Balin's group continued to press forward without issue, to the point where it became rather surprising. Balin became doubtful.
'Why is it so easy?' The number of skeletons inside of the dungeon was little. Each room he ventured into seldom hold more than three or four possibly armed skeletons. That sounded normal but it didn't concur with the reports he had spent the entire night reading. The numbers were smaller.
With this unknown sense of unease as the reason, Balin made a call.
"We are regrouping!" Balin's order came as a surprise to the vast majority and while some did want to voice out some words of doubts or complaints they all refrained. It wasn't just because they were a family, this was a royal company and they were all knights.
"""Understood!""" The knights and their words resounded through the dungeon. To the point where some of the nearby groups didn't even need to wait for the scouts to act as messengers and bring them the new orders. Some of their scouts went to them instead.
Quickly, things got lively inside of the dungeon as Balin and his knights settled in a total of three large rooms.
"Captain, can we have any more?" They were are all eating food at the current moment. It was a mix of rationed meat and homegrown fruits and vegetables. For a dungeon expedition, it was rather eccentric.
"Tsk, even if there's plenty it doesn't mean you have to be such a pig, you'll get out of shape. No more" The captain ruthlessly shut down his subordinate's plea for food. Similar friendly exchanges happened in the other squads. Though there were definitely some stuck up knights, that was usually among the higher ranking noble children.
Balin's company was mostly formed of knight houses as well as low-ranking nobles. These are the types of knights that some of the more interested commanders wouldn't want to take in.
Balin, the one who graciously took them in was however at the moment grinding his teeth in agony as he attempted to wreck his mind for a solution to the dilemma.
On one hand, he wanted to quickly finish the dungeon to return to help with the war, but on the other, he was feeling extremely uneasy.
Balin was a man that has lived through many battles. He has seen his comrades die plenty of times. He had seen his entire family burn into ash. Balin was cold.
...on the outside. There wasn't a day where the death of those comrades didn't plague his mind. There wasn't a night where the face of his brothers and sisters melting like wax wouldn't wake him from his sleep.
Balin was a coward as much as he was a strong man. These pitiful hauntings were kept to himself and no one but himself. After the death of his master, there was no one he could use as a pillar of support. There was only Balin, the commander of a royal company. A representative of what an exemplary knight should look like and strive for.
"Sir Balin…?" Fox, the magician scout's captain asked with a mix of worry and puzzlement.
"Hm? What is it?" Balin who was caught up in his own thoughts did not quite catch him at first.
"Nothing, it just seems you are troubled again" Fox replied simply as he sat down on the ground crosslegged. There were some junk items around where he could sit on but those could break and Fox didn't mind sitting on the ground.
"Well, how do you think we should proceed?" Under normal circumstances, Balin would not ask for advice but what he needed now was the knowledge of an experienced scout, not that of a seasoned commander. Though both could fulfill the same role to a different extent, Balin wasn't taking chances.
"Hm…. I think you can just send my squad ahead first" The dungeon was filled with low ranked mobs, Fox and his squad could easily run away as B-class and C-class wind magicians.
"And what will that achieve?" Outside of the normal and obvious knowledge of what was in front of them, Balin didn't see many positives. The reason was simply that in such a low-rank dungeon, anyone could scout! A scout could also disarm or spot traps but that was not needed for the low-ranked dungeon.
Of course, it went without saying that this dungeon wasn't normal. It also went without saying that Balin was leaning towards this answer from the start. Scouting dangerous zones was a basic. His question wasn't meant as a lack of acknowledgment but rather as a test.
"What will that achieve?" Fox was dumbfounded by this question. Wasn't it obvious?
"Who are you going to trust if not this rugged and handsome mage eh?" Fox's answer had in left Balin dumbfounded now in return.
"Hahahaha!" Balin suddenly broke out into laughter.
"Hey! It- It wasn't a joke! I am handsome!" Fox suddenly yelled in alarm. This was a bad move, however.
