Tiana hesitated briefly before nodding.
"Be careful," she replied.
Since it was almost time for them to conduct their sweeping search across the dungeon zones, she was worried that he might encounter one of those dangerous beasts.
"I will," James nodded.
He returned to their table, took his shield and sword, along with his large box.
Then, he walked through the door beside the robotic receptionist.
Tiana turned to Sylas, Draven, and the others.
"You guys should wait here and prevent anyone from entering the dungeon. If they ask why, tell them that it’s off-limits for maintenance," she said, her tone and expression solemn.
Sylas, Draven, and the others nodded.
They quickly followed her instructions because they also wanted to get to the root of the issue and uncover the truth.
Tiana turned around and swiftly exited the Dungeon Hall, her whip hanging at the side of her waist and a large box in her hand.
James looked at the destroyed goblin camp before him in surprise.
The makeshift homes made of sticks and leaves, unique to goblin dwellings, were burnt to a crisp.
The ground was blackened, and faint smoke rolled out, pervading the air with the sour stench of burnt flesh and blood.
The dense vegetation within and around the camp was burned, as though it had been struck by some kind of wildfire.
This was a goblin camp housing over two hundred goblins.
However, at the moment, there was no life present nearby, and from the surroundings, it was clear they had been eliminated.
James frowned. This content belongs to novᴇlfire.net
What kind of attack had been done this?
A normal wildfire wasn’t enough to threaten a magical beast unless it possessed magical properties.
So, he could only judge whether an alchemical weapon or a magic item caused this.
Nonetheless, to eliminate and capture all the goblins wasn’t something only one person could do.
"Maybe I’ll find some clue by checking the other sites," James said as he leapt onto the nearest tree branch.
James quickly arrived at the next goblin camp and was met with a slightly similar scene.
The camp was burned to the ground.
Not a single goblin present. Not even a trace of life.
A chilling dread crept down James’ spine.
"Maybe I’ll find some clue in the next camp."
James leapt onto the next branch.
Yet, regardless of which goblin camp he visited across Dungeon Zone One, they were all in a similar ashen state.
James halted on a tree branch, trying to catch his breath after crossing through Dungeon Zone One at full speed.
"Maybe I’ll find something in Zone Two," he muttered.
He swiftly returned to the teleportation platform.
"How is this possible?" James asked as he stared at the devastation before him.
This was the largest goblin camp in Zone Two, housing over two thousand goblins.
Yet at this moment, all that remained of it was the lingering scent of sulfur, mixed with burnt corpses and blood in the air.
James quickly moved to the next goblin camp.
James swallowed hard.
He realised that the quest list hadn’t made an error.
As it stood, there were not enough goblins left alive in the Dungeon Zones of the Magical Swordsman Department.
And even if there were, they weren’t enough for the goblin elimination quest to remain active on the list.
"I need to report this back and inform them that the quest list isn’t malfunctioning," James said, leaping forward to return to the teleportation platform.
As James stepped out of the door, he saw Tiana speaking with three men dressed in blue overalls, accompanied by the students.
They quickly noticed his appearance.
Tiana dashed towards him.
After scrutinising his figure and seeing that he was okay, she quickly asked, "How was it?"
"There are no goblins left in the dungeon zones," James responded.
Tiana was stunned. "Come again?"
"I said there are no goblins left in the dungeon zones. The quest list isn’t malfunctioning. It’s working fine," James repeated, sighing quietly.
Before arriving here, he had enough time to recover his composure. So, he didn’t blame her inability to speak as her expression turned into shock.
"So does that mean that..." Tiana asked. But she found her question incredibly difficult to finish.
"Yes. I don’t know how he managed to do it. But the number one quest has indeed been completed. However, we shouldn’t be too sure about whether he did it alone," James said, his expression solemn.
"There’s a high probability that he used a powerful alchemical or magic item to do this."
On his way, he had seen several students staying behind to train for the night and had stopped to ask if they had seen anything.
However, they all responded with the same answer: they had heard a loud sound but hadn’t dared to approach it, due to the current news of powerful magical beasts emerging in the dungeon zones.
However, he didn’t rule out the possibility that some of them had lied to him.
Despite that, he didn’t take his own words too seriously because the quest was turned in, and he had been unable to find even a single corpse.
This meant that the corpses were secured and delivered to the dungeon hall to collect merit points.
Tiana nodded absentmindedly.
Sylas, Draven, Julia, and the others who had followed behind Tiana heard everything that had transpired and were stunned.
They were lost in their thoughts.
Due to the secrecy surrounding clans’ sacred arts and personal magic items, no one was allowed to examine the corpses of beasts or creatures, as they might contain insights into how they were killed.
From the records of who had completed the quest, it was possible to infer the skillset of the student who had eliminated it.
The only ones excluded from this rule were the Governing Council.
However, they didn’t care about such matters.
So the only way for them to understand what had truly occurred within the dungeon was to look for the battleground for the residues of the battles.