Torin turned to Michael and his party, gesturing that they finally arrived.
Since the last village they were heading to was destroyed, they had no choice but to head back and report the results.
And that’s exactly what Selene went to do, she looked a bit anxious as she stepped out of the truck and headed towards what appeared to be a massive mansion.
‘Holy shit.. it’s like 3 times bigger than what I had’ Michael admired the sight in front of him and then remembered they also had a rich kid among them, that being Chloe.
“I am not sure what you kids are planning on doing, I can try getting in contact with Vivum, for all that’s going to do though..’ Torin grumbled and left the truck as well, following after Selene.
“Hey, Kevin?”
“Yes?”
“That ‘incident’ you warned me about back in the slums, exactly when was it supposed to happen?” Michael questioned, trying to confirm his hunch.
Kevin looked back into his eyes “It should be another week, that’s at least how it was last time” He said out loud, confusing Chloe and Elizabeth who were sitting next to them.
“Right, where was it?”
“..In the city?” Kevin answered in a confused tone before his eyes widened.
“You don’t think…”
Although Michael simply nodded at him, that was exactly what he was thinking.
Back when he was stuck inside of a dungeon, the connection to the outside was completely severed, the same went both times.
However, this situation is supposed to be a dungeon break, not a collapse, he was not completely sure if the scale affected it in a similar way.
But that’s the only conclusion he had come to, nothing else made sense.
You might be right, after all, his knowledge of the future could be lacking, since as you might have realized, some things are indeed different.
‘Do you mean to say that it could actually be a dungeon collapse instead of a dungeon break?’ Michael thought and realized it might be possible.
While the general knowledge Kevin shared was correct, it deviated a bit from the actual reality.
‘What a shitty time for something like this to happen..’ Michael sighed and watched as Torin approached them, his expression didn’t seem like it bore any good news.
“Nothing” He said with a shrug.
Michael got out of the car, the others following after him.
“How far away is Vivum?”
Torin thought for a moment before replying “With our fastest transport, we could get you there in maybe a day? A tad bit longer perhaps.”
That confused Michael a tad bit, while they did drive around the villages quite a lot, in the very end they arrived at the mansion that was only a few hours away from the mountain they found themselves on earlier.
‘I am sure we were inside the armored van for only a couple of hours, how are we so far away?’
The others shared the same thoughts as it did not really make sense, unless one of those Evangelists did something, however, he doubted they could pull something like that off.
Especially if they only had Tier 1’s on standby.
“I see, could we use that transport then? We really need to get back to Vivum” Michael pleaded with Torin.
“You would need to talk to the head of the house for that, Selene will be done shortly, after that, you can try your luck.”
For some reason, Torin’s voice didn’t sound convincing.
‘The head of the house must be a bit interesting, It would explain how hey managed to raise a daughter like.. that’ A shiver went down his spine as he thought about the blind arrogance she showed.
Torin led them inside the mansion, it had all sorts of luxurious items strewn around, even a chair made out of gold.
“That seems a bit unnecessary..” Elizabeth snickered, looking at all of the useless items that were covered in jewels.
Just as they approached a massive door, Selene walked out with tears in her eyes, ignoring them completely.
‘A father who makes his daughter cry.. We are dead.’
“Well, you are free to go in now, I’ll be going after Selene now” Torin said and departed.
The party went inside and were met with a stern looking man who currently had a frown plastered on his face.
And upon noticing them his frown grew deeper.
“Were you the ones who bullied my daughter?”
‘Fuck.’ Michael was about to facepalm but stopped himself, paying close attention to the man, specifically to his mana.
‘It’s as if he has a Mana Core.. but he doesn’t, is this what it feels like to be close to forming a Mana Core?’ He wondered.
Yes, he will reach it soon, judging by where most of the mana was forming, it will be a Dantian Core.
‘Interesting..’ Michael seemed to understand and stopped paying attention to the man’s mana.
He glanced at Elizabeth and smirked, making her flinch.
“No sir, it was only her..” He faked an apologetic look and pointed towards her.
However, the expected reaction did not come “I see… Thank you girl.” The man said with gratitude.
‘What?’ Michael seemed confused and the man continued further.
“Selene needed a little bit of toughening up, once again, thank you.”
He then suddenly sat up straight, his previous fatherly expression gone “What do you kids need?”
Kevin stepped up and began explaining the entire situation, how they couldn’t contact Vivum even after all this time.
The man listened attentively “I see, so you want to use the fastest vehicle I have then?”
“That’s right” Kevin nodded back at him.
“Very well, I’ll assign you transport, however, in exchange, I need you to do something for me” A sly smile appeared on the man’s face.
‘Of course, it wouldn’t be so simple..’
Kevin’s brow twitched “And what is that exactly?”
Just as his words finished, the man suddenly slammed down a map on the table, it looked like a rough sketch of some kind of an outline.
“This is?” Everyone was equally confused at what this was, for all they knew, the head of the house would ask them to clean his mansion’s tunnels, it certainly looked like that on the map anyway.
“It’s a dungeon map, it opened not so far away and we would like to monopolize it before the government catches on” The man said with a straight face.
‘Tax evasion… no wonder he is so rich’ Michael chuckled inwardly and listened on.
“What I want you to do is, clear it, simple as that, I would handle the rest.”
Kevin tilted his head “Is that it?”
The man smiled slightly “That is it.”
However, Michael had an ominous feeling so he walked up to the man “Why can’t you clear it?”
He clearly had enough strength to clear it and if the dungeon was close by, then why not head over and do it himself?
“I can’t kill the boss monster…” The man replied and his expression turned sour.
“You can’t kill it? With your strength?” Michael was even more sure the man was trying to bullshit them.
“No… You see, the boss is.. different, only one person can attempt it, the rest stay outside of the boss room.”
Michael raised his brow “Different?”
“Yes.. once I entered the boss room, I saw my daughter standing there… I couldn’t fight her so I ran away” The man looked down at the ground in what appeared to be shame.
‘He does know that it’s not real right?’
“So is that all? When can we go?” Michael decided to just accept his offer, he was confident in dealing with this quickly.
“Thank you” The man expressed his thanks and stood up, leading them out the back door.
The moment they walked out of the mansion, a blue portal was right in front of their eyes.
Michael looked at the man who now had a poker face “So by not far, you meant right outside?”
“Yes.”
‘..Well, at least we won’t have to travel far…’
