CHAPTER 121: YOU ARE LOST

The moment Godfrey opened his eyes in the real world, his irises shrank as he found almost a hundred people around them. Some of them held shopping carts, some were with their families, children. They kept stepping out of the fog, stunning even Isolde.

According to her vision, no one who entered that dungeon came out, and when that happened, especially when the dungeon was the type that threw you straight into battle without hiding spots, death was guaranteed.

In her vision, a policeman was giving a report that everyone in the shopping mall was probably dead and that they would guard the place until more powerful parties were sent, but then the dungeon turned black and all the policemen were slaughtered.

’The dungeon was never cleared.’ Isolde gasped inwardly.

"Are we saved?" an eight-year-old girl asked her mother, who covered her mouth, crying softly.

"What’s going on?" Godfrey whispered to Isolde.

"I don’t know," Isolde replied, shaking her head. "It might be that this dungeon filters lower tiers."

She looked around.

"Where are the people who first came to rescue you?"

"By the time they reached the Knights, most of them were already dead, and those knights slaughtered the last two lord tiers," a man explained.

"The fog grows colder with time. Some of us need medical attention." He pointed at a few people suffering from the cold. "We wouldn’t have made it."

As the man spoke gratefully, the dungeon slowly disappeared, and they all found themselves in the shopping mall.

"Hey!" A loud voice made all the policemen and Guild members lingering around turn to the golden-haired teenager who broke out of the door with a pale baby, almost blue with frost.

Those with summons at the elite tier were still quite healthy, but most of the low tiers were slowly succumbing to the cold after enduring for several hours.

"They’re out!" a policeman shouted, racing toward Godfrey. His eyes widened at the sight of the child and the others. The chill from their bodies came with an unnerving gray fog.

"Get the medics!"

As everyone rushed about, Godfrey watched as the child was taken from him. He stood there, reminded once again why dungeons were still dangerous even after a hundred years.

It was because of this that many went in as a team, and yet, green-gate dungeons had the second-highest death rate. The most dangerous dungeons were the ones with strange rules.

Seeing the chaos around him to save lives, Godfrey suddenly thought that if there was a sentient being behind all this, one who took pride in placing dungeons to kill and cause losses, then that being should be tortured and slaughtered in the worst way possible.

"I guess you saved a lot of lives today without knowing it," he said to Isolde, who stood beside him.

Isolde exhaled. "If I had gone in there alone, I might have failed against the boss. He was my bane. I’ve never heard about a dragon’s bane."

Isolde’s comment made Godfrey suddenly think about the Golden Order Knights. Their duty was to slaughter beasts, and they had such hate for them that they had even gone as far as altering themselves to kill stronger beasts.

They were the bane of beasts.

"Could be why Nyx made sure you took me along. She also saved a lot of lives," Godfrey said with a light-hearted tone. "She needs a gift."

Isolde chuckled. "That would be meditating for almost an entire day and feeding the mana to her. She does love that, but you’ll miss me for an entire day," she said coyly.

Godfrey grunted, caught at a hard spot.

Suddenly, he spotted a white-haired teen leaning against the car Isolde leaned on before they entered the dungeon. It was Jon.

He watched them with crossed arms for a moment before standing and walking toward them.

"I’ve been calling you," Jon said, looking straight at Isolde. Godfrey narrowed his eyes slightly at how Jon completely disregarded him.

"Couldn’t you take a hint since I didn’t pick your call? You probably had someone track me, but I really don’t need your help right now," Isolde replied.

Jon smiled and shook his head. "Then you need his help? Him, over me?"

"Jon! Don’t bring this up again. You started it... this idea of choosing! I’ve been showing you Godfrey’s paintings since elementary and you loved it. Why are you—?!"

"I hate it!" Jon’s deep, hard voice interrupted Isolde. Her eyes widened in shock. "I’ve always hated you showing me his stupid picture. ’Look at his hair this, look at his eyes that’? You’ve had everything from birth, your parents, your summons, your amazing life, me!’"

Jon trembled and pointed at Godfrey, still without looking at him. "But you are willing to throw that all away for him? His mother is just a doctor. She’s probably looking for a job after spending a good quota of her savings to purchase a mana fruit. This world has a hierarchy. He might be strong, but he’ll never be worth anything."

