Alyssa left the Guild Hall and walked towards the city gates, pulling her horse along. Dressed in pure black hunting leather clothes, which stuck to her body, she attracted all sorts of lecherous and perverted gazes. Around twenty years old with short bob cut hairs, framing her tanned oval face, and soft almond-like eyes, she was a beauty. Her muscular body and curves were clearly visible under the tight clothing. But no one dared to make a move on her. Because she was Alyssa. The famous Peak-B Ranker, who well known for her temper.

So no one was stupid enough to trouble her.

A tall bow, wrapped in rags hung from her shoulder, while a quiver full of neatly arranged arrows hung from her another shoulder. Another quiver hung from her Horse’s side. A small bag, filled with food and water, along with other necessities hung on the Horse’s other side. She would have preferred to ride the horse till the gate, but the rules of the city didn’t allow to do so.

Numerous shops and stalls were selling all sorts of oddities all along the road. Shopkeepers were hawking their wares in loud voice. Somewhere simply screaming while others were singing short songs and couplets. People were bargaining here and there at top of their voice. But despite all the ruckus, the roadside market gave a sense of harmony.

In fact being a haven for adventurers, hunters, and mercenaries, Fire City was famous for serving all their needs. It was said that you could buy anything if you have money. With enough money, even buying a kingdom was possible. You just needed to hire several high ranking mercenaries.

Passing them, she finally reached the city gate. Even now, the walls and gates intimidated her. She could sense bloodlust, hatred, anger and other emotions from the wall, which she particularly hated. Showing her Guild Badge to the Guards, she left the city. Once outside, she jumped on her horse and galloped towards the Burning Mountains.

Her horse was a mixed breed cloud Horse. With astonishing endurance and incredible speed, such horses, would be able to travel long distances on high speed, making them extremely popular among adventurers, hunters, and soldiers.

She galloped on the plains, passing through numerous farms green with crops. Most of them were corn crops. Corn was a popular crop among the farmers. It didn’t require much attention, and its yields were high. Also, corn was always in demand in the market. It was a staple food for the commoners. The rest were growing vegetables.

After few hours, she left the farmlands behind. The night was soon arriving. Flocks of birds could be seen in the sky, returning to their nests in the forests. Seeing the darkening sky, she stopped her horse and pulled it beside the road. She tied him to a tree nearby, allowing him to graze. Once done, she took out small black stones. These small stones, each had a character inscribed on them. These were simply barrier stones to protect campsites. Once arranged they would create a simple protective barrier around the site. They would usually keep way common pests and beasts.

Later, she put up her tent and lighted a fire. Very soon, the fire was burning high. She took out her dry rations consuming it. Adventurers had long learned to pack light. So usually they left heavy utensils behind unless going on long trips. Very soon she was snoring inside the tent, wrapped in a blanket. The fire was still smoldering. The horse had also long gone to sleep.

A few hours later she got up. The sun was rising and its first rays were blessing the land. Very soon, these warm rays would turn incredibly hot. Stretching, she washed her face. Packing everything, she lept on her horse, and once again galloped towards the forest.

She reached the edge of the forest following morning.

Reaching the edge, she withdrew her bow. Stringing it, she placed an arrow on it and shot it towards the sky. The arrow left the bow and reached an incredible height, before curving and falling downwards. She collected the arrow, and once again shot it at the sky. She repeated this action three more times, before stopping. After exactly a minute, she once again shot three arrows at the sky. The moment the third arrow felt, a sweet whistling sound was heard. A few moments later another whistle sounded, and two more followed it. If not particularly looking for it, no one would even notice the whistling sound.

On hearing the whistle, her face lit up with a slight smile. The arrow and the whistle were her team’s secret signal. During secret missions, they would use such signals to notify others. In this case, under the guise of solo missions, each one of them had left the city, over the span of a week. Being a high-rank team, they would attract incredible attention when leaving for a mission. Because for this reason, they had all left the city apart from others. She was informing them of her presence.

