Aiden pulled off the canvas bag and weapons he had been carrying for the team throughout their journey. He returned each item to their owners, Rakan and Alaric and they both began gearing up.
That was when the golden system windows materialized in front of him once more.
[Daily Mission: Carry The Party's Equipment —> Complete]
[+1 Stats Point Available]
[You have gained 150xp]
[All Daily Missions have been completed!]
[Bonus Reward of +200xp has been granted]
[The Host has enough exp to Ascend to a Level 2 Hatchling]
However, Aiden dismissed the screens with a thought. The party was about to head into the dungeon, and he didn't want to deliberate or examine the system right now.
Alaric turned toward Tam and nodded his head once more. Tam immediately knew what to do, as usual, which prompted him to walk toward the dungeon's doors.
He placed his hands on the entrance and pulled them away after sensing the magic from within. Then he tilted his head back toward Alaric and said, "We can deal with it."
The dungeon didn't rise too high or look particularly imposing. However, having Tam sense the magical energy traces within was a precautionary measure on their part.
Precautions like this, along with enlisting help from mages like Aiden, was why Alaric's party had survived this long. Unlike most brutish men, Alaric understood the importance of mages in dungeon clearing.
Alaric turned to the rest of the party and said, "Alright, lads, we're goin' in."
Under normal circumstances, doubt might have started creeping into Aiden at this point. After all, this would be the first real time he was going to use magic in a dungeon, without any proper training from a magic academy.
But surprisingly, he didn't feel a bit of worry about whether he had developed any magic techniques for appropriate use.
Alaric approached the dungeon doors and pushed through them with both hands. It was an E-ranked dungeon, so a simple push would suffice to gain entry.
In front of them was a translucent portal leading into the dungeon. One by one, they all went through, starting with Alaric.
Aiden was the last to enter, and when he did, what greeted his sight were the insides of a huge cavern. Its stony walls had bluish crystals embedded in the sides and ceiling to provide lighting throughout the space.
Aiden was the only one fascinated by what he saw, since it was his first time within a dungeon.
He hadn't paid attention to where he was walking as his eyes remained fixed on his surroundings, until he stumbled over a bloodied piece of armor on the floor and nearly fell.
That was when his eyes reached the ground to see a skull and different armored parts scattered around. He immediately pulled himself back, and the other party members in front turned toward him.
"Oi, careful, lad," Alaric said.
Aiden simply nodded and followed behind more slowly while paying closer attention to where he was going.
"Looks like the lads before us cleared the path, eh?" Alaric said as he moved forward.
Usually once you crossed into a dungeon, at the entrance or close to it were lower-ranked monsters that served as a greeting to dungeon raiders.
However, that didn't seem to be the case here, as they had already been taken care of by the previous raiders who had walked this path.
Then they reached a point where they heard eerie sounds that undoubtedly came from a monster, though they hadn't seen it yet.
"Something's here," Ingrid said from Alaric's left side as she tightened her grip on her hammer.
That was when Aiden's pupils elongated into slits and his irises turned red, taking the shape of a dragon's eyes.
[Dragon's Sight]
His dragon sight immediately covered the full fifty-meter range, which was more than enough to see through the walls and ground, revealing giant centipede-looking monsters lurking beneath.
"It's not just one thing…" Aiden said, his face looking alarmed. This caused them all to turn toward him as his eyes moved quickly from side to side.
But before they even had a chance to ask what it was, Aiden screamed, "Alaric, move!"
This immediately put Alaric on alert. He felt the ground rumble beneath him and instantly leaped backward while the ground cracked open simultaneously.
From beneath, a giant centipede-like monster burst forth with massive maws that nearly engulfed Alaric. If Aiden hadn't alerted him quickly to the threat, he would have been consumed.
However, that wasn't the only one to emerge. Other similar-looking monsters sprang out from different directions, from beneath the ground and from the sides of the walls.
The monsters had a length of slightly over seven feet each, and every one of them attempted to attack the party.
Tam immediately rushed forward and spread both arms out as his wind magic lifted some of these monsters off the ground and flung them to the side. This act inadvertently saved Rakan, whose sword had initially clashed with the maws of the beast that had targeted him.
Ingrid managed to avoid the first attack attempt by the monster that came at her while smashing her hammer into the creature's head, destroying it like pulp.
Alaric himself had swiped through the limbs of the monster before him with his axe. "Gobshite!" he exclaimed in his peculiar accent.
Aiden himself took a brief stance and lunged his hand forward as if attempting to throw a punch, but instead released a concentrated blast of flames that reduced the monster before him and the ones behind it, that Tam had flung away, into cinders and dust.
In one fell swoop, he had cleared about four of those giant centipedes in a single attack.