Jon finally looked at Godfrey. "No humanoid summoner has ever been any different, even if they’re king tier. You must have grown stronger now. Unleash that summon of yours."

Jon opened a portal, and his White Dearth Weasel came out. It had grown to ten feet, with a powerful pair of digitigrade legs, long black blades extending from its arms, and long black hair fluttering in the unseen wind.

Seeing several eyes on them as Jon made a mockery of his status made Godfrey boil. The whispers made his eyes cold.

"Jon!" Isolde yelled as a huge white portal opened above them. As Grace was about to emerge, Godfrey tapped Isolde’s shoulder.

"He didn’t challenge you."

He took two steps forward, and a diagram flared up beside him. Jon’s eyes narrowed as a towering knight on horseback emerged. As it swung the mighty halberd, a huge gale blew, almost pushing people from their initial positions.

’Another knight!’ Jon’s eyes narrowed. His weasel had risen to 9.4, and it could challenge a 9.9!

Lament moved out at that moment. His mount leaped, landing right where the weasel stood. The weasel burst into smoke, reappearing and slashing at Lament’s shoulder, but its blade bounced off!

Jon couldn’t even react to the shock as Lament swung his halberd so fast that it was disproportionate to his size. It sliced through the weasel’s chest, opening a huge gash as blood spilled.

The impact flung the weasel backward, but the huge horse Lament rode on struck its hind legs into the weasel’s chest, blasting it at higher speed.

Jon couldn’t believe his eyes as his weasel tore through the walls of the mall. Its bones shattered like broken glass as that kick alone caused a shockwave.

It was just a thread away from death, but Jon couldn’t even consider that as the sharp halberd lightly kissed his neck. Just that soft contact, and there was already a cut.

Blood dripped down his neck, but when his eyes met Lament’s own, Jon gasped. He couldn’t see anything in the space carved into the helmet, but he felt so small at that moment.

At that moment, Godfrey heard the clicks of guns. Over three dozen policemen aimed their rifles at him, the bright white lights boring into him from all sides.

"He didn’t heed to the laws," a policeman said to another.

"He might have ignored his monthly visit for Readjustment," another replied, breathing heavily, certain their bullets wouldn’t work on Lament.

Their captain pointed his pistol at Godfrey. "Let the boy go."

A portal appeared above, and a beautiful, hornless white dragon emerged, stomping hard on the ground as he roared at the policemen.

"He just saved the lives of hundreds, and you aim a gun at him?!" Isolde yelled.

"Hahaha! Humanoid summoners have their summons feast on us! He’s probably been drooling over your dragon since he hasn’t gone through any Readjustment. You think I haven’t figured out the headmaster is protecting him?!" Jon said with bloodshot eyes. "Your kind crippled my elder sister. She watched as her summon was killed and dragged away!"

"He’s different," the same little girl said softly. "He saved us."

"Then it’s better he goes through the Readjustment Program," the man who spoke earlier said with a sigh. "People won’t feel safe, especially after the onslaught of Cain’s Fanatics. There are thousands rioting for justice. Their summons weren’t just killed, they became food. There’s nothing more painful than that."

Godfrey looked at everyone, their glares, their fearful stares, with little disturbance. He had done his research after the Deserted City dungeon.

The hate for humanoid summoners was real. It was like the discrimination between whites and blacks long before the past age met its catastrophic end.

"We won’t shoot. Just retrieve your summon and take the cuffs. You have a good heart; there’s no need for this to go beyond this level," the captain said, eyes darting to several guild combatants who had already unleashed their summons.

"Let’s go," Isolde said, mounting Grace with Godfrey. No one could bring themselves to shoot at a Pendragon, nor would their weapons work on a dragon of that size.

As Grace flew, the end of her tail slapped Jon, launching him right through a car and deep into another, bleeding heavily as he fell unconscious.

Fear sank into everyone’s hearts.

"You are lost." Lament’s words shook everyone as he was retrieved.

"I... It c-... can speak!" the captain’s heart palpated.

....

A/N: I’m really down, guys. It’s a miracle I was able to write. It Probably spiked due to skipping good hours of sleep because of school and stuff.