And in another blink, Astor reappeared.

  “Geese, don’t do that man, we were panicked,” Bel said.

  Astor didn’t answer. Another low social interaction day? Who did he see this time? She looked down at the other parties around. She didn’t know who it could be but she hoped to at least have a clue about Astor’s situation.

  Pink. Pink group. It wasn’t them, for sure. But Bel was still avoiding them. If she could turn invisible, she’d do it Hopefully, they don’t notice her, as she hid her face, à la Astor. But they could still recognize her teammates.

  “Hey, let’s move, we spent too much time here,” she said.

  “What? But we barely—”

  “Let’s go!” She hurried, making barriers herself to flee away, forcing her party to follow. She stopped when her friends were too tired to keep up with her.

  They were still close to the ceiling, and numerous paintings were on it. All sorts of animals and some of them were monsters too, recognizable with their mana cores. It’d take hours to paint each of them. Truly amazing. Someone should turn this dungeon into a museum once it’s cleared. In fact they should befriend the dungeon core, maybe it was more intelligent than they thought.

  “What is that?” Cayn said, pointing at the abdomen of a hyena’s painting. It was a keyhole. A very tiny one, small enough to be mistaken for a crack from afar.

  She approached and touched it. Cold steel. If there is a keyhole, then that’s a door, right? If that’s a door then it's openable and there is something behind, right? She asked Cayn to make a barrier under her, replacing hers. Then she switched to [Warrior] and made the most powerful [Strike] she could with a punch.

  The ceiling came down, dusting all over Bel. She cleaned herself and looked up. An entrance. Wide open for them. She reached for it.

  “Wait! Wait, wait…” Cayn said. “We should ask for help first, it might be dangerous.”

  He was right, maybe they shouldn’t. She stopped her action and distanced herself.

  Astor ignored him and went right inside the room. Weird. Why would he do that? He just went ahead and did what Bel wanted to do deep down.

  “What now?” Bel asked Cayn.

  He replied, “Fine, let's go, but only for a short time and if anything dangerous comes, we run away, alright?”

  The monsters were docile anyways, might as well.

  She went in. The room was of a peerless white. Not even the shock from earlier dirtied it. And in the middle of it all, was Astor looking at something.

  She approached. “What did you find?” Round, on a pedestal. A core. dungeon’s core! No way, could it be an opportunity for her to acquire a title? “What do we do now? Do we take it?”

  Cayn stopped her from doing any further actions. “The instructions were clear. We find it, we inform about it. The rewards are ours, no need to hurry.”

  He was right, all they have to do now is to tell the strongest party about it and let them break it, the System will reward everyone involved in its destruction. They went back down, marking their way as they did so, to not lose track of it, continuing until they’d find another group to relay the message.

  “Where is everyone?” Bel asked.

  “It’s weirdly calm, maybe some monsters crawled back up and they retreated?” Cayn tried to guess. “It’s a good thing we stayed together instead of leaving someone in the room.”

  Bel wasn’t so sure about that, she wanted to stay near it to make sure of its location. But it was safer to search another party that way, so it was for the best.

  Noises came from afar. Skill names. Cayn was right, fighting was ongoing. Their priority was to inform about the dungeon core though, so they should sneak past the fights.

  “Blue-eyes, can you blur us?” Bel asked. No answer. “Astor?” He shook his head. Was he out of mana?

  Fights broke out everywhere around them. With no time, they got surrounded.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “What do we do?” she said.

  Cayn spoke, “Let’s ask people to make way for us.”

  They did so, and with time and efforts, a golden path opened for them. They hurried, as fast as possible.

  The strongest party was sitting in between the third and fourth floor, ready to join either in case of emergency. So considering that their floor was flooded with monsters, they should be somewhere there.

  “Where is the strongest party?” Bel asked to every person she came across. They all pointed to a certain position.

  Five persons, fighting the monsters with ease and perfect teamwork. It was them.

  “We found the dungeon core!” she yelled.

  Someone, supposedly their leader, dispatched three of them to follow Bel and co. Will it be enough to deal with the dungeon core? How does that even work anyways?

  Tracing their way back with ease, they came back to the white room’s entrance. All they had to do was deal with it for the monsters to lose their coordination and therefore stop the monsters’ breakout. Will she manage to get a title out of this? Maybe, today was the day she’d become a full-fledged Pink, maybe…

  One person took the dungeon core in his hands, slowly lifting it up from the pedestal. Then someone else started to analyze it. Bel supposed that they were looking for some kind of breach? Maybe a weak point? They eventually found something and the third person punched the core with [Strike]. Nothing happened.

