Jagret and the rest of the members of Lanny corp run as fast as they could towards the gate of the empire. Behind them was a group of monsters numbering more than one thousand.
"Damn! Why are we so unlucky!?" Ginvi screamed as he moved his feet as fast as possible.
"We need to get close to the gate," Donna said while gripping the katana on her waist.
"I can see it! The gate! We're safe!" Jagret yelled as he saw the gate of the empire ahead of them.
All of them increased their pace as they dashed towards the gate of the Eternal Empire. The city guards of the empire were looking down at the numerous monsters behind them on top of the walls of the empire.
Adventurers were lining up below the walls as they prepared themselves to clash with the monsters along with the city guard of the empire.
When numerous monsters approached the city, the guards would send a warning to the entire city and will quickly prepare themselves to handle the monsters.
The Adventurers Guild will send out a quest to help defeat the monsters to protect the city. They will receive rewards based on their contribution in fighting the monsters.
Jagret, Ginvi, and the rest were just fifty meters away from the gate. The monsters behind them were fifty meters away from them.
The distance was enough so the city guards casted various spells and rained it down on the monsters. Flames, water, lightning, light, etc were raining down on the place behind the Lanny group.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Damn!" Ginvi cursed as he used everything he got to run while ignoring the explosions behind him.
When they were twenty meters away from the gate, the Lanny group stopped and turned around.
"It's time to get back to those monsters! We're not at disadvantage anymore!" Ginvi laughed as he faced the monsters behind him. He gathered around mana in his hand and casted a powerful spell.
Jagret, Donna, Charise, Evren, and Finsi also faced the monsters along with the adventurers from the guild.
"Ah! Let's show these monsters to never approach the empire!!"
"Yeah! Let's hunt them down!!"
"Let's see who's going to hunt the most monster?"
...
"Princess... Look at this..." Princess Alea's butler stretched out his hand towards the princess.
Princess and butler came back to the palace after they departed with Souta and the Dark Oculus.
Alea who was wearing a long blue dress looked at her butler's hand. In the butler's hand was a newspaper. She took it and asked, "What's in the news?"
If this was not important then she would ignore it. The Eternal Empire was trying to defend its walls from the monster so she didn't have time for useless things.
"Look in the news at the back." The butler said in a polite tone.
"Hmm..." Princess Alea stared at her butler's eyes before she opened the newspaper and read the news written in it. There was an article in the newspaper about Souta and it caught her attention.
"Souta... The leader of the dark force...?"
She silently read the article and found that Souta was a man who drank two monster potions to save his classmates from an evil organization.
"What do you think, princess? Is the Souta on the news the same Souta that we met?" The butler asked with uncertainty in his eyes. There's no picture of Souta in the news so he wasn't sure if that Souta was the same.
All they knew was a man named Souta drunk two monster potions and recovered faster than any people who drunk the same potion.
"I think it's the same Souta as in the news. When I was with him, I couldn't sense a hint of mana in his body. It's possible to completely hide it if he had great mana control but I think that isn't the case with him." Princess Alea spoke slowly.
"Do you mean..." The butler lifted his head and looked at Alea.
"Yeah, he couldn't use his mana, and I think that's the effect of drinking two monster potions." Princess Alea said and a beautiful smile broke on her face. "If he's really the same Souta then he's quite lucky that losing mana is the only side effect that occurred in his body. Some people were left crippled after drinking a monster potion."
Tap! Tap!
A beautiful elf approached Alea hurriedly.
"Princess, The emperor is calling you."
"Father?" Princess Alea was a little bit surprised. She nodded her head and wondered why her father was calling her. "Lead the way."
The elf guided her to the throne room and Alea entered the room after announcing her arrival to the emperor.
The elf and the butler didn't enter with Alea as they don't have the right to do so. They were just attendants of the palace so they couldn't do anything they want.
Inside the throne room, Alea saw the upper echelons of the empire were also present in the room. Her face turned serious as she knew that the matter this time was a serious one as her father called her and the upper echelons of the empire. Her siblings were also present in the room.
Alea took a deep breath as she glanced at the grim expression of the upper echelons. She then turned her eyes towards her father, the emperor of the Eternal Empire.
A handsome man with long blonde hair was sitting on the throne. He looked like a young man but he was more than a hundred years old. He was wearing a white cape with golden embroidery. A greenish formal clothes that have the same design and on her body was a greyish pants.
He was Eidnas Zarkanan, the current emperor of the Eternal Empire. He was a powerful man that reign the entire empire.
"Listen... I will only say it once so listen carefully." The emperor opened his mouth and said in a dignified tone. The emperor slowly narrated what happened.
While listening to the emperor's words, Alea's face grew worse. She was stunned by what she heard.
She understood was countless monsters were flooding the walls of the empire. The reason was that the goblin executioner and the troll overlord were fighting in the deeper parts of the forest. All of the monsters below the third evolution flew away in fear. They couldn't handle the extreme aftershocks of the battle.
But why was those two powerful monster fighting to begin with? Those two monsters were living peacefully inside the forest and no one bothered them but who would have thought that they would fight today.
"We wouldn't bother ourselves with their affair. We will just protect the empire and eliminate all the monsters that tried to attack the empire." The emperor said in a loud voice.
Everyone here knew that the fifth evolution monsters here were under the wings of monster lords. They wouldn't do anything that would provoke those powerful monsters so they would just let them fight and protect the empire. Of course, if they approached the empire, the emperor wouldn't hesitate to give an order to fight them.
...
Souta gritted his teeth in anger and he smashed his fist on the wall of the room.
Bang!
A lot of things already transpired even though it wasn't even a year since he came into this world. It seems that trouble was approaching him intentionally.
"Shit! What is happening outside!?" Souta cursed loudly as he stomped his foot on the ground.
Why is everything not going according to his plan?
Boom!
A loud booming sound echoed in the entire dungeon. The whole dungeon was shaking as if it was afraid of the deafening sound outside.
"Shit!" Souta looked at the ceiling and he tightly knitted his brows as he saw the cracks on it.
The cracks spread out like a spider web across the walls and ground.
"Let's go, Yuko!" Souta shouted and he ran towards the exit of the dungeon. In truth, he was planning to stay here until the commotion outside stop before he exited this dungeon with Yuko. He knew that it was extremely dangerous outside as he didn't know what monsters were fighting.
Souta and Yuko had to exit the dungeon because the dungeon would collapse at any moment. He doesn't want to be buried alive and that's why he was going to leave despite the risk outside the dungeon.
Various scenarios were appearing in Souta's mind. He was trying to guess what's the cause of this event. He was also racking his brain on how to get out of this situation alive.
The exit of the dungeon was already in Souta and Yuko's sight. They didn't notice that the pressure disappeared and the loud booming sound vanished. Souta was focused on leaving this dungeon that's why he neglected the changes in his surrounding.
Bang!
"Daaaaamn! Let me!!"
Cracks continued to spread out as Souta and Yuko jumped towards the exit of the dungeon.
The two landed on the ground leaving a trail of smoke. Souta quickly turned his head and saw the dungeon collapsed. He felt pain as this was a mid-level dungeon. He didn't even manage to bring out the loots of the dungeon.
It was at this moment that he noticed that something was wrong. It was too silent. He slowly turned his head and saw the scene behind him.