Right now, we gathered in front of the entrance to the Serene Catacomb.

I had imagined a dark gloomy and dirty entrance, but instead, I found something that looked like a museum. It even had a reception desk at the side of the entrance and a big wooden board located near it, pinned down by hundreds of job requests and party member recruitment.

The venue beside the entrance was a place where the materials were traded. The treasures obtained by the adventurers would be exchanged for money there.

Rows of uniformed woman with a beautiful smile were inspecting the people who entered and left the dungeon. From the look, their work was to inspect the Status Plate and record the number of people who entered and left the catacomb to accurately pinpoint the death ratio, with the war ravaging, this was the method they adopted to avoid more unnecessary casualties. And it seemed we needed to pay a small amount of money to enter the catacomb, I guessed this also acted as the bookkeeping.

Rather than a dangerous place, this catacomb almost felt like a tourist spot. On the plaza near the entrance, there were many stalls lined up. All the shop owners were trying to promote their goods such as weapons, snake oils, potions, foods, healing services and rental muscles. It was like a grim festival. Then again, I guessed this place was a popular area to earn money because many people gathered here.

Of course, the dungeon’s back alleys also seemed to attract criminal activities.

While we were following behind Jorgen like ducklings following their mother. It was decided we would have two shift and split into 24 groups after combining two of the highest and the lower rank students. With two knights accompanying each group.

The inside of the Catacomb was totally different to the bustling of the outside, though it wasn't a claustrophobic place filled with skeleton or human remains like I thought it would be. The entrance was narrow, with only 5-6 meter in width and yet it was emitting a dim light, it was possible to see to some extent even without any illumination magic or torches. It seemed because of low-level Magic Stones, or in this case, Magic Shards were buried in the Catacomb walls; and from the information that I read, no matter how much Grurian country had been excavating these Magic Stones as the alternative lamp, the Catacomb always replenished the stock after some amount of time.

We organized into ranks and pressed forward. For a while, nothing noteworthy happened until we advanced into a more wide area and arrived at a certain hall. This hall was dome shaped and the ceiling looked to be around 7-8 meter high. Then, in front of us, the path split into three directions.

The left path was the longest and the least dangerous of them all, the right path itself almost more like a passageway, it was the narrowest path but also the shortest one, the middle one was the biggest and the most direct path. All of these paths would be interconnected at the end of this floor.

"Okay, Everyone! Once we are splitting up, follow the instructions you received before doing anything! and don't act reckless!" Shouted Jorgen. "We'll meet at the end of this floor!"

121 students and 48 knights. 4 groups on each path. 10 students with 2 knights for each group, and I somehow still ended up with Azusa, the two face queen. The rest of our group starting from the second strongest to the weakest were Namba Kenji the muscular boy. Shiraishi Eri the blond-haired delinquent looking girl. Kozue Kabuto the emo boy. Narisawa Momo the energetic loli. Sugiyama Ieyasu the boy with a feminine face. Uchiha Emika the always shaking girl. Sukukaze Jo the plumptious boy. Me and Yasumi Chikage the glasses girl.

And as we got the left path, we were separating ourselves from the other three. It looked like the knights would only help us if things got dangerous. As for the path searching.

"After this, we go left."

Thanks for my experience on Earth, reading the blueprint of the house, remembering the police patrol area and the alleyway, our group didn't have that much difficulty of directing our way to the next floor entrance.

Of course, I didn't tell anything to the other group. After all, it was their own fault for not learning the layout.

Then, in front of us, I could see several faint moving light flickering from a few meters away.

"Prepare yourself! The lights in front of us are the Magic Beasts called Kobold. Their movement is quick, but they are not very strong-"

"So they are weak, right? Let me take this one!" Shouted Namba Kenji.

I didn't even finish telling him what to do, and yet the boy with very spiky brownish-black hair combed backwards and is very spiky already charged toward the Kobold while completely ignored 'Their movement is quick.' part. Then again, he didn't even question whether or not my information was a correct one.

His bulky figure disappeared into the shadows and soon, the flickering flames were dancing around, and after one flame was flying to the wall. "Er, guys!! I Need back up!"

"...Idiot." I said after letting out a deep sigh. "Anyway, Kobold is not particularly intelligent and are notoriously cowardly, they usually keep their distance if they got outnumbered. Oh, supposedly the one with the candle on their head can use fire magic. And be careful with their tail and they are famous with their stinky body."

