The Discarded Son's Skill Market

"They must have gone this way."

Just as Zaid was thinking about taking a moment to figure out what to do and recover from his headache, the archbishops’ voices reached them. They could even hear their footsteps.

They were too close.

"There are a lot of bodies lying around here. Did you bring the stones? I don’t want to have to fight these guys."

"We have them with us."

Amid the numerous trees and rocks, Zaid and Valia watched as a few red stones were exchanged—the very same ones that had activated that mechanism earlier.

"All right, let’s go down."

From a distance, they both watched the archbishops descend rapidly, closing the gap between them. Most of the beasts were kneeling, so they weren’t even noticed by them, but those that did notice them didn’t attack. They looked at them with reverence.

Zaid looked at Valia and nodded. ’Unfortunately, we don’t have anything like that. Let’s try to run away... we have to escape somehow. My head hurts too much, so if we don’t manage to escape within the next hour, I’ll probably pass out. Let’s not wait for that to happen.’

Valia nodded. Her wings and her whole body ached, but she took flight, and they began to descend rapidly down the hillside, trying to avoid the beasts.

As they tried to get farther and farther away from those archbishops, they came face-to-face with beasts, but the beasts were kneeling, which allowed them to circle around them. However, this brought them within less than 20 meters of the archbishops, down from the initial 40 meters.

’Shit.’ Zaid didn’t know what to do. Hiding wasn’t an option, since they had to take advantage of the fact that these creatures were kneeling to escape. But there were so many beasts that they were afraid of making a wrong move and alerting one of them.

If even one of them spotted them, it would be a death sentence. For if one were alerted, they would surely all be alerted.

That’s why they were extremely careful. Valia flew low. Zaid chose his footing carefully...

Trshh!

Suddenly, a dry stick buried in the ground made a sound. Zaid stepped on it, and it snapped.

"Gr..." A faint, puzzled sound emerged from the mouth of one of the beasts, which seemed to raise its eyes and lift its torso.

He looked from side to side, searching for the source of the sound, but couldn’t find it.

"Did you hear that?" one of the archbishops asked, rushing quickly to the spot.

"It sounded like a dry branch snapping, didn’t it?" His companion followed close behind.

As soon as they arrived, they made eye contact with the fallen beast. It watched them carefully, and when it looked at the red stone, its eyes grew submissive, and it prostrated itself on the ground once more.

"Tsk." The archbishop grumbled when he saw that it was just a pesky beast making a move. He didn’t give it another thought and continued on his way downhill.

"Either they escaped very quickly, or they died at the hands of an A-rank beast," one archbishop grumbled.

"If they escaped, at least we can still find him. The problem is that if he dies, the prophet will be very angry that we didn’t take proper care of this damned special envoy."

"And I want to see the ritual... Damn it, you filthy, crawling cockroach. I’ll find you and tear you to pieces!"

"I’ll send a message to the guards to surround the entire area... At least that way we won’t have made the trip for nothing... I wonder how the ritual is going..." The two of them shook their heads in frustration.

It was the first time in a long while that they’d lost their tempers so easily. Both quickened their pace, not wanting to miss any more of the ritual.

Behind them, Zaid and Valia were hiding behind a rock wedged between the trunk of a giant tree. Through the crack beneath them was a space just big enough for one person to squeeze into; Zaid slipped inside and kept Valia close by.

Once the footsteps had receded about 20 meters, they emerged and looked toward the village. "Looks like we have to go there," Zaid whispered.

"We can fly across. Let’s try to pick up the pace," Valia suggested.

However, they both suddenly froze... A beast rose up behind them.

And then another, and in an instant, more than a hundred beasts rose from the ground, all of them behind them.

Zaid looked back, and fear washed over him when he saw so many system notifications telling them the rank and level of these beasts... More than a hundred, all Rank C.

"W-we’re in serious trouble..." Zaid laughed helplessly and looked toward the village. "Looks like we’ll have to pick up the pace... I’m afraid we’re going to die today."

Zaid didn’t waste any more time. He didn’t mind making a little noise; after all, there was already enough commotion behind him to drown out the sound of his footsteps anyway.

They both suddenly started running and covered a distance of two hundred meters in an instant, when Zaid accidentally stepped into a hole and fell in, taking Valia with him.

’Oh, shit... I’m screwed.’

Zaid could sense the moment when numerous beasts were rising and rushing toward them to devour them alive. He almost ordered Valia to return to his inner, but suddenly he realized that, a second later, he wasn’t touching solid ground. A wave of dizziness washed over him from within, signaling that he was falling at high speed.

His vision cleared in an instant, and as he looked down, he noticed that the cave into which he had fallen was enormous, and at the bottom, waiting for him, was a dark body of water that looked grotesque.

His body plummeted toward it; he imagined himself splashing into something that could clearly kill him. However, just a few centimeters before touching the water, he found himself floating above it.

"Thanks, Valia." Zaid forced a smile as he endured the headache.

Once there, he could see that the sides looked like a drainage system—but they weren’t. The water didn’t smell anything like that, but it had such a strong odor that it almost made them both dizzy.

Valia flew off to one side and set him down on the ground, where he could finally rest...

Swosh!

A gentle breeze seemed to blow toward them from inside the cave. Zaid frowned and looked into its depths.

It was unusually long and gloomy; it was far too damp, and the heat was unbearable. And the breeze didn’t feel right.

Zaid struggled to his feet and looked up at the spot where they had fallen. The cave walls were smooth, and there was no way to climb back up. Clearly, this must have once been a well that supplied water to the temple, but who knows why it is now an underground river that seems to stretch endlessly in both directions.

Swosh!

Another cold wind hit them, but this one was stronger.

This time, Valia’s hackles rose and her tail bristled... Zaid had a similar reaction, with all his hairs standing on end.

Ke!

Ke!

KE!

A grotesque, choked laugh rang out from the depths... The sound of something slithering reached their ears. Valia and Zaid both took a step back at the same time.

It was true... they were still inside an A-Rank dungeon. Falling into a trap in a place like this is something no one has ever lived to tell the tale of.