"Oh you four are so pathetic that you want to steal our loot? After following us?" The curly-haired girl at Julia's party shouted at the other group.
"Please, Marshal got the final kill on the beast. It is rightfully his. Besides if you aren't aware, these tunnels often cross each other. We did not follow you." Codrol said as a man with a bob cut posed upon being mentioned.
"Yes, I intend to give this rare drop to Luna." Marshal said holding out a ring. Magical jewelry from basic monsters like bugs was rare, especially on the first trip through the dungeon. It made sense why the two groups were butting heads over this.
"Might I remind you that you are insulting three A ranks?" The purple-haired girl said, "Are you all so stupid as to not only insult our families but the entire system of this academy?"
"So now you're threatening us with your power? Typical." Codrol said with a scoff.
All the while this argument was occurring, Archer noticed how Luna hid behind the four men. For the most part, she was simply watching and smiling. However occasionally there was a flash in her eyes and a look of fear would appear on her face. She would tremble, reach out and look to say something, only to immediately clamp down and suddenly have a look of disgust on her face.
As the two groups argued, another group approached, this time led by Annaxia Tori. Archer could only watch as they approached. He really hated watching this mess play out. Especially when he now had an idea of what was occurring. But in his position, he needed to play it slow and gather more information, be smart about this.
"Julia. Are you using your status against other less fortunate again? How shameful." Annaxia said feigning shock.
"Annaxia." The curly-haired girl spat.
"Oh, Reniece. Acting as Julia's hanger-on again? Trista, you as well? How you two never change." She said smiling at them.
"We're leaving. Keep the ring." Julia said abruptly.
"Julia-" Trista tried to say but was quickly interrupted.
"We're leaving." Julia said with a dark look on her face. Immediately the other two clammed up and followed her as she left.
"They didn't cause any problems did they?" Annaxia said to Codrol after Julia left.
"No. No issues. I appreciate the help." Codrol said courteously.
"Of course." Annaxia said before turning to Luna, "Don't worry about them. If they give you trouble I'll help." She said smiling at her.
"Thank you." Luna said smiling back at her.
Annaxia stumbled upon Julia and Luna's group arguing. Isn't that impressive? Wait. Where did that guy Petyr go? Damn. Now to pick who to follow again. Archer said as he slinked off after Julia.
Checking the time on his phone he saw that only an hour had passed. Should still be around two hours left before they're called back. Julia while seemingly very upset did not answer any questions raised by her friends in concern. Instead she told them that she was okay and instead violently destroyed every monster she came across.
There was definitely something there and it piqued Archer's interest. But was following around a girl over some drama really appropriate? If it had something to do with the possession then maybe.
Either way, nothing really was going to be achieved right now. So maybe Archer could take a quick nap and catch up on some sleep. Tucking himself in a small corner of the dungeon, he tried to make himself comfortable on the hard rock and closed his eyes and let sleep take him.
Opening his eyes groggily he was woken up by the sudden sounds of voices. He stood up with a jolt as he recognized the voices. Luna and Julia. He looked around, they were long gone from where they originally were before he fell asleep. Yet they were loud enough for him to hear them.
What concerned him more was that it was just their two voices. No one else, which wasn't the case in the past few conversations. Luna never yelled, yet here she was. Why?
"Archer you idiot." He cursed at himself as he bolted towards the source of the yelling. It didn't take long for him to find them undetected.
"What is wrong with you? You're acting creepy! Stop it!" Julia yelled before gasping.
"They won't find. Not for a couple of weeks at least." Luna said looking eerily at her.
Archer hid behind a corner and watched. Julia had lost her weapons and her light source had been tossed to the side. Luna was currently floating about two feet in the air and her arms were at her sides. From the flickering shadows bouncing off the walls, it looked like Luna's hands turned into massive claws.
"Stay back you monster!" Julia screamed pulling out her alarm, but before she could use it Luna surged forward and snatched it out of her hands.
"No. No interruptions." Luna giggled as she crushed it in her hand with shocking ease, "I'm going to enjoy ruining your pretty face like how I should've done before!" She said as she reached out to Julia.
"S-stop!" Julia cried out pulling back.
Archer was just about to jump in before he stopped because he saw Luna suddenly stop. Luna froze and her cold, cruel expression turned to one of panic and fear.
"No! Please don't hurt her! I don't want this!" Luna begged to seemingly no one, "Shut up, it's my life now!" She shouted again, that cruel glint in her eye returning, "No, run!" Luna yelled directly at Julia as she clutched her head in pain.
Not needing any more convincing she turned to run only for Luna to scream out, "No!" As her eyes turned crimson red, she launched forward and grabbed Julia by the leg and stared straight at her.
"Enough from the both of you." Luna hissed as her voice began to distort, "You're dead and this is my life now." She said before she paused. Her pupils dilated as she began to shake. Luna, or rather what was inside of Luna, sensed it. The danger, the monster, the demon behind her, in front of her, all around her.
