Karl shook his head at the other group leader. “The Golems report that it is empty, no targets.”
Then random items began flying out of the entrance to the anomaly.
“Hey Charles, is it a lottery machine? Just paying out after we beat the defenders?” One of the other team members called to their leader.
“How the hell should I know. Just look for valuables.” Prince Charles laughed.
It was actually just the Golems throwing anything that looked valuable out of the anomaly. None of the team members wanted to risk going in, as Anomalies were known to close unexpectedly, and you could well be trapped inside indefinitely, but the Golems could just be dismissed if it started to close.
Everyone had to be attentive if they were going to sort the loot, though. The Golems were just throwing stuff out without looking at the exit, so if the next item out was a weapon or a chest of coins, you could take some real damage if it hit you.
There was a surprising amount of stuff coming flying out of that Anomaly, and Karl began to wonder what in the world was going on when the Golems reappeared, holding a large box between them and dragging a massive ogre corpse.
[Rae, I thought that there were no enemies inside.]
[No treats inside, just a smelly guy. He doesn’t look tasty at all. They killed it once all the good stuff was gone.]
That sounded an awful lot like the final boss of a dungeon instance.
But it was a Commander Rank Ogre Lord, and he was wearing the mangled remains of a very fancy set of plate armour.
The other team began to strip him down, hoping that something could be salvaged, while Karl’s team did their best not to laugh at Rae’s attempt to look innocent.
Karl hadn’t said anything out loud, but it was pretty clear that she had lied to him about what was inside the Anomaly.
While they were looting the Ogre Lord, the Anomaly shimmered, and turned red, then blue, before stabilizing into an oval portal.
“Did it just stabilize into a Dungeon entrance?” Prince Charles asked.
Karl turned to the clerics. If anyone knew, it would be them.
Both of the clerics with the other team were in white with gold trim, High Priests of the main branch, the healing specialists. They began to cast a spell, creating some sort of glowing barrier over the portal as they chanted and prayed.
It took about ten minutes before they were finished, and then the Clerics stood and smiled at them.
“It is now a stable low Commander Rank dungeon. There should be four Commander Rank bosses in the dungeon, while two thirds of the ogres are still Ascended. It should be stabilized now, and if it is, then the Ogres would be trapped inside. That also means that we got all of the ones that escaped after it formed. If there were any of them still wandering around, the Anomaly wouldn’t have stabilized.” One of the clerics, a man in his late twenties with his head shaved to hide a severely receding hairline, explained.
“Who do we call first?” Karl asked. This was the first time that he had been on a mission like this, but the last time he had found a system related thing, he contacted the Inquisition, who handled it all for him.
The Cleric pointed behind Karl, and the Magical Knights laughed.
Ruth nodded before replying. “He has a point. Normally, you call the Inquisition, and they send a team to secure the area, or one of the Elite security teams if we don’t have an Inquisitor nearby. But we’re already here.
I will call it in, and then we can let the Church’s asset management teams move in.” “That makes sense. I wonder how long it takes to reset after a team goes through?” Karl suggested.
“That’s part of what the next teams to arrive will determine so that they can maximize the benefit. Of course, we already got all the loot from going through once, split between the two teams, with some extra Ogres from the respawn.” Prince Charles noted.
Karl sighed, and Rae gave the entrance a longing look.
“As efficient as it might be to send your beasts through the dungeon, protocol is to leave it respawned so that they can make a proper investigation. Some dungeons respawn on a timer after death, and not all at once, so it might only be partially respawned if we clear it now.” He explained.
Bob and Doug both nodded in agreement. They had been through this before. “Alright, I guess we just call in and wait. I will let Hawk scout until our ride arrives.”
Hawk was happy to comply, and he took off to go see if there was anything interesting in the area. The two nearby coal mines would be close enough for him to scout, but he didn’t want to scare them, so he would stay out of sight.
Chances are, he wouldn’t see anything more than some Common Monsters, but some of those were tasty, like the boars. If there were wild boars, he might grab one just for old times’ sake.
Unfortunately, as a Royal Rank beast, everything fled the moment that they sensed him, and the only creatures he could find were the ones that hoped that going to ground or freezing in place would be less likely to attract attention.
The humans might have no idea that he was here, but the other beasts knew, and they were terrified.
The inhabited areas of the nation were regularly patrolled to clear out stronger monsters, and even an Awakened Rank Monster could live like a King in many areas, so they were not at all prepared for a Royal Rank bird monster to show up this far from the wild territories.
[Oh, there is a helicopter. No, three of them, all from different directions. Did we do something to annoy them?] Hawk asked.
[I don’t think so. They’re just excited that the Anomaly stabilized into a Dungeon.]
Hawk returned to the group now that there were helicopters, and people who might not understand that they were on the same team. Humans were slow like that.
All of the beasts except Thor retreated into their spaces as the teams approached. Thor had Tessa sitting on his back, so it should be pretty immediately obvious that he wasn’t a threat. But the others didn’t trust strangers quite that much.
The first thing that Karl noticed was that while they were all green, the three aircraft all had different logos on them. One was a Church group, one had an official government logo on it, and a third had a symbol that Karl didn’t recognize.
Only when it got within a kilometre could Karl read the logo for the Bureau of Elite Development.
That should be a sufficiently varied group to make all the decisions that needed to be made here. The emergency had been solved, now it was just up to the teams to gather the data that they needed.
The sun was beginning to set as the Bureau team was the first to land next to the gathered Elites. The side door swung open, and Colonel Valerie stepped out onto the trampled grass. Seeing that it was the big boss, Karl, Morgana and Prince Charles all came forward to greet her.
“Colonel, good to see you again. The area has been scouted and verified secure. There is nothing above Common Rank within a two-kilometre radius.” Karl greeted her.
“Look at you, all professional. I like the new armour, by the way, that had to have cost a pretty penny.” She replied with her usual business scowl firmly in place.
“It’s a skill, actually. Free repairs, I just need to summon it again.”
More familiar faces followed her out. Jodi, Anise, Dave and Jill led six more unfamiliar faces out of the helicopter, all carrying large crates of gear for whatever they were doing here.
“I hope that you weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere. There is a lot of work to be done, and we are going to need both of your teams to remain in place for security and testing purposes.” Colonel Valerie announced as the Bureau members disembarked and prepared to set camp.
“Understood Colonel. Let me know what you require, and I’m certain we can sort it out.” Karl agreed, while Charles simply nodded and walked away.
The government and church teams landed on the opposite side of the battlefield, and two security teams charged out to make sure that the monsters were truly dead.
They would realize soon enough that there was no need. Rae had already done that when she was looking for pretty rocks and loot for Thor’s bags.