After I said that we ran to the front and found the Kobolds were whipping circling around Kenji. Their outward appearance looked very similar to a naked mole rat, but they were bipedal Magic Beasts, four feet tall at best and had a muscular upper body. As if to show off their six packs and chest muscle, those parts were not covered by hair.

When Azusa and the rest of the girls, who was in our party, saw the enemy, their face stiffened up. Well... I supposed they did gave a creepy feeling.

Following us, the knights immediately intercepted the Kobold and helping Kenji.

Jo the chubby boy had Power affinity and specialized in hardening his body and increasing his muscle mass. And even though he was supposed to be the vanguard. He stiffened up as he was unsure of what he needed to do.

"JO! You better move your ass to the front and use your shield to protect us!!" I shouted in annoyment.

On reflexes, Jo immediately raising his shield to cover his face and body and hardening his skin to further increased his defence.

Kabuto with his Space and Elemental (fire and wind) affinity and slick hair that covered his right eye. "Swirling flame-" They way he chanted clearly showed he was unmotivated.

I immediately covered his mouth with my hand. "...Don't use fire in a closed space."

Urgh... they didn't have enough real-life fighting experience huh, well, I guessed sparing with your friend and facing against a couple dozen of real-life enemies at once was different.

And here I thought I didn't need to do anything.

I took out a purple coloured liquid from my waist bag and started drinking it. This was a potion called Potion of Dexterity. The one in the Palace could increase my Dexterity by 49 points, but this one was made by me, and the best I could do was 12 points.

Indeed, this was the so-called alchemy, and except for the medicine, this world didn't seem to develop this study. Even though Alchemical Potion had a greater effect rather than the prepared Magic, too bad that most of the Alchemical Potion duration was less than a minute before our body started rejecting its effect.

But what happened if one could slow the rejecting process? And this was what I thought after using Slow Motion to keep the food temperature stable.

And somehow I couldn't use this method with the prepared Magic.

Either way, Potion of Dexterity duration was 15 seconds, but if I used Slow Motion on the potion just after it entered my throat, I could increase the duration up to 4 minutes.

Next was Potion of Strength to increase my Str by 12 and Werewolf Concoction to make sure I wouldn't get tired by running, sprinting and jumping for one minute, or in my case 16 minutes.

Then again, three potions at once were the best I could do. My body started burning up, my face turned pale, and purple veins showing up on my face.

With a pair of a black dagger on my hand, I forward and trying to intercept the Kobold that was charging toward us. Much to my surprise, it seemed Azusa, Ieyasu and Eri somehow managed to get a hold at their wit and started fighting back.

Meanwhile, Kabuto and Emika also started to chant. This time Kabuto used wind elemental magic 'Aero Slash' to cut the Kobolds from afar. At the same time, Emika seemed to chant something... in a very low voice. But If I wasn't wrong, her speciality was Power affinity by buffing the others party members.

Azusa wielded her long giant sword with unfathomable speed. She quickly made short work of the few enemies. Her sword was one of the Magic Item that was given to her, the Diffusal Sword. It was powered by Power Magic Stone, and its function was reducing magic from any enemies that got cut by it, and it also automatically strengthened its wielder.

Meanwhile, my black daggers ability was it couldn't get rusty by using Time Magic Stone to stop the oxidation process.

Ieyasu's affinity was Soul. He extended his hand in front of him and closed his eyes. Before long, particles of light appeared in mid-air, gathered together, and took on a shape. It was a bow. Moreover, it was not a compound bow, but instead looked more like a bow that was used in Japan, or Yumi Bow. However, it did not come with any arrows. He had taken a stance with the bow in his left hand and as soon as he opened his eyes.

He then placed the fingers of his right hand on the bowstring as if he was holding an invisible arrow, and slowly drew the string back. Immediately after he did that, an arrow surrounded by a dazzling light appeared in his hand.

An instant later, an arrow cut through the air as it flew straight towards one of the Kobolds and pierced its body as if it was getting sucked inside. Then it exploded along with a loud sound. The remaining fragments of its body scattered to the ground and the floor.

Eri affinity was Space and Power, unlike her naughty appearance and outfit, she used a pair of axes as her equipment. These were also Magic Items, they could deliver shock-waves through space, and the power was definitely not lacking in any way. She took an imposing stance and did not let any enemy get past her with beautiful chops and smashes. Even though she had slender figure... she definitely played the role of a berserker.

