then? We have to report it to the guild first" Eppie rubbed her chin and put one hand on her waist, questioning the content of Cassi's skull, a question she had asked herself every single day since she had come to know this girl.
The redhead's expression sank as she began to wave her arms around like a drunk octopus.
"I mean-! I thought we could just take a look around, you know, just accidentally step in and find some treasure, you know, by just hanging around a dungeon, like normal adventurers do" weaving an excuse so fast caused her to bite her own tongue.
"We don't have the equipment to evaluate its danger though, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea to snoop around without authorisation but what if it's a dungeon filled with monster's too powerful for us?" Eppie reasoned using her common sense, a devastating weapon Cassi couldn't parry.
Lynn made an 'Mmmh' noise whilst staring in the direction of the dungeon entrance.
"Well, can't you use a spell or something to sense the dungeon's mana level or something? I was told that it was possible to make a rough estimation based on this" the blonde girl countered with her own insight.
Truth was, Eppie would rather not enter any dungeon that hadn't been explored by others first, she had never visited any herself, but she knew that those places could either be a walk in the park or a manifestation of hell times three.
Her and her whole two fire spells didn't feel confident dealing with anything that could be found in there.
She couldn't argue against a fact she knew herself, so she just closed her eyes and focused on sensing the surrounding mana.
Beginning by excluding her own mana signature and the faint ones of her three friends, she slowly worked her way toward the cave, excluding the ambient wild mana based on its elements until she could only sense what lay beyond the entrance of the dungeon.
"..."
Eppie was self-taught, and had a rather poor talent as a mage, so she always took her time when possible.
To the other two girls, it always looked like their leader had just passed out standing.
"Nothing" after a bit less than ten minutes, the mage came out with her findings.
"This dungeon is dry of any of its own mana, all that is to be found in there is natural ambient mana that found its way in, I barely detected any signatures coming from rats, it has no monsters" she sighed in defeat, Eppie could have just played the card that she couldn't sense anything because the dungeon was just that good.
However, it was so unlikely that she kept it to herself.
The place inside was ancient and decrepit, it seemed more like whoever or whatever had once gotten this dungeon running had died off, leaving only an empty structure the children from nearby cities and villages would come to get a fright or play stupid games.
"Alright then, we're going in!" Cassi jumped in place like an excited puppy under the judgemental eyes of Lynn.
"Hold on, let's ask Tahnee how she feels about this" Eppie still had one more way of not setting foot in there however.
Slumped like a bag of rocks against a tree, their fourth members had been sleeping this entire time.
The three of them could only wish they could fall asleep as easily as Tahnee could, it was like she could just switch on and off.
The moment her name was called, the fourth girl in question woke up.
With long blonde hair that had accumulated a fair bit of rocks and leaves from her habits of sleeping on the ground, she was definitely taller than most, taller than most men actually.
She didn't say anything as per usual and just headed for the dungeon, she was in for it, much to Eppie's disappointment.
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