Underground Research Institute

The steep price of three thousand gold coins was indeed hard to bear, but for adventurers, it was not entirely beyond reach.

If Pei Renli studied alchemy properly, he could also make money by crafting magic items. The profits were far greater than those from potions, and there was no need to worry about finding buyers for them.

But matters of the future could wait until the future. At the very least, he would not have to face them for another two years.

After putting away the tools and finished products, Pei Renli left the alchemy laboratory that no one but him ever used. He headed toward the dormitories beneath the lingering glow of the setting sun, pondering which spell he should practice next.

"Pei Renli!"

Just as he reached the entrance to the dormitory district, someone called out to him.

He looked toward the voice and saw a small figure sprinting in his direction.

—The halfling Alton.

Halflings were only half the height of ordinary humans. Their legs might be short, but they moved them fast, and before long Alton had rushed up to Pei Renli.

"Finally ran into you. I've been looking for you all afternoon."

"Looking for me? What is it?"

Alton glanced around, making sure no one was nearby. It seemed to be something he did not want others to know about.

This guy... he wasn't planning to peep into the girls' rooms again, was he...?

It was no wonder Pei Renli thought so. Alton had done that before, and had then been literally hung up and beaten...

"After the last class this afternoon, the teacher told me the assignment allocated to me had arrived. If the teacher hadn't reminded me, I'd practically forgotten all about it."

The reason he had not seen Alton much lately was that Alton had been heading out every few days with classmates on assignments.

The adventurer school now tried to ensure everyone had at least one opportunity each month to go out on an assignment for practical training. It was mandatory; even if you had gone on assignments before as outside support for other students, this opportunity would still remain.

An adventuring party could do without a mage, and it could do without a healer, but it could not do without a scout. A skilled scout could help the party avoid most needless battles and dangers.

That was why Alton, who was especially good at this, was always being called away lately.

"So, are you free anytime soon?"

"You want my help? Tell me what the assignment is first. I haven't had much free time lately."

Whether he was free or not was fairly flexible for Pei Renli.

He usually spent every moment of his spare time grinding as hard as he could, wishing he could use one minute as two. To that end, he had even drawn up a detailed timetable and followed it strictly.

As one of the rarest types of spellcasters, Pei Renli had indeed had quite a few classmates come asking for his help over the past ten days, but he had turned every one of them down.

Most of the assignments were things like checking on a dam, which did little for actual combat experience. He would rather stay at school and train practical skills with Kaya every day.

But as for claiming he was busy...

In any case, he would hear Alton out first.

Alton stepped closer and gestured for Pei Renli to lower his head.

"It's an assignment involving the area beneath the school. Interested?"

"Tell me more!"

Pei Renli, who had originally intended to refuse, immediately perked up.

The adventurer school of today had once been the foremost front line against the Demon King of Tyranny. Beneath the school, every nation had established countless research facilities to develop magic items and spells targeting the Demon King of Tyranny.

There had been heaps of both reliable and unreliable creations among them, including things that were illegal and could not be brought into the light...

It was clear just how far the Demon King of Tyranny had driven the entire plane back then.

However, because the Demon King vanished too quickly, the various governments had withdrawn in great haste for all sorts of reasons. Vast quantities of research materials and even completed products had been left beneath the school.

It was practically a treasure trove.

Much like Russia, where scientific research relied on archaeology, even if some of those technologies were incomplete and unreliable, the technologies themselves were still extremely useful.

The school would negotiate with the original owners. Any useful discoveries could be exchanged for a large sum of money to ease the school's funding shortage, and the students would receive bonuses as well. It was a highly profitable assignment.

No wonder Alton had spoken so quietly. If the others found out, they would probably come swarming over.

But this sort of assignment was not simply a benefit. It carried a certain degree of danger—and not a low one, either.

The many secret laboratories constructed beneath the school belonged to different nations and organizations. There was not even a map of the entire underground structure. How deep it went and how vast it was had become an unsolved mystery amid its unchecked expansion.

Furthermore, some research was not fit to be exposed. The laboratories contained large numbers of traps and anti-theft measures. If you barged in recklessly, getting out with your corpse intact would already count as good luck.

Therefore, any students assigned to explore the underground were the truly formidable kind.

Aside from scraping together some funding, the school kept the underground laboratories because they were also excellent training grounds.

For adventurers, entering ancient ruins in search of wealth was nothing unusual. Compared to being left helpless when facing the real thing after graduation, having the chance to experience a similar environment firsthand while still at school was immensely valuable.

Of course, for Pei Renli, the fact that it could earn him a great deal of money was what attracted him most.

The next day, Pei Renli arrived at the agreed location fully armed and waited.

Including him, there were four people entering the underground this time. Once everyone had arrived, they set off for the entrance.

The entrance looked much like a large bunker. The door had no keyhole and required a password to open.

