Frostfire Legacy

As soon as Aster and Cassy entered the dungeon, the only thing they saw were the scattered dead slimes around. Some were already flattened, with their liquids all drained out, showing how long it had been since they were defeated.

"Wow, K sure did a number on them!" Cassy exclaimed in awe while poking one dead slime.

"That she did," Aster nodded in agreement. "Although it's a waste to leave these behind, let's go and find her fast."

To not let her waste slime loot any further, the two started looking for her. Their process was easy—simply following the trail of dead slimes!

Although they weren't counting, the number of wasted slime corpses they found had already reached three digits. "Just how many did she hunt in that short amount of time?" Aster wondered, scratching his head lightly.

Slowly, the trail started to become sparse. They were having a hard time finding the corpses, as Cassy's ears couldn't locate non-living beings. After all, dead things don't let out sounds of any kind, like breathing or movement.

"Huh? Weird..."

But then the two suddenly came to a stop.

Around them were live slimes, without any dead ones, meaning Kali hadn't passed through there. However, her trail of slime corpses was leading to that point, making the two confused.

"Did she get fed up with slimes and move to a different area?" Cassy muttered to herself.

Aster studied the grass around him but quickly realized an anomaly. Many parts had grass stepped on by someone. It was hard to imagine it was done by a single individual, as the depressions were quite far from each other.

"..."

He started to get a bad feeling and began to follow the diverging, beaten paths. As he did, he ended up coming to an open area, as if a battle had occurred, with the grass everywhere cut off and stepped on many times.

"Traces of battle!" Even Cassy gasped as she noticed what the scene represented.

The two, with a renewed sense of urgency and danger, carefully examined the area. There were indications that sharp objects—possibly a dagger or a sword—were swinging across, and there were sizable depressions on the ground that appeared to have been left by a powerful hammer.

As they were searching, Cassy raised her voice in panic. "Star! Come look over here...!"

Aster moved fast, reaching her side in moments before seeing what was held in her hands.

"Those are Kali's daggers!" He gasped.

He couldn't be mistaken about it, as Kali's weapons had this unique shape to them. It was something that couldn't be seen on regular daggers in weapon shops. Furthermore, the biggest proof was the etched letters under the hilt of the blade, K.N.!

As he inspected the dagger, he started to frown. "This is bad..."

The dagger's blade was covered in blood, meaning that she attacked "something" that bleeds out red blood. Of course, that couldn't be Slime's, as they don't have blood. The only possibility was...

"She encountered the kidnappers!"

The one they heard about yesterday—the serial kidnappers who keep on kidnapping newbie adventurers! They had most likely caught Kali!

Cassy, who was inspecting the other dagger, also showed a frown, unlike her usual demeanor.

"Star, check this part." She urged while pointing at the blood stains on the hilt, in the shape of someone's hand. "This... I think she was injured on her right arm. This isn't her enemy's blood, but her own."

"Shit...!"

The worst-case scenario played out in Aster's mind, making him almost panic. In situations like this, what should they do? He considered all possibilities quickly.

First, they could return to the entrance, report the incident to the proper authorities, and wait for the resolution.

'However, that would be too late.'

The serial kidnappers had been on the loose for a while without getting caught or seen by anyone. However, the dungeon only had one entrance, meaning... "They either have a base camp in here, or they have another way to enter and leave the dungeon!"

The latter of the two seemed more plausible, given how they were operating on multiple floors. However, it should also be true that they have a base "somewhere" in the dungeon, where they keep their prisoners until it's time to leave.

The second choice was to act as bait, luring the kidnappers into taking them along too. However, that presents too much of a risk, possibly leading to death, and could end up just increasing the number of captives instead of being of help.

"Then, we can only choose the last!" Aster declared it with a resolute expression. "We'll go and track the kidnappers down and rescue Kali at once!"

"I concur!" Cassy responded with a firm nod, a scared but fierce glint appearing in her orange eyes. "We'll save K with our own hands!"

"Good!" He nodded. "Then, our first task is to follow their tracks!"

They, of course, weren't idiotic enough to step on the tall grasses and leave tracks all over the place. They instead followed the bare ground path, which left barely any tracks that those without any relevant knowledge could use.

However, they missed one point while doing so.

"We'll follow the drops of blood, right?" Cassy asked while pointing at the red blots of various sizes along the ground.

It was hard to see, but a track nonetheless. One that the enemies missed, since it's not from their footsteps but from Kali herself!

However, bleeding should stop soon after, clotting fast. Their track should end after about a few dozen meters, but to the two's surprise, the droplets continued with the same regular distance between each drop.

This meant either of two things. Kali's wound was too big to clot in a short time, which could possibly lead to her quick death, or she was aggravating her wound herself, making it bleed continuously.

Keeping her head cool and making calm judgments in critical situations. Kali surely is a good adventurer!

"Let's not waste her effort!"

Aster declared before running, following the blood tracks leading into the goblins' forest.

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