Once done, she left the horse to graze and swiftly entered the forest. She jumped on a tree, a started leaping from one tree to another. Every few minutes, she would retrace her steps, and go in some other direction. When finding a water-spot, she would especially travel through it. All this was to confuse any trackers, following her.

She ignored any animal or monster she would find. If they tried to attack her, she would run away. Doing so, took a lot of time, but it was better to be safe. During the night, she would sleep on the tree branches, eating dry rations. Lighting a campfire, in the Burning Mountains was inviting death. The fire would attract all sorts of monsters and beasts. After a day, she reached a clearing.

Despite such rigorous trekking she still looked fresh. To a B Ranker such, trekking was nothing. Once reaching the clearing, she shot five arrows at the sky, one after the another. A few minutes later, a man slowly entered the clearing. The man was dressed in forest color green and brown leathers. Except for his face, his body was tightly wrapped in layers of leather. His face was quite childish but handsome. But short shaggy hairs and a similarly unkempt beard destroyed it. Overall he looked quite harmless, but you could never be more wrong. If anyone would have asked Alyssa, she would have labeled him the sneakiest, craziest bastard of Fire City.

“ Well what’s an old granny doing here?” he asked in surprise. Mischief could be seen in his eyes.

“ Who the hell is a granny!?” she looked at the newly arrived boy, with a threatening expression.

“ You Old Women.”

“ You are a Granny! Your Family is a Granny!”

Alyssa was quite proud of her beauty and being called a Granny was like provoking a dragon!

She rushed towards him, baring her fist.

“ No Granny…my family is full of young and handsome people like me. See…such a smooth skin, awesome looks…” the boy teased her while posing in various postures.

“ Come here, let me show you who is a Granny!” she threatened him, as he swiftly leaped over a tree. She was never good with words, instead she preferred to talk with her punches.

“ Granny! Be careful. Running at such age…tch tch…do you want to break your bones?”

“You!”

“ Sigh…You two…” a woman's voice broke the fight.

Three people entered the clearing. Two men and one woman. The men were around thirty years old. Both had rough looking faces. The larger one was holding a bow. He had a short pony. Rest of his face was covered with a clothing. The other one was thinner and extremely pale-skinned. His hairs were a mess. He looked ill. Large dark circles framed his eyes. His eyes were small. He was continuously squinting, and every few moments he would correct the glasses resting on his small nose. Numerous vials and pouches hung from his waist.

The accompanying woman was holding a wand in one hand. Her face was average looking, with no identifying feature. In fact, her face would be lost among the masses. She was similar in age to the men. All three of them were dressed in leathers.

“ Annie! Ask Xo to stop teasing me!” said Alyssa while running towards the newly arrived woman. The woman called Annie was a mother like a figure in their team and also their captain.

“Xo…” sighed Annie, looking at the childish boy. Although the sigh was soft and sweet, the underlying meaning was clear.

“ Fine..but she really is an old woman…” he mumbled.

“ You two…leave you a moment and you start a world war!” the squinting man spoke, scolding the two of them in a playful tone.

“ Anyway’s we are here to check whether an evolved monster did take residence here or no. You should have already read the details.” Annie informed them.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Annie looked at the man with the bow, and asked, “ Ronald, you had checked the spot…any information?”

Ronald swept a look at everybody and said, “ Nothing…”

“ Nothing?” questioned Annie

“Emhmm…the whole clearing was empty. No marks. No scratches. No footprints, except for goblin ones. Nothing! But the mana concentration was extremely high!”

“ Anything else?” Annie asked him in confusion.

“ A cave was there…it might be the beast lair. Mana was being released from there. I didn’t take a look in.”

She looked at him for a moment, and then swept a gaze at everyone, and then said.

“ We will be having a look in the cave. If anyone sees’s the beast, signal everybody else. Be ready.”

Saying this, she started walking towards the cave. Everybody followed her, taking care to not disturb the shrubbery or leave any marks. Meanwhile, both Xo and Alyssa would look at each other. Xo would make faces while earning murderous glares from Alyssa. Others ignored their antics as if used to it.

