Once every last student had the Dungeon Escape Device strapped on, Professor Nini at last led them toward the entrance to the dungeon.
It lay near the woods, almost a full kilometer from the Castle. After about a quarter-hour on foot, a Roman-palace-style circular building finally came into view.
The whole structure had only two storeys, but each storey was enormously tall.
Stone pillars, each etched with the marks of long history, stood arrayed around the perimeter of the first storey at intervals of more than a dozen meters apart.
Up close, one could make out lifelike monster carvings on those pillars — as if they might come alive at any moment.
Although the first-years had all gazed at this building from afar, none of them had ever actually approached it before.
This building, which concealed the dungeon's entrance, was in fact of the same architectural style as the Open-air Dueling Arena.
But the present structure's style was decidedly more rough-hewn.
Threading through the stone pillars and stepping into the spacious passage within — straight ahead.
After a few minutes or so, they would step into the building's interior and lay eyes on an extraordinarily vast open-air plaza.
But the first thing to greet the eye was not the dungeon entrance set within it — rather, it was the colossal stone statues that stood towering throughout the plaza.
"Professor, what are those?" Robert, walking near the front, pointed at the nearest of the giants and couldn't help asking.
The students behind him all stopped in their tracks and looked as well.
Professor Nini, walking at the very front in high spirits, replied offhandedly: "A giant statue."
Robert's face fell at once and he protested, "Professor, I know it's a giant statue…"
Professor Nini looked down at him, baffled: "Then why did you ask me?"
Robert: "..."
While he stood there at a loss for words, Professor Nini was already skipping merrily out of the passage.
She announced excitedly, "We're here, we're here! Everyone can sit down and rest for a bit, or have a look around, but don't go running off. Around ten thirty, we'll officially enter the dungeon."
The students poured out of the passage like a school of fish.
Dark, Diana, and Rose were positioned somewhere in the middle of the group. They simply went with the flow into the plaza and found a stone bench to sit down on.
DemiDevimon, who had been carrying the lunchbox in flight for nearly half an hour, hastily dropped down at their side, panting away as if utterly "exhausted."
Gatomon, meanwhile, shot it a disdainful sidelong glance, then turned her gaze around the plaza, brimming with curiosity.
Her own experience was rather more limited than that of the young Magic Guide users, which made her curiosity that much keener.
The towering stone statues standing throughout the plaza had drawn her attention all the same.
Beside her, Dark's gaze, however, cut past those statues and fixed on the so-called "dungeon entrance" off in the distance.
Before being opened, the entrance to the dungeon was merely an arched gate roughly twenty meters tall.
The gateposts had a square cross-section, their surfaces carved with patterns that looked like incantations.
The gate was over ten meters wide.
The gateposts were roughly five meters thick, and on the inner face of each was a groove carved into the post.
One could roughly imagine that, once this great gate was opened, magical power would surge forth from those grooves and form a magic gateway.
Every week, from twelve noon on Friday to twelve midnight on Sunday.
Vast numbers of students would enter from one side of this magic gateway and exit from the other.
So with the dungeon's entrance simply standing open like this — who, then, served as its guardian?
Dark's gaze inevitably turned toward those great stone statues!
"One, two, three… twelve giant statues in all."
Each of those twelve statues had a different appearance.
Among them were soldiers grasping long spears, and lion-headed humanoid monsters as well.
The one thing they all had in common was that every statue stood over ten meters tall — the tallest exceeded twenty meters, surpassing even the height of the gateposts!
Once they started moving…
It was hard to imagine!
Dark's pupils contracted slightly, his gaze settling on one giant statue — winged, gripping a scepter, looking very much like an angel.
Within the Holy Church's doctrine, angels had always been depicted as sexless beings.
On the surface, this was meant to extol the purity of angels.
Yet this colossus, so very much like an angel, possessed unmistakably female features.
Set within the Holy Church, this would unquestionably be heresy.
"I wonder which era this building and these statues all date back to?"
Dark couldn't help falling into deep thought.
...
"Hm?"
It wasn't until Gatomon tugged at the hem of his clothes that he suddenly snapped back to himself.
It was time.
All the students from the four Houses had regrouped, each maintaining a considerable level of excitement.
The dungeon was right before their eyes; the wish for a first adventure was about to come true.
Professor Nini walked up to the arched gate and gave one of the gateposts a slap with her hand. By what means none of them could quite tell, but just as Dark had imagined, the arched gate began to surge with vast magical power.
