Chapter 51: Showcase

A crease appeared between Aria's brows. She was taken back by the attacker's words. What did they mean by good work?

"Leader, you shouldn't do that, you know? You'll scare the potential starlet away," Reina put her hand on her hip as she complained.

"My bad, I couldn't help it. You two told me some pretty interesting stories about the person.. How can I resist testing her out?"

A male figure stepped out from behind the trees. He was clad in a trench coat and had quite the savvy appearance, not Hunter-like at all.

The identity of the attacker was precisely Lichte's Leader, the so-called Squad Captain Reina and White Fox mentioned multiple times before.

"..Leader?" Aria tilted her head, realizing the truth. It was quite shocking.

"He is indeed our leader.. who goes by the name Elgin," Reina introduced.

"Ah.. Nice to meet you," Aria made a short bow at the incoming man. "Aria Schreiner is my name,"

"You have nice reflexes, but your guard was lacking near the end. If your casting time was just a bit slower, you would've been hurt," Both of his hands were inside his pocket as he walked in a slow pace.

"..Indeed," Aria acknowledged the man's claims.

"Just like this," When he finally stood in front of Aria, Elgin withdrew his hand from the pocket quickly.

In his hand was a sharp dagger that were the same type as ones previously thrown by him. He aimed the weapon towards Aria's face.

Aria didn't expect a second attack, so she couldn't help but stagger backwards just by relying on her instincts.

"Nice, but a bit slow. If I pushed a bit harder, your eyes would've gone bye bye~" Elgin teased.

Her eyes were bulging out as she looked at Elgin with shock and a questioning glare.

"Leader," From the side, Reina spoke with a cold tone.

"Just kidding. I won't hurt her," Elgin dropped the dagger down to the ground, walking up to the gate and nonchalantly whistling. "I will just enter as a guarantor. The main thing here is to observe the potential member, right?"

"...I suppose so," Reina nodded.

"Then, let's go in right now and wrap this up quickly," Elgin entered the gate, activating the entrance time limit.

Aria sighed at the man's sudden actions and looked at Reina.

"As I told you before, White Fox is being put on punishment because of her actions. She won't be participating today," Reina stretched, getting ready to enter.

"Are you used to this?" Aria asked, looking at the members' composed reactions.

"Of course, it comes with dealing with him for a long time," Reina answered. "Come, let's go,"

Aria nodded, following behind their footsteps and entering the dungeon.

______

Upon reaching the dungeon's insides, they were instantly greeted with a sight that made them frown in distaste.

A horde of undeads that crowded together, creating a nasty smell with their rotten flesh.

"Ahh, I really hate undeads," Reina gagged at the pungent smell.

Upon noticing the intruders, the undead monsters too began to pick up their pace. They marched towards the group with their sluggish movements.

Aria held [Halvargg] in her hand as she braced herself with enchantments, ready to fight.

She charged towards the nearest monster first, wanting to test out how strong they were and how well they defended against her attacks.

[<Lower Undead> 1/70.]

'70.' Aria looked at the count and licked her lips.

Noticing Aria's move, the others began to formulate their attack plans too.

Yan used his claymore to take down the monsters, but his sword was way too large for the narrow path.

Ha-young had to be careful with her fire magic because the element could go wrong in so many ways in this fight.

As for Elgin, since he acted as a supervisor, he stayed back and watched.

Reina extended her help, but since she was part of the expert team, she only wanted to help out slightly.

In Reina's hand was a black fragment of unknown origins.

From Aria's magic sensors, she was able to tell that the fragment was something related to magic. Particularly, Reina's specialty: Shadow Magic.

Reina spread her palm apart. The fragment then began floating into the air out of nowhere.

Reina's eyelashes fluttered as her lips opened and closed, mumbling something incoherent.

Then, black dusts started gathering. The fragment seemed to have a magnetic reaction towards the fine dusts. It was attracting the pieces and absorbing it.

A few seconds passed. Aria kept focusing on her own battle, but she couldn't help but want to look at Reina's showcase as well.

'What type of Shadow Magic is that?' Aria wondered. She didn't know what Reina planned to do.

After the dusts gathered for quite some time, Reina's eyes opened and glared at the incoming monsters with high hostility.

