After arriving at the Adventurers Guild, Arlette finally got his first real look at the scale of this Dragon Slaying Competition.
This branch of the Adventurers Guild was located in a relatively secluded area in the northwest corner of Dice Town. Originally, there was no guild here; it had only been built after Dice Town began to prosper. On ordinary days, only a few scattered people came here to accept or deliver commissions.
Today, however, was completely different.
The sides of the streets were packed with people. Suddenly, the entire town’s commotion seemed to have gathered in this usually ignored northwest corner. Most of the crowd consisted of curious citizens and low-level adventurers whose strength did not meet the competition requirements. There were even reporters from the local newspapers.
Only a small portion in the center were the actual participants of this subjugation.
One had to understand that any adventure squad capable of reaching the sixth floor of a dungeon was by no means ordinary. They were all existences that could be called “elites.” Yet, in this competition, there were more than ten such squads.
“There are so many people…”
Seeing the dense gazes swarming from all directions, Fluff could not help but feel a surge of cowardice. She subconsciously shrank behind Arlette’s back. Normally, Fluff was not afraid of crowded scenes, but once she was in a situation where everyone was staring at her, she could not help but want to run away.
‘It seems the intensity of the competition is even higher than I imagined…’
Looking at the mountain of people before him, Arlette did not feel the slightest bit of excitement. There was only an increasingly heavy sense of urgency in his heart. Even though the time had shifted from morning to dusk, Arlette’s physical condition had not improved much.
‘In this state, I wonder if I’ll hold the lady back…’
He slowly turned his head to look at Mello beside him. He saw Mello’s eyes shining with the light of excitement, her face written with anticipation. For someone with her supreme standards of dignity, the more pressure this competition had, the more she felt the honor was worth it. Conversely, if no one was competing for it, she would have had no interest at all.
While Arlette was still staring blankly at Mello, the surrounding crowd suddenly broke into a restless discussion.
“Hey, hey, look over there, at that Heavy Knight.”
“Is that the guy who took down an entire adventure squad by himself back at the tavern?”
“Yeah! When the goblins invaded yesterday, he seemed to be the one leading the resistance. I heard he even received a reward personally presented by the Guild Master!”
“He must be here for the competition too, right?”
“I never thought I’d see a Heavy Knight in a competition like this!”
“Look at his teammates—there’s an Elf, a Draconian, and even a Vampire! It feels like they’re a real dark horse team!”
Arlette seemed to be receiving an excessive amount of attention. The reason was simple: he had stood out a bit too much in Dice Town recently. In today’s world, the Heavy Knight class could be said to be rare among the rare. He was likely the only one in all of Dice Town.
A widely recognized “trash” class combined with unexpectedly powerful strength—these two elements stacked together naturally gave Arlette a bit of a legendary aura. In this kind of competition, which had a certain degree of spectacle and was being broadcast live, those recognized powerful classes were actually less eye-catching than a “trash” class.
However, sometimes being too eye-catching was not a good thing.
In addition to the gazes of the spectators, Arlette also attracted the attention of his competitors. Their gazes pounced like hungry wolves, as if they wanted to devour the Crystal Thorn Adventurer Squad whole.
Mello, however, seemed completely indifferent to this. There was only pleasure in those blood-colored eyes of hers. She never worried about the gazes of others; to her, this was exactly what she sought.
By the time the last team had successfully entered the arena, the sky had turned completely dark. Just as the crowd was rowdily debating which team had the most potential, a flash of golden light suddenly streaked across the originally pitch-black sky.
It was some sort of light-attribute magic.
Then, the light that was originally only the size of a thin line rapidly expanded and enlarged. It projected a square screen of light in the night sky, looking like a tablecloth made of radiance. In the next moment, more light screens began to bloom over the sky of Dice Town.
At this moment, even citizens who knew nothing about the competition were drawn in by these screens. Soon, a figure appeared upon them.
It was an elderly Birdman from the owl tribe. At this moment, he was waving his wings, which were full of grayish-white feathers, greeting the audience in front of the screens. This was the same elder who had previously given Arlette that gemstone dragon scale.
“Good evening to everyone in Dice Town, hoot!”
“I am the Guild Master of this town’s branch of the Adventurers Guild, Ow! I hope everyone will look after me, hoot!”
When the branch Guild Master appeared on the light screen, the surrounding crowd erupted on the spot. For a time, the sky over Dice Town was covered by cheers and shouts.
“Since everyone is currently in Dice Town, I believe you all have more or less a longing for adventure, or perhaps you are adventurers yourselves, hoot!”
“Right now, the most longed-for holy land for adventurers on the entire continent is the dungeon near us, hoot!”
“And now, within the Lava Realm on the sixth floor of the dungeon, an extremely vicious Fire Dragon is currently entrenched there, hoot!”
“It appears frequently and launches attacks on adventurers. From the time it appeared until now, it has caused nearly twenty elite adventure squads to suffer casualties, hoot!”
“This is a heavy blow to our Adventurers Guild. It is something we cannot accept, hoot.”
“Therefore, today, after a comprehensive ruling by the headquarters of the Adventurers Guild, we have classified this Fire Dragon as an ultra-high-risk target and recruited ten-odd elite adventure squads. The goal is to enter the dungeon directly and eliminate this massive threat, hoot!”
“Essentially, this is an ultra-large-scale subjugation commission. But to motivate all of you as adventurers, the Adventurers Guild has commissioned newspaper reporters to broadcast the entire process live, hoot!”
“The ten-odd squads before you will cross the lava sea within a few days, endure the violent and terrifying extreme heat, and finally reach the Fire Dragon’s lair to perform the dragon slaying, hoot!”
“The squads that participate in the slaying will have the secret treasures hidden by that evil dragon distributed according to their merit. And the squad that deals the killing blow to the dragon will be personally awarded the prestigious title of Dragon Slayer by the Adventurers Guild, hoot!”
Under the introduction of Branch Master Ow, the already cheering crowd’s emotions rose even higher. The entirety of Dice Town directly transformed into an ocean of celebration.
“Now, we will lead these elites among adventurers to the teleportation circle to head straight for the sixth floor underground, hoot!”
“You shall all become witnesses to the dragon slaying, hoot!”