Chapter 39: Making Trouble
If before Ares could somehow blame Cedric for dragging him into trouble but currently he could only blame his unluckiness for the troubles he's facing.
"Hwap!" Ares quickly stabbed the two-headed Hell Dog on its back with his two Katanas while a few of his daggers stabbed its eyes and neck.
After a few moments of fighting the two-headed Hell Dog, Ares managed to kill it. His body was drenched with the monster's blood.
Before encountering the two-headed Hell Dog, he already passed a few rooms which were complete disarrayed and looked like ancient ruins that have been robbed and abandoned. The rooms were covered with moss and small bushes.
There were small oil lamps on the wall which seemed to be placed by humans or maybe the organization that has stayed here.
The more he moved forward, the more he could smell the familiar smell of blood. He could smell the smell of rotten carcasses and also the gaze of a predator.
That was how he met a few two-headed Hell Dogs along the way. He was lucky to be able to kill them as they were not monsters that moved in packs rather they usually moved individually.
The most difficult was when he had to face two of them at the same time thus he almost burned down the area before he managed to kill them both.
"It was worth it killing these dogs," Ares said consuming the fire orbs from the Hell Dogs he killed.
Even though the fire orbs were considered low level, it was still better than nothing.
Looking back at his trails that were full of blood and burned monsters' corpses. Ares sat down for a bit thinking about what he should be doing next.
He already confirmed that it was a low-level dungeon that didn't pose much difficulty for him other than he was alone and there were dozens of monsters. Because of that, his body is still bruised here and there.
He chugged down a few bottles of potions since no one knew if suddenly a higher tier monster would pop out of nowhere.
When he was just about to move, the sounds of monsters howling reverberated all over the area.
"Hmm is it different monsters?"
A few moments later, a pack of metallic grey wolves surrounded him and looked at him ferociously.
"How kind. I'm already kind of bored with hell dogs and now they kindly give me a pack of wolves" Ares grinned while taking out all the daggers he had.
He looked like an intimidating predator with all the daggers floating around him, prepared to pounce on their targets.
"Times to let loose for real"
With the gaze that sent a chill down the spine, Ares without giving any second thought jumped on the pack of wolves like a starving grim reaper.
A gust of fire came out of his mouth. reaching the wolves that try to run away. He butchered every monster he found fair and square without any mercy. None of them was left unscathed.
Clearing the area, he found a flight of stairs that descended underground. The stairs were made crudely with tiles on them.
"To be honest this place could be a hunted house instead of a dungeon," Ares thought while walking down the stairs.
Since he didn't want to fight any monsters while being on the stairs, Ares would breathe out a gust of fire to burn anything in front of him and to intimidate any monsters that wanted to sneak attack him.
The warning was simple, you attack me, I'll burn you.
Despite that, he was still attacked by a pack of bat-like monsters but he quickly killed them since their advantage was just that they could fly. They didn't have any strong defence or attack skills.
However the more he went down, the more nervous he became since he could sense there was definitely something on the last floor and at the end of the stairs.
Gripping both his Katanas in both hands, he descended slowly down the stairs with vigilance. Time felt unusually longer than the time he spent roaming around the upper floor killing monsters.
The oil lamps on the upper floor were changed into marble balls that emit light on the walls of the stairs. The better lighting made Ares more cautious.
He sensed that the underground floor might be different. He cautiously moved until he reached the last stair.
He was stunned by what he was seeing. Instead of getting pounced as soon as he stepped on the last stair, instead, he saw rows of prions full of monsters at the left and right sides of the room.
There was a path in the middle leading to somewhere.
The monsters seemed dead but seeing their slight movement of breathing, most of them might still be alive but it was unknown why they were in such pitiful conditions half-dead.
Ares couldn't see the monsters' appearance properly due to the limited lighting around the area and no lighting at all inside the prisons.
However, he could smell a strong smell of rotten skins and dry blood.
While walking ahead, the lighting around him became dimmer and he could only rely on his torch that was almost half dead since it was unknown how much time he had already spent inside this weird dungeon.
