Arthur made a point to gather everything quickly and leave the city as fast as possible. Even Master Viridian wasn't complaining about the need to fit new armour on Catherine after seeing Arthur's expression. The Inquisitor considered sending his familiar to investigate but by doing so, he would risk his safety if the signal was bait. It would be better to have him in reserve this time. The Saftian problems, schisms in their Temple, or what the nobles would do next, could wait until his investigation of the signal. If he were lucky, in a few hours at most, he would receive some communication from an Arcadian warship, and that would solve almost all of his problems. However, that hope died with each minute his communicator remained silent. After informing Sion where to find him just in case, they were back on the road, heading straight toward the platform where Arthur had been teleported. He was sitting beside Cate in the driver's seat while Ben, Silfa, and Val'narii were riding in the second cart.

  "What is going on, Arthur?" The Nekomi finally asked as the city disappeared behind the horizon.

  "I received a distress signal from the place I was teleported to." He explained slowly. "I have no idea who or what it is, but they are sending their message on the Imperial frequency and with the valid Imperial codes. At least, they were valid when I appeared here nearly three months ago. If it's someone who is trying to bring me back to Arcadia and they triggered that trap, I have to save them because they might be just a Scholar or one of the Engineers."

  "You said that it might be a thing as well..." She furrowed her brows.

  "Yes. It might be a device whose only purpose would be to reply with a distress call to check if I can receive it. It might be somehow built to inform my people back home that I'm alive." He answered in a tense voice. "But it could also mean trouble. It might even be an enemy who somehow managed to crack the Imperial codes. While the possibility of that is very low, it's never impossible. That's why I have to investigate as soon as possible."

  "What kind of enemies do you fight when someone as strong as you is concerned about them?" She asked with a trembling voice.

  "Arcadia has many enemies, some of them hidden, while others wage open war against us." He started carefully. "Tell me, what do you know about Dungeons?"

  "Dungeons?" She looked at him puzzled. "You mean those places that naturally spawn monsters and various valuable things?"

  "Indeed." He nodded with curiosity, he might have misunderstood her when she mentioned Dungeons earlier. She wasn't particularly concerned, which surprised him. "You know more about them?"

  "Well... They are just dungeons. The monsters living there sometimes spill out and that's called a monster tide but, except for that, they aren't much more dangerous than monster dens. The adventurers often delve inside for various resources or materials. The deeper you go, the better the rewards, but the more dangerous it gets, so I don't believe that anyone has actually conquered a Dungeon. I don't know anything more."

  He was silent for a moment before he shook his head in what she realised was disbelief.

  "This is unbelievable and unfair..." He finally sighed. "You have not only been at peace for over eight hundred years, but it looks like your Dungeons are docile or dormant."

  "Dormant? Docile? What are you talking about, Arthur?" The Nekomi gave him another incredulous gaze.

  "You must know that Dungeons need mana to survive. They obtain it by fighting off intruders, from the people who delve into them, or by fighting among themselves."

  "Why are you talking about Dungeons as if they were alive?" Cate asked him slightly alarmed. "They are usually caves or ruins..."

  "Because they are alive, Cate. Every one of them is governed by a Dungeon Core, a being whose power rivals that of the Gods. Within their domains, Dungeons are capable of doing anything they want, as long as they have enough mana to support their ideas. An underground forest? Easy. A vast lake in the middle of a desert that never runs dry? Child's play." He said, watching her disbelief grow. "Do you know what gives a Dungeon the most mana in the quickest way?"

  "No..." Her voice was full of suspicion.

  "Killing people." He said flatly and watched her almost panic. It wasn't his intention to scare her, but she needed to understand that other than the drought and greedy nobles, Saftia had it fairly easy. "They can also trap the souls of those they kill and use them to produce mana. Such a soul would inevitably be used to lure anyone they might know into a Dungeon to kill even more people."

  "No... That's impossible..." She protested weakly, but then she tilted her head as she realised something. "If Dungeons are alive, why have we never heard about one of them disappearing? Because that's how we could describe their death, right?"

  "Because Dungeons are immortal as long as they have mana. Your Dungeons may be content with the amount of mana they have, so they simply idly observe or even sleep. But that's not the case in Aderon."

  She looked at him with absolute shock. "That's why you are so powerful? Because you have fought against Dungeon monsters all your life?"

  "No." He laughed shortly. "You saw the Emperor. You felt his might and power when you held the scroll that identified me as an Arcadian noble. My Emperor is a benevolent Dungeon Core, a Summoned Hero, the Champion of Eriar. Arcadia is the Dungeon Empire and our Lord protects us. To this end, he subjugated all of the Dungeons in Arcadia and even some in neighbouring nations. However, not all Dungeon Cores are like him or the ones that reside in Saftia. On the contrary, the vast majority of them are malicious, evil, or simply indifferent to the lives of Mortals. You asked what enemies we fight... Currently, Arcadia is at war with an enemy Dungeon Empire that uses its Mortals like cattle. While I can't imagine that the enemy would send his forces here, if that is the case, I must eliminate them at any cost."

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "By the Heavens..." She looked at him with fear.

