"Can you please explain what's going on?"
"It's a long story," Ruby began, "First off this labyrinth is under some weird phenomena or something, since even though it is tamed, there were multiple sightings of chimeras all over the floors."
She took a pause, gazing at me to gauge my reaction, but I was just listening with a calm poker face.
"Chimeras are entities rarely seen in tamed dungeons, but they are typically a merge of all or multiple boss monsters." her gaze flicked to the dead corpse of a chimera outside the boss room.
"Just like that one, a mix of gilded coohen, red anthro and goblin warrior."
She was going pretty in depth with my question, but I liked it. I wanted as much knowledge about this world as I could get.
I nodded to prove that I was listening, as she continued.
"I am guessing that these men underwent a mana frenzy due to the overwhelming magical power of the chimera's corpse. Though…" she looked into my eyes weirdly, "How did nothing happen to you?"
Ah shit. Mana again?
Though I was glad that my magic was as high as it was. Or I would've been running around chomping on humans for magic power.
I guess Claire and the rest forgot about this as the chimera's magical power must be pitifully weak for them. They ignored it, and these two poor guys suffered.
Ruby was still waiting for the answer of how I was safe from it, but to be honest I owed her no explanations.
"I don't know either," I shook my head, and before she could fire up with follow up questions, I fished out a 500 Sol note from my pocket.
"I don't have the change, so just keep it, think of it as an interest for helping me so much." I extended it to her.
I hope she doesn't take it though.
Paying 500 for some basic coaching and 35 Sol debt?
But even if she does, I don't care. It was about the ego anyway.
"No no, it's fine." she shook her head.
"I insist–"
Before I could continue, I felt the presence of the annoying people of Ruby's ragtag group.
And the most infuriating, the cocky bastard Klaus.
"So you ended up finding a new group, huh? Or did you run to your owner and she decided to take pity on you?" Klaus snickered, his eyes looking at me in distaste.
Is he trying to one-up himself in Ruby's eyes by degrading me?
That would be a solid plan, if not for the fact that I could see Ruby's regret about judging me by my class.
She didn't like that she acted that way, and she definitely won't be impressed by Klaus flexing that mistake again.
Hah, what a newbie.
"Klaus, stop." Ruby said lightly, sighing as she struggled to keep her tone nice.
Lina and Greg were present too, standing on the side as if they didn't care about me at all. And maybe they didn't, good for them.
I directly ignored Klaus's words as I looked at Ruby, "So is there any knowledge about the weird phenomena in this labyrinth yet?"
"I know just as much as you about this Aaron," She shook her head, "We were just running this second floor and found you in the boss room. As for the chimera, I was able to guess about it by looking at the corpse."
"Still, there must be something."
"No, except for the fact that we should leave this labyrinth, my strength won't prove to be too much of use in higher floors, and most of the lower chimeras are being cleared as we speak."
Claire's badass sword slash flashed in my mind, reminding how she took out the chimera in a single hit.
Indeed, there was no use for Ruby in higher levelled matters.
"Understandable, Claire will be taking a long while so we should head out." I nodded, ignoring Klaus's taunts when I mentioned Claire.
He was laughing if that was the owner of me, or if she was my sugar mommy.
Those stupid questions weren't even worth answering.
In the end, we decided to head to the hot dog stall that we met at. There I can get my 500 Sol changed for smaller notes and pay Ruby back.
It was an easy way out as I was used to the process a bit by now.
On the way, I met with the lady guard that told me how to use the potion, but unlike her usual flirty look and teasing smirk, she looked dead serious.
Her eyes narrowed at us, seeing as we brought out an unconscious body with ourselves.
"It's mana frenzy. There are some deaths on floor 2, please send someone to retrieve them." Ruby calmly informed the lady guard, who nodded and unhooked her walkie talkie.
The guard asked some more questions to us, which were mostly answered by me or Ruby, since I was a live spectator and Ruby seemed most knowledgeable, and talkative, at least.
"You guys go on ahead, we will take this man to get healed." Lina interrupted our walk to the stall.
Greg nodded as well, seemingly enthusiastic about getting some time alone.
Ruby glanced at me and them, before nodding, "Sounds good, meet us at the stall after that."
I was internally screaming that please take Klaus with you, but alas, bro followed us along shamelessly.
Luckily he stopped his taunts after seeing that I wasn't reacting or getting mad, it just ended up ruining his image.
After reaching there, we ordered three hot dogs and I passed a 500 Sol note to get it exchanged.
"Thanks for your assistance, Ruby." I returned the 35 to Ruby, finally feeling at peace with myself.
Now, I was at a loss with what to do.
I didn't know what to do until Claire returned.
Ruby was also sitting silently near me, gulping down the dog with medium sized bites.
And thus, time passed in awkward silence.
Somehow, during this time, a few girls dared to come near our group, and since I was near Ruby, most of them ended up hitting on Klaus.
Who didn't mind the attention one bit, casually chatting with them.
"Aaron, I am sorry about judging you earlier."
Ruby apologized in a small voice, as if she was feeling ashamed to admit it but didn't want to hold onto regrets either.
I turned to look at her, as she was gazing at me as well.
Our eyes met, and this time, I could see that she was no longer looking down at me just because of my class.
I could see that she was being genuine with the apology. I smiled slightly at her, nodding.
"It's okay."