DD 203 Ch 24

Chapter 24

Uzmaki Nagato slid the sword back into his sheath with a soft click. He stood amidst the ruins of a small city in Norway, surrounded by not only human remains, but dwarven ones as well.

Sakura landed next to him a moment later. His wife was still the immaculate beauty he married fifty years ago.

"This even brought old men like that out of retirement," Uzmaki mused, nodding at a giant Nordic man.

The man's gray beard was braided down, his hair pulled back, and blood splattered all over his scarred body. He had been a rival adventurer back when Silver Fangs was pushing the 30th floor boss.

Uzmaki clicked his tongue. "Too bad he's gotten weak with old age." 

The big man's ear twitched and he turned angrily at Uzmaki. "What was that, old man? Sorry, you've wrinkled so much I mistook you for a prune." His voice boomed. 

The large warrior thumped his way over in a threatening manner. At least the gesture would have been threatening to most. 

Uzmaki tipped his head back and laughed. "You're gonna have to try harder if you want to worry me." 

With a flick of his thumb, his blade left his sheath and the two of them clashed weapons in greeting. Uzmaki laughed, slashing at the other old man with glee. His once rival was now nowhere near his match and he toyed with him for a moment before sliding back away and re-sheathing his sword. 

"Old age has really not done well for you." Uzmaki stated.

Rather than get angry, the warrior let out a belly chuckle and flipped his axe, slamming the blade into the ground. "You’re telling me. I thought becoming an adventurer would make my knees feel like I was in my teens again. Unfortunately, old age creeps up on us all." 

Uzmaki rubbed at his nose. Since he and his wives had crossed the level 40 threshold, their aging had stopped slowing them down nearly as much. He might look like an old man, but he actually felt rather spry.

His old rival looked over the ruins. "Do you think more are coming?" The Nordic man asked.

Uzmaki shook his head. "Doubt it. You know they sent my granddaughter-in-law down there to take care of it." He pointed at the dungeon entrance that had been stripped free of the UG building that once was a shell around it. Dwarven corpses were strewn everywhere around the dungeon entrance, having been crushed to a pulp as if by some ferocious beast. 

"Grand--da--da--daughter-in-law?" The Nordic warrior glanced back at the dungeon. "I thought they sent Crimson down." 

It was Uzmaki's turn to laugh as he put his hands on his hips and stuck his nose in the air. "Ha ha! She is my granddaughter-in-law." 

The big man gave him the stink eye. "What? No. Someone related to you?" 

"Believe it or not, Vic," Grandma Akari walked over holding a battered and beaten shield. "It turns out his genes actually did some good." 

Vic looked Akari up and down. "Glad to see you're still kicking.” 

“Eyes off my woman," Uzmaki snapped playfully. He walked over, putting his hands around the taller woman's hips. "But yes, Crimson is my granddaughter-in-law now.”

“Then where's your grandson?" Vic asked. 

Uzmaki made a face as he grimaced and looked down at his feet. A part of him was ashamed that in all the searching they had done over the last two months, they had yet to turn up even half of the adventurers that were supposed to be in the dungeon at the time of the Great Shuffle.

That’s what the news had begun calling the event the Great Shuffle.

Besides losing so many adventurers of humanity, resources were stretched even further because those who remained had been forced to fight off new threats from dwarves and naga.

New paths had been woven through the dungeon, but so farnobody had yet found one between the naga homeworld and earth or the dwarven homeworld and earth. 

At this point all that had been established was that many sections of the dungeon that had once been claimed by either race now connected more easily to earth, and the two violent races saw an opportunity to expand. 

"He's fine. I'm sure he is," Uzmaki stated.

As the words left his mouth, Crimson appeared from the dungeon entrance moving like a red ghost.

Her eyes lit up blue like there was lightning inside of them. "Ken is still fine," she said. Uzmaki knew she had an ability to ask the dungeon questions.

"Is it time to go get him yet?" Uzmaki asked.

Crimson glanced down at him. "School will have to come back in session after winter break. They can enjoy their vacation until then." 

Crimson smirked and vanished in front of him. The woman was being overworked by the UG.

When humanity was in the direst of straits, it seemed the only person who could fend off the worst of the dangers coming to Earth, or to those who had been stranded in the dungeon, was Crimson herself. Her portal ability was also proving vital. Once she located those stuck, she could help them exit.

Uzmaki had been in charge of guarding more than one portal over the last two months. Crimson had been using him, and Silver Fangs, as a buffer for all of the job requests she had been getting.

Anyone with any sense of money in the world was throwing it around in a desperate plea for their loved ones to be recovered from the dungeon. 

