The trio came back early enough to avoid the rush of people entering or leaving the dungeon. It was knowledge they had gained the day before, since it hadn’t been important enough to include in their briefing. They had learned from talking to adventurers during the hour they spent standing in line to use the teleporters. Apparently, the busiest times were always mid-morning and late afternoon.

  Mid-morning had all the people who had spent the night in the dungeon and were looking to leave for one reason or another. Of course, it also had all the people who had left the dungeon the day before and were waking up to enter again. Meanwhile, in the afternoon, there were many people who were looking to leave the dungeon, either because the inn was full, they didn’t want to sleep in the woods, or for their own personal reasons.

  It was valuable information to learn, as the dungeon didn’t like people sleeping in the streets, and they were quickly told to leave any base camp and venture into the wilderness.

  Entering the dungeon, they still only had one spot to teleport to, and that was the town area. They could teleport anywhere in the town area due to their rank and their previous day's exploration, but the trio chose to teleport to the town square.

  They still had the quest from Misty to head to the lake, and they had talked about speaking with Rob, the fisherman, to escort him to the lake so they could complete two quests in one go. Finding the fisherman wasn’t a problem; a chat with another town member later, and they were at the man's small home. That’s when they encountered a problem.

  There was a sign on the man’s door that read, “Out fishing by the lake. Will return in a few days.”

  “Well, shit,” Alexion said, sounding annoyed and disappointed.

  “You guys think he went by himself? Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Adriana asked.

  “No, I think we just forgot that there are other adventurers here as well. We were operating under the assumption that no one else would take the quest,” Arctur pointed out.

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Weren’t we told something along those lines? Honestly, I forgot, everything felt so odd after yesterday that I think it slipped my mind that this place still works like actual reality, at least in some cases,” The blue-haired beauty said.

  “Yeah, that was part of it. It seems some quests are limited in more ways than one. For this one, the limit is that there is only one fisherman, so if someone takes the quest, we will miss out on it,” Alexion added, turning to Adriana, her beauty taking the sting of missing out this time around. Today, she was wearing a beautiful, short, fluffy dress, which she said was called a summer dress. The dress was white with flowers painted on, and it showed off her upper assets along with her beautiful legs.

  Adriana met Alexion’s eyes, which had been admiring her, and she smiled his way before speaking, her tone upbeat, “It's fine, we can always try this quest another time. How about we go to the lake? You guys know I love the water!” Then she turned around and bounced off towards the direction of the lake.

  Alexion watched her go, admiring her upbeat attitude, among other things. Out of the three of them, she had the most positive attitude, even if it was to combat everything else she dealt with. Though so far, the dungeon was proving to be a place she was beginning to love. It was a place of change, which really suited her, considering all the powers she had.

  Unlike him and Arctur, though more like him than his green friend, who knew exactly what they were and who they were, which included mostly always wearing the same thing. Adriana’s nature was one of flux, and it was great that although the dungeon was a place of change, it was obviously a place whose one quality didn’t seem to falter. And that quality was its inhabitants. Of course, it might be too early to tell, but so far, not even the more sexualized members of the dungeon seem to truly care about beauty, sex, or general appeal when it involves their visitors.

  They left town and were soon running through the forest, making their way south towards the lake. From what they understood, most people could run from one corner of the dungeon to another in about eight hours, though only when going at top speed and while avoiding fights. Two things that were not recommended. For one, going at full speed would get you drained of mana, and the monsters didn’t leave you alone because of that.

  Sure, in the Typic Town Zone, things were easier, but outside of it, people had been knocked out by monsters after getting caught without mana. Heck, from rumors the trio had heard, that’s how deaths tended to happen. The monsters weren’t aware you were low on mana, and they tended to attack at full throttle, expecting people to put up some resistance. Of course, without mana, there was no resistance, and in the harder areas, things could get ugly even when monsters avoided outright killing. Thankfully, people followed warnings or had come to learn the hard way that the dungeon wasn’t a playground and were taking things much more seriously.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Through sheer luck or maybe speed, the trio didn’t run into any monsters in their travel through the town zone, and eventually, they crossed over into the lake area. They knew this because a notification appeared, informing them of the change.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  You have entered The Frog Lake Zone of Control.

  Make your way to the center of the Lake to find the Town of Fraggle’s.

  ??

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  Warning! You have left Typic Town’s Zone of Control.

