Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Mason turned towards the receptionist, and the staff of the adventurers association before addressing the masses.

"Keh..." Ruke made a derisive smile while Bastian couldn't believe what he heard.

"W-wait a moment guild master Mason. You… are you telling us to do nothing and wait for the adventurers inside the dungeon and discard the comrades who have been captured by the orcs. How can we as the adventurers do that? My friends, my guild were all there… if we don't do anything soon they might..".

"Enough" Bastian tried to speak out but he was soon silenced by Mason who glared at him with menace.

"I'm not stopping anyone who wants to go there and fight. But know that even if you go out, you don't stand a chance against them. The enemies we are facing is unlike any other monsters you have faced inside the dungeon".

"They are extremely intelligent, highly coordinated and are powerful enough to hold a level 300 adventurer on their own. The enemies we are facing are Diluvian High Orcs, a race that should be deep inside the western region of the forest. I don't know why they have come all the way to the eastern region of the forest but I can tell you one thing, even if we form another alliance like the one before, we are still not their match. We don't stand a chance even more if we go out in the forest which is essentially their territory".

Nobody dared to utter a sound, these adventurers even if they came from different cities, they were all aware of how dangerous the Ghastly Winding Forest was. Even if they did not see it themselves, they have at least heard about the western part of the forest being full of strong and dreadful monsters.

Thus when Mason pointed out that the monsters they were facing were from the western region of the forest, none of them dared to go against his words.

"I appreciate your feelings to want to save your comrades. However, going out there at this time of the night is clearly suicidal. I can only give you my sympathy" Mason said towards Bastian who seemed to be unresigned even after that.

After saying everything that he needed to say to settle down the crowd, the guild master of the Moonlight guild turned towards the staff of the adventurer's association.

"May I know till which floor the messengers you sent to notify the adventurers were able to get?" His Moonlight guild were exploring the twenty-fifth floor. The fact that they did not get any such message when the association sent a messenger could only mean that the messengers weren't able to dive deep.

"Eighteenth floor… that was the limit their strength could take them to" the staff replied. Mason nodded his head and fell into thought.

It was as he had thought, he couldn't see any high levelled adventurers aboveground. Since the messengers weren't able to get to the middle and lower floors to relay the message. Most of the strong adventurers who were inside the dungeon were unaware of it.

If they wanted to resist the Diluvian High Orcs, they needed the help of other strong guilds. Especially the ones exploring the lower floors and even then, it was not guaranteed that they would be able to win; after all, monsters from the western region of the forest were that dreadful.

This issue was already beyond their capability, if nothing is done, the town might need to be abondoned permanently.

"I guess it can't be helped. I will be sending some of the members of my Moonlight Guild back inside to relay this message to other adventurers" Mason pointed at the twenty or so people behind him.

-----

Main Hall, Dungeon Laplace.

Simon walked inside followed by Bea. Everybody was already present and were waiting for him.

"What is the matter?" Simon did not mask any words and directly got to the point as soon as he entered.

Coleus, the leader of the [helpers] stepped forward and reported— "My lord it looks like the tower town is besieged by monsters. The adventurers and the ordinary people aboveground have suffered heavy casualties and the town is more or less destroyed".

"Currently, the adventurer's association branch in the town is sending messengers to notify every other adventurer inside of the situation with the town. Even the ones that are on the lower floors are ascending back up. I believe that the association is trying to mount a resistance against the monsters by rallying up all the adventurers together".

After Coleus finished his report, a silence descended onto the hall. The situation this time was different from the time when their dungeon was in danger. It did not directly threaten their safety; however, the town and the adventurers who were their source of DP, being in danger indirectly affected their dungeon.

The matter was of importance but in a whole different way when their guild was invaded by the Seven swords Guild. All the eyes present in the hall focused on Simon.

As the dungeon master, it fell upon him to make the decision. Simon mused for a while, from Coleus's words he finally understood why the DP he was getting was on a declining trend for a while.

It happened that most of the adventurers were coming out of the dungeon to address the issue that was going on in the town. If he left the situation to the adventurers to solve on their own, everything would come back to normal if they won.

However, in the case that they lost to whatever that was threatening them, the town might be destroyed which will severely affect his DP earnings.

This was something that Simon cannot allow to happen especially at this point when his dungeon heavily needed all these DP to upgrade itself. In the first place, it would be bad if these adventurers aka his money making pawns went and died outside.

Thus there was only one choice he could take from the beginning and that was to meddle in the issue that was happening at the tower town.

"Coleus, you said that it was monsters that were besieging the town? In that case do you know which race they belonged to?".

Coleus turned towards Birch who came forward and replied "Reporting to my Lord, the monsters seemed to be from a race called Diluvian High Orcs. It was around two days ago that they approached near the eastern region of the forest and started probing and attacking the town".

"They have completely surrounded the place not allowing anyone to get away and have already wiped out multiple groups of adventurers that tried to resist against them. I have also found out that the monsters did not just kill the adventurers but also captured them".

"The survivors in the town seemed to be in an upheaval and are hurriedly trying to contact all the powerful adventurers inside the dungeon and around the cities. Since I couldn't approach them any further due to some of the adventurers having sharp senses, that is all the information that I could gather".

"You have gathered plenty of information, you did well not approaching them any further" Simon praised.

The forest spring spirit had the ability to become one with the nature which allows them to mask their presence to a minimum and become invisible to an ordinary eye just like a chameleon.

As amazing as it sounded, it was not like the ability was without any flaw. The ability to become invisible only works when the Forest Spring spirit is in contact with a tree or is around a place full of flora and fauna.

It immediately breaks when a person is too close to the place where the forest spirit is hidden or when they are attacked. Birch had already taken a great amount of danger upon himself by approaching so close to the adventurers and gathering all that information. Any more than that, would be asking too much from him.

"What do you plan to do?" Irene asked, she hadn't voiced anything up until now because she wanted to know his opinion and what he was thinking.

Everyone present here was his subordinates, therefore no matter what decision he would take, they would respect that.

"I cannot allow the orcs to simply wipe out the town aboveground. Putting aside the fact that the town and its vicinity are my territory, the adventurers are a precious source of DP from my dungeon. Losing them will be a big blow… thus we retaliate" Simon made his decision.

Irene and the others all nodded their head without a word, they were already prepared to accept whatever decision he took.

"Although we have decided to fight, do you know how powerful the enemy is?" Irene asked, she could see that Simon didn't take this decision without taking anything into account.

"Right, I more or less know how powerful the opponents we are facing this time are. The Diluvian High Orcs are a race that lives inside the western region of the forest. Most of them are generally around level 350-400 and amongst them, there are certain ranks like the Orc Commanders and Orc Generals".

"The Orc Commanders are all above or closer to level 400 while the Orc generals are powerful enough to contend against the Lightning Draconic Serpent before it became a disaster class. The race of Diluvian High Orc is led by an Orc King who should have the highest level among them".

Simon said recalling what he knew about the Diluvian High Orcs. He dived inside their territory quite a few times and fought with their warriors thus he knew how powerful they were.