"My shadows.. spread far!" Reina announced haughtily, using her free hand to swipe at the air as if gesturing for the element to scatter.

The fragment flew out of Reina's hand and only stopped when it reached the intersection between the monsters and the Hunters' partition.

The fragment continued absorbing the black dusts, this time at a more alarming rate.

Looking above her, Aria began to gulp anxiously. She waited for the fragment's next movement.

The dust scattered into all directions, charging at the monsters. However, instead of attacking, the elements passed through the monsters' bodies and seeped into the ground instead.

Within the next second, Reina administered more of her magic.

The ground below the undeads started to become darker.

And just like that, a mysterious shadow force began to restrict their movements, making them incapable of marching forward.

A binding technique. As far as Aria's knowledge went, shadow users did have a binding technique, but ones that used it like Reina was uncanny.

"...I see," Aria snorted, looking at the monsters who were now immobilized. Shock could be seen on their faces, even though they were just simplistic monsters.

The Shadow Queen. Reina's power would of course not only be limited to this binding technique.

"This makes it a lot easier," Aria smiled in confidence.

"Time: three minutes. Please finish it before then, I need to conserve my mana," Reina instructed.

To be exact, for the other Hunters who didn't possess the idea of levels, they naturally couldn't get the System's benefits as well.

If Aria leveled up once, her entire being would be rejuvenated and recovered to the max.

However, people like Reina didn't have such a feature. She needed to be mindful of her resources in fear of running out before the dungeon subjugation ended.

This was part of the reason why subjugation squads tended to grow larger as the difficulty increases. It was to allow safety for all the members and substitute for one another.

Aria gritted her teeth and looked at the remaining monsters and then to her System's notification.

There were 36 monsters left. Aria's primary goal was to level up and get stronger as much as possible, so she wanted to slay a lot of creatures to make up for the five man team operation.

She charged forward with [Halvargg], uncaring for the small scratches the monsters managed to inflict on her.

Because the restrictions were there, Aria was able to maneuver around the place freely, taking their lives one by one.

She went wild with her spirits and rampaged with all her might.

One monster corpse to two, three, four, and so forth.

After a while, a pile of monster corpses had been formed in front of the team.

Aria's total victims numbered up to forty six.

[<Lower Undead> 46/70.]

Although she felt frustrated that the number could've been higher, she took it.

Thanks to the experience points that she gained, she was able to level up one step further.

Aria felt herself be rejuvenated and looked back to see the rest of her team members slightly tired from the initiation fight. This was only the first battle, and yet they were facing some pretty noticeable adverse effects.

"Tired? Should we rest?" Aria asked in consideration.

"N-no. We should push forward as fast as we could. If we keep staying in this stage, more monsters might come,"

If Aria's other innate specialty had to be pointed out, it would be that of her high stamina. Aria possessed high stamina that was further assisted by her System. Naturally, she would be able to keep up with long fights and even eradicate all the monsters.

And yet, they suggested to leave the rest of this stage's monsters and continue onward.

"...I haven't told you guys, but I'm here to slay monsters. I want to finish them all before we move on, so meeting with the other monsters is actually what I hope as an outcome,"

"What?! Are you crazy?!!" Ha-young exclaimed. She was a magician, and her stamina wasn't that great. "Do you think we have infinite stamina?" She gritted her teeth.

Ha-young looked at Aria, who seemed to be unaffected by the fight they just went through. Aria was slightly fatigued, but she was still composed and looked like she could go through the same fight a hundred times more.

Her firepower was excellent though. She was accepted into [Lichte] because of her cooperative attitude and great teamwork skills, but her stamina was something that constantly pulled her back during her Hunter career.

Thankfully, the other Hunters also wanted to avoid unnecessary confrontations, so she would force herself to hold out until each fight ended.

Now, facing Aria's outrageous request, she was taken aback.

"No.. please just wait here," Aria shook her head, denying Ha-young's tired face.

Ha-young's face warped even more. She thought that Aria had to be crazy.

"Don't worry. I will take care of them solo," Aria wiped the light layer of sweat from her forehead and dried it down. She then bowed her head lightly to the leader and walked away without fright.

"Hmm..." Elgin mumbled in deep thoughts, observing Aria's leaving figure.