For the next two weeks, Ais and Aidan didn’t officially enter the dungeon as per Loki’s request as she mentioned that they needed to have a life outside of monsters and dungeon. Instead, they were put back with their mentors. Aidan went back to do paperwork with Finn while Ais went with Riveria to look over the current members of the familia to guarantee their entrance to the dungeon as written in their contract.
Besides the tedious work and the evening escapade in the dungeon, Aidan brought Ais back to the church, which he continued to renovate in his free time while the girl sometimes helped him or sat next to him watching him work.
Aidan was now at the house where he needed to develop and improve the cards he had in the former church and more mansion-like building. While it didn’t help in combat to create such cards, it did help to improve his imagination which was always helpful which such unique magic.
The two weeks passed relatively quickly with both children accompanying each other, and soon they were again allowed to enter the dungeon.
—
With the blessing of their goddess, they teleported to the 28th floor, which they had now made their base as monsters around the 18th floor, while useful for their parameters weren’t strong enough to give them a challenge. Instead, they stuck further down, which offered them more excelia and fighting experience.
“Let’s go to the 29th floor today.” Said the girl as she was extremely excited to live in the dungeon for the following time.
“Sure.” Nodded the boy as they both rapidly prepared and walked towards the stairs leading to the 29th floor, only to be stopped by a group of twelve men.
As the two youngsters were about to walk past them in the side, a few of the members straightened their arms on the side to block their passage as they each had a grin appearing on their faces.
As Aidan was showing a frown on his face, their apparent leader, a man wearing black pants and revealing a muscular and scared torso which fit well with his equally scared face, spoke up. “Kids, you shouldn’t ignore someone who is blocking you. That’s bad manners.” He said with a grin before continuing. “We are members of the Thanatos familia. I’ll forgive you if you stay with us for the night.” He grinned lasciviously as he looked at Aidan’s body, licking his lips while his subordinates did the same towards Ais.
With a shudder that ran through his spine, Aidan unknowingly clenched his buttocks as he didn’t want to know why the man was looking at him this way. Not to mention the way his subordinates were looking at Ais.
While internally thinking that it would be a scary world if everyone relied on their backings to permit themselves and force others to do their biddings. The boy could almost see such a world and just thinking about it made him have cold sweat. However, his thinking didn’t stop his reaction as he pushed Ais slightly behind him while his other hand held on the sword’s scabbard, which had his sword in it.
Taking back his hand and putting it on the hilt of his sword, ready for whatever was going to happen, he saw from the corner of his eyes some women making their way to the 29th floor, which they had also been doing before being stopped by those men.
However, his action to preparing for battle was not well received by the opposite members as they each took out their weapon and rushed towards them with their full strength while shouting: “You’re courting death.”
Just as they rushed, Aidan threw a recording card to the ceiling and a few shield cards to block the opponent’s movement while he started to fight back, which was quickly joined by Ais, who found these adventurers even more repulsive than the monsters, which was quite rare.
However, they weren’t the only two who started fighting, as the previous group of women he had seen were also rushing at their full speed towards them. As for whether they were to support the enemies or to provide assistance, Aidan was quite confident in himself that they were rushing to help them as he didn’t see any semblance between the two groups.
And indeed it was so as the group of seven women rushed and attacked the group was still shouting ‘You’re courting death!’
The fight didn’t take too much time as the enemy group only had about one or two-level three adventurers, and the rest were level two who had piggybacked on their teammates to reach a floor this low in the dungeon safely.
Once all twelve men were down and unconscious, Aidan and Ais vigilantly looked at the group of women who came to help them. They had repeatedly been told by the veterans of the familia how dangerous it could be in the dungeon since not only were there monsters but there were also lawless adventurers preying on the weaker ones.
“Nice to meet you two. I am Alise, and these are my familia members. We are part of the Astraea familia.” She greeted and explained to them with a smile as she noticed their defensive posture.
With an eyebrow shooting up, Aidan gave them a look over. Even he who spent as much time in the dungeon as possible was aware of the Astraea familia who acted as a police force in Orario. Their members were known to have been selected explicitly by their goddess Astraea. Moreover, their familia only accepted familia members.
He was still debating whether to believe them as it was easy to impersonate a familia as asking to look at the person’s status was very frowned upon. He heard Ais’s comment while she pulled his sleeve. “I saw them with Riveria on the surface. They are the police.” She said in a low voice that everyone around could hear.
With a relieved nod at her timely intervention, he answered while smiling at them. “Nice to meet you. I am Aidan, and this is Ais.” He said while pointing at his partner. “We are part of the Loki familia.” He continued as it seemed a custom to tell their familia as this group and the previous one spoke about it. However, the group of men were menacingly telling them.
With a smile, she turned to the group of men and asked. “Can you tell me what happened for them to fight you?”
“Well, they blocked our way and said that we should accompany them for the night.” Answered Aidan as he still had some shivers at the look the man previously gave him.
With surprise, then anger as she looked at the men, she went back to surprise as she took in words carefully. “The two of you?” She asked again to confirm.
Seeing an approving nod from Aidan, she nodded and talked to her teammates. “It seems that we have some work for ourselves.” She said as she pointed the group of men on the ground.
“Yes. However, even if we bring them back to the surface, we don’t have any proof.” Said her friend by the name of Kaguya as she shook her head as she knew that even if they brought them back up, they wouldn’t have any shreds of evidence.
“Eum, if you want, I have a recording of what happened.” Answered Aidan as he pointed the card above that was slowly descending thanks to his telekinesis.
“Perfect! We will take care of those men, so don’t you worry a bit.” Grinned Alise as she loved bringing guilty people to justice, especially when they were about to take advantage of two children.
“Well, we will be going now. Be careful in the future. There are a lot of such people around.” Said Alise as the elven girl behind the duo nodded her head as she stared at the two of them with a neutral expression.
“Thank you for your help.” Answered Aidan as Ais said her thanks as well. “We will be careful.” He continued as they left, leaving the men on the ground with the women planning on dealing with this problem themselves. They seemed to love doing so anyway.
—
AN: Well, it’s going to take time for the updates. I don’t have time due to work as I’m too tired to write when I return home.. Even this one was simply put out since I managed to squeeze two hours x), well have a good day.