  "If I feel that whatever awaits us there is an enemy, you will turn around and flee back to the city with Ben, Silfa, and Val'narii. The enemy will certainly be too powerful for you to fight. It is my duty to stop them." He said with a firm voice. "I won't allow them to hurt you..."

  "No... I won't leave you, Arthur!" She looked at him in anger. "Don't..."

  "I don't plan to die, Cate. I have so many more reasons to live now, so could you please not mourn me already?" He chuckled, reaching behind her back to pull her closer to him. "I just want to be sure you will be safe."

  She blushed, smiling and nodding as they continued their ride in silence before stopping for the night. After Catherine's reaction to the news about Dungeons, he delivered the same information to the rest of his party. They didn't want to believe him, especially Val'narii, who prided herself as a skilled Adventurer and until recently, the manager of an Adventurers' Association branch. An occupation that required extensive knowledge and experience, so it was natural that she protested. All the while, Catherine and Silfa were preparing their food.

  "Look. I don't believe that you have any reason to lie, but how else can I react?!" The Dark Elf retorted with a miserable expression. "There wasn't even a single instance of contact attempts being made by Dungeons, and even the existence of those so-called Scions was never confirmed. Do you have any proof to support your claims? Because if you are right, it will have severe consequences for everyone, Lord Ives!"

  "The simplest proof of my claims sits right before you." He said with a sigh. He had expected outrage.

  "Excuse me?!"

  "You wondered how I could have so many subclasses." He shrugged. "It's simple. You finish a corresponding quest in a Dungeon and you get a subclass."

  The woman opened and closed her mouth in a vain attempt to find a good argument.

  "That would be consistent with the old records about the lucky Adventurers who unexpectedly received such quests during the deep Dungeon delves..." She finally admitted. "Still..."

  "Take a better look at my gear then." He stood and equipped his armour, sword, and aegis shield. "Try to appraise it and pay attention to the materials used."

  She stared at him with an unhappy grimace that suggested that she didn't want to admit he was right.

  "Mithril... Adamantium... Orichalcum..." She finally sighed in defeat. "I still can't believe that some Dungeons out there are actively hunting people, or doing what you say the Vespids do..."

  She looked sick as she mentioned Vestargo's minions, but he really couldn't blame her. They were utterly repulsive and disgusting creatures.

  "I'm saying that Saftia has had a lot of luck, Val'narii. You have been spared the fate of many other countries, and the suffering that was our daily routine for millennia." He slowly shook his head as he stored away his equipment again.

  The Dark Elf nodded uncertainly, but didn't ask him anything more. After they ate, Arthur took first watch. He brought out the communication slate and called up the approximate map of the place he found himself in. The distress signal was repeating itself every five minutes and was basically fixed to one place, so he began to believe that it was just a transmitter. Roughly thirty kilometres away... So close and yet so far. It was true that he wasn't a stranger to foot travel, and oftentimes spent days walking from place to place, but since the time he had become the Inquisitor, the distances had shortened. The high-speed trains, airships, Dungeon travel, or Teleportation allowed Arcadians to cover vast distances in a short time. Now, he was cut off from the convenience offered by the Empire to his high-ranking officers. Thirty kilometres... A distance that back home was like sneezing, in Saftia will take him three days to cover.

  "Arthur..." Cate's soft, quiet voice called to him from the entrance to their carriage.

  He turned around and looked at her. She looked miserable and nervous. But most importantly, she was very tired. Her ears were drooping, she rubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand, and held the doorframe tightly for balance. Her light nightgown was slowly waving in the still-warm wind, and she pressed it distractedly down with the hand which she had rubbed at her eyes with moments earlier. He stood up and walked towards her.

  "I'm worried about you." She said with a shaking voice. "I don't want to lose you.. Not after everything you have done. Not after I fell in love with you."

  "Don't worry about me, Cate." He said, reached towards her face to gently rub her cheek with his thumb. "I don't sense anything malicious nearby and if it were enemies that were teleported, I can guarantee you that they would be here already. Go to sleep."

  "All right..." She sighed and walked towards her bed, where she lay down and looked at him with an embarrassed expression. "Can you stay here?"

  "I will." He promised and smiled encouragingly at her as he sat in the entrance. "I love you too, Cate."

  She smiled warmly at the words, but quickly fell deeply asleep. The last few days had been nerve-wracking, and she had gone through a lot. Truth be told, he had wanted to spend some time letting everyone rest. He wasn't expecting to receive any distress calls. Nonetheless, the distress signal had initially given him hope, and made him anxious about what he might find. However, the more time passed, the more concerned he was about the events that transpired in Howthorns than whatever was awaiting him on that platform. If that were a person, they would have already contacted him. It was unlikely that it was an enemy, because Vestargo wasn't interested in the technology required to send a message like that. If that was some other enemy then, who could it be? Most probably, it was just a transmitter, hopefully powerful enough for him to call home. Arthur looked at the stars and took a deep breath of the rapidly cooling air. He started regretting telling them about the Dungeons, but it was too late for that.

  Well... Haste makes waste.

  He just hoped he had scared them for no reason.

  Thank you all for reading.

  I wish you all a great day and as always I wait for your comments.

  A big thanks to and who edited the chapter!