Chapter 90: The Bug Cleanup Crew

After finishing his breakfast, Ethan headed to the Mission Hall to check the final rankings of the Swarm Dungeon Challenge.

The hall was much busier than usual. Students stood around the large display at the front, discussing the results. Some were checking their own teams’ positions, while others had gathered to see who had taken the top spots.

Ethan had barely stepped inside when someone approached him from the side.

"Finally! What took you so long?"

Aria gave him a light punch on the arm.

"I went to get breakfast."

"Breakfast?" She stared at him. "The rankings have been out for a while, and you went to eat first?"

"I’m not going to starve just because the rankings are out."

"Easy for you to say."

Aria turned toward the display, then lifted her chin with a proud smile.

"Anyway, look at that. First place! We actually got first place in all five dungeons!"

Ethan glanced at the rankings. "You sound surprised."

"Of course I’m surprised! We beat everyone!"

"We?"

Aria slowly turned to him.

"What do you mean, ’we’?"

"I don’t remember seeing you do much fighting."

Her mouth fell open.

"Ethan! Do you think it was easy for me to enter those dungeons? Do you have any idea how I felt walking into a place full of ants, wasps, and all those disgusting things?"

"You complained quite a lot."

"Because they were disgusting!" Aria lowered her voice, then pointed a finger at him. "Besides, I still went in, didn’t I? I didn’t run away, and I didn’t ask you to carry me out. That counts for something!"

Ethan laughed. "Alright, alright. You did your part."

"Of course I did."

Aria turned back to the display, looking pleased with herself.

Ethan followed her gaze.

The rankings for the five dungeons were listed on the screen, along with the teams’ names, the difficulties they had cleared, and their completion times. He didn’t bother checking every entry. He already knew how his runs had gone.

Bug Cleanup Crew had taken first place in all five dungeons.

The Wasp Nest had been cleared in nineteen minutes and forty-two seconds. The Ant Colony had taken twenty minutes and six seconds. The other three dungeons had also been completed in under thirty minutes, except for the Bat Cave, where the time had been longer because of what had happened inside.

Even so, their results were far ahead of the other teams.

The nearest competitors had taken Nightmare Difficulty, and their completion times were considerably longer. Some teams had spent nearly an hour in a single dungeon.

Ethan wasn’t surprised by the results. He had entered Hell Difficulty in every dungeon, and his summons had done most of the fighting. There was no reason to expect an ordinary team to keep up with him.

The students around the display, however, were having a much harder time accepting what they saw.

"Hold on. Bug Cleanup Crew got first place in all five dungeons?"

"Look at the difficulty! Hell Difficulty, every single time!"

"How is that even possible? The Wasp Nest took them less than twenty minutes!"

A student standing nearby leaned closer to the display, as if the numbers might change if he looked at them long enough.

"Wait, isn’t Bug Cleanup Crew just made up of two people?"

"Two people? You’re telling me two people cleared all five dungeons on Hell Difficulty?"

"Not just cleared them. Look at the times!"

A few students began checking the other rankings, comparing the results one dungeon at a time. The more they looked, the less sense it seemed to make.

One student shook his head.

"No way. Something has to be wrong."

"Maybe they found a way to bypass the monsters," another student suggested.

A third student gave him a strange look. "Are you stupid? Even if they could bypass the monsters, what about the boss? Do you think the dungeon would just let them walk out without killing it?"

"Then how do you explain their times?" the student shot back. "They cleared all five dungeons on Hell Difficulty. Full teams couldn’t even do that."

"Maybe they cheated somehow."

That suggestion quickly drew a few looks.

"How would they cheat? The academy has people watching the challenge."

"Then explain how two people did what full teams couldn’t."

The discussion continued, but no one could come up with a convincing explanation.

A student who had been looking at the Bat Cave ranking suddenly spoke up.

"Wait. Weren’t those two the ones who came out of the Bat Cave yesterday?"

"They were covered in that strange red energy, right?"

"Yeah, I saw them too. I heard the instructors went into the dungeon right after that."

"Do you think something happened in there?"

"Something definitely happened. Five instructors don’t rush into a dungeon for nothing."

The conversation spread to the students standing nearby. Some wondered whether Ethan and Aria had found a rare treasure, while others suspected they had discovered something that gave them an advantage in the challenge.

Aria heard them talking and stood a little straighter.

"They’re talking about us," she whispered to Ethan.

"I can hear them."

"They think we cheated!"

"You wanted people to notice us. Now they have."

"I wanted them to notice that we came first, not accuse us of cheating!"

Ethan shrugged. "You can’t have one without the other."

Aria gave him an annoyed look, but she couldn’t hide her smile when she glanced back at the rankings.

"We still got first place."

"Yes, you did."

"And in all five dungeons."

"I can read."

She elbowed him lightly. "You really know how to ruin a moment."

Ethan and Aria had seen enough of the rankings. Now they wanted to know what rewards the academy had prepared for them.

Just then, a loud voice rang out from behind the crowd.

"Hey! Who the hell are the members of the Bug Cleanup Crew?!"

The voice was rude and demanding, as if the speaker expected them to come forward the moment he called.

The students turned toward the entrance.