Just moments ago...
"If you start making excuses then you can go ahead and die in this forest."
"Fine."
"Yes, sir.."
The three of them had left to arm themself, not noticing the imperceptible movement from behind.
"Are they finished?"
Marco asked Vlad as he listened in on their conversation.
"Do we even have to come here? What if they catch us-"
"Vlad."
He repeated, to which Vlad responded with an annoyed sigh.
"Yeah yeah, they're going to confront the floor master soon."
"Good." He patted him on the shoulder.
His eyes widened slightly, despite the weird stare he recieved from Vlad, nothing happened to which Marco shrugged.
"No touching, huh."
They were hiding above their camp using the rocky walls as a cover.
The tunnel that they entered was leading to the exit a few dozen meters away from here but the distance between the ground and the holes of the tunnel was close enough to simply jump off without any injuries.
It was obvious that the floor would soon be filled with people but to meet them just as they entered made Vlad regret even coming here.
'We won't get there on time'
The Delver Order which they were part of, most likely decided to kill the floor master themselfes, and seeing how prepared they were. It would be impossible to get the artifacts which Marco made them come here for.
This would also be the first time he saw a tier 7 delver.
'Just looking at him made me shiver'
Maybe it was how much layers of armor he wore or perhaps the way he carried himself. The brief moment when his gaze suddenly turned to where Vlad was before turning away as if nothing had happened.
Made him wonder what kind of strenght the professors of academy possesed to not leak even a hint of it.
"Let's go, we don't have much time."
Marco's crisp voice shook Vlad awake. He stood up and adjusted his armor.
'Right, he has to have some sort of plan'
He probably expected someone to come here before us, right?
They started to descend the cave again, this time trying to hide their presence from the experienced delver's sight.
Vlad's gaze was focused on the ground, his feet to be exact. He couldn't afford to be careless in this situation. Who knew what would happen if him slipping down made enough noise to alert the enemies.
Then, under Zephyr who was walking ahead of him, from the corner of his eye, he noticed tiny cracks forming under his feet.
The time it took for them to triple in size was less than a second.
The ground under him had started to collapse and under everyone's startled gazes aswell as his own alarmed expression.
A hand reached and before anyone could react. It caught his shoulder, pushing him to the side.
Vlad was the first to react with his superhuman reflexes but that wasn't enough to save himself.
The ground crumbled right under his feet, taking him down into the darkness.
Everyone was in a daze, what could they do? Their classmate just fell to his death, deep into the darkness where even his body couldn't be seen. They didn't know him long enough to start despairing over the loss but it was a shame, what would they tell the professors when they would ask about his whereabouts?
Yet, just as they thought about Vlad dying, a sudden groan came from the opening.
"For Christ's sake..." Vlad's voice shook. His body stinging all over.
"Couldn't they place something softer here."
The three of them looked into the darkness, Ash's flame magic exposing Vlad's body sprawled on top of some wooden crates. They all let out a sigh of relief, glad that he didn't die.
"Are you okay?" Marco took off his backpack, ready to pull out the rope and pull Vlad up.
"Ugh, i feel like a broken twig." He tried to support himself with the help of the crates.
Marco tied the rope to the nearest thing he could see before dropping the other end for Vlad to pull.
"Wait a second.." He suddenly spoke, pushing the debree that fell with him to the side.
'No way'
It was painfully obvious that someone was in their so called storage. Matter of fact, the finger prints and the evidence of them being here was everywhere! But the curiosity of not fully matured Vlad who just started to adapt to this world, has yet to be satisfied.
That's why, when he noticed some sort of familiar device in peeking through the broken crate, he was obligated.. to see what he broke.
"Are you sure you're okay? Maybe we should-"
"Pull this up." Vlad replied, leaving other's confused.
They didn't oppose it though, Marco and Zephyr started to pull the rope, their faces growing red due to the weight.
'Did he tie it around an entire crate?'
Both of them thought the same thing and after some effort, aswell as an earth spell that Ash used to make two small pillars push the crate up.
- Thud
It fell on the side, its weight causing the dirt to scatter. Vlad, was sitting on top of the crate with a satisfied expression. That expression of his, made them all think that he fell on the head, a smile that he didn't show ever since coming to the academy.
They didn't care about him at the moment, staring at the items that fell from the crates opening.
"This, this is worth more than gold right now." Vlad said confidently before turning to Ash with a grin. Her shocked face made his heart feel warm.
'life sure is good'
He casually jumped off the crate and picked up one of the red sticks of dynamite.
It wasn't very impressive, pretty light and small for an explosive that could blow off half of your body if not carefull. More of a waxy feeling on the hand, fumbling it in the palm of his hand, he tossed it to Marco, catching it without much of a problem he gazed at Vlad who started to explain.
"If the floor master is so strong, then we can borrow some of the Orders supplies and.."
"Boom!" He tried to mimic the explosion with his hands.
"He wouldn't even see it coming! And those guys wouldn't get there on time because of their large group."
Proud, Vlad expected words of praise or a simple 'thanks', after all, with their small group it was already predetermined that they couldn't win against the floor master, not after finding out that they needed a whole tier 7 delver.
Zephyr, who no one expected to speak up. Walked up to the crate and started to stuff sticks of dynamite into his bag.
"Just in case." He answered to the looks from Ash and Marco.
Marco knelt beside him, both of them trying to take as much as they could.
"What?" Ash seemed to notice Vlad staring. Her voice filled with annoyance.
With a triumphant smile on his face, he leaned a little bit towards her.
"Who were you calling useless earlier?"
"Hmpf! Who are you to talk like that after falling somewhere again? That's simply luck."
She scoffed, turning her head to the cave's hole's.
'Hopefully we make it on time.'
The system's mission made him quite impatient.