  Outside of Typic Town’s Zone of Control, the dungeon increases in difficulty.

  Dan recommends you tread with care.

  This notification will only appear once. Good luck.

  ??

  The notifications didn’t provide any information the party didn’t already know, and after reading them for the sake of reading them, the trio continued. Of course, almost like the dungeon was trying to prove a point from the last notification, they ran into a party of monsters.

  Well, it was more like they spotted each other through the forest, and the beasts turned to meet them. Two silver-colored jaguars were the first to rush towards them, but they were quickly followed by a large, bulky brown centipede with bulbous things at the end of its many limbs. The centipede soon caught up to the two jaguars when it rolled up and began rumbling right at them.

  The party had gotten ready for the fight instantly. It was likely that the monsters were Low D Rank, but remembering the notification and other previous warnings, things were never set in stone. Additionally, they were outnumbered, and from the time they spent fighting together, they knew what they had to do. Though if they needed to communicate, Adriana always had a mind link between the three of them.

  Arctur was the first to move forward, Alexion following a few feet behind. Their green friend was moving to handle the centipede and met the rolling beast with a punch, cracking the monster's carapace and stopping it in its tracks. Moving past his friend, Alexion used a technique to shoot a bolt of lightning at one of the jaguars who was ignoring him. The jaguar dodged the bolt and continued towards Adriana.

  Not worried about the cat, Alexion focused on the other jaguar instead, dodging a dozen metal color blades it sent its way. The two met, the jaguar lunging at him, Alexion responding by bringing his foot upward, hitting the beast in the jaw, stopping its forward momentum.

  Adriana often acted as the team's range caster, even if all of them could perform most of the more traditional jobs a party used. This meant she used a shield more often than not, which was nice since it was one of the more traditional magics she could use.

  Of course, like most casters, it was often the job of the sneaky or speedy types to get rid of her. And in this particular fight, that job fell to the two jaguars and the birds who had just launched winds of blade against her. These particular blades had a good bit of mana, and she didn’t want to use mana to block them, so instead, she switched to the other type of magic she could use, just like other, more typical casters could.

  With her body enhanced, she was able to dodge the blades easily; the two wind attacks easily cutting through one or two trees before dissipating. Then, just in time, she brought her shield back up to absorb the much weaker metal slashes of the jaguar that was closing in on her.

  Arctur winced and shook his fist. He hadn’t been fully enhanced, but still hadn’t been that far off, but the centipede’s carapace had been extra hard, and his hand actually hurt. Even more annoying was the fact that when he looked over at the toppled creature, he saw the carapace already beginning to heal. Cursing, Arctur sprang forward, looking to punch the thing again as it started to get up. As he arrived, he heard a hiss as green smoke began spreading from the monster's bulbous legs.

  The kick to the jaguar’s head made it do an involuntary backflip, one of its long fangs even breaking from the attack. When the beast landed, Alexion reflexively moved to the side when he saw the doe release a beam of golden energy. The beam, however, wasn’t directed at him; instead, it struck the jaguar, spreading across its body and seeping mainly into the head. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out since healing magic’s color was known, but Alexion had been hoping the beam had been something new created by the dungeon.

  Looking over at the doe, Alexion knew what he had to do, and apparently, so did the stag, who moved defensively between him and the doe.

  “Guys, the doe is capable of healing. I gotta take it out. Can one of you finish off this jaguar?” Alexion spoke through their mind link, knowing that even in the obvious cloud of poison, Arctur was fine.

  “I got it,” Adri answered cheerfully, and he sprinted towards the stag.

  Adriana sent a mental attack at the incoming jaguar, looking to incapacitate it so she could kill the one Alexion had kicked. However, to her surprise, the monster shrugged the attack off. She hadn’t put that much mana into it, but it should have been enough to buy her a bit of time. Instead, she now had an angry jaguar jumping right at her.

  In a panic, Adriana dumped a portion of mana into an attack. A wave of snow and ice manifested in front of her as a tiny avalanche erupted forward. The avalanche easily stopped and submerged the cat in snow and ice. Then, after dodging two more wind blades, Adriana angrily reached out and turned the ice into spears, quickly impaling the cat in the pile of snow it was just emerging from.

  “That will teach you to scare me like that, Mr. Kitty,” Adriana quietly mumbled, her heart racing and cheeks cutely puffed.