Chapter 120 A Difficult Situation

Looking at the loot obtained, Ray smiled as he thought,

"I guess Elina will get a good powerup after this dungeon ends,"

Keeping the loot in his dimensional storage, Ray looked to others and saw that everyone got something from killing the goblins as Emma held a strange-looking pendant in her hands while Aella picked up a stone that glowed an eerie light and pulsated with immense magical power.

Not only that, even Tim and Noah got something useful as Tim picked up a pair of arm bracers that had exquisite runic patterns engraved on them while Noah got a curved dagger that reeked of poison.

"Why did I get such a dumb skill book for my loot," The kid cried in anguish as he threw the skill book on the ground and started stomping on it in fury.

Looking at the kid whining, Ray's anger flared up as he glared at Noah.

Noah panicked as he saw Ray glaring at him in anger. He swiftly moved towards the kid and slapped him hard on his face as he scolded him,

"What do you mean by dumb skill book? Don't you know that skill books are the rarest loot to find and here you are whining about it,

With Noah scolding him, the kid quietened down as he stored the book in his storage.

Nodding in satisfaction, Noah looked towards Ray for some praise but all he got was a cold harrumph.

"Okay everyone, let's rest a bit before moving on to the next floor," Ray said as he sheathed his sword and sat down to recover his mana.

Nia's Dungeon Instance,

"Huff… huff… It's taking too much of my mana. I can't hold it forever," Nia thought in worry as she struggled to breathe. Her large-scale defensive magic continued to be destroyed as several goblins attacked it from everywhere.

15 minutes ago,

Nia and her team were ambushed by the goblin squad as the goblins used curse magic to attack the weakest members of the team.

As for how they knew of the weaker members and how they ambushed Nia's team outside the checkpoint?

It was fairly simple to know as a member of Nia's squad smirked as he dodged each and every attack with complete elegance.

This member was Zest, a mole placed in Nia's team by the traitor Ron of the Kingsman house of magic.

Startled by the sudden invasion of multiple goblins and hobgoblins, the whole team went into disarray as members ran away to save their lives instead of grouping up and fighting against the goblins.

Due to the panic caused by all this, Nia's team lost two members as they got heavily wounded. However, they didn't die because just as they were about to die, their academy badge floated above them as a teleportation spell got activated and the students were transported to the Academy's infirmary.

Looking at all of this happen, Nia's anger flared up as she went on offense,

[Light Goddess's Fury: Light Arrows],

Using her spell, arrows made of light appeared in the sky as they revolved around Nia.

Seeing the goblins still pursuing the leftover members of her team, Nia sent out the arrows as she pointed forward. The arrows flew like honing missiles that stopped at nothing to achieve their goal and bring destruction to their target.

The arrows swiftly impaled four goblins within a matter of seconds as the goblins were impaled from everywhere. The impaled goblins died right after as they disintegrated into nothing from their weakness to the light element.

Killing those four goblins, Nia turned around and looked at the remaining goblins as they retreated behind their commanders in fear.

The three hobgoblins stood in their place as they slammed their staffs on the ground and prepared their counterattack against Nia.

Seeing them prepare themselves for a counterattack, Nia also readied her spells to act accordingly and attack them before they could finish casting their spells.

However, just as Nia was activating her spell,

"Helppp!" A shrill cry broke her focus. Zest cried out loud in anguish as he stepped into the traps prepared at the checkpoint.

This broke Nia's focus as she turned away to look at Zest being subjected to multiple magical attacks and curses raining down on him.

Due to this, Nia missed her chance to attack while the goblins finished casting their spells and directed the final spell towards Nia.

Meanwhile, Nia looked at a huge skull come at her and cast a defensive spell to protect herself and her teammates who lay on the ground unconscious.

The skull was the spell cast by the hobgoblins, it was a huge skull that had yellowish-blue fire burning in its pupils while its mouth had a bunch of strange insects crawling out of it.

Just looking at the skull's hideous appearance made someone reach in disgust, not to mention defending themselves from it. However, that wasn't all. The skull had a strange effect on its surroundings as wherever it passed by, it infected that place with a strange poison that caused the surroundings to rot and slowly deteriorate.

This application of magic was the same magic that Ray and his team received by defeating the hobgoblins.

Eventually, the skull collided with the barrier cast by Nia,

[Light Goddess's Embrace: Barrier Of Protection],

This was the only defensive spell that Nia had.

"Thankfully, the barrier held on and didn't collapse on impact," Nia thought in relief as she realized the importance of magical attributes and their strengths and weaknesses against other opposing attributes.

"Now die you filthy mongrels," Nia shouted at the top of her lungs as she activated her magical spell.

However, just as she activated her spell, a notification showed up,

[Error! Error! Error! Can't activate large-scale offensive spell due to lack of mana]

"Dammit," Nia shouted in anger as her spell cancelled while her barrier also weakened significantly due to lack of mana.

All of this sent Nia into worry as she thought,

"If this continues, the goblins will take us out and we will fail the test right after it's commencement,"

As her worry are her from inside, a plan formed within Zest's mind as he remembered what Ron had told him before the start of the rest.

"If you see a chance, try to gain more trust from that girl of Jhones household. If you do so, we can try and extract some secrets from her,"

Thinking about this, Zest thought to himself,

"Guess I will have to become your savior,"

With that, Zest used his ability to create fifteen clones of himself as all of the clones took out their weapons and rushed ahead.

"Don't worry, I am here to help," Zest declared loudly as he marched forward and faced the remaining goblins.

On the other hand, looking at Zest fighting for her made Nia feel something warm inside her. However, that feeling was nothing but fleeting as she thought of the events that occurred and how Zest was nowhere to be found.

Not until all of the team was lost and she was on the verge of losing as well. Having her suspicions about him, Nia let him become the savior so she could find out more about his objective.

As for why Nia felt this suspicious of Zest? The answer was fairly simple being the only daughter of the patriarch of Jhones family, Nia's father kept her updated on the events happening on Earth.

In those updates, her father had told her of many traitors disguising themselves as friends of humanity and deepening their ties with powerful families by befriending the heirs of those families. All in a bid to extract top-secret information that they could use against humanity.

Therefore, even the slightest bit of suspicious activity made Nia vary of people.

On the other hand, Zest gave his all as he tried to save Nia from the goblins to have a good impression on her.

Using his cloning ability, Zest surrounded the hobgoblins with a dozen of his clones and rained down various physical attacks on them.

Meanwhile, Nia watched it all unfold while taking out a few stray goblins with the little mana she had left.

A few minutes later, Zest successfully defeated the hobgoblins as the team managed to clear the first floor.

"That was hard. Are you hurt?" Zest wiped his forehead as he checked Nia for any wounds while he showed his concern and care for Nia. Though the concern he showed was fake and all the care that he directed towards her was merely his attempt to fool her into loving him and then, he would slowly extract all those secrets from her.

Just thinking about that made Zest feel all pumped up from excitement. However, Nia saw straight through those malicious eyes and instead used this as a chance to fool Zest into thinking that she fell for his trap while she would spy on him and if she found him being a traitor to humanity, she would end him herself.

As those thoughts revolved around her mind, Nia staged her act as she fainted right on the spot while Zest rushed to hold her from falling down.

...

A/N:- Have fun reading and do give your inputs over everything.