Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

In Arbor Town, the busy streets were busier than usual. They could in fact be described as convoluted. There were adventurers everywhere!

The dungeon was attractive so some bustle was expected but over the past few days, there were a bit too many people.

All the people familiar with Arbor Town knew the reason, however. The adventurers below B-class were all forced out of the dungeon and now had nowhere to go. That left them loitering in the town while waiting for the lift of the class restriction.

With the place as crowded as it was, it seemed unlikely for anyone to find any lodging.

That being the case, any homeless adventurers had no choice but to ask around, and what better place to ask than the Freedom Union?

Harboring these same thoughts, a small party entered the surprisingly empty Freedom Union building. They casually looked around feeling piqued by the emptiness.

"Hey, do you know where we can find some lodging, we are adventurers who…" This aimless group quickly started to explain to a front desk clerk their affiliation. They all introduced themselves but ultimately it was pointless.

"I don't think any of the inns in the area have any room" The clerk responded. The inns didn't necessarily keep in touch with the Union branch but some adventurers would first check for available inns and then report to the Freedom Union passing on this information.

Either way, the Freedom Union could not accommodate them.

"Guess we'll have to look around anyway…" One of the individuals said disappointed.

"There aren't any inns with space, but I have a proposal" The clerk said noticing their disappointment.

"If you help with these missions you get guaranteed accommodation" The clerk said with a bright smile as they handed the group of adventurers a couple of pages.

"Huh? This is a great benefit!" One of the individuals exclaimed after quickly perusing the paper. In exchange for helping with the construction of the Arbor Academy, they were guaranteed accommodation in the academy's mostly constructed dorm rooms.

Sensing the excitement of the adventurers, the clerk smiled knowing this was another job well done.

The restrictions on the dungeon were temporary, but if everything went according to Samuel's plan they might as well be permanent. Naturally unaware, the adventurers all thought to wait out the lift. Doing some odd jobs wasn't bad for them, especially considering how lacking in tourist locations Arbor Town was.

Anyway, this accommodation which seemed beneficial to the adventurers was actually the most beneficial to Samuel. 

Lots of people were taking advantage of the high traffic but none more effectively than Samuel who had the foresight to construct the academy's dormitories first.

With the extreme demand for lodging, the prices of all inns shot up high. This demand also meant that Samuel could get away with some cheap labor as long as he offered to lodge these adventurers.

That was good on its own, but another great benefit that came with this was that the speed of construction was hastened. Most adventurers could use mana even if they weren't mages, normal people couldn't compare in terms of efficiency.

Of course, these adventurers could only do some mildly important odd jobs. Samuel was not leaving the work of building a whole academy to a bunch of amateurs. There were plenty of mages in the construction industry already working on the academy, the adventurers were just cheap manpower.

In Samuel's mind, however, this was nothing but a happy little accident. He had jumped at the opportunity to obtain this cheap labor and shorten the academy's construction time but it wasn't actually planned out in advance.

Samuel had a noble background so he was definitely not dumb but he was no schemer either. Things just happened to align and he just so happened to take advantage of this alignment at the first sign.

Whatever the case, thanks to his ability to identify opportunities Samuel was now at the point where he could officially start looking for students. The matter of instructors was mostly handled.

'Since we will probably have few students, a few instructors should do' Samuel believed this thought was accurate and appropriate. There was still an issue.

'I need some mages' So far Samuel hadn't actually hired any instructors in the field of magic putting aside Clarys, the A-class healing mage, who had agreed to cooperate with him before.

While the students could be few, Samuel didn't think that he could allow that to be the case for the courses he taught. The academy had a purpose for existing after all.

That purpose was to allow commoners a means other than adventuring, magic was a fast track to success in the current world environment.

Aside from that, however, Samuel also had a new task for his students. One that actually went against his original intentions for the academy.

'Clearing the dungeon…' For the students that were vehement about sticking to the path of an adventurer, Samuel intended to have them reach the B-class as a minimum requirement for graduation.

The Arbor Academy would have many options and Samuel would not force anyone down any of these paths. But he did need to guarantee some success for his students.

Using the B-class students, slowly whittling away at the dungeon shouldn't be impossible.

Well, Samuel still frowned when thinking of this. The method of exhausting the dungeon could be very time-consuming and possibly even pointless.

As things stood currently, Samuel did not know how many floors the dungeon had. This was a danger for a multitude of reasons but the most crucial was that to overhunt the dungeon, it had to operate at a net loss.

So if the energy they were forcing the dungeon to spend on the first floor wasn't enough to create a loss they would just be delaying the inevitable.

'This can't go on…' Samuel had to find out how many floors existed in the dungeon and how they operated or else they would be caught off guard. Doing that on his own was a problem, however.

With his mind inundated with thoughts and worries, Samuel walked on through the crowded streets of Arbor town.

Residents here and there would recognize and wave at him, Samuel would wave back in return and provide an amicable smile.

Finding students was not an easy task, but walking around the streets aimlessly was definitely not the correct method. So what was Samuel hoping to achieve right now?

Well, Samuel was actually inspecting the effect of his publicity first hand. With the help of the Freedom Union many adventurers were aware of the academy and its potential but what about the common common people? The common people who could not adventure nor had the riches to maintain themselves?

Samuel was an adventurer, this much was known by all. What if the people were intimidated or formed a misconception of his academy? Some people more in the know even identified as a person who fought a dragon!

With such a reputation, everyone would absolutely believe that Samuel was going to teach about fighting and adventuring exclusively.

If the publicity failed at this level there would be no students, he had to therefore verify it wasn't the case.

"Hm?" Samuel who was still observing the environment stopped in place. After growing what some might describe as an elemental domain, something quite hard to describe, Samuel became a lot more sensitive to mana in his immediate surroundings.

Samuel's gaze thus shifted to what looked to be a small apartment building. He could sense a mass of unknown and unfamiliar mana.

'Who…?' Samuel didn't remember encountering anyone with mana the likes of this…

'No, wait…' The mana he felt was actually somewhat similar to that of the assassin he was forced to kill near the capital. Samuel could only conclude that someone or something with the element of death was in Arbor town.

Realizing this, Samuel couldn't stay still. The mana was well concealed and unfamiliar suggested one of two things. Either the person had nefarious thoughts and needed to act in secrecy or… they just wanted privacy.

'Is it a hidden powerhouse?' There were some sages who liked to wander the earth freely. But as far as Samuel was aware there was nothing like a sage of death, that'd just be a lich!

Samuel moved away from the crowded streets and entered a much more desolate alleyway. Using his athletic ability, he rapidly climbed up the walls of the alley and reached the rooftops of Arbor town mostly unnoticed.

Samuel then ran over to the building with the odd mana source and against his better morals identified the right apartment to peer into. With his ability to fly, peeking through a window was an easy task.

"Mom, did you take your medicine yet?" Samuel heard the voice of a young girl ask causing him to blink in confusion.

"Kimani… Kimani…" A weak voice called out. Without the power of the wind, Samuel might not have been able to hear this.

"Sigh... I'm coming" The girl responded before disappearing into the room from which the weak voice originated.

"What's going on…?" Samuel muttered to himself. The source of the mana appeared to be the young girl caring for her sick mother!

At this point, Samuel stopped sneaking around. He returned to the alleyway he previously climbed and decided to pay the residents of that apartment a proper visit.. This needed investigation.