Roy left Cassau to travel to the capital on his own. He didn't even bring Victoria with her and told her to catch up with Sonia and defeat a lot of monsters. This way, Roy's summoning element will be able to improve at a faster rate. But Victoria need to be able to take full control of the slime before Roy's summoning element could improve.
Victoria fought all the monsters easily, by using her martial arts skill and increasing the weight of her weapons. And whenever she founds an enemy that has a good vision, she would capture them to give to Roy so he can improve his Divine Vision. Most of them are hawk type monster.
She capture them, and put them in a cage that Lina bought. Lina also told Victoria any type of monsters that has good vision. She didn't just look for monsters. She also looked for magic item that will help Roy. She's a very loyal maid.
…although how she became loyal was weird.
Roy just complimented her a few times and she already worshiped him.
Not just that she's a loyal maid, she's also a perfect maid. It wasn't long since Roy has left, and the whole building already cleaned up. She can also cook well. And if there's something Roy wanted, she would look for any information about the thing Roy searched for. That's why she diligently reading many books about monsters in the library.
About the new place that Roy just bought, it's a three story building. The first floor has the living room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining room. The second floor has eight room, and the top floor has five room with one room being the biggest. All room has balcony.
The biggest room at the third floor is taken by Roy. Then in front of his room there are four rooms. Three of them are taken. It was Sophie's room, Kayla's room, and Victoria's.
Victoria said she also wants some privacy and her room will also be used by Sonia the ghost. And although Sophie has her own room, she prefer to sleep with Roy at night.
For the second floor, two of them are already occupied. One by Angela, and another by Sam. Sam didn't want to stay there. She said she want to leave once she found a place for herself. That place will be her office as well.
As for Angela, she said whatever room she's in, she doesn't want a ghost entering it. Sonia agreed after receiving a glare from Roy.
Lastly is Lina. She occupied one of the empty room in the second floor for just the first night. After that, clearing a spot in the first floor, she said she will make a room for herself in the first floor. It was because she's a maid. That's what she said.
While Roy is leaving for the capital, the girls are doing their own business. Victoria is defeating monsters, and Lina is reading books at the library.
Kayla, Sophie, and Angela stays in their own room to cultivate using the high quality magic stones. They were hoping to be able to improve fast. All this time, they almost never cultivate by normal means.
They would try method taught by Roy that he learned from the future, or by Victoria's method from the past. Both method doesn't use magic stones, but they help greatly in magic control. At least the method taught by those two are good for improvement without using magic stones.
Now because of the dungeon exploration, they found a lot of magic stones with some of them are still magic stones of unknown elements. Sam is trying to find someone who can appraise them.
While the girls from Roy's party are busy with their own things to do, there's another party who just got themselves into a problem.
It was Ellen's party, Gladius.
They managed to climb up a slippery hole and continued moving forward. They don't have any light element mage with them so they used Ellen's fire to light the way. Not just that it wasn't as bright as light from light element mage, it would also waste their oxygen.
Ellen who was told that by Kayla decided to only let small fire so the party will still have a lot of air left. She doesn't know what Oxygen is, but she knows how good Kayla's party members are. That's why she decided to trust Kayla even though her party members disagree with her.
"Ellen! Air is everywhere! So what if we light a bit more fire! We can't see things otherwise!"
"Nana! This is our first time exploring this dungeon with narrow path. And those girls… and a guy are better than us in fighting at closed space! You have to trust me!"
"Don't forget that you're just a newbie in this party! You might be an A-rank hunter, but I'm more experienced in exploration! Just do as I say!"
The leader of Gladius, Nana, insist that they will be fine. She said she was experienced in dungeon exploration, but the dungeons she explored before have bigger space inside. She was right that a bigger flame won't hurt them. But the story if different if it's just that.
The party has encountered several monsters, some are even as strong as the Cyclops. And Nana just told her party members to fight as usual. Although she told her party to not use big scale magic, it still too much for a closed area.
There are two fire mages in the party. Luckily, one of them is Ellen who keeps refusing to use magic bigger than a fireball. That was why the party can still continue. But that's the reason why they don't know yet the fear of losing oxygen.
But that's not all. There's one thing that Roy forget to tell Kayla and the others. There's a huge danger in this dungeon other than the monsters or the lack of Oxygen.
It was the fact that since the unexplored area are above the main path that was well-known already, there are many path with hollow area below them, at the main path.
Roy didn't have the need to tell Kayla because they can only use small scale magic. But if someone used big scale magic, they will be caved in.
And as it happened now, the opponent this time are Cyclopes. Five of them.
The area that Gladius is in right now is bigger than most area in the dungeon. It fits more than five Cyclopes. Which also means the Cyclopes has a lot of room for big movement.
And someone used a powerful area of effect magic.
"Chaos Lightning!"
One of the party member used an advanced level lightning magic.
"Wait! Tiff, don't do that!"
It was not Ellen who shouted. It was Nana.
"Why?! It's not like I used a fire magic that will burn all the 'Oksigen' like Ellen said."
"Not that! This dungeon makes us climb from the main path! Which means it is hollow below us!"
"Oh no!"
Just as Nana said, after the magic hit the Cyclopes, they were all defeated. But the impact is too strong and their foothold can't handle it.
Grumble
And so, the strongest party in Cassau, Gladius, got caved in inside the dungeon. With no one able to help them.
…Except maybe for someone whose ability far beyond common sense.
The day that the party Gladius got caved in, there was chaos inside the guild. It was the day that Roy left for the capital. News travel fast to Kayla and the others.
It was Victoria who heard about it first since she just returned from hunting checking on the request.
At first she didn't know that it was Ellen's party. But when she heard that there's an S-rank hunter in the party, she checked with the guild staff about the member. That was how she found out that it was about Ellen's party.
She didn't panic. Instead she just went home to her new house and report it to the others during dinner.
"Seems like Ellen and her party got caved in."
"What?! How?" Angela asked.
"My guess is that her party member still used strong magic to fight there. We also forgot to tell her that the area below them should be hollow knowing that they need to climb." Victoria replied calmly.
"What should we do? Should we help them?" Angela asked again.
"How?"
"I got some ideas. We can't help them out of the dungeon, but we can at least help them survive."
As Kayla about to tell them her plan, someone knocked on the door.
"EXCUSE ME! IS KAYLA HERE?!"
Everyone surprised to hear a loud voice from the door. But Victoria able to stay calm because she also know the owner of this loud voice.
"Come in!" Kayla replied.
"EXCUSE M—AAAAH A GHOST!!!"
"Ignore her. Can I help you?"
"OH RIGHT! ELLEN TOLD ME TO COME HERE IN CASE SOMETHING HAPPENED TO HER! SHE TOLD ME TO MAKE HER PERSONAL REQUEST TO SAVE HER AND HER PARTY! SHE SAID THE REWARD IS HUGE!"
"I understand, but can you lower your voice? It's dark and you're bothering the neighbor."
"I'M SORRY, I CAN'T!"
"Alright. We also want to help Ellen. For now, please tell us your name." Kayla asked the loud girl calmly."
"IT'S JEWEL!"