Chapter 77 - 76 Exiting The Dungeon

Having solved the turmoil between them after Mrazivý had learned that Marcus was not human but a ghost, the two of them continued the journey to find the dungeon's exit.

Continuing on they did their best to use stealth and to avoid areas that were swarming with monster but on the third layer of the dungeon, around almost every corner there was another threat.

However, as they continued both Mrazivý and Marcus found that the traps were the most difficult thing for them to deal with.

Neither of them had any experience detecting or disarming traps so even though their vigilance was high they only avoided around one out of every five traps.

This in turn caused Marcus to take the lead since his danger sense at least gave him a little forewarning right before they triggered a trap.

Unfortunately, he could not avoid every one of these traps and had already been shocked, frozen, buried, and stabbed numerous times.

This would have certainly kill any normal person but with his ghostly abilities and regeneration he could take a near infinite amount of punishment as long as he was not taken out all at once.

With his senses incredibly sharp Marcus kept himself on edge ready to take action in case of another trap.

Nevertheless, when they walked around a corner and into a new room Marcus' foot pressed down on the wrong place and the exits to the room were sealed as the area began to fill with water.

Marcus gave a sigh of relief thankful that this trap was not going to cause him anymore pain. In fact, if he was alone this trap would have absolutely no effect on him but because he was with Mrazivý he could not simply phase through the walls escaping the trap.

Marcus then used his long-neglected chill zone using his rage at the traps to lower the temperature and freeze the water while Mrazivý did the same with her ice magic.

Once they had frozen the water and stopped it from filling the room, Marcus summoned his iron golem and had it bust through the wall that was impeding their path.

"Damn, I am sick of all these traps, I know we went this way because it was sparse with monsters, but the reason is because there are so many traps that even the monsters cannot live here. Maybe we should just take our chances fighting through the monsters since at least then I have something to take my anger out on."

Mrazivý looked at Marcus with a look of sympathy since this route had been far harder on him than her since he had taken the brunt of the traps while she followed behind avoiding them after he had already found them.

"I understand but with your sturdiness and ability to bounce back from pretty much anything makes this the more reliable way to go."

Sighing but having to give into her logic Marcus continued on mostly just running into traps, until he had a good idea.

He mentally berated himself for not think off such an obvious solution before and quickly cast his iron threads spell sending them out like dozens of feelers.

With this new strategy while they did move a bit slower Marcus was able to detect a majority of traps and avoid them and eventually even got a skill called trap sensing that increased his rate of finding traps even more.

…

After having traveled a few miles after walking all day through the dungeon Marcus and Mrazivý found as safe a place as they could to rest and recover their stamina and mana.

Marcus decided to take the first and only watch since he really did not need to sleep other than to dispel mental fatigue.

While taking his watch and allowing Mrazivý to sleep Marcus was giving his magical beast egg its daily dose of mana when he suddenly heard a ding in his head.

'Your bond with magical beast egg of, error no information in the system… has reach suitable levels, would you like to add it to your companion status.'

Stunned by the sudden notification Marcus looked at the egg with a slightly dubious expression wondering what it could be since it was not in the system.

'Is it another flaw in the system, I have already found multiple things that could be considered like bugs in this world's system so maybe this egg was not cataloged or something. But I got it as a reward for beating a boss monster which is almost certainly a part of the system so how could this end up a reward but not be in the system.'

Eventually deciding that it was probably a glitch of some kind Marcus decided to add the egg to his companion system and got a window that showed the status of his new egg.

Companion 1/1

Race: Magical Beast Egg of Error

HP: Healthy

Hatch Progress: 1%

Marcus looked over the bare bones status of his new companion and tried to get more information but when he did the system asked him if he wanted to upgrade his companion system for eighty-eight skill points.

'This is a rip-off, eighty-eight skill points to upgrade something I already spent twenty-two on. And my hatch progress is only at one percent, this thing has been guzzling my mana for a week and it is only at one percent. At this rate it is going to take nearly two years to hatch whatever this thing is, and for all I know it could turn out to be a useless orange fish that can only splash around.'

