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Chapter 31: Adventurers
The group pushed their way down to the eighth floor.
The strength of the monsters here had increased significantly. Hilichurls no longer appeared in isolation; instead, they formed small, organized squads.
In a spacious cavern, the three of them had just finished dispatching the last stubborn Rock Shield Hilichurl and were preparing to catch their breath.
"Ah—! Help!"
A shrill scream and a cry for help suddenly echoed from the depths of a nearby passage.
Aiden's brows furrowed instantly.
Robin and Tifa froze immediately, casting questioning glances at him.
Over the past few days in the Dungeon, they had encountered other adventurer parties, but everyone had tacitly maintained their distance, minding their own business.
This was the first time they had encountered a distress signal.
Seeing the flicker of unbearable hesitation in Robin's clear eyes, Aiden understood her thoughts.
He smiled and said, "Let's go take a look. We are the 'Familia of Justice,' after all. If we can help, we should. It will also be good for building our Familia's reputation in the future."
He knew very well that both Robin, who stood beside him, and the newly joined Tifa were kind-hearted people. Asking them to turn a deaf ear to a cry for help so close at hand would be difficult for them.
Fortunately, their kindness was not blind; they sought his opinion as the Captain before taking action. This made him feel at ease.
Aiden detested the kind of indiscriminate, reckless kindness that disregarded consequences—that sort of benevolence only harmed oneself and others. But as long as it didn't endanger their own safety, he didn't mind extending a helping hand.
At his signal, the three of them immediately sped toward the source of the sound.
They arrived at the scene quickly.
The sight before them made Robin and Tifa instinctively turn their heads, their faces twisted with unbearable pity.
It was a slaughterhouse.
Severed limbs were scattered across the ground, dark red blood soaked the earth, and the mutilated corpses of several adventurers lay in pools of their own blood.
In the center of the carnage, a human male adventurer, covered in blood, was desperately shielding a dog-person girl in his arms. He was frantically dodging the ferocious charges of a Hilichurl Berserker.
There was even an arrow from a Pyro Hilichurl Shooter protruding from his back.
When he saw Aiden and the others, the man seemed to see a final glimmer of hope. He shouted with every ounce of strength he had left, "Aiden, save us!"
Aiden paused, only then recognizing the wretched man. It was Luke, one of the friends he had made at the tavern.
There was no hesitation.
"[Gospel]."
Aiden uttered the shortest aria. An invisible cannonball of sound blasted forth like a shell leaving the chamber, instantly striking the Hilichurl Berserker that was pursuing Luke.
The monster didn't even have time to scream before it was blasted into a mist of blood by the terrifying sonic wave.
"Tifa."
Aiden spoke again.
Hearing the call, Tifa understood instantly.
Her figure turned into a black blur, brushing past Luke as he ran toward them, and charged straight into the group of monsters behind him—a mix of Pyro Hilichurl Shooters and various Slimes.
"Luke, what happened?"
Aiden stepped forward and caught his friend, who was on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.
Beside him, Robin immediately took out a healing potion, intending to treat the dog-person girl Luke was guarding so fiercely in his arms.
But as soon as she reached out, her hand froze.
She realized the girl's chest was no longer rising and falling. She had completely stopped breathing.
"Please... save her... quickly..." Luke begged Robin with a trembling voice.
A look of sorrow appeared on Robin's face. She gently shook her head. "I'm sorry. She's already..."
Luke looked as if he had been struck by lightning. He knelt blankly on the ground, still tightly clutching the cold body in his arms.
After a long silence, he slowly raised his head. His bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at Aiden as he cried out, his voice hoarse and exhausted, "Aiden, I beg you! Help me avenge her!"
Adventurers entered the Dungeon for profit and to become stronger; they had long prepared themselves for death. They had no standing to blame the monsters. They hunted monsters, and monsters hunted them—it was fate.
But hatred did not diminish because of that logic.
Facing the weeping plea of an acquaintance, Aiden was silent for a moment.
He drew the longsword at his waist and, with a calm voice that carried heavy weight, said a single word:
"Okay."
As the word fell, he turned and joined Tifa, charging into the monster horde.
Sword light and fist shadows intertwined, unleashing a cold-blooded massacre.
Before long, the group of monsters that had nearly wiped out Luke's party was completely exterminated by the two of them.
Robin healed the injuries on Luke's body, but he just knelt there, dazed, holding the girl's corpse, his eyes filled with nothing but dead silence.
Robin sighed beside him, not knowing how to comfort him.
When a companion you spent day and night with dies before your eyes, any words seem pale and powerless.
The battle was over, but the scent of blood lingered in the air, mixing with the smell of soil and moss to form a nauseating, metallic stench.
Aiden, Robin, and Tifa silently helped Luke wrap his companion's broken body in the coarse linen cloth commonly used by adventurers.
Every movement felt exceptionally heavy, as if every touch was a reminder of the fragility of life.
Afterward, they escorted the soul-crushed Luke out of the Dungeon and back under the sunlight of the surface.
When they carried the blood-soaked corpse out of the entrance of Babel, the Guild staff responsible for registration merely glanced up. There was no ripple of emotion on their faces; they simply crossed a name off the registry.
They were numb to it.
They had seen too many fresh, lively faces walk in excitedly, never to return.
In the beginning, they would chat with the adventurers they knew, joking and wishing them a fruitful return. But later, they dared not have any excess contact with adventurers.
Because they didn't know if the person smiling and greeting them today would become a cold corpse tomorrow—or if their body wouldn't come back at all.
Every extra exchange might just add a layer of meaningless pain in the future.
Other passing adventurers were also accustomed to this sight. They cast a brief glance and hurried past, their eyes holding the indifference of those who had seen it all before.
To bring a companion's body back was already a blessing amidst misfortune.
Most adventurers who died in the Dungeon perished silently, eventually swallowed by the dungeon until not even a bone remained.
With the help of the Guild staff, Luke's companion was buried in the First Cemetery on the outskirts of Orario.
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