"No…" Luna hissed whipping her head around wildly trying to find the source, she saw nothing.
Archer had been using a trick that he had learned from Pepper Korn to emit a presence of fear. It was a small trick that confusingly only worked on undead, monsters and the like. Creatures that would usually be the ones causing fear. It's not supposed to work like that according to Pepper, but for some reason it was all Archer could affect with it. Still it was proving useful now.
As Luna looked around in fear Archer was tempted to drop down. But that is still just an innocent girl down there that was being used by some weird monster. Archer narrowed it down to some type of ghost. Any damage he dealt to it would be superficial to the undead and extremely deadly to Luna. He had nothing to use to perform an exorcism. Still, if he could subdue her and drag her out then maybe, he would need to be careful of Julia though. If only he had his real equipment.
Before he could Luna seemed to make a decision and with one motion threw Julia into the wall, only it broke too easily. Archer taken by surprise again, made the mistake of pausing to see that Julia smashed through a hollow area and then tumbled down some shaft down to the lower dungeons. Another hidden area of the cave. Archer clicked his tongue in frustration as he watched Luna and bolted in the other direction.
"Damn it. Clever monster." Archer said aloud as he heard Julia scream in pain and fear as she slid down the tunnel. Archer dropped down to the ground and dove straight down the shaft after Julia.
Archer wasn't too keen on injuring Luna's body to stop it from running nor did he like where Julia was heading. The possessed undead made the choice for Archer rather easy. Though it wasn't the one he wanted.
He lambasted himself, it never even got to see him, it ran when it felt his fear-inducing trick and still had the wherewithal to both try and deal with Julia and get Archer away from it. Archer made a blunder. One he did not intend on repeating.
The trip down this slide was long, and in that time Julia managed to recover from getting the wind knocked out of her from going through the wall and was now trying to process what happened.
She was thrown through a wall by a very clearly possessed Luna. Now she did not know this girl very well, but she doubted that her floating in the air was a normal occurrence. However she couldn't dwell on it much as she wondered where she was going to land. She was falling downwards in a dungeon, so she knew that she was in trouble no matter what.
Finally she saw a faint glow below her and she tucked and rolled landing onto a grassy field. Julia looked around bewildered. Her eyes hurt a bit from the bright light in this dungeon. It was strange, despite being supposedly so deep underground it almost looked like they were on the surface.
She was in a large lush green forested area and there was plenty of light, though instead of a blue sky, there was a ceiling of stone and she had no idea where the light was coming from.
Her moment of quiet did not last long as she felt the forest come to life. Whipping around she found herself surrounded by a pack of dire wolves growling as they approached with hungry eyes.
"Shit!" She cursed as she looked around and drew her blade. There had to be at least twenty of them, even if she had all her equipment with her, she could maybe only handle about five or six of them. As she pulled out her spare shortsword, she looked around for an exit, right now her objective was to escape.
One lunged at her and she dove underneath it, slicing her blade across its soft underbelly. Another attacked as she twirled to the side and drove her blade straight through the skull of a third.
As she pulled her blade out she turned to see three dire wolves leaping at her from behind while two more came at her from the front. Julia froze as she found herself surrounded, fear struck her as she felt her doom coming.
But before any of the large monsters reached her, she felt something else collide with her.
"Oof!" She grunted in surprise as she tumbled around the dirt towards a tree. Before she felt the back of her head smack into the tree, a gentle hand placed behind her head protected her.
"Huh?" She said confused as she opened her eyes and saw her saviour. It took a second for her to recognize him. It was that weirdo that she ran into when she left the bathroom yesterday.
"What?" She said as Archer scanned her for injuries, she looked fine. Also she's not injured. Archer lamely joked to himself as he stood up and looked at the dire wolves.
Extending a finger he used it to quickly count the large beasts that quickly surrounded them again. Eighteen left. I can handle eighteen. Archer thought.
"Well, I was itching for a fight." He said aloud to himself, "Looks like I got one. Not quite how I wanted it though."
Archer continued to look around calmly studying everything. He tapped the hilt of his rented sword and made an unimpressed face as he realized that this thing was not made to fight monsters like these.
"Okay then." He said as the first dire wolf leapt forward. In one smooth motion, he grabbed the dire wolf multiple times his size by the neck and crushed its throat.
With a sickening crack, the monster went limp in his hand before dissolving into strange smoke. Archer looked down at his hand in surprise as he saw that a small gemstone was in his palm.
"Right. They disappear." Archer said aloud as more came charging at him, "That's fun." He said with a devious grin as he welcomed the attack.
Julia at this point was wondering if she was dead and hallucinating now. Right now he was watching this tiny F-rank boy, barely bigger than she was, crush eighteen massive car-sized dire wolves with his bare hands.
It was a very captivating sight to behold, but she struggled to enjoy it as her mind was still reeling with everything that had happened in the past two days. Quite frankly, she was in a stupor.
