Isekai Journey Of The Magic Archer

[Eon's POV: ]

"Please calm down, everyone."

The knight captain and Miss Nerissa guarded the unconscious body of the third captain, the one in knight armour, and focused on the five children that were 'masters' of the party instead of the two of us.

The two of them vaguely understood the situation that they were in.

They did not need long explanations on how they were in this place, near to what seemed to be the exit of the dungeon, and how the two of us were the ones waking them up.

'They had already seen the kind of magic we could use so they knew there was more to us than what met their eyes.'

But, they did not prey much into the situation.

'We saved them from something that was caused by someone else, somehow. And they did not need long explanations of how we had done that.'

At least for now, even though they had somewhat recovered with our expansive potions, they wanted to get out of the dungeon first. They knew staying here for too long would only bring trouble for all of them.

So, they proceeded to ask the five of them about what they should do next… but, all five of the children were traumatised right now.

The experience that they had just now or the time that they all spent suffocating in that unknown passage filled with poisonous fog had simply made the whole 'fun' dungeon experience into something that they seemed to want to forget.

"It doesn't seem like they will be helpful here." Miss Nerissa could tell how horrible this whole experience could have been for normal children like them who did not even have real world experience.

For the adventurers, this kind of unexpected turns and risk of their lives was a common occurrence, but for the common people who do not even see monsters like the ones that they had fought here usually, this was nothing less than a nightmare.

"Hmm. I don't blame them."

The knight captain had seen people going through what the five children were going through right now.

Just like Miss Nerissa, he had seen the younger and newbie adventurers succumbing to the traumatising experiences after only their first expeditions.

This wasn't even a simple expedition into a hunting ground but a dungeon run, something that eats up even the most experienced adventurers.

'Seeing the dead bodies of people you were talking to just a moment ago, losing a limb or two, coming across monsters that do not make any sense, having near death experiences… or worse, almost coming unscratched out of a situation that you believed had taken your life already.'

All these experiences were a normal thing to a veteran like them. In fact, betraying actions such as what the third leader that they trusted had taken, were also something they were familiar with.

For them, our help was more questionable than someone going against the whole group after being blinded by something enticing.

Looking from their perspective, this person had done nothing wrong. The two of us helping them and giving them expensive potions after somehow waking them up in a place like this was obviously more suspicious to them.

'Still though, they were not in any position to doubt us right now, so they focused on the still unconscious man.'

The two of them first calmed the others down, then Miss Nerissa looked after the five leaders and tried to calm them down as well, while at the same time, the knight captain came to us and first expressed his gratitude for saving everyone.

"In your opinion, what should we do with this person?"

Since he knew this person was connected to the five children and was sure that he wouldn't have done whatever he did to harm them, he knew punishing him for what he did was not in their hands.

Though the children did not know who this person was, he was the one that had helped them assemble a capable party like this one, and also someone who had been doubtful of the two of us since the start… but, this wasn't the time to delve into those things.

"We do not have the authority to decide anything about a party member here, Sir. Though, we still think the actions of this person, whatever may have been the reason behind them, were neither ethical nor acceptable." Rein also nodded as I said that.

"Hmmm."

As the members of this party, it was our job to look after the party members. We were simply doing what we were supposed to do.

'The only reason we had to waste so much time in this place and go through that damned trial was because this person went against the collective decision of the party and acted on his own.'

We earned quite a lot after going through that trial but… if it wasn't for him doing it, we wouldn't have had to go through these extra steps and just cleared the dungeon normally.

'But since he did that, we had to go through the excruciatingly difficult trial.'

Sure we earned what we might never have known the existence of, but it was still not something right.

Whatever his reason for doing it might be, he did it without knowing the consequences. And that resulted in nothing good for the rest of the party…

"How long is he going to stay unconscious for?"

"Not long. In fact, the poison should be-."

And right as I was saying that, as both of us turned our heads to look back at his unconscious body, the sight we were met with did not have the 'body' which should have been here.

"There."

He was gone. Vanished from right before our senses once more.

"He has a unique origin skill."

We couldn't perceive him the last time. However, things are different now.

[{ "Rein?" }]

Now, we had someone who could see through even the powers of that unique origin skill.

[{ "He's so dumb…" }]

She used a restrictive spell in a certain direction where nothing was present, and right after using it, she used a large ice needle and poked it into something.

"Argh!"

Though the stones on the sidewalks don't scream when they are poked by something sharp, humans surely do scream when they feel pain.

"You sure have plenty of surprises stored up, huh?"

Though the effect of the poison had worn off, after not having any potions, he did not have much strength left in his body.

He was trying to crawl out of the dungeon, but that did not work as he ended up getting caught while passing right through the rest of the party.

"You fiend!"

"Damn bastard!"

"You son of a…!"

Some of the party members spontaneously kicked him or tried using their weapons on him, but thanks to a barrier from Miss Nerissa, he did not get hurt much.

And then, she gave a cold look to the rest of them.

"The authorities will deal with this one, everyone." Her voice was stern. She was not as cheerful as she was when we entered the dungeon.

The atmosphere around her had not changed since she was still approachable and much less intimidating than the knight captain, but the seriousness of the situation they were in was surely present on her now.

She simply wanted to end this and get out of this place.

"Everyone…"

So, the knight captain and her finished the roll calls and checked everyone before coming to the final conclusion.

"Let's leave this damned den."

It had been more than three days of what should have been a one day expedition with a party consisting of an <S> rank and an <A> rank.

The time it took was a little too much and, since the two of us were quite late, and due to what I went through during the trial, I was already expecting the entire Heliox's forces to be waiting for us right outside the dungeon to greet us.

'Zoe and a few others were already on this island. Even Anna was here, so we expected that we would have to reveal our identities right after we got out of this place.'

The elders knew there was no need to worry even though it had taken us longer than it should have since they knew the nature of the dungeon expeditions, but they still moved due to the unique restlessness that Zoe showed them for the first time.

'I can already picture what the situation back home would have been like when she mentioned she doesn't feel something to be right about this.'

I was pretty sure mom would have overreacted as well. But still, they would all have moved discreetly to not attract any attention.

That is, what I thought when we were getting out of the dungeon at least.

"..."

But, to our surprise, what greeted us right after passing through the bright exit of the dungeon, was not the sight of a welcoming family… but, two distinct knight units pointing their weapons at one another.

'What the hell?'

The knight group on our left had the auspicious griffin crest of my family with my great uncle standing at the forefront of the troop, but on the other hand, there was a knight unit in red armour bearing the crest of a three faced crow… a distinct crest that belonged to a certain family that though was not part of the empire, it had a significant influence all over the empire and many other kingdoms.

"Why is… the lord here?"

"The bigger question should be… why are the Olsens here?"

First of all, neither of them should have been here. Second of all, there were two [King] level knights pointing their weapons at one another standing before me right now.

Which, actually, is a lot worse of a scenario than what I had imagined before getting out of that damned snakehouse.