25. Corrupted Dungeon

He stood at the base of a hill, the ground rising ahead of him. The scout led them toward the dungeon, and Adolin followed behind.

The hill was steep, rocky, and thick with trees. He wouldn’t have noticed it if not for the sharp incline.
He was excited. It was time to learn more about the world. About dungeons. He just hoped they would explain it, and not act like everyone already knew. He didn’t.

The second scout and Clay walked beside him, the others trailing behind. Revel was somewhere in the middle with Edrin. She had calmed down, but Adolin knew better. She was acting. He had seen it before. Bloodthirst, barely contained. He would keep an eye on her. Before she got herself killed.

“Here,” the scout pointed toward a rocky formation, covered in black with green dots.

Moss. The rock was covered in moss, but it was corrupted. It did look beautiful. By the looks of everyone around him, he was the only one who thought so. He studied it, and found the opening. Cave. It was a cave. Did he misunderstand the language? He didn’t think so. There was a word for cave. Pescher.

He felt some mana coming from the cave’s entrance, but that was it. And mana inside caves wasn’t rare. Dark magic users usually died there. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like dark, narrow, and wet places attracted them.

He shrugged.

He didn’t really care about them.

Edrin walked toward the entrance, so Adolin stepped back. He stopped where he could see the entrance, keeping Revel in his peripheral vision. It was time to keep an eye on her. She stood at the back again, looking toward the entrance like everyone else.

A device appeared in Edrin’s hand. Wood, with metal… or stone. Maybe both. He stopped in front of the entrance and extended the device toward it. After a whole minute, he spoke. “D Tier. Five people can enter as a group. After entry, the groups will be split inside the dungeon.”

So it was a magical cave? That helped, but he wouldn’t mind getting more information.

He stepped back, his hand on his chin. “It’s corrupted, so we can’t trust the readings. With the corruption increasing the strength of the monsters, it should be around C… or even B tier.”

“Do we enter, my lord?” one of the soldiers asked.

“We have to,” Edrin said. “Revel, has your family cleared corrupted dungeons?”

“No. It’s my first time seeing one,” Revel said.

Edrin looked at Clay. The latter shook his head.

“We send a group to scout it out. They’ll check the first room, maybe the second,” Edrin said. “The others burn the forest. We don’t leave until everything is purged.”

Revel nodded.

Edrin looked over the faces of his men. “Sir William will lead the scouting party. You have two hours to explore.”

“Yes, my lord,” Sir William said. He stepped forward and picked the two scouts, along with two more men Adolin didn’t know. William was the first name he had heard so far.

They took five minutes to prepare, then stood at the entrance.

“We’re ready.”

“Good luck. Two hours. No more,” Edrin said.

They entered the cave.

Adolin waited for something magical to happen. Nothing did.

He clicked his tongue.

Edrin looked at him and Revel. “Fire magic?”

Revel shook her head.

Adolin knew fire magic. Quite a lot. He had learned many spells before his revenge. And burned a lot of things toward the end of it. He could be called a Fire Archmage. But he didn’t like it. He had only learned it because his village was burned. So he wanted to burn the church. It was poetic in a way.

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It had also made sense at the time.

He hadn’t used it since. Well… that wasn’t entirely true. But using it to burn corruption sounded like a good idea. “I know some,” he said.

“West side is yours. Take Revel with you.”

He did say some, right? Why was he given a whole direction to burn? At least Revel would enjoy the fire. Maybe even lose some of that bloodthirst along the way.

“Clay, go with them. Act as their protector.”

Lord Ashvale was a thoughtful man. He gave him reinforcement, in case Revel lost control again. Adolin was beginning to like him. Really thoughtful.

“We start from the beginning of the corruption and burn inward,” Edrin said. “Make sure not to leave anything behind. Everything must be burned. If we miss something, it will recover and start spreading again. Am I clear?”

“Yes, my lord,” his men said in unison.

Edrin split them into groups and left one by the dungeon, in case something happened to the team that entered it.

Adolin was already moving toward the edge of the corruption, Revel behind him and Clay next to her.