After a moment she snapped back to reality, Julia knew that sitting around wouldn't help. Especially considering where she was right now. This was reality, at least she thought it is, the boy in front of her was really testing her belief right now.
Getting up Julia realized that Archer was done. Before his feet were several gemstones and he was flicking one of them in the air with his fingers, playing with it like a coin. After a few more flips he let it fall back into his hand and turned to her.
Archer without another word pulled out his alarm and activated it, "Don't worry. This won't happen again. I'll make sure of it." Archer assured her as he tossed her the alarm and pocketed the gemstone, "Help is on the way, the ghost won't hurt you again."
"Ghost? Woah." She asked as she fumbled to catch the remote. Staring down at it she could see the alarm activated and a glowing circle with the words 'Help Incoming' flashed on it. Looking back up, the boy in front of her was gone.
"What?" She exclaimed as she looked around seeing nothing, "Are you seriously going to leave me alone!" She shouted indignantly.
***
Less than a minute later Professor Alia and two other professors rushed to Julia and bombarded her with questions. They were a mix of if she was okay and how she got down here.
Julia, with a torrent of her own questions struggled to figure out how to answer them. Ghost, that Frank talked about a ghost, what ghost? Was that what happened to Luna? But that still doesn't explain much.
Still, thankfully she didn't need to answer all the questions as they were more concerned about getting her back out of the dungeon safely. They thought her lack of response was due to her being in shock, which she probably was. So they quickly brought her out of the dungeon and straight to the infirmary.
After giving her a quick checkup she was left alone in a bed in which she lay there trying to process her day. Okay Julia. Have you gone insane? Or was this day just insanity? She thought to herself as she stared out the window and stared at the tranquil trees gently moving back and forth from the breeze.
She leaned back on the bed and closed her eyes. That girl, Luna, had been manipulating her supposed groom to be for the past two days. Codrol seemed madly in love with her, as well as several other men. It seemed that she was trying to gather a flock of them.
Luna herself was strange, the few times she met her Luna always looked unwell. Her occasional smug grin would often either disappear or be replaced with an almost sickly-looking girl. What bothered her most was when she was attacked. Luna seemed to be fighting herself while acting and moving far differently. She was floating like she was possessed by a ghost. Ghost just like what that boy told her.
That F-rank who she didn't know the name of and who first appeared yesterday and had an awkward interaction with her appeared again to save her life. How and why an F rank was there and able to do that remained a mystery.
Maybe I can get my answers from him. She thought. From what she gathered the source where she can get her answers would be that F-rank. She would just need to find and question him. Though considering what he was able to do against those fire wolves with his bare hands, she doubted that there was much strong-arming she could do against him. She would need to approach her tactically.
Footsteps approached her bed and she opened her eyes and looked over. It was Professor Alia and a nurse standing watching her carefully.
"How are you feeling Julia?" Alia asked gently, her smiling nature from last time was not present, and a look of serious concern was strewn about her face.
"I'm fine." Julia said nodding.
"You don't have any serious injuries, so you are free to leave anytime you want." The nurse said.
"But first I'm going to ask you a few questions." Alia said, "Is that alright?"
"Uh, yes. I'll try to answer them." Julia said nodding her head as the nurse left.
"What happened? You went through a hidden passageway to the fourth floor that we didn't even know about. How did you wind up down there?"
"I was pushed in."
"By who?"
"I… don't know. I couldn't see, they were shrouded." Julia said. She thought that the only chance of her getting all her answers was to first keep the full truth from the faculty. She knew that was a stupid thought, but her curiosity won out.
"Hmm." Alia said pondering, "What happened down there? We found several gemstones down there surrounding you."
"I don't know. I fought off a couple but then before they could surround me some strange person came out and fought them and ran."
"Another stranger? Do you have any idea who they are? Saw their face or anything?"
"No. I couldn't tell you who they were. Their back was to me." Julia said. A partial lie, she really didn't know who the F-rank was and they did have their back to her while fighting the dire wolves.
"Interesting." Alia said deep in thought as the door to the infirmary swung open and Julia's friends Reniece and Trista entered the room.
"Julia are you alright!" They asked in concern as they rushed to her.
"Uh, yeah. I'm not hurt." Julia said smiling at them, glad that they were okay.
"You two were in her party. How did you get separated?" Alia asked.
"We were fighting some large ants and then we just somehow got separated." Trista said, "What happened?"
"She was shoved down a passageway by an unknown assailant." Alia said.
"What?" They both exclaimed looking to Julia.
"It's okay. I'm fine." Julia assured them.
"I'll leave you three alone. Don't worry Julia, we will find the culprit." Alia said excusing herself and leaving the infirmary. She made a small face of annoyance while she was alone.
That girl Julia was lying about something. She didn't know what, she was hiding something. She doubted that the faculty would look further into this after Julia's report, they'll be busy trying to search for the culprit based on the clues taken at face value. But she doubted that what Julia said was all that happened and she intended to find out the truth with or without the rest of the faculty.