About the Adventurers’ Guild.
Beyond the grandiose facade of its building, many adventurers speculated in private that there must be hidden structures—such as a secret underground chamber.
Of course, this was just one of many wild rumors adventurers liked to imagine.
But Mirabelle knew the truth: though it was just a guess, this one was right. Beneath the guild was indeed a basent.
And because it was buried deep underground, the monsters of the Mana Tide had never damaged it. Every brick here ca from the original guild hall.
At that mont, she was walking down the passage leading into that basent—accompanying the new guildmaster.
Aside from the two of them, there was only the ever-present maid who served Guildmaster Farr.
Having long since inquired about the new guildmaster’s ties to the headquarters’ Guildmaster, Mirabelle had initially worried that her position would be replaced by the man’s own subordinates.
But after a few days of interaction, he seed to acknowledge her abilities. So far, there had been no ntion of reassignnt.
This brief calm hadn’t made her relax, though. She had already sensed that this new guildmaster wasn’t planning to simply guard the branch and maintain the status quo.
Under him, slacking off as before would no longer be possible.
And sure enough, barely a few days after taking office, sothing ca up.
The air in the passage was cold and stagnant, carrying dust and dampness—clearly, this place was rarely visited.
The stone steps spiraled downward, as if sinking into the heart of the earth.
Each footfall echoed hollowly, half-swallowed by the thick darkness below, reverberating endlessly before fading.
As though so great beast lurked beneath, devouring all sound.
Farr suddenly stopped, frowning first at the small crystal lamps on the wall, then at the darkness below.
“Mirabelle, is the guild’s budget tight?”
“Eh?” The unexpected question made her pause before she replied, “No, not particularly.”
“Then why haven’t you turned the lights on? Don’t you think it’s a bit too dark?”
“Oh! Yes, yes!”
Mirabelle, flustered, hurriedly activated the wall’s array, and the small crystal lamps lit with a warm orange glow.
The underground corridor instantly brightened.
It still slled of dust, but at least it no longer looked like they were heading into a dungeon.
Before long, they reached the end of the passage: a stone door warded with defensive arrays.
Farr raised the branchmaster’s seal, pouring mana into it to activate the mark.
The heavy stone wall slid open without a sound of friction, revealing the chamber beyond.
As the dust stirred, Farr stepped forward, but Lilian had already entered first, scanning the room.
It was a monitoring chamber for the dungeon—an outdated one.
Dungeon surveillance had long since been moved to the intelligence departnt’s responsibility.
There, several devices placed in different dungeon floors asured mana fluctuations, the purpose being only to predict Mana Tides in advance.
But this room specifically monitored the dungeon’s core.
The principle wasn’t very different: equipnt installed near the core collected mana fluctuations for analysis.
But this particular equipnt hadn’t been used in ages.
Installed nearly two hundred years ago, its alchemical designs were outdated.
Compared with the newer monitoring tools, it consud more energy, produced fuzzier data, and was troubleso to operate.
Worst of all, it yielded no useful information.
The core had been the sa for centuries—unchanging.
For predicting Mana Tides, the new devices were sufficient.
During Oberon’s term as branchmaster, he’d never used it once. Mirabelle wasn’t even sure the contraption could still function.
But Guildmaster Farr insisted on trying it.
Staring at the ancient and complex structure, Mirabelle had no choice but to pull out the manual and follow its rune instructions to operate the array.
Fortunately, her professionalism showed—even if she wasn’t familiar with the device.
With the manual’s help, she had the old relic running within just two hours.
Her first thought upon seeing it power up was: This thing actually still works!
Soon, the readings appeared before them.
There were no images, no visuals—only raw data on the mana fluctuations near the core.
Mirabelle frowned imdiately, cross-checking the data against the manual repeatedly.
“What is it?” Farr asked.
He wasn’t an expert, so he didn’t understand the aning.
Mirabelle looked a few more tis before answering: “This is strange. The data shows that the dungeon core’s mana activity is much lower than the manual records. And also…”
“And also what?”
“And also, it seems to be continuing to decline?” She almost didn’t believe her own words. “But that’s impossible! The dungeon has never shown anything like this before.”
At least, not in the past.
A continuous decline in mana activity?
If it kept dropping, what would happen to the dungeon?
Mirabelle didn’t know—but she feared the answer.
Farr, however, looked unsurprised.
Just as he’d guessed on the way, the fact that monsters were crossing floors indeed pointed to the core being abnormal.
Even so, being right gave him no joy. This was serious trouble!
At worst, the Athyst Dungeon could collapse.
The question was: had monsters caused the core’s changes, or had the core’s changes caused the monsters’ abnormalities?
And what about other dungeons? Was this only happening in Athyst Dungeon, or was it just the first to be noticed?
The Tidal Sanctuary in the western isles, the Athyst Dungeon in the south, the Scarecrow Abyss at the crossroads of elf, dwarf, and human lands—
All guild-managed dungeons. All would need to be checked.
Thinking this, Farr said: “Mirabelle, use the communication device to contact headquarters. Report everything clearly. Have them notify the other branches to check their dungeons too, and send ‘experts’ here.”
By “experts,” he ant both alchemy and array engineers, as well as top-tier combat personnel.
Exploring a dungeon core was no leisure trip. Monsters stronger than Diamond-rank lurked there, and without sufficient force, entering was suicide.
Mirabelle approved of the new guildmaster’s way of pushing the trouble upward. She dreaded the type who tried to solve everything themselves and ended up like clowns, dragging subordinates down with them.
Still, the commanding tone Farr used toward headquarters made her eyelids twitch. Only soone of his status could get away with that…
But she knew the importance of the matter. Shutting down the old device, she hurried off to the communications chamber.
As for Farr, he had no intention of idly waiting for the “experts” to arrive.
While they would investigate the dungeon core, he planned to focus on the abnormal monsters instead, to see what could be learned.
…
…
…
Two days later.
In the guild’s reception hall for important guests, a dead lighting Puji lay quietly on the long table.
Surrounding it were the elites—so invited, so volunteering—who were preparing to join the operation.
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