I changed the position of my daggers from facing backwards to facing forward. And starting stabbing the Kobolds right under their neck. This was the first time I ever used Alchemical Potions in the real battle, but the lightness of my body, and the sudden increase of my movement really helped a lot.

And while we were pushing back the number of the Kobold to make a clear path for Kenji and the knights, a chant resounded.

"Swirling Maelstrom Howling Across the Sky, Wiped Away My Enemies 'Tornado' "

Kabuto and Emika simultaneously launched the one-meter radius spiralling tornado forward, which engulfed the Kobolds. The Kobolds let out a death cry as the winds shredded them to pieces.

By the time they noticed, all the Kobold were wiped out. "It seems the enemies on the first floor are too weak for the chosen one's party." Said one of the knights with a complicated smile.

"Anyway, good job on your performance this time, and don’t forget to retrieve the Magic Stone." Said the other knight.

I didn't know what kind of face that I made, but after successfully subduing Magic Beasts for the first time, it was unavoidable for our faces broke out into different kind of emotion, some were smiling, some were looking gloom, some were disgusted by the blood and meat, some were feeling down.

I might be smiling, but there was one thing I remembered. I only shrugged my shoulder when I saw Azusa's pale face as she taking a look at her bloodied hands.

"Hahaha! good job, good job! Next time you guys should leave some for me!" Said Jo as he hit my back. ...This person might look weak, but his strength definitely far higher than mine.

"Ah... feel free to take the next enemy." I replied with a serious tone as I didn't know whether or not he was joking or serious when he said that.

Jo stopped for a moment and laughed bitterly at my remark. "A-ahaha... C'mon, we're a teammate, right? Shouldn't we help each other out? Anyway, you don't mean it, right?"

Anyway, I used Fast Forward to let out the rest of Alchemical Potion on my body. Another downside from Alchemical Potion was its resting time. It varied between each potion, but the shortest one would be 5 minutes.

In the simplest way, if normal people drunk Potion of Dexterity, the effectiveness only lasted for 15 seconds, but the substance itself would last for 5 minutes.

That meant for the next 5 minutes, he could only drink another one or two potions. And the resting time itself stacked between one potion and the other. In my case, Potion of Dexterity and Strength each had 5 minutes resting time, and Werewolf Concoction had 20 minutes.

All in all, I needed to cast concentrate while simultaneously using Fast Forward across my whole for around 2-3 minutes before my current resting time was gone from my body.

Though...

"Are you alright?! You must still be unwell, right?!" Shouted Momo, the energetic girl with 140 cm height, with shoulder-length dark brown hair with a fair skin with a light complexion and an obvious delicate under-developed figure.

Her affinity was Time. Though... because of her supportive skill, it seemed she couldn't reduce the adrenaline that she got from the previous battle.

"You want me to fully heal you, yes?! You do, don't you?!" She shouted even though I hadn't said anything.

"Eh, don't mind me. I'm fine."

"No, no, no, no need to be shy! Now then 'Life's refreshing breeze... Blow in energy and Restore the wound 'Heal'!"

Warm and soothing ball of light floating around at my body, it was almost felt like I was sleeping under the bask of sun.

"How is it? *gasped* Oh no!! You're still pale!! You must need some more, then... 'Heal'!!"

"No, this is the after effect-"

"Heal!"

"I'm not injured..."

"Heal! Heal! Heal!"

"...Just treat Kenji first."

"Heeeeeal!!"

As the ball of lights was covering my whole face, I decided it was useless to talk to her. And for the whole 3 minutes, she used all of her Magic Power to heal the (not) injured me.

"H-how was it? Are you.... feel better now?" Asked Momo as with ragged breathing as sweats fell down from her forehead.

And before I was able to say anything, she let the gravity pushing her body to the floor with a somewhat satisfied face and was letting out some weird 'Uhnnnnnnn' noises from her mouth. And if I wasn't wrong... she must be out of Magic Power.

....

"Wait, what about me?!" Said Kenji with a face full of bruises.

Anyhow, after waiting for Momo to replenish her Magic Power and healing Kenji's face. We started walking forward and found no particular problems, we took turns in battles, and made our way to the entrance to the next floor smoothly.

Eventually, we decided to continue until we arrived on the 10th floor, which is the mark of a professional adventurer. Since the weakest of us still had more power than the usual person, we easily broke through to the 10th level, even if we did not have much battle experience.

And maybe because we still had much time. "Alright, alright. you guys. From this point on, not only will there be other types of Magic Beasts, but they will work together to attack us. Do not get careless just because it had been easy so far! The training for today will end after we clear the 15thfloor! Get fired up!" Said Jorgen.