Alton handed the certificate issued by their teacher to the school worker guarding the entrance. After confirming it was valid, the man entered the password, and the enchanted solid-steel door, half an inch thick, slowly lifted upward, revealing an open, spacious passage beyond that resembled a tunnel bored through a mountain.

Magic lamps along both walls maintained a steady bright glow, so even underground, it was not dim at all. Looking ahead, they could see the tunnel sloping downward.

Since Pei Renli and the others were newcomers who had only recently enrolled, their teacher had specifically instructed them that after entering the underground area, they could go no deeper than the fifth level. They were not permitted to descend any farther, because the deeper they went, the greater the danger, and it was beyond their abilities to handle.

Once everyone had entered, the door immediately shut again. The four of them headed underground, step by step, along the stairs.

After descending more than twenty meters, they finally reached level ground. A broad corridor still stretched into the distance, but now there were quite a few intersections on either side, and the occasional sign posted on the walls.

"The floors closest to the surface were picked clean ages ago. Let's hurry and keep heading down."

Alton was right. The first floor had completely lost any value for exploration. Students who had come here before would have loved to pry up even the floor tiles, so there had long been nothing valuable left.

After saying that, he glanced back at Pei Renli and asked in some surprise, "Is that thing in your hand a staff?"

A mage without a staff always seemed to be missing something. Even Gan Doufu, who was especially vicious when it came to chopping people up, had one.

Since his short sword had been snapped in half, Pei Renli was left with only a dagger-length fragment hanging from his waist. Though plenty of mages in this world went out empty-handed, he still felt unsafe without a weapon.

Pei Renli had originally planned to buy a better short sword the next time he went to Curtain Star City. But Alton's mission had forced him to put those plans on hold, so he had found a wooden stick to make do as a weapon.

If one looked closely, they would notice that one end of the wooden stick was even a little dirty.

Because it was a mop handle with the cloth strips removed...

A staff was a magic item, fantastically expensive—far beyond what Pei Renli could afford.

He was poor. There was nothing to be done but endure it.

Still, one could lose everything but never lose face, so he could not say that outright. "It is a staff, that's right. But you can also understand it as a wooden stick."

"..."

Alton had already begun to doubt Pei Renli's professionalism...

He had invited him because the underground complex had originally been filled with magic research institutes, and not many people understood magic. Whether it was valuable loot or magical traps, it was more reliable to have a professional deal with them.

"Sigh, look at the team the teacher assigned us—nothing but men. You're the lucky one, Pei Renli. Both times you went on a mission, you had pretty girls with you."

Gary, walking at the front with his shield raised, was openly envious. As the saying went, men and women working together never got tired; clearly, their teacher had not considered that when assigning missions.

He was still dressed like a tin can, and his inability to use weapons had not changed either. He held only a shield.

Alton agreed wholeheartedly. "I did ask Eve, but she refused."

So he had come looking for Pei Renli, the other one of only two mages.

"Indeed, having women around would make things more pleasant. But I can't really accept you humans' standards of beauty."

This time, it was a dwarf who spoke.

His name was Fandar, a priest of Moradin, the dwarven god of guardians. He was dressed much like Gary, clad head to toe in heavy chainmail, except he also carried a mace and a shield engraved with a holy symbol.

Including Pei Renli, the party consisted of the standard warrior-priest-mage iron triangle plus a scout. Other than the lack of girls, it was already perfect.

Fandar scratched his deliberately shaved bald head. "Your human women are all too skinny. Not pretty."

Naturally, different races had different standards of beauty.

To dwarves, the larger and more magnificent a man's beard was, the more handsome he was. For women, the more robust and powerful they were, the sexier they were—though their height also had to meet dwarven standards.

Dwarves were somewhat taller than halflings, standing between 1.2 and 1.5 meters tall. So in their eyes, human beauties were too skinny, practically like bamboo poles.

"A woman should be strong. Like my mother—she could drag a wild ox home with one hand. Now that was a real beauty."

"I think that sounds a little scary. Wouldn't a petite type who's cheerful and lively be better?"

Halfling standards of beauty were similar to humans', except they also preferred people about their own height. Humans were still far too tall for them.

Though they were of different races, they were all men. A bunch of men getting together to talk about women was perfectly normal.

Thus, the topic quickly shifted from debating standards of beauty to judging which of their female classmates was prettier.

Incidentally, even in this sort of idle chatter, no one mentioned Kaya.

It was hard to say whether that was fortunate or sad. That girl's reputation truly preceded her...

They chatted as they walked, not because they were careless, but because this initial stretch of passage had only one defining trait: it was long. There was no danger at all.

But when they reached a large door, everyone fell silent and swiftly slipped into adventuring mode.

Alton reached out and pushed open the tightly shut solid-steel door, revealing no fewer than eight branching paths beyond...