It didn't help that the news of the world had been putting great fear into the populace, constantly questioning when the dungeon would strike again. The number of new adventurers had shrunk to an all-time low as the dangers of the dungeon became all the more real. Uzmaki thought it was an absolute shame because right now, more than ever, he needed more people in the dungeon to remap and reorganize humanity's claim. 

It was clear that races like the Naga and the Dwarves had likely gone through a similar event before as they quickly adapted and began fighting for more territory. 

"All right, on to the next job," Sakura said, getting his attention. "Since we forgot to ask Crimson for a portal, it means...," Sakura said, pointing at the dungeon. "Time to go down and clear out what we can. There are some low-level adventurers coming through to move all of these bodies and the wreckage into the dungeon. It isn’t pretty, but it is the fastest way to clean this up." 

Uzmaki snorted but didn't dally. It seemed they never had a chance to stop since the shuffle. Never before had they been so busy.

***

Since my raid party’s dungeon floor had moved, it had been two months of near endless grinding in the raid. Everyone had been working hard to keep their level up with the shift of the dungeon. We found that dungeon monsters leveled up one level a week. It has put a serious strain on everyone. 

And with the time that had gone by, the most popular place to grind had become the crocodile trash monsters that led up to the second boss in that wing. They were the only monster in the raid that dropped edible loot.

At this point, even Harley and the other hoarders had just about run out of food. 

Thankfully, everyone in the four colleges had reached at least level 40. Even Professor Gafar and Professor Sai had joined them in farming, now that the monsters were level 41.

I had stepped away from the rest of my raid for a meeting with Machen, Marin, and Prince Albar. We were seated in the prince’s tent with all of his amenities, because he refused to go without them.

Needless to say, I didn’t drink the tea he offered.

The two professors were there as well. I lifted another piece of grilled crocodile out of my CID and popped it into my mouth. It tasted fine, especially with Fayeth’s cooking, but I was getting pretty tired of this one food. 

"We're down to less than a week of foodstuff," Professor Sai said as she looked through the information each college had handed up to her. 

"We've gotten a lot stronger," Machen said, flexing in his heavy armor.

Increasing our stats with raw training hadn't been very effective in the little time we’d had, but we had also been leveling with the raid as well as equipping higher and higher level loot as the raid continued to climb.

As a result our stats blossomed from the gear and we managed to keep pace with the level expectations.

"The Naga have probably leveled too," Professor Gafar’s position had become clear. He was against us venturing out. Instead, he seemed adamant in waiting for help to come.

I wondered if he expected some monumental effort to be made for the prince. I was not interested in waiting for that unlikely outcome. My suspicion was that we were very far away, possibly lost somewhere in the dungeon.

Without our searchers having an ability like [Eyes of Wisdom], it would be a long way before we could be found. Part of me wondered where Crimson was, but I realized the absolute disaster that this likely became for humanity as a whole.

"Perhaps we're lost somewhere deep within the dungeon. We should be strong enough to strike out," I offered before continuing on.

"I would be shocked if the dwarves and Naga hadn't already come into conflict and whittled each other down. That neither of them had found the raid entrance is a minor miracle in and of itself. Let's enjoy the fact that we've been given the time to train. No one would have expected us to make these many gains in such a short amount of time. However, with raid content that we already understood the mechanics of steadily gaining levels and we were able to upgrade quality gear along the way. Familiar with the mechanics, we reaped great rewards." We had all grown quickly under this pressure.

"Well, what do we do after we get out?" Professor Gafar pushed for a plan, another stalling tactic. 

"We don't know what we're going to find," I said. "We will have to operate on the fly. But as I understand it, to get back to Earth, first we need to go further down the dungeon."

The professor rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. "Which you won't tell us how you know that."

"No,” We'd had this argument before. We'd probably had every argument we were going to have today before. The only thing different between today's meeting and the last several that we had is that our food rations are getting dangerously low. “I say we leave the raid," I said, lifting my hand in the air and forcing it to a vote. 

Machen and Maren raised their hands with me. The two of them had been in agreement for a long time. On the other hand, Prince Albar sulked in the corner. He had been that way ever since his group failed to defeat the final boss for another two weeks. 

I had all the evidence I needed.

Not to mention he and his raid had fallen behind the others. He had been withdrawn lately due to the general dislike for him that had spread.

Even Marin and Machen had started to avoid him.

The prince's penchant for taking every upgrade ended up slowing down his group considerably as the raid gained levels. Even his own college gave him glares behind his back.

Professor Gafar crossed his arms, clearly unwilling to leave the safety of the raid. It looked like it would be another stalemate.

For all that Professor Sai might be the strongest person here besides Neldra, she was so incredibly passive and unwilling to act that I thought she didn't deserve to be an adventurer. 