However, starting from 10th floor onward, traps were the scariest feature of this Catacomb. In some instances, the traps were lethal. There are some Magic Item or Spell to detect traps by perceiving the flow of magic. As most traps in the dungeons created by magic. However, why did we need that if we had the information and the experience?

As our group quickly breezed through the floors, some others group somewhat started to follow us. However, Jorgen strongly admonished them; as the purpose of today training was to accumulate as much experience as we could.

Speaking of which... my role somewhat completely changed from the pathfinder, to fighter and ambusher, to group leader, to porter, to observer, and at last to trap searcher.

Right now, considering I didn't have any Alchemical Potion left, most of the time I stood on the back while occasionally protecting the spellcaster.

And there was one big problem that Azusa noticed, and somehow she consulted to me.

Walking alone at the back was Chikage, the glasses girl. Up to this point, she had not done anything in particular. No... she did do something, but others could do it better than her.

Her affinity was Mind and she only had one skill, Charm. Her skill itself couldn't be directly used in battle. Not to mention the limitation on her skill. Anyway, Charm allowed her to makes the targeted creature regarded her as its trusted friend and ally. But if the creature was currently being threatened or attacked by any of us, it would cancel itself.

And charm didn't enable her to control the target creature. It only perceived her words and actions in the most favourable way to convince the target to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do. And the target never obeyed suicidal or obviously harmful orders.

To be honest, I did not expect anything from her in the beginning. However, since the battle was well-off, and I started to become less useful, I started paying a little attention.

"What about your 'I hate violence' policy?"

"Considering our situation, it can't be helped, anyway... watching her somehow make me feel bad. So can you do something or not?"

With a deep sigh and thinking for a while. For now, we'd just given her the weakened Magic Beast. That was all she did. Basically, there was no chance for her to get involved in the group battle, she just stood behind the cover provided by us.

Again, the last remaining weakened Magic Beast was thrown to Chikage by us. When it approached, Chikage pierced it with her sword and as its abdomen was skewered by the sharp sword, she let out a sigh.

It wasn't like I couldn't sympathize with her either... but she should've known since we were basically surrounded by so many strong people, too strong until our all-out effort was useless. She should've gathered some other knowledge to make herself useful rather than forcing herself to learn as many spell or train as hard as she could.

As we stopped for a short rest, since Chikage did not have anything to do or talk, she sat slightly afar from the rest of the group. Sometimes, she occasionally looked to the guy, including me and trapped in her own imagination before giving off a creepy laugh.

It was not the first time today that I felt her gaze. Since the morning I had felt someone staring. When I tried to locate the stare, this feeling would disappear. This had happened repeatedly since the morning, and just a few moments ago I noticed it was Chikage... not to mention from her expression alone, I bet she was thinking something indecent.

(...Trap, eh.)

We continued to explore the 15th floor. Each floor of starting from the 10th floor was almost as big as the city itself. Heck, even though I had studied the map beforehand, I still needed to take a couple of minutes to figure out our current location. Anyway, currently, up to forty-nine floor had been mapped properly, so it was not that easy to get lost. There was also little concern that they would get caught in traps.

Ah, speaking of traps.

Currently, I was watching Chikage giving suggestion to a humanoid creature with long, sharp teeth, and had pallid flesh that was stretched tightly over its starved frame called ghoul.

The suggestion was simple. 'Walk forward.'

Just as the ghoul walked to the said direction, it fell to a pitfall on the ground and getting pierced by the iron stake.

"I-I did it! I really did it! look, I managed to defeat it!"

Chikage jumped for joy, and then rushed over to me and hugged me tightly. Considering she was the only one that hadn't been bathed by blood, her sweet smell and somewhat the bouncy soft sensation caused my heart rate to skyrocket.

Well, considering she didn't know the location of the trap, and as long as she didn't have the intention to do so, I guessed this tactic could be used for several dozen of times.

...And I hoped she wouldn't give the guys her creepy laugh.

In the end, we arrived at the end of the 15th floor and got teleported back to the entrance. Switching with the 2nd shift groups as we were heading to the inn to clean our body and got some rest.

Karasuma Eiji 15 Year old Male Affinity Time Level 6 Strength 38 Intelligence 52 Dexterity 46 Charisma 42 Constitution 32 Wisdom 51 Skills: Fast Forward (O) Slow Motion (O) Language Comprehension (D)