While eating lunch the next day Alex spoke up " Hey Matthias did ya hear about what happened after they chased the corrupted that ran away?". I looked up from the watery soup I was eating and stared at Alex in confusion. "What do you mean what happened? They probably hunted them down and slaughtered them. Corrupted are far too dangerous to let loose. Leave 1 alive and 1 month later a horde of over 50 will come looking to slaughter you".

"I mean you arn't wrong but no, that's not all that happened dude. They chased the corrupted and managed to kill one during the chase but the other 2 ran into a dungeon to escape the guards!" Alex responded in a very excited tone while looking at me expectantly. "So what? They just ran into a dungeon..." was my simple response as i finished the last of my soup and carried the dishes to the kitchen. "There's no dungeons near the academy you know, so what do you think that means then? It means there's a new dungeon!" Alex nearly sent his dishes flying in his excitement.

After I calmed him down somewhat I said "So that's why everyone seems so busy and excited." A new dungeon could mean dozens of new resources that were infinitely renewable. This meant that the city would flourish and the economy would boom. This was only the case if it wasn't a so called useless dungeon. Those are dungeons that only contain monsters that have nothing of value or anything harvestable, and only created more trouble than they were worth. "Hopefully the dungeon isn't a dud, because that would just mean trouble, what with the threat of monsters escaping the dungeon to attack people and whatnot." I tell Alex as we were walking down the halls.

Before Alex could respond I hear that irritable voice that always caused trouble for us, Vorlander, walk towards us and speak in his annoying tone of voice. "Thats what we are going to find out my dear Matthias. The Duke pulled some strings and now students from Nepholite Academy will have the honour to be the first explorers of the newly discovered dungeon, and you 2 will be joining us as our meatshield- I mean guards to ensure the safety of us students". His voice was laden with mockery of our situation. Obviously if things went south, we would be the first into the fire to stall for time. This meant that we would most likely get injured several times if not killed during the dungeon exploration, simply because the students were too damn careless to bother avoiding danger.

"Let's go Matthias, we don't want you turning Vorlander into a popsicle, as fun as that sounds. The Duke would only make us suffer". Alex gripped my shoulders to prevent me from lashing out with magic at Vorlander, who obviously had a hand in us being part of the guards. He probably wants to simply bully us and use us in order to gain fame to clearing a dangerous dungeon by having us do the hard work and leave him to take the glory. He would get away with it due to these stupid collars too, which made me even more furious. I turned around and ignored the snide remarks coming from behind my back that made my mood get worse and worse.

~~~

Later that day, after we had finished helping teach classes we decided to talk with Maria, who was surprisingly a good person in her heart. Even if she looked as unaproachable as a rabid dog at times, she was a relatively kind girl. "How was my sword swings during our spar Alex? Did I do it right? I followed exactly what you said!" Maria fervently discussed military strategies and sword techniques with Alex. She was a total fighting fanatic with nothing but how to improve her fighting techniques on her mind. Sweets? Boys? Love? She couldn't care less about those topics. She would rather blather on and on about how 'Alex was totally like a Northern berserker' and how She 'wants Alex to teach her more on his fighting technique because it seems very effective'.

I let the 2 meatheads finish their discussion before Maria spoke up "Alex, Matthias I'm going on a dungeon clearing quest with other students tomorrow! I also heard you 2 will be going along, is that true?" Alex laughed and said "We sure are, but how did you hear about it? We didn't exactly advertise it to people or anything". Alex sounded rather confused as he said the last bit because we truly didn't tell others. What was the point? It didn't mean we were going to get real food for once, so we didn't particularly care about the little escapade we were a part of.

"Vorlander has been going around bragging about how you 2 are his personal meatshield or something". She said with that typical icy tone Maria used when we first met. "Looks like Vorlander has been spreading his nonsense around to either piss us off, or to look so better in front of his peers. Whatever it was, he certainly accomplished number 1" I say as I clenched my fists while Alex Simply laughed and shook his head. "He is going to get a couple of meatshields alright. Just not the type he expected". Alex had a terrifying glint of madness in his eyes, which I usually only saw when he was doing some crazy experiment or about to do something that would make my head hurt. I had a bad feeling about that glint as it probably meant I wouldn't be eating much food for the next few days. "Just... Just try to keep your shenanigans to a minimum, would you?" was my respo nce as I massaged my head to prevent the headache that was developing. "No promises!" was all I got out of Alex, leaving poor Maria very confused as to what was going on. "What does Matthias mean by that Alex? Are you going to do something?". I felt as though it was going to be a long day.

Shortly after the discussion with Maria, the party that would be exploring got together. There was a total of 5 students, with Maria and Vorlander being 2 of them. The other 3 were some 2nd year students I had never talked with. Other than us, there was also 2 B ranked adventurers that would be escorting us through the dungeon. Many of the students that go to Nepholite Academy were wealthy and came from good families, so obviously the duke would spend money to ensure their safety and prevent them from harm, because that would be simply putting his head on the chopping block if they got harmed due to his negligence.

The adventurers introduced themselves as Stron and Meldor, and went over some basic rules that would be followed when entering the dungeon. Most of them were safety procedures like what to do when separated, and how to use the warp stones to escape in case of emergency. I noticed that Alex and I were considerably lacking in the warp stone department and asked the adventurers, to which they responded "The Duke didn't provide us with yours and said that you 2 would bring your own. Did you guys forget them? I can't get you guys any as warp stones are rather expensive, so you're going to have to deal with not having any". I saw Vorlander snickering and Maria giving us a concerned look, but when she saw me looking she turned away as if she never cared about me in the first place. She's very confusing at times. She can look glad to be with us one second and the next pretend like I'm a rock because I embarrassed her or some other nonsensical reason.

We got our gear ready and Stron shouted "Ready? Let's head in there and kick some monster ass!". We then marched into the dungeon full of anticipation and slight fear.