BXBX NOVEL Chapter 148 - 1st Floor Maze
"I did?"
"You did, she said it was faint, but she could remember see the face of a kid performing healing on her, since you were the only kid there, it\'s you, right?"
"W-Well I guess..."
"Then, once more, let me thank you for saving my wife and all those people. Also make sure you conquer this dungeon, I\'ll be honest, I don\'t like this job."
Seeing this, John started to laugh
"Um, Mr?"
"Nathan, call me Nathan."
John couldn\'t really see his face or body features that well since he was wearing very heavy armour and even had a helmet on, but that wasn\'t necessary. He\'d be able to identify Nathan through his magic trace.
"Then... Nathan, you\'re saying rumours of me using magic is spreading around, right?"
"That\'s right."
"Are they accurate? Like do they know my name?"
"In the end, rumours are rumours, they know it\'s a kid, but they think of you as an S-Rank adventurer, and you don\'t seem to be known... no. You\'re fine, even if someone were to research, they wouldn\'t know your name now, would they?"
"Haha, that\'s right. Thanks nathan, and it\'d be rude to be the only one to introduce yourself, right? My name is John"
John extended his hand towards the surprised Nathan in the form of a handshake
"Right, nice to meet you John, one day I promise to repay you."
"I\'m looking forward to it"
Those were the last words exchanged between the young boy and the man, shortly after they were done with their conversation, John joined back with the group
"What took you so long?" Serena asked
Hearing this, John moved closer to the side of Serena\'s Face and slightly raised her hat, before whispering in her ear
"Couldn\'t you hear it from here? I was gathering information"
"Y-You\'re too close..." Said Serena as she slightly backed away
She muttered, with her face slightly red and her lips curled.
[What a cute reaction...]
"I thought you were going to get mad, you\'ve been awfully passive recently." Said John as he approached her again
"T-That\'s because of..."
Serena seemed to be thinking back on a memory, and when she did her face was getting redder and redder.
"Because of?"
"A-Anyways, forget it!"
Said serena before she quickly turned away
[What? Forget it...? What\'s she thinking about... Wait... Could it be about what happened at the beach?]
"Hehe..."
"What\'s with that creepy laugh..." Muttered Serena
"Let\'s go."
After that, the group started to walk inside. As they passed through the entrance and began walking down the stairs, john noticed that Ariel was giving him the stare, she looked curious about something.
Seeing this, John also moved closer to her ear and whispered
"I whispered to Serena that I was gathering information"
Ariel\'s face suddenly got redder as John approached her, but she kept herself calm
"I-I see..."
[Hm... God... Calm down... Now\'s not the time to tease them... We\'re in a dungeon for flip sakes...]
And just like that, they finally reached the first floor, or so they thought.
[What is this?] John asked
Instead of it being a floor, it was a path which was floating with a door at the end of it, alongside this path, there were other white paths floating around with a door at the end of them.
Under the path was a black endless abyss where the lights wouldn\'t reach. John didn\'t even want to imagine what might be down there.
"It almost looks like..."
John was interrupted by master who took the words right out of his mouth
"A maze."
"A maze huh... I\'m assuming Ms. Sylvia knows the way..." Muttered Serena as she glanced over at Ms Sylvia
Master Sylvia who saw this, shook her head
"The door changes every hour... if you enter the wrong one, you\'re sent back here."
"So the only way to find the right one is to check each on individually?" Ariel asked
Master Sylvia nodded
Serena however didn\'t seem to happy with checking each door individually, there were around 10 other paths, 3 in which were flipped upside down, two were doing weird curls and 1 where it was straight up pointed at the Ceiling
"Isn\'t it going to be impossible to check some of them?" Serena asked
"You have a point..." Ariel muttered
[Deprehendre]
John cast deprehendre and noticed something strange, each door had the same amount of magic power however one door had a blue light coming out of it.
The doors were closed, but John\'s deprehendre worked in a way that it would detect magic or a person based on it\'s magic trace. He could also see the colour if he focused hard enough.
Because of that, he noticed a change
"I see... There\'s no need to check them all individually." Said John as he began heading to the door on the path they were standing on
There were many other adventurers around and the paths were slightly filled, it wouldn\'t be a joke to say there were over 10 other parties
"So many... But John, what do you mean by that? If we don\'t check them all individually, we won\'t know what the right door is." Said Serena
"Nope, this door is the right door" Said john as he walked through the crowd of people
Some were trying to get on other paths while others were lamenting a few which seemed to have fallen before John and his party arrived.
The path was wide and durable, so they probably fell because they missed the jump to the other path
Some Adventurers who weren\'t distracted or simply waiting for someone to find the right door, watched as John\'s party began heading toward the door on the path they were all standing on.
"What\'re they doing? Don\'t they know some idiot already tried that door and got sent back?"
"Well it\'s fine, they probably newcomers, they\'ll learn the hard way"
As the four reached the door, John stopped Serena who was about to open it
"Wait, not yet." Said John
"Huh? Didn\'t you bring us here because this was the right door?" Serena asked
"it is the right door, just not now"
"Not now?"
"Mhm, it hasn\'t changed to this one yet."
"Wait john, you don\'t mean, you know when it will change and which to?" Ariel asked
"Yes and no, I don\'t know which it will change to, but I\'ll know when it does change to this one" John replied
"Doesn\'t that mean we\'ll have to wait an hour?" Ariel asked
"Master said an hour, but what if that information is innacurate? What if people say it\'s an hour, because that\'s how long it took for them to find the right door after it changed?"
"Then, what\'s the correct time?" Serena asked
"The correct timing is 5 minutes." John replied
Serena and Ariel were both deeply surprised
"For john to have figured that out before me..." Serena muttered
Rather than surprised she looked shocked
"Oi."