Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 554: Preparations for the raid
"Of course I do," Alessandro showed the palms of his hands. "You held the line the entire night by yourself, you brought your ship here and rescued us and you even clothed us and fed us. Following our traditions, the only way I could repay your generosity is by offering you the hand of my daughter in marriage.
She's the top candidate to become the next guardian of the forest and her position will grant you countless benefits I'm sure you can imagine, but I'm afraid it's impossible. She's currently lost inside the dungeon and..."
"Wow, thanks but no thanks. I'm not trying to be disrespectful of your culture, but I'm not enthusiastic at the idea of arranged marriage and I'd prefer some credits over marriage any day. I have my hunter card at hand in case you're short on cash and want to pay at a later date." Uriel struggled to find the right card, only to realize he hadn't had one made by the nickname of Raider.
"Credits!?" Alessandro gaped at the sillyness of Uriel's request. "Just credits? Why would you want credits when you can get that and so much more by marrying a member of the council. You could be in charge of thousands upon thousands of hybrids and even form your own empire. Not to mention that my daughter is among the most beautiful members in our community."
"That sounds nice and all, but I'm still taking the credits." Uriel said as he handed him his 'Sage' ID card which Alessandro made sure to study in detail.
"I... well... I think I'll take your offer of paying at a later date." The old man chuckled awkwardly after showing his empty pockets. "Since you already agreed to retrieve my daughter in exchange for... credits, we need to determine exactly what kind of hybrid are you, so we can plan a strategy to face the society."
"Hold your horses, I haven't agreed to anything yet. Also, I'm not a hybrid, just a regular human."
"There's no need to hide your true nature, it doesn't matter what kind of hybrid you are, the council will greet any species into its fold." Alessandro smiled reassuringly.
"I'm not hiding anything."
"From what I heard your trait is about speed, yet you can summon weapons and also regenerate... It would explain how were you able to fight an entire night without rest and come back unscathed."
"I wouldn't say I came out unscathed." Uriel lifted his shirt revealing a series of injuries, bruises and some bones clearly out of place causing Alessandro's face to turn into a pale shade of white.
"You don't have the ability to regenerate! But then, how..."
"It seems there's quite a few misunderstandings. Nika!" Uriel shouted and Nika's figure rose up from his shadow. "I wasn't alone and I also had help from all of my friends. Besides, I think I would have noticed by now if I was some kind of hybrid like you guys."
"Then I must ask you this question, why do you want to help us? It would make sense that a regular human would side with their own species after all."
"I'm not no their side, but I'm certainly not on yours either."
"Then what side are you on?" Alessandro directed a questioning look to the young hunter.
"I'm on my own side." Uriel's eyes glinted in slight blue and silence ensued until the meal was served.
So far, his meeting with Alessandro had been more helpful than he expected it to be and his only regret was to not charge him an even bigger sum for the rescue, though now he had the chance to negotiate a better deal since he just asked him to rescue his daughter who remained inside the dungeon.
Of course, Uriel wasn't going to mention that he knew his daughter was Ciara, the cute girl that for some strange reason wanted to date Emma and that she was still with Luna on an expedition to the third world. If Alessandro knew that he would need to return to the dungeon to rescue Luna anyway, he would be less inclined to pay the hefty sum he was about to ask.
"A hundred million and I'll save her." Uriel finally said, the amount so vast it felt surreal to even say it out loud.
"Done." Alessandro agreed on the spot.
'Dammit!' Uriel inwardly cursed.
"Oh! I'll also need to take some of your guys, only volunteers of course." Uriel let out.
"Hmm... I thought you already counted with us to infiltrate the dungeon." Alessandro blurted out in shock.
"That won't be necessary. In fact, more people would only make things more difficult for us. The only reason why I need some of you to stay behind is because I need people to keep Ciara safe..." realizing his blunder, Uriel stopped his speech.
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"That sounds reasonable, but please... my daughter is most precious to me. Bring her back to me and hybrid or not, you will forever be family."
Alessandro turned out to be way more appreciative and patient than Uriel expected him to be. Most of the wealthy people he'd ever met had always acted like self-absorbed people with little regard for others, but there was a strange warmth in his voice, one that somehow reminded him of Mister Scofield.
Uriel attempted to keep his face from souring at the memory of what happened to Mister Scofield and he wondered if there was at least a slim chance that he survived. Jon didn't say much about Scofield, but going by how serious his wounds were Uriel could already guess that Mister Scofield's situation couldn't be much better.
After abruptly finishing his conversation with Alessandro, Uriel excused himself claiming that he was needed at the bridge, though unbeknownst to him turned out to be true.
Most of the remaining Dungeon Raiders were just filling in whatever role they could and although piloting the ship was technically possible with just one person, to do it properly needed more experienced people than they had at their disposal which cut short Medusa's rest.
After summoning everyone to the bridge, Uriel took a glance around and counted them making a mental note of their apparent specialization and realizing they had more medics than engineers and there were even fewer combatants and no rangers remained.
"Is this everyone?" Uriel asked.
"There's a few injured in the medbay... in fact, some of them need urgent treatment and..."
"Fine, medics are dismissed." Uriel said, triggering them to promptly exit the room with quick short paces.
"Are you trying to decide who's going to rescue Luna?" Nika asked.
"Nika, I'm sorry about this but you'll have to sit this one out. I need you to stay in the ship and get everyone to Hollywood megacity while we go inside the dungeon."
"But..." After spending so much time lost in the shadows, the only thing Nika wanted to do was to spend time with Uriel or relax inside his trait, but then she realized why she asked her to stay. It wasn't just because she was always the one in charge of the internal affairs of the Dungeon Raiders, but because Uriel just confirmed he should be able to summon her even at a distance.
"But what?" Uriel asked after noticing that Nika fell silent.
"Nothing, boss. I'll keep things running smoothly until you come back."
"We need a four man team to..."
"Why are you not taking women!? Is it because you think we're weaker?" Medusa butted in.
"I didn't mean it like that, we need a four man and or woman team to infiltrate the dungeon through a secret entrance." He continued until Longlegs lifted a hand.
"If it's through that dark place, I'm out."
"For crying out loud, just listen to me until the end and then relay this information to the hybrids who volunteer to come. I don't know about other dungeons, but I'm quite sure that there's secret entries to the one beneath The Alamo.
We need to find an entrance that has yet to be discovered by anyone and use it to infiltrate the third world while we send a distraction team to attack the known entrances."
"They'll be waiting for us there! It's suicidal! Whoever you send there will come back in a body bag." Phlox stated.
"Miss Phlox! I forgot that you spend quite a while in the army. I'll give you the details and you'll be the one tasked with forming the teams. One for The Alamo and one for the Cathedral, both of them will be decoys. All they need to do is to open fire then turn to run when they chase after them."
"Interesting, but... what if you don't find another entrance?"
"Don't worry about that. I bet one of my artifacts I can find it in a day."
[System notice] Gamble accepted: Magnum revolver has been placed as a wager. Retrieval of said artifact will only be possible after meeting the condition: 'finding an alternative entrance to the dungeon in set time'.
[24h00m00s], [23h59m59s]...