  “It should have worked,” the one holding said.

  Bel just saw them simply punch it though, she could have done that.

  “Try again.” Another punch, nothing.

  Were they actually frauds? Like, incompetent?

  Punches continued to come, with no effect. The one that inspected it had enough and started using a skill Bel had never seen before. Maybe an [Archmage]’s skill, given the magical circles multiplying around the core.

  “Step back,” they told to Bel’s party. They did as told.

  And without any warning, the skill launched off, exploding the dungeon’s core. Smoke covered the whole room. Was it done yet? The smoke slowly moved away, revealing another room behind an exploded wall.

  The dungeon core was still intact on the ground, surprisingly. Bel tried to see what was in the other room. She switched to [Mage] and used wind magic to clear it up.

  Navy cloak with cat ears laid on the ground. Astor? Did he get caught in the blast? No way, he is right behind her— She turned in a split second and kicked the fake Astor. She knew it was a mimic by instinct.

  The mimic blew away then rapidly reshaped itself around the dungeon core, copying Bel’s appearance this time. How unsettling, it was a perfect copy of her, pink hair included.

  “Stop it,” the [Archmage] ordered everyone in the room.

  Cayn made a barrier to seal the white room’s entrance. It was a five versus one, with an unconscious Astor to rescue.

  The other [Warrior] dashed to it, unleashing another [Strike]. The mimic dodged it in an instant and retreated near Astor. The [Archmage] flinched for a moment, he was about to unleash a skill but couldn’t, Astor was in the way.

  Fake Bel looked at Astor. It understood. Taking Astor in its arms, it threatened them, “Move or he die.”

  What in the world. This monster could talk.

  They made a path for it and Cayn undid his barrier. Fake Bel ran and jumped down.

  “Follow it.”

  Bel was the first in the track. Ain’t no way that thing would run away with Astor under watch. The mimic took a strange route, it didn’t go toward the stairs, leading to the exit and the current chaos. Instead, it ran toward a place Bel hadn’t seen yet. Where was it going?

  The [Archmage], who was keeping up with her, used a skill and some rope-like material unleashed toward the mimic, aiming at its feet and untangling them. The monster fell, dropping Astor.

  “Get him,” the [Archmage] told her.

  She rushed while some barriers separated Astor from the monster. Probably Cayn’s work. Grabbing Astor, she talked to him, “Blue-eyes, wake up.” He showed no sign of response. He wasn’t dead, was he? She ran away, toward Cayn, and while doing so, checked his pulse. Weak.

  She put him down near Cayn, “Is he gonna be ok?”

  Cayn treated him.

  Bel stayed on the lookout for the mimic. It was still restrained by the other party but it looked like they didn’t know what to do with it. They should just blast it into nothingness.

  Astor coughed, slowly rising up.

  “Take it easy,” she said.

  Cayn spoke, “Once you are feeling better, we will have to find a safer place.”

  It’s true, they were still in the core’s abode after all. Monsters could come running over them at any moment, in fact, some should be on the way.

  A loud noise resounded from afar. Tall minotaur, horns scratching the ceiling. No mistaking, it must be the dungeon’s boss and it came here to the rescue. It precipitated toward its master’s restrainers.

  “We have to move, now!” Bel yelled.

  The trio ran to the nearest wall and protected themselves with three layers of [Protection].

  The minotaur tossed the other party with a simple backhand. And with the other hand, grabbed the mimic, dungeon core included. It then ran past Bel’s party, wrecking everything in its way. Two layers of [Protection] broke. They waited for the boss to be long gone before removing it.

  Bel stepped out first to assess the damages. On one side, the strongest party was recovering. On the other side, the many parties and monsters that were fighting were completely devastated. People supported each other while some were knocked out, perhaps even dead.

  Cayn was the first to run toward the injured, with no hesitation. Astor, who barely recovered, followed him. Bel had to keep up, that was no time to be shocked.

  The first party they encountered was the Pink group. Out of everyone… Cayn healed the heavily injured woman while Astor took care of the girl, which left Bel with the man.

  They exchanged no words. Just the light of [Heal] and the deafening silence provoked by the dungeon’s boss.

  “Thank you,” he said, after she healed him. A screen appeared.

  [Monk] class acquired.

  Of course he had the same class as her father, of course.

  The man went to his teammates, worrying for the injured woman. Half of her body was missing. But Bel was confident in Cayn’s prowess; he will keep her alive with no fail. He was competent enough to face a dungeon, unlike herself.