Chapter 107: Finding Murderers

POV Cornelius

The next day we traveled to Tyros. The sudden snowstorm was over and the roads were passable again to the extent that traveling on horseback was possible. Unfortunately, the journey was not very pleasant as we had to spend two nights outside. Thanks to tarpaulins and our troop, however, it was just about acceptable, especially as we wanted to get to the nature dungeon as quickly as possible. Our training was waiting to continue and with new equipment, it should be a piece of cake. When we finally arrived in Tyros, we put up in the best hotel again. Our plan was to relax for a day and then start our dungeon training the next day.

After our recovery period, the snow had completely melted and the way to the dungeon was clear. Highly motivated, we rode to the dungeon. We positioned our soldiers next to the entrance to give us a head start on the adventurers. This gave us plenty of time to fight our way to the desired floor. We took two servants with us so that they could extract the magic cores from the defeated monsters. After all, they were paid for this work.

We started on floor 11 and the slimes weren't worth the effort, so we went straight to floor 12. The beetles were welcome warm-up opponents and were literally crushed by us. We quickly decided that they weren't worth the effort either and moved on.

On floor 13 we met the poison spiders again. Their poison posed the first real danger to us since we entered the dungeon. We had decided in advance that we needed to train our resistances and that also applied to poison. Thanks to Eli and her poison cure, however, we were always able to intervene in time when things got unexpectedly dangerous.

After a while on the floor, however, we noticed a problem. We had to let the poison take effect in order to train the resistance, i.e. if Eli cast her poison cure too early, the training effect was reduced. If we let the poison work until it stopped working on its own, we took too much damage and Eli had to heal us regularly more often. As a result, our progress in exploring the dungeon was slow. That evening, we decided that we would only spend a certain amount of time on this floor each day and then quickly move on to the next floor.

The next floor was a lot of fun, especially for Ansgar. Goblins as opponents were just toys for him and he mowed through the ranks like a scythe. He dropped all caution and let off steam. Against his large, heavy axe and his powerful blows, many goblins fell in a single blow. Those who survived one blow died with the second.

Even the vines on floor 15 were just a pastime for him. He was often clutched by a plant, but thanks to his great strength he was usually able to pull himself free. But I also got my money's worth. Although I defeated far fewer monsters than Ansgar, I had no problems with the monsters up to this point.

As a result, it wasn't long before we made our way to the third boss. Unfortunately, a very unpleasant story happened. One of the adventure groups actually had the audacity to overtake us and get to the boss before we did. The group consisted of four people, two of whom were warriors, as you could tell from their heavy armor. The third man was a scout or something similar with no visible armor or large weapon, and a person of similar height with a spear who had the hood of his cloak pulled over his face. I had just finished complaining loudly when I heard Javier next to me say something interesting.

“Hmm, doesn't the person with the hood look familiar?” <Javier>

“What do you mean?” <Cornelius>

“Hmm, somehow the appearance looks familiar. The cloak and the spear, I've seen that combination somewhere before. Let's get closer so I can use Appraisal.” <Javier>

“Too late. They've already disappeared into the cave. Great, now we have to wait.” <Ansgar>

“As soon as we see them again, we'll give them hell. Just jostle in front of us heroes. We have to make it clear to them that they're below us in the hierarchy.” <Cornelius>

“Calm down, Corni. Don't get so worked up.” <Eleonore>

“Hmm, they'll need some time. Let's make the most of it and train a little more on the plants here.” <Javier>

“I don't like it, but it's better than just standing around.” <Cornelius>

With a little anger in our stomachs, we beat up a few more vines. Then we headed back to the cave entrance, but obviously the adventurers hadn't finished their fight yet. What were they doing in there for so long? They looked capable enough to make it easily. It showed once again that adventurers weren't worth much and could only be used as foot soldiers.

After another 10 minutes, the door signaled that the fight inside was over. Finally, we could go in. When we opened the door and took a look inside, we saw an unexpected scene. We saw three corpses. The two warriors and the scout/thief were dead, but there was no sign of the person in the hooded cloak. There were many traces of blood on a wall, indicating that the last person had escaped from the cave badly injured. Unfortunately, we couldn't do any more detailed investigations now, because after we had all entered the room, the door closed and the boss fight started.

The boss fight was over quickly and only the spiders with their poison attacks were as annoying as ever. But this time we took them out first so that we could deal with the rest in peace afterwards. After less than ten minutes, the battle was over and we were victorious. Then the stele and the chest appeared, but there were still the three corpses of the adventurers next to them. Now we had enough time to deal with them.

“What do you think happened here?” <Cornelius>

“Hmm, hard to say. We should find out what killed them.” <Javier>

“I'll do that. Ah, I see, they have mostly stab wounds and several small cuts. The big beefy one here has lots of cuts on both legs and a stab wound to the neck. He probably died from that too. The other warrior has cuts all over his body, but especially on his arms and legs. And the third one over here has a single fatal stab wound to his neck. The daggers are still stuck in two of the neck wounds.” <Eleonore>

“So stabs like from a dagger or perhaps from a spear? Where did the cuts come from?” <Cornelius>

“The cuts can come from short blades, but also from swords. The stab wounds can come from daggers and spears, although I'd say daggers. They are too clean and too narrow for spears. I don't see any wounds at all that could indicate a spear. What's more, the daggers in the wounds are clear.” <Eleonore>

“The only daggers I see are the two in the necks. Apart from that, I only saw any on the goblins earlier. They also had jagged sabres." <Ansgar>

“The wounds are all clean. Jagged weapons would have created ragged wounds.” <Eleonore>

“I wonder if they killed each other. But why? Was the treasure in the chest that good? We have to find the fourth person. He's the only one who can give us information.” <Cornelius>

“Hmm, the one here has the title Murderer. I'm not surprised that someone would want to avenge him.” <Javier>

“Then that will be the reason. Someone must have found out about him and waited here for the best opportunity. It must have been the fourth person. Too bad you couldn't investigate them with appraisal. I'd like to know who it was. Bringing a murderer to justice is commendable. We'll ask around town. Someone like that could be important when we go demon hunting in the future, even if it is an adventurer." <Cornelius>

We took care of the chest and the stele. All of us chose Poison Resistance, even if we had to spend EXP on it. But now that we knew about the EXP trick, we had all saved up enough to increase and improve it. We then returned to the town to celebrate defeating the third boss. After that, we went in search of the murder hunter.