Haddock ended up needing to be carried out of the Dungeon by two of his group members since it didn't look like he would be waking up anytime soon.

I already healed him up so there shouldn't be any more physical injuries on him.

I say physical because I don't know for sure if he might have been mentally affected by our duel. Because if you ask me… I fully believe he did.

We ascended the stairs to leave the Dungeon with me leading the way.

There was still time before the end of the class so when we emerged from the entrance, I wasn't surprised to see the area outside the Dungeon to be empty of our classmates.

Seems like we were the only ones who had left the Dungeon so far.

The only person outside was Instructor Henry who was busy reading a book while wearing a pair of glasses that I had to say gave him the friendly grandfather look.

He noticed us leaving the Dungeon almost immediately and took off his glasses to frown at us, "What happened to Haddock? Please tell me you didn't break him, Aster."

I blinked at him, "Err… I healed him up at least?"

"So you really did get into a fight with him…"

"Hey, he was the one who asked for a duel!"

"Right… So why are you back so early? There's another two more hours to the class."

"Well… We've gone past the fifth floor already and reached a floor that they definitely aren't suitable to continue exploring so I thought it would be a better idea to return first. Especially since we have one man down."

The Instructor frowned upon hearing my words, "You went beyond floor five? Which floor did you stop at?"

I scratched my head, "That's the problem… We don't know."

He blinked at me, "What do you mean you don't know? You weren't keeping track of your descent?"

"No, Haddock here activated a pitfall trap that sent us down to another floor. I'm not sure how many floors we fell but we fell right into a boss room."

He placed his book away to pull out a notebook, "That should be easy to figure out then. What was the boss?"

"A Dungeon Minotaur Captain."

He dragged his finger down his notebook, presumably to look for the monster I told him about since I suspect that notebook listed the details of the Dungeon.

His hand eventually stopped and a grimace materialised on his face.

"Floor ten… You boys would definitely be dead if Aster wasn't here… But that's odd, there shouldn't be a pitfall trap in the first five floors?"

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"Ah… The trap wasn't there… They had a really easy time in the first five floors and wanted to test themselves in the lower floors. The trap itself was on the seventh floor." ŕ𝓪₦Ŏ𝐛Εṧ

He nodded, "I see… I take it you did try to dissuade them from advancing past the fifth floor but they, or rather, Haddock chose not to listen?"

I smiled wryly at him, "Is that why you placed me in their group?"

He chose to ignore my question and gestured to the side, "I'll deal with Haddock later… Drop him over there. As for the rest of you boys… If Aster wasn't there, you'll all be dead. I want all of you to go over there and start off with two hundred sword swings. Hop to it."

The boys groaned but still obeyed the order, knowing that what he said was true.

I then tilted my head at the Instructor, wondering if he had something else to say to me as well.

He noticed my gaze and waved his hand at me, "I don't blame you for what happened and it's good that these boys learned their lesson. Hopefully that Haddock has his senses beat into him after this."

"So you already expected us to come to blows?"

"Hmph… I'll have to be blind not to know what that boy is thinking. He's suffering from pride. Those boys probably had a history with your Odeta and saw her as their role model and only accepted her as the strongest. Thus, they could not accept the fact that the one they looked up to had someone else she looked up to."

Well… He's not too far off the mark but I don't think there was a need to explain to him anyway so I just shrugged.

He then gestured towards the side, "You can do whatever you want for now. There's no other plans for today."

I was just about to do just that when I had another idea.

"Erm… Instructor Henry? Is it ok if I do a little bit of Dungeon diving on my own?"

He raised an eyebrow at me, "You're currently a D ranked Dungeoneer, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And you're able to kill dragons on your own?"

"Err… Yes?"

Technically it would depend on the dragon but I believe I should be able to handle any dragon that could be found in a D Ranked Dungeon at least. Even if I couldn't do it on my own, I still had my Shadow Guards anyway.

He shrugged, "Then you should be fine. Just remember to be back before the end of class. Otherwise… Hmph… I wouldn't even need to do anything. Your Amrap would go rushing into the Dungeon to look for you."

Ah… That's true.

Alright then, I'll just make sure I keep to the time.

I went ahead to assure him that I would before turning back to enter the Dungeon again.

Obviously I wasn't going to start all the way at the top but rather, from where I fought the Dungeon Minotaur Captain.

Unfortunately, because we didn't go down to the next floor but immediately went back up the stairs, I had to go through the boss room again.

This time though, there was a party waiting in front of the door while the door was closed, meaning another party was currently inside.

And no, this was a normal Dungeoneering party, not one of the student parties from my class.

There were four of them and all of them seemed to be female Mahuns.

From their equipment, I could see that one of them should be their tank since she was wearing a full suit of armour alongside a tower shield; another one was their archer with her leather armour that had a bow and quiver full of arrows strapped to her back, one was a mage with her oversized hat and staff; and the last one was a warrior with the two swords strapped to her waist and wearing a chainmail shirt.

The four of them took notice of me immediately and the warrior girl gave me a wave.

"Hey… Are you lost?" She asked, slight concern in her voice.

I know why she was asking me that question since it's odd to see someone wandering in a Dungeon alone.

Heck, the fact that her hand was on her sword and it was unclasped didn't bother me either.

"I'm not. I'm a solo D Rank Dungeoneer. Just here to challenge the Dungeon."

"You're fighting this place solo?" She asked, her hand still on her sword.

I nodded, "Yes. Is there a problem with that?"

"Mmm… You do know that most of the monsters here fight in groups right? The boss up ahead has a chance to summon more monsters the longer the fight goes on. A solo Dungeoneer would be at a complete disadvantage."

I shrugged, "I fought him before. A Dungeon Minotaur Captain, right?"

"Ah… That's right. I see I was worried for nothing then," She mused, though she still kept her hand on her sword. "Do forgive me if I were to ask you to keep your distance from us, stranger… Can't be too careful around here."

"Don't worry about it, I understand."

Before she could respond to me again, the doors opened and their party got up from the ground to start walking towards it. The warrior at least gave me a nod before she followed her party into the room, leaving me standing outside the boss room to wait for them to be done until it was my turn.

In the meantime, I went ahead to call up Eins, Zwei and Drei to be part of my party.

With that earlier interaction, it was obvious others would be feeling quite nervous if a single Dungeoneer were to walk up to them so I decided just having them out with me should help.

The reason why solo Dungeoneers are a problematic sight is because usually they would either be really, really strong to be able to dive into Dungeon solo… Or they are hunting other Dungeoneers to get their loot.

Obviously, that wasn't true all the time but in here, it's better to be safe than sorry.

And when you already have monsters and traps to worry about, you'd rather not add another problem into the list.

Anyway… Since I have to wait for them to be done…

"Master. Here's your cookie," Eins offered.

Yayyyy~ Om nom nom~

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