"Fine," Professor Sai surprised me and pushed down on the table. "Our food supplies have been steadily dropping. Even our increased efforts to farm the crocodiles have not been successful." She grimaced at admitting that, given that it had been her suggestion not that long ago. "We have to leave or else we'll starve," she said. It seemed the threat of starvation would finally push her into action. With her vote, that meant we were finally going to go into action.

Machen stood up sharply.

"I think between you and me, we need to have a plan upon exit. Because as soon as we get out of here, we have to assume there might be dwarves or naga nearby." I said to him.

The berserker nodded with grim determination. 

"What about me?" the prince asked, raising his hands as if offended. 

"You can join us, that would be helpful," I said with some sarcasm in my voice. "However, this entire time, you have been in opposition to any and everything we have been trying to do."

I had grown more than frustrated. After creating this small council, the prince argued against everything I said. It seemed out of sheer spite, rather than any reasonable stance.

It was only out of staving off causing a panic that I didn’t just shank him in the middle of the night.

He huffed. "Of course, if you guys are all leaving, then I will have to as well. It's not as if we can sustain ourselves here. However, after we make it past the naga blockade, we will be able to get out of here safely." The prince stood up, clearly not interested in continuing the conversation and marched off to the camp. 

I shared a glance with Marin and Machen, nodding and getting to my feet. "All right, I will bring my raid back, and we are going to rest up."

"How soon do you think you can have the entrance cleared?" I asked Marin. She glanced over at the pile of sand that had everyone's attention. Two Trusk students sat near it playing cards. 

"Maybe two hours," she said. "At that point, we will at least be poking through and be able to get someone out to scout." 

Professor Sai stood up. "I will be going through first."

As the highest level here, no one had any complaints. Only Professor Gafar seemed upset. Then again, that was his natural state of being I was fairly certain. 

Meeting done, I burst into action, rushing down the beast section of the raid. At this point, we had been farming it so often, I felt like I was retracing my steps through a familiar haunt as I rushed through to find the rest of my raid killing crocodiles by the dozen.

Felon was ahead of the raid, poking at every random bush to see if crocodiles would pop out and spawn. Like many monsters, they would respawn if we left an area, and the raid as a whole had been weaving back and forth through the space between the first and the second boss, flushing crocodiles out of bushes and farming them for meat and experience. 

Candice was the first to notice me and waved at my approach.

People were talking casually as they killed the crocodiles, completely unconcerned with the monsters. We had been farming them so much that killing them was almost an unconscious action at this point. 

"Good news and bad news, everyone," I said, pulling out my daggers and joining in on the nearest crocodile. "Good news, we will finally be leaving the raid." That statement caused more than a few people to stutter in their current actions. 

"The bad news?" Harley asked. 

"Bad news, we're almost out of food." Everyone winced, but no one was surprised. The food situation had been on everyone's mind, especially as people had started to run out of food in their own CIDs, and we had to restrict hoarding. 

"But we got so many," Penny held up loot from two crocodiles that had just puffed into black smoke.

The crocodile tails that she held up could be skinned, deboned, and eaten, even if it wasn't the most tender of meat. At least it tasted mostly like chicken, slightly tough chicken. 

"Well, more good news is we might have some more variety than just crocodile soon." I offered

"I doubt naga tastes any better," Helen spat, and everyone suddenly got awkward at the direct mention of the threat that lay beyond the sealed raid entrance. 

I held my hands up to calm everyone down. "Please. Marin is already getting the Trusk students to clear out the raid entrance." The Trusk class had been off today, grinding on a mob spot in the main branch of the raid. It had likely already returned to the entrance and started clearing. 

"Once you finish up," I stabbed forward, and the crocodile in front of me exploded into black smoke, "we're heading back to the entrance, and we're taking down our tents. We need to be ready to leave in two hours. That means getting everything down and resting enough that you are ready for a fight." 

Several of the ladies swallowed loudly, and I didn't blame them. We were going into the unknown, and for the first real time, it was completely uncharted.

Whatever we faced likely included heavy combat, closer to when the first adventurers had entered the dungeon or those that now pushed into the unknown depths. We wouldn’t have more than our own raid to count on should things get tough and who knew what fights would be ahead of us. 

I was expecting that we would find either dwarves or naga on the floor outside the raid. It was just a question of which ones and how many. We would have to destroy any that saw us if we wanted peace for the time being. But inevitably, we would be pushing down into the safe zone that the naga had occupied.

While it was daunting, I had to admit, I was a little excited as well. This was ultimately why we had entered the dungeon, we just usually had a safe path behind us when we ventured forward.