In short order, the magic released from the grooves in the gateposts formed a water-curtain-like magic gateway.
Professor Nini pointed at the magic gateway and explained: "This here is the entrance to the dungeon. Once you step through it, you'll arrive in the hall of the dungeon's first floor. We generally call it the Reception Hall — it's the dungeon's space for welcoming guests."
A girl from Magic House asked nervously, "Professor, there won't be monsters inside the Reception Hall, will there?"
Professor Nini gave her a glance and replied, "I'm sure I mentioned it already. At the entrance to every floor of the dungeon there's a special magical marker. The waves of magical power released from that marker have a repelling effect on monsters, so the entrance area tends to be relatively safe.
Of course, repelling isn't the same as forbidding. The entrance can't completely block monster incursions. So caution is still the order of the day."
The girl from Magic House nodded quickly.
Professor Nini lifted her chin in satisfaction and said to the students, "I'll head in first to scout around. You all wait here a moment."
No sooner had the words left her than she had already strode straight into the magic gateway.
Ripples rolled across the gateway like waves on water, and her sizable frame was swallowed up entirely.
But before any tension could so much as set in among the students, Professor Nini had already emerged from the other side of the gate. She then walked back around the gateposts to the front, flashed a hand sign, and broke into a broad smile: "Safe."
...
Once again with Professor Nini at the lead, the students behind her stepped through gingerly.
With one came two — even the more timid students were able, under the guidance of collective momentum, to successfully cross that gate.
Dark went in with the rest, and his eye fell first on the "magical marker" sitting at the center of the "Reception Hall."
It was a mermaid-like sculpture, floating above an altar.
Something clicked in his mind, and he drew the "Mana Needle" out from the backpack Gatomon was carrying, then made his way toward the mermaid statue radiating that ghostly blue glow.
Unexpectedly, quite a few other students happened to be walking toward the mermaid statue at the same time.
A quick glance was enough to tell him that most of these students were from Magic House — though there were students from other Houses as well, just not many.
Over a dozen of them exchanged knowing smiles, then gathered around the mermaid statue and began drawing in its magical power.
Emma from Knight House and Sara from Magic House were among them.
"Eh?"
Professor Nini watched what Dark and the others were doing, her not-so-quick mind taking a good long while to turn before she suddenly realized she had never actually taught this particular part of the curriculum.
She hastily fumbled around in the small backpack she carried on her back — but, sure enough, failed to produce the "Mana Needle" that was in fact not there to begin with…
Probably because she had never once gotten lost inside the dungeon, Professor Nini had simply never used a "Mana Needle" before, and had instinctively overlooked the whole matter.
Then her thoughts shifted, and she fished out instead a Magic Tool shaped like a key, hopping and skipping over to stand in front of the mermaid statue.
Then she clapped her hands, gathering all the students around.
Dark had just finished collecting the magical signature. He tucked the "Mana Needle" away and looked up at Professor Nini.
He had originally assumed Professor Nini was going to speak about something relating to the "Mana Needle."
But to his surprise, Professor Nini only touched on it in passing before brushing the matter aside. Then she took out that key-shaped Magic Tool and waved it about in front of the students.
Watching the students' bewildered faces, Professor Nini couldn't help bragging, "Does anyone know what this is? Since no one does…"
"Professor Nini, that's a Gate Key, isn't it?"
Sarah Swati of Magic House, with characteristic lack of social grace, finished off the snap-answer.
Professor Nini's tone faltered, her neck instinctively shrinking back. She hastily covered for herself: "That's right, this is the Gate Key, also known as the Floor Key — an item exclusive to this dungeon. As long as you activate a Gate Key in front of the magical marker at the entrance to any given floor, you can teleport straight to the corresponding level.
The Gate Key in Nini's hand has '18' engraved on it, which means it's the Gate Key that can teleport you to the 18th floor."
Virt, who had been particularly attentive to the dungeon's rules, exclaimed at once, "There's such a convenient item to be had inside the dungeon?"
Professor Nini gave a smug little chuckle: "Of course. The dungeon of our St. Marian is fathomlessly deep — there's no way you could go down and come back in just a day or two. It's precisely because the Gate Key exists that you can complete an adventure of a certain scale in just a weekend's worth of time."