Marcus quickly threw the thought that this magical beast would turn out to be useless to the back of his head, since it did come from a dungeon and had already taken in large quantities of his mana.

Once he had depleted his mana into the magical beast egg of unknown origin Marcus stored the egg using his companion system and continued to watch making sure that no monsters ambushed them while Mrazivý slept.

When four hours had passed Marcus entered the tent and woke Mrazivý up telling her that it was time to get going again.

Heading out of the small hidden alcove in one of the dungeon walls Marcus and Mrazivý continued heading towards the exit of the dungeon.

Walking through the dungeon for about another hour the duo managed to get through ever trap and the occasional beast and monster with little difficulty, as they had quickly become experts on how to handle the obstacles they faced on the third layer.

Soon however, they were running into less and less traps and more and more beasts and monsters.

That was when they heard the sounds of fighting not too far away from them just a few rooms over.

Now the beasts and monster in the dungeon would of course get into fights between each other but the sound of clanging metal and the shouting of people gave away that it was not a fight between monsters or beasts.

Both of them quickly head in the direction of the fighting and came out into a massive room where they could see around two dozen people battling it out with a swarm of three foot tall six-foot-long quadrupedal fish with large toothy mouths and sharp claws.

Seeing the group Marcus immediately recognized Joras swinging his huge mace around crushing any of the fish monsters that got near him.

Looking over towards Mrazivý, they both shook their heads in unison and headed into the thick of the battle.

Marcus started off by letting loose some quickly chanted fire shots making sure not to slip up again and reveal his secret.

Each of his fire shots caused major damage to every fish he hit causing them to flop around in immense pain while also starting to give the room a delicious smell.

While Marcus unleashed ranged cover with magic Mrazivý leaped into the fray and began hacking away at the fish monsters with her powerful magic sword which Marcus had yet to see fail to cut through anything.

With the aid of Marcus and Mrazivý the group of knights and adventures quickly dealt with the over one hundred fish monsters.

Once the battle was over, a middle-aged man in the most ornate armor came forward and in a monotone voice almost as if he did not care said, "Your highness it is good to see that you are alive, we have been dispatched to rescue you, but who might this fellow you are with be I do not recognize him."

At that Marcus noticed that some of the knights were sending him looks of suspicion and hostility until one man ran forward yelling not noticing the mood.

"Marcus, you are alive, when you left saying that you were going to rescue the princess, I thought you would be back that same say when you realized how it was impossible to navigate the third layer alone. When you did not come back, I wrote you off as dead."

Joras was then interrupted by the ornately dressed knight who looked at him inquisitively and said, "Branch Master Joras do you know this young man."

Snapping out of his surprise of seeing Marcus not only alive but with the princess in tow, Joras responded quickly saying, "Yeah I know him, he is a silver rank adventure who the day we found out the princess was missing charged straight into the dungeon to look for her. I thought for a bit that he might have even been her secret lover or something with how adamant he was about going to rescue her."

Everyone then turned their gazes towards Marcus with judging looks while both he and Mrazivý had slightly red faces.

Mrazivý then coughed getting everyone's attention before saying, "There is no need for baseless rumors, Marcus here is just fellow adventure who came to help me in my time of need. In fact, he arrived far quicker than any of you and I am quite surprised that it took you this long to find me especially with your aid head knight Vensarious.

Having redirected the conversation some of the knights had looks of embarrassment on their faces while the adventures stared at them angrily.

That was when the head knight spoke up with his excuse all ready and said, "I am sorry your highness we were ready to leave much earlier, but an assassination attempt was made against the viceroy and that delayed our departer by a number of days. However, we left as soon as that matter was resolved, and you are safe so our rescue has been a success."

Sighing Mrazivý said, "Very well all's well that ends well. I assume that you are prepared to head back to the surface now that you have found me, and I would very much like to leave post haste."

With her orders relayed the group of knights and adventures headed back the way they came and after just two and a half days managed to exit the dungeon back to the surface once more.