"What!? Hahahaha!" """Hahahaha""" "Pffffff!" "Get a load of him! Ha!" The whole company was now laughing at his handsome self.
Feeling helpless, Fox turned to his squad. They all quickly adverted their gaze, some even pulling up the hood of their robes.
"You- You-" Fox's words were left in his throat as a sharp glint flew towards him. His eyes narrowed and his body glowed a green light. He swiftly ducked and leered at the origin of the arrow with experienced eyes.
But his experience eyes failed to see something…
An explosion sounded directly behind him causing Fox's eyes to quickly dart back.
He was relieved to see that the explosion didn't hit anybody, most of all, the mark it left behind was even smaller.
"Enough's enough!" Fox shouted with anger as he unsheathed a dagger. Fox was an interesting mage, he actually didn't know many spells. His rank as a mage was at most C-class but his skills with daggers… they were formidable.
As all of the close-quarter knights unsheathed or pulled out weapons of their own, Fox was already charging forward. As for Balin, needless to say, he had never let his guard down since the moment he saw the arrow dart by him.
He had run towards the corridor of origin with thundering steps. He was however still outdone by Fox.
The white skeleton holding the bow had its skull cracked upon by the blunt force of fox's daggers. Just like that, it died.
"It's the only one?" Fox was surprised, while there was definitely only one arrow he thought he and the others had simply reacted to quickly.
It was also at that moment that Fox turned back and noticed an odd phenomenon.
'Eh, why are you all scratching yourselves?" Fox's words also made Balin turn to look, not just that, he also felt a bit… itchy.
It took Balin no more than a second to realize what was happening.
"Poison!" He shouted before stomping on the ground cracking open the dungeon's already shabby tiles. He then threw in some seeds and voila a plant quickly grew. It had mystical purple leaves and grew plump spherical fruits.
But the plant wasn't done just yet, like a catapult, the plant shot all of its fruits into the air before exploding everywhere sending all sorts of seeds and juices all about.
Then, the eerie and dead dungeon took on a lively and natural look as some plants began to bud between the cracks of certain tiles. These plants were purple in appearance and had plump grenade-like fruits.
The process began anew and before anybody knew it, they were in a forest of purple. Apart from some newer knights, most were unfazed by the sight.
Balin was a one-man army, a one-man army of plants, and a one-man army of attrition. He was essentially unable to run out of ways to sustain himself and his army. Best of all, it was organic straight from the mana enhanced plants.
Before they knew it, the itchiness they felt previously was alleviated to a certain extent.
"Squad captains! Organize yourselves and ready for combat!" Balin had still in the end, failed to anticipate the ballsy move of the skeletons. He had a somber expression as he thought of the potential consequences they could have faced if the poison had been even slightly lethal.
"Commander, your seed pouch really has everything in it huh" Fox commented casually while patting Balin's shoulder.
Balin shot him a glare which made Fox quickly adopt a less causal and more solemn attitude. There was no longer anyone in that room with the intention to make merry.
As the plants ran out of mana and began to die out, most tightened the grip on their weapons.
"Th- There's nothing…" Someone muttered while sweeping their eyes around the large room with confusion.
Balin however immediately took off towards the next room. They hadn't found a sufficiently large room meaning they had separated into 6 squads per room. The two other squads were left in the connecting halls to provide assistance and communication.
"Crafty things!" Balin couldn't be in two places at the same time. To use poison was a cowardly act!
***
As for the coward himself, Ed, he was chilling in his temple. Well, to be more accurate, he was racking his mind trying to come up with various plans to stall for time.
The reason was simply that he had been too impulsive with his skeleton gathering. He now needed to bring them all back. Outside of that, he was also coming up with ways to hide his valuable skeletons.
'The adventurers took too long this time to come in a large group' That was automatically bad news and Ed had yet to come up with his failsafe. Rather than having them form a futile resistance, Ed thought it would be a good idea to hide them away to hit the future to be retreating adventurers.
'I'll just continue to stall for time' Ed would not shy away from guerilla warfare.