-Swish
A long thread-like object brushed passed him but due to his high perception, Ares was able to avoid it narrowly.
Raising his vigilance, Ares looked around.
The monster was fast and when it flashed out from the darkness, Ares frowned.
The monster before him was somewhat like a few broken monsters being randomly sewed together. He could sense a threatening pressure coming from the monster.
The monster had scally hands from maybe a lizard-like monster, a tail like a crocodile, a pair of wings like a bat, a furry body from something that looked like a bear monster and two legs of a horse.
The most surprising is its head which looked like a human man but its tongue was thin and long with piercing green snake-like eyes. It looked like a hybrid of man and snake.
Ares frowned looking at this completely disgusting, obviously chimeric creature.
The monster arrived in front of Ares in a blink of an eye.
Taken by surprise, Ares swing his Katanas and tried to strike the head of the monster, deciding to end the fight as early as he could.
To his surprise, it defended the sword strike with its tail which is as hard as a metal.
"I see. The scales were as hard as an ordinary metal. This gonna be a tough fight"
Instead of retreating, Ares continued attacking the monster using his sword moves, trying to buy some time to find the monster's weakness.
The monster before him is not fighting brainlessly like other monsters, it was quite good at using all of his body parts as if it wasn't the first time he fought with a human.
-Clang! Clang! Swish!
Sounds of swords and metal collided with each other reverberating inside the area. Ares not only used his two Katanas but also his daggers to attack simultaneously.
Greenish blood started to trickle down the monster and Ares was also not better off. His body was bruised all over and his Katanas corner have chipped here and there.
After a few moments of clashes, Ares realized that the monster before him didn't possess any other skills other than using his physical traits.
Thus he decided to use magic spells.
A gust of fire came out of his mouth when he evaded the monster's attack.
-Hiss!
Caught off guard, the monster didn't manage to evade and his upper body was burned. The monster was hissing in pain.
Not wasting any seconds, Ares quickly stabbed his daggers into every joint of the monster before he decapitated its head using his Katanas.
Seeing the headless monster fall to the ground while being burned, Ares let a breath of relief.
Although he was reluctant, he still decided to take the chimaera monster's corpse and put it inside his spatial pocket.
"My body sore all over" he muttered while chugging down more potions before continue moving ahead to where the monster first came out before.
Finally, after a few moments of mindlessly walking ahead, he found a metal door at the end of the path.
Looking around, he didn't sense any monsters nearby and he didn't feel any dangerous feeling from his guts feeling.
"Maybe it's time for round two"
-Creak
Ares opened the door fully ready to defend against any attack. However, what was inside the room was something that he never expected.
"What the...."
********************
After a few arduous moments Ares went back to where he came from and seemingly annoyed, he kicked away the door of the shabby wooden house.
Upon opening the door, he instantly sensed the presence of a few familiar people nearby including those that he didn't expect. But what surprised him more was that the same alley he came from before arriving at the house was burned with bright red flames.
The area was full of flames, burning everything down. The street looked like hell.
He suddenly felt that he wasn't out of the weird haunted house like dungeon yet and maybe he had once again entered another dungeon.
'Another dungeon inside a dungeon. That's not impossible right?'
Ares started to question all the knowledge he had and his worldview at the moment.
He surveyed the area and heard sounds of people screaming and explosions.
He walked through looking at the debris around him. The houses around the area were destroyed and there were even craters on the road with huge debris burning along the footpath.
The alleyway where many houses were present before was now flattened. The area looked like a burning purgatory. The only one that still stand tall was the shabby wooden house where he came out from.
"Halt. Identify yourself."
While he was walking towards the familiar presence that he sensed, he was suddenly stopped by a man wearing a black suit and a bulletproof vest, glaring at him.
"Who are you and what are you doing here"
Forgetting that he still disguising, " I'm Ares Zanuki. I was trapped in that place."
Ares pointed his finger toward the shabby wooden house that was doorless since he already destroyed the door out of annoyance.
The man looked at Ares suspiciously. After all who would believe a random teenager walking out of a destroyed area with two swords on his waist and holding a pot of plant.
