Frostfire Legacy

After Aster greeted him, Officer Helvetica smiled while tightening the leash on the captured men.

"Right, it's been a while. Thanks to you, we've been busy as hell this past week." He grumbled with a smile. "Rather, you saw me first before you picked a fight with these guys, didn't you?"

"That, I'd leave to your imagination."

But of course that was exactly the case. But, well, even without the officer's presence, he would most likely step in and save Cassy and Liz either way. It was truly a wondrous coincidence!

"But what are you doing here, Officer? Patrol?" Aster asked, a little curious.

To his question, the elf smiled and winked at him. "Ah, we received a report that a certain someone went here, so we came to tighten the security."

"... I see. Thank you for your hard work then."

"Right. It's really hard work, I tell you."

Anyway, after chatting for a bit more, Aster's party decided to leave the Class Exchange Hall and head out. Officer Helvetica would be busy with handling the captured men, after all.

Of course, there's no worry of them escaping. The men might be around level 100, based on their words, but Officer Helvetica was more than three times their level at least!

"And? What should we do now?"

It was Kali who raised this question.

If it was as usual, they would go to the dungeon and farm slimes. However, Aster was currently sealing his Magic Carved Seal and avoiding using it. As such, they couldn't really go with their original plan.

Aster, of course, already had it planned out.

"First, we should go to the Guild and report the clearing of the kidnappers at the second floor."

"Ah, I did that already." Liz raised her hand. "I thought the faster the better, so..."

Aster smiled, praising her. "That was the right thing to do, so no need to apologize." He added. "Then, what we should do next is to claim the bounties, I guess?"

He did capture proof of killing them, so that should be more than enough. Of course, it had been almost 24 hours since it happened, so even if their corpses were left there, they would've been absorbed by the dungeon already, leaving no evidence. As such, the guild had no way of confirming it but through interviewing the related parties alone.

"Then, after that... let's clear the floors up to the fifth floor."

"...!"

His next plan was such a surprise to the girls that they all stopped in place.

"Wouldn't it be too early for that?" Kali grumbled. "We haven't even familiarized ourselves with the second floor, and we're moving to the next one already?"

Aster could understand her worry. After all, rushing forward would just endanger the lives of everyone in the party. However, he was also feeling that their conquering speed was too slow, so he felt like they needed to speed up their exploration a bit.

"Although we can level up by hunting monsters weaker than us, that will only make our stats higher. Everyone's battle senses would end up dulled if that continued." He explained. "As such, I propose we go to a floor that is fitting for our current level and hone our battle senses there."

Their aim wasn't to earn a living, after all. Aster needed the Panacea on the 1,000th floor. Cassy wanted to become a famous healer, and to do that, reaching the 1,000th floor and gaining an S-Class Healer Permit was necessary.

Kali was an aspiring Cryptozoologist, but the monsters on lower floors have more or less been studied. If she wanted to find new, unstudied monsters, then she would need to challenge floors above the 1,000th. Furthermore, she was acting as Aster's bodyguard, so she needed to come with him wherever he went.

Tina didn't really have plans to conquer the dungeon, but she was running away from her family to avoid succession troubles. As such, staying with Aster's group would be better for her too. Rather, now that she had set her eyes on Aster, there was no way she would simply back off and leave his side.

For Liz, she was on a journey to prove herself and gain achievements under her belt. And for that, reaching the 1,000th floor was a necessity.

Everyone had various reasons to reach a deeper floor in the dungeon. And to reach higher floors, they would need to first become good at fighting. And killing trash mobs wouldn't be able to help them achieve that goal.

"... You're right." Cassy nodded. "At the rate we're going, it would take a decade before we reach the 1,000th floor!"

Liz also agreed. "Fighting equal opponents would be better for enhancing our battle senses. And the higher the floor we go, the more powerful allies we could gain!"

"... Suit yourselves." Kali shrugged, seemingly showing disinterest.

As for Tina, she was still grabbing Aster's right arm with a bright smile on her face. "Of course, I would go wherever Darling goes! You're mine after all~!"

Aster scanned everyone's faces and also nodded firmly.

"Great. Then, let's head to the guild to claim the bounties before buying supplies for conquering the second floor!"

"Yeah!"

With a loud cheer, everyone moved toward the guild with a spring in their steps. It took them about a 50-minute walk to reach the guild from the Class Exchange Hall, however. The two places were just that far from each other.

As soon as they arrived, Aster showed the video he had taken of the heads with bounties on them. Although Zena's face became filled with concern for a moment, she didn't seem disgusted or anything by the video.

After a thorough series of interviews and checking the validity of the video, the guild gave the bounties to Aster's group. For some reason, the amount was more than his estimate, reaching a total of 50 million Tels!

'Did Magnus pull something?' Aster doubted.

Of course, nothing of the sort had happened. Based on the video, not only those who got their heads cut off, but most of those half-frozen also possessed bounties on their heads. Some even had higher bounties than their leader-like figure!

If Aster knew that he had been duped, then he would've been feeling a little angry at them. Well, he did trick them too, saying he'd release them, although their time left to live was already limited with their organs frozen. And in the end, he didn't even release them.

Both sides lied to each other, so they were even!

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