After an hour or so, they reached the clearing. In front of them was a cave. The cave mouth wasn’t large. Numerous footprints could be seen entering the cave.

Ronald gestured to everybody and pointed towards the cave.” This is it.”

Annie looked at the cave carefully, as if trying to find something. A few moments later, she looked at everyone and said, “ Be careful… I don't know why I feel something wrong”

Everyone nodded and tightened their grips on their weapons. A knife had appeared in Xo’s hand from nowhere.

They carefully entered the cave.

Despite the entrance being small, the inside was large. The path was large. But the whole tunnel was dark.

“ Goddamn! I hate the dark!” complained Xo.

“ Snort…being a ranger, shouldn’t you love it…idiot!” Alyssa jeered at him.

“You!”

“ Both of you…Quite!” scolded Annie, with a threatening glance. Seeing the glance anyone would go weak. Giving both of them a stare she looked at Ronald.

“ Ronald…” said Annie, while looking at him meaningfully.

He nodded and slowly merged with the darkness, vanishing in front of them.

A few moments later he once again emerged in front of them. But instead of his usually cold eyes, all that could be seen was astonishment.

“ We have struck rich!!” he said excitedly. His cold demeanor was long gone.

“Why, did the beast die?” Xo asked for confusion. An evolved beast was a walking treasure trove. Everything from its skin to bones was a treasure.

Ronald looked at him and snorted disdainfully, “ What beast? We have struck big!”

Annie looked at his excited expression, and ordered him in a deadpanned tone, “ Can you stop?”

“ Sor-Sorry” he replied sheepishly.

“ Now say?” she questioned him.

“ It’s a Dungeon!” he answered in an overly excited tone.

“ Dungeon?!?” everybody questioned him in unison. They were extremely surprised. Finding a new dungeon was incredibly rare. In the past century, no new dungeon had been found. But above all the main reason of surprise was, a dungeon represented a new source of wealth. Various treasures could be found in a dungeon! Rare metals, gems, herbs, and monster cores!

“ Yes!! If I am right it’s a dungeon!” Ronald answered in excitement.

“ No wonder…right…right…right…the thick mana…man made but natural looking tunnels…” the squinting man spoke to himself as if realizing anything.

Annie looked at the squinting man and asked him, “ Anything Joshua?”

“ Hmmm…nothing. I had few doubts when we entered here. But if it’s a Dungeon, then that’s not surprising…” he answered hurriedly.

“ Hmm…so we might have stumbled across a dungeon. “ Annie said, attracting the attention of everybody. She stopped for a moment as if thinking anything, and then said, “ We will map it as per Guild Regulations, and submit it later. Any questions?”

“ Why do we need to submit to the Guild? They will take over it and simply give us some measly amount. the man known as Joshua spoke.

“ So what do you think we should do?” asked Annie looking at him. There was a slight frostiness in her tone.

“ We can auction this news! Just imagine…we all will barely get a thousand gold coins each. But if we auction it, we can at least earn double!” Joshua replied with excitement, as he was trying to convince others. But he had missed the frostiness in Annie’s tone.

“Joshua! That’s against the rules! “ complained Alyssa.

“ So what? No one has to know that we are selling the news.” He replied to her.

“ Joshua…Guild has helped us reach this height and we owe this to them. And apart from money, we will also get a seat on Dungeon council.” Annie replied frostily. She hated such people, who would betray others, for some wealth.

Joshua looked at her, and as if first time noticing her anger., “ You are right….sorry..just these projects have almost consumed all my finances, so I was looking to earn more.” He replied, gesturing towards the vials.

Hearing the excuse, Annie's frostiness reduced a lot. “ No worries…you can have a part of my share.”

Seeing this everyone gave a sigh of relief. No one wanted to face an ‘ Angry Annie.’

“ So let’s see, what does the Dungeon has to offer?” commented Xo, breaking the tense atmosphere.

“Let’s Go,” Annie ordered and dived in.