Yes, he was holding a weird-looking red rose in a white pot which he found inside the last room in the dungeon. While feeling frustrated that he didn't find anything that could be called a treasure, he decided to just take the pot of rose.
The reason he said the rose was weird is that unlike other roses he had seen that grow in bushes like trees, the rose inside the pot only has one stalk of red rose and a few green leaves. He already touched the rose and confirmed it wasn't an artificial plastic rose.
Ares knew it was hard to believe what he said so he threw his smartwatch at the man. The smartwatch could be used to identify students from HGA.
The man flinched when Ares threw the smartwatch at him.
"You can use that to identify me"
Before he could do anything with the smartwatch, a gust of wind suddenly blew around Ares before he felt someone hugging him from behind.
Ares tried hitting the person's hands a few times when he started to feel suffocated but that person didn't lessen his force even a bit.
"Release him, you're going to suffocate him"
Hearing the familiar voice, the hug was released.
It was Eris who appeared out of nowhere and hugged him as if to kill him and the familiar voice was his grandpa, Zen Zanuki.
"You sure have talent in making trouble," grandpa said grinning at me.
"I'm not. It's just my luck is quite bad"
"Do you know how worried we are?" Eris chimed in.
And she continue explaining how she wrecked over the place down to find me since my smartwatch signal couldn't give them my precise location inside the dungeon.
'Oh now I know who is the one who makes this place look like a purgatory in hell'
Out of nowhere, a young man beside grandpa suddenly fainted with white bubbles coming out of his mouth.
"What the hell?" Ares muttered.
"Cough, cough. Ares give me that rose," grandpa asked with an unnegotiable tone.
"Sure" Ares obediently gave the pot of rose before he saw how the rose was sealed inside a black box.
"Did you find that monster inside the dungeon?" Eris asked while Ares was cleaning his disguise and getting treatment.
"Yes. I thought the flower looked cute" Ares answered ignoring the word 'monster' since he always thought the way Eris thought was a bit weird. Thus he never expect the rose wasn't actually the ordinary rose he thought it was supposed to be.
The Police Head Investigator that sat in front of them to take Ares's testimony was dumbfounded.
'The noble sure have a weird sense of aesthetic. That weird monster is even considered cute. As expected of a Zanuki.' The Head Investigator lamented.
Prince Theo and Cedric on the other hand remained quiet and just looked around the area. Since they first arrived, they didn't do anything much other than help finish off the small fries that tried to run away while Zerisa was burning the area down looking for Ares like a worried mother chicken.
"Won't Ares also burn along if he is really inside one of the houses?" Cedric asked while looking at the burned houses in pity.
"Even if he was burned, he won't die. If he dies, they will try to find his corpse. That's how the Zanuki is. And don't you think it's weird for someone that is supposed to be recuperating to be here, at a criminal organization base?" Prince Theo replied.
"....." Cedric just realized the real question he should be asking.
"I already told you, the Zanuki is a bunch of weird, crazy people so don't believe everything they said at the face value. I asked a young butler before and he said Ares came here to hunt monsters as a way of recuperating. Interesting isn't it?" Prince Theo chuckled.
Cedric felt goosebumps all over his body upon seeing the slight sinister smile on Prince Theo's face before the face returned to the goody-kind hearted prince facade he always displayed.
Zerisa asked a doctor to check on Ares.
Except for minor bruises and cuts, everything else was fine. His mentality was slightly exhausted due to being in a dungeon for quite some time. Ares also felt slightly hungry since he didn't eat anything for the whole day.
Sitting at a stool, recalling what he saw inside the dungeon, he glanced toward other people that were injured and currently being treated.
Eris that was sitting beside Ares gave him a basket of bread and a glass of ice milk tea as an appetizer before they could enjoy a full course meal at home.
"Everything is alright. Please don't think too much young master. Due to your cautiousness, we were able to prevent a huge disaster," the Head Investigator said with a smile.
Despite his stoic face, Ares could only see a huge question mark on top of the Head Investigator's face.
'What disaster?'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone