Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

"What about the participant from our guild?" Benny asked although they did not have any star participants this time, they did have a few good seeds that were worth nurturing.

"Reporting to the guild master, there was only a single participant from our guild who managed to secure the top ten position".

"Hoh? Who is it?" Benny asked, curious that there was such a talent in their guild.

"His name is Max, he is one of the children who was brought in by Godwin's recommendation," the Assistant said.

"Ah, so it was that child. His talent is not bad, tell him that if he wants to get stronger I am ready to take him as my disciple".

"I'll be sure to relay the message from the guild master to that child. Now onto the second report, about the adventurers from the guild named Seven swords, that were sent on a reconnaissance mission to that dungeon in the Ghastly Winding Forest. It seemed like they have wiped out, the reports up until floor thirty-fifth floor are here".

The assistant passed him a transmission crystal that showed him the visuals of the adventurers and the things that were inside that dungeon.

Transmission Orb, just like its counterpart transmission conch, allows others to send a long distance communication back to where another of this orb marked with the exact same inscription was. However, unlike the transmission conch, it was also capable of sending images and not just sounds.

Because of this, it was many times more valuable and expensive than a transmission conch. In fact, you can buy a good transmission conch that can send audio back from thousands of kilometres in the capital but one can only buy the transmission orb from the mainland.

When sending a few contracted people along with the members of the seven swords inside that dungeon, Benny had asked Raven to give them the transmission orb which their guild only had one in possession.

The transmission showed images and visuals of those people fighting the hordes of monsters and the various traps inside the dungeon. The communication abruptly ended after the group reached the thirty fifth floor which could only mean that the guy recording either forgot to record events or was killed instantly.

There was no way the guy who was recording everything from start to finish would suddenly forget recording after the thirty-fifth floor. That is why, the scenario where the guy was killed was the only viable possibility.

"Guild master…" Seeing that Benny was frowning his brows in consternation, the assistant couldn't help but call out. It was not a secret anymore that their guild had pursued the demon that wreaked havoc in their capital to the distant north-western city of Aqualin where a huge battle had unfolded before the demon got away.

The images of the dungeon inside the transmission crystal belonged to that very same demon. Thus seeing that even a team comprising of all elites was wiped out, would give anyone a surprise.

"As I thought, that demon is not ordinary. For a Demon Viscount of that level to survive in the forbidden lands, they must possess some special abilities or something. This dungeon for example, from what I heard from the association branch manager, it hasn't been a year since the dungeon emerged".

"To be able to create so many floors and those monsters… that demon he must have gotten his hands on some treasure from the forbidden lands using which he is doing all that. I should have used all of my power back then and captured him".

Benny Beckerman said with a little irritation in his tone. At that time, he had taken a big risk by sending the members of his branch guilds towards the demon because somewhere in the corner of his mind he was worried about that mysterious presence who turned the capital upside down and make people like Sir Davis and Sir Vouves whose power which even for Benny was difficult to fathom, miserable after just a few attacks.

It was because of this that he didn't go all out into capturing the demon right from the start and only took action until he was completely sure that the mysterious presence was gone. However, he didn't expect the demon to even escape his grasp even when he came in person.

What's more that peculiar space artefact that demon used, it was capable of protecting the user from all kinds of attacks and something that should definitely be from the forbidden lands.

The more Benny Beckerman thought about it, the more it made sense to him. It was a good thing that he sent those people to scout the dungeon first. To him, the information they sent, was more valuable than their lives.

In the first place, those people were all criminals or someone who owed him a debt. It matter not whether they returned alive from this trip or not, he was planning to kill them later anyway. the Demon just made it easier for him by killing them all.

'With this, I guess we can call it even... right Morgress?' Benny thought internally and replayed the visuals inside the crystal once again.

"Guild master what are we going to do?" the assistant asked, the meaning behind his question was plainly obvious. Now that their guild has made an enemy with the demon, there was no way it was not going to affect them in the future.

In fact, given that the other party was a demon, it was guaranteed that they would retaliate some way or another. If they wanted to protect the guild and the safety of their inner members, they had to wipe out this factor of concern.

Their Sea god's trident guild did not just become a top guild in the kingdom of Ellesmere out of nowhere. To arrive where they were now, they had to trample on many other guilds, use underhanded methods like bribing the royals and nobles and even resorting to using monsters to raise their fame.

Thus they knew better than to let a demon noble survive now that they had made an enemy of one.

Benny Beckerman closed his eyes and became silent for a while, he then kept the transmission crystal in his space ring, got up from his seat and said—

"For some reason, I have this foreboding feeling that if we do not take this demon out soon, they would turn out to be a huge hindrance later. However, we currently have our hands full with exploring that place and cannot divert our full force to that dungeon".

"But there is no need to worry, the visuals in this transmission orb would prove incredibly useful to convince those guys. As long as they move, even if we do not do anything it will be fine".

The assistant looked sceptical but after he understood the full scenario of what his guild master was plotting, he couldn't help but think that it was a good plan.

Benny Beckerman looked out of the window towards the direction of the distant capital 'The fact that you are from a race hostile to us for millenniums will work in my favour even more'.

"Leaving that aside how is the progress going on with our current mission?".

"About that… we were somehow able to get to the second trial but it came at a very heavy price" the assistant reported with a heavy tone.

"How many casualties did we suffer?" Benny Beckerman asked after a pause.

"Out of the initial fifty members that we sent through the coordinator, more than forty of them had already died".

Forty people, these were no ordinary people or outer members of the guild, but adventurers that were the blood and soul of the guild, the inner members that were the foundation of this guild. Even for a top guild like them, it was by no means a small number.

Additionally, this casualty was just from clearing the first trail, one had to imagine how hard the upcoming trails would be. The forbidden grounds were a place filled with extreme riches and dangers.

According to some information that was written in some history books, the forbidden grounds was a legendary place sought by people all over the world since the ancient times. Those that were able to clear it, would find unimaginable strength and treasures capable of making you stand at the pinnacle of this world.

There was no way anyone wouldn't droll in front of such an alluring prospect. Benny Beckerman who sought strength all his life, was no exception to this. For this opportunity, he had even dedicated most of the capital his guild had amassed over the time into getting the coordinates and even going as far as to collaborate with those hateful people from the Cerberus.

All of it was for a chance to explore the legendary forbidden grounds mentioned in those texts. However, as with everything, how could a place that contained extreme treasures not be laden with dangers?

He thought that as adventurers who were used to risking their lives and fighting monsters inside dungeon, they would be somehow able to cope up with the dangers in the early trails of the forbidden ground.

But it seemed that he had underestimated the dangers of the trial grounds too much. The death toll just from clearing a single trial was already that high, it didn't take a genius to know that the future trails would only be more harsher and difficult than before.

"I see… By the way who is currently leading the exploration?" Benny asked turning towards the assistant.

The latter sorted the reports in his hand before passing him a paper that showed the list of adventurers currently engaged in tackling the forbidden grounds.

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