Dark asked curiously, "In that case, Professor, what's the cooldown on a Gate Key? And how many people can be teleported together with each use?"
Professor Nini held up three fingers. "The cooldown is only one hour. After an hour, replenish the mana and you can use it again. As for the number of people who can be teleported…"
Dark: "Thirty?"
"No." Professor Nini shook her head. "It's three. One Gate Key can only teleport three people at a time. If you want to teleport more people, you need the upgraded version of the Gate Key — the Gate Crystal!"
Dark asked curiously, "And what's a Gate Crystal?"
Professor Nini said, "The Gate Crystal is the high-tier version of the Gate Key. Its full name is the Dungeon-Exclusive Teleportation Gate Crystal. It can teleport thirty people at once, has a three-hour cooldown, and requires massive amounts of magical power for replenishment after each use. It's also extremely rare."
Dark: "Then… how exactly do we go about getting Gate Keys and Gate Crystals? Do we buy them from Traveler Street?"
Professor Nini replied, "That's one way. Some students, after obtaining Gate Keys and Gate Crystals from the dungeon, will take them to Traveler Street to sell — though the price is a bit steep.
Of course, the main way to acquire them is still from inside the dungeon itself. The dungeon's weekly refresh resets the treasure chests, and from those chests there's a chance to obtain a Gate Key. The Gate Crystal, on the other hand, can only be obtained from the high-grade treasure chests guarded by Floor BOSSes."
The students nodded along, half-comprehending.
St. Marian's Academy's dungeon was, on a global scale, exceedingly unusual.
In the dungeons out in the wider world, there was no such weekly refresh mechanism. Nor was there even the concept of "treasure chests" — the only things they had were "Treasure Chest Mimics," creatures that habitually collected all manner of items.
The people of this world might not have any particular feelings about it.
But the first time Dark gained any understanding of this dungeon, he had thought it bore a striking resemblance to a video-game dungeon.
The dungeon at St. Marian's Academy generally went through its refresh-and-reset between Monday and Wednesday. Some of the rarer, larger BOSSes required even longer to reset.
That was why students were only permitted to enter the dungeon between Friday and Sunday.
"Alright then."
Professor Nini clapped her hands. "For our purposes, neither the Gate Key nor the Gate Crystal is important. Today's task is for each of you to hunt at least one monster and use its drops as proof.
The activity range is strictly limited to the first and second floors, and it's best if you stay with me. Those wishing to act on their own may apply to me once we reach the entrance to the second floor. The prerequisite, however, is groups of three — and each group must have a 'Mana Needle.'"
As soon as those words were out, an uproar broke out among the students.
Someone couldn't help speaking up: "Professor, we have to hunt monsters too? I thought we were just coming to the dungeon to sightsee…"
Professor Nini turned her head away and refused to look at him: "Heh."
But more of the students were swept up with excitement: "What's the fun in sightseeing? We're here to hunt!"
"The target is dragonslaying — charge, charge, charge!"
The likes of Virt and Doron secretly clenched their fists.
Robert glanced at Virt and hesitated, "Virt, do you have one of those… 'Mana Needles'?"
Virt's freshly-clenched fist immediately loosened. He hesitated as well, "I don't have one. What about you?"
Robert: "How could I possibly have one…"
Virt: "Fair point. Then aren't we stuck tagging along with Professor Nini?"
Robert: "Let's borrow one off somebody. And since the requirement is groups of three, aren't we still short one person? It'd be perfect if we could just find someone who has a 'Mana Needle.'"
Virt nodded in agreement, "That makes sense."
Robert then leaned in, pointed in Dark's direction, and said in a low voice, "How about we ask Demon? He's got a 'Mana Needle,' and traveling with him feels especially safe… with him along, we could even take on a Floor BOSS!"
Virt turned to look at Dark, was silent for a long moment, then said, "Let's not. How about we find someone else? There's always somebody wanting to go off on their own but unable to find any partners."
"Alright," Robert said regretfully. "You're the boss."
So the two of them began scanning the crowd.
...
Undercurrents were stirring through the crowd, and many students had already begun quietly forming groups.
The requirement of three-person groups, each with a "Mana Needle," was indeed a tough one.
Not everyone wanted to go on an adventure, which meant that some of the smaller cliques were finding themselves short on numbers.
And the number of people carrying "Mana Needles" was limited — at most they could form a little over ten groups.
Roughly only a quarter of the students would qualify to apply.
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