Report

"Okay, you said you have important and potentially sensitive information?" A tall bulky figure covered in pink skin with red stripes, long white hair, and two black horns coming from his forehead. He was at least 3.5 meters tall, a clear indication that the man speaking was an Oni.

A rather battle-hungry and physically strong race. Still, they are also incredibly intelligent in all forms, from emotional intelligence, and battle intelligence, to even the calculative abilities that could rival some devices made purely to do nothing but calculate. The guild master also had one more distinctive feature, 10cm long ears much like Dridros', showing that he is an elf-oni hybrid something relatively new to this world and very rare, but very powerful both magically and physically.

Next Dylan spoke up. "Yes sir, we think we may have found the cause of the surge delay. It was the formation of a new dungeon, we believe the power absorbed by the dungeon core drained just enough power from the local mana vein to completely halt the surge, not only that but as you've said this exact event is happening everywhere, we believe the surge happened differently for no discernible reason and its possible countless dungeons have formed around the world, and we ask you to report this to other adventuring guild branches so they can search for any new dungeons."

The guild master stared at the three adventurers in front of him, turned around and walked over to his desk, and pressed a blue crystal suspended by a spring-like structure into a thin silver box.

"Denise, I'm going to need three lie detector kits, a mass urgent meeting forum, as well as a subjugation quest forum."

From the box spoke a voice, the same secretary from earlier. "Yes sir. Right away sir."

Shortly after the same secretary walked in with a tray filled with the requested materials. While that happened the guild master had brought out a notepad and prepared quill and ink.

"As in the protocol you have where these lie-detecting necklaces, they are magically enchanted to detect both lies and any magic which tries to interfere with it. Tell me what you saw and you will be paid accordingly."

Being given permission Dylan began speaking "After taking an investigation quest we were looking around and eventually found what we supposed was a dungeon, entering it we saw three paths and took the rightmost path, after a while of not seeing anything the path started going downwards and eventually we met a group of Kobolds. But these kobolds were different, instead of red scales and brown fur, their scales were beige with ash-grey fur. We also have a corpse for investigation.

"But as you know Kobolds mean dragons, while the dungeon is new if we let it grow it could be an easy source of dragon scales of various levels for cheaper scale mail armor or dragon-slaying weapons."

"Also if I may be so bold might I recommend investing in this dungeon? If we use low-level monster crystals and monster meat we can rapidly level up its inhabitants and their strength, then using monster lures the dungeon itself will grow as it needs the life force to start spawning higher-tier monsters, and if we regularly go in for materials we can probably keep up with the dungeons strength and we can easily guarantee a safe true dragon farm which would be a great boon to the local guild and town as cheap dragon materials skyrocket the local adventurer strength and attract both merchants and more adventurers with the prospect of powerful materials. But that isn't all, the dungeon has a dungeon master there is a good chance it at least was a wyvern which now has the darkness element Sir Giony."

Too stunned to speak the guild master was staring at the party when suddenly he spoke out. "Not a single lie, wow… I agree with you wholeheartedly about your dungeon investment plan. Dragon materials are only as strong as the dragon they come from so having dragons that are slightly stronger than ourselves in there at all times with controlled checkpoints to section off the dungeon into layers to stop weak adventures from getting themselves killed, then we could (mumble)."

"Oh sorry yes, go to the dissection rooms I'll give your kill a private room with our lead butcher, your payment is being calculated as we speak, but I estimate at least five gold and that is if I was being scummy with buying your information, even more, if it turns out what you predict is true and we discover more dungeons, you might have stopped the breaking of countless dangerous dungeons that would have otherwise gone unfound."

The next day, the guild master Giony is in a small circular room no bigger than 30 square feet in front of him was a crystal ball that was shining brightly, and several translucent panels floating around the space. There were almost countless diverse and unique faces from Elves to Beastkin, there were even other Oni and Orks.

"I come with some potentially disturbing news. News that if we are lucky can make us a ton of money. I had a party investigate the surge in my area and that party found a dungeon, they suspect there might be more so I request you start a search for more dungeons"

A large gasp could be heard from around the room.

"Are you serious?"

"That is just preposterous"

"Do you know how crazy that sounds"

"Not just crazy, but expensive for a good chance of nothing at all!"

Giony stood there stoic and took all of the insults thrown at him.

"Yes I know, but I must ask you where the mana went it doesn't just disappear like that? We found a dungeon in our local surge center, and in the same area, a dragon-type dungeon appeared. The amount of mana buildup that has gone missing also lines up with the amount needed for a dungeon, especially since this dungeon has a dungeon master. Look if you don't find anything I will personally pay for the quest compensation. But if a dungeon goes unchecked the eventual surge will be extremely dangerous, especially if it's something like an undead dungeon or spirit dungeon, even fresh they can do lots of damage. That isn't a risk I don't want to take and won't take. I myself will continue searching in the effective surge range and then some. It'll be expensive but in my opinion, I'd rather pay for nothing rather than not pay for safety we desperately need and don't even know it."