Chapter 256: A Week Later... (2)

As the news of the Adventures Guild Headquarters sending reinforcements to help suppress and deal with the situation spread amongst the adventures inside the Howling Caverns Dungeon, it inevitably also ended up spreading outside the dungeon and into the Howling Cave City centered around the dungeon, causing the somewhat restless state of the inhabitants to calm down with the news of reinforcements.Although the state of the Howling Caverns Dungeon had remained stable so far, it had also been clear that the situation inside was beginning to get out of control. Slowly moving in the direction of turning into a monster stampede that would then turn into a dungeon breach, something that had originally started to make those living inside the city uneasy wondering if they should take the opportunity to run away while they still had time and find somewhere to hunker down while the situation blew over. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel·fiɾe·net

Not just the normal citizen, but even adventurers had thought along this line, as a monster stampede wasn’t something that could easily be stopped once it began. Only the capital branch of the guild had the strength to suppress that kind of situation and prevent it from turning into a dungeon breach, but it was clear that the capital branch already had their hands full. Making the future of the Howling Caverns Dungeon uncertain.

However, now that news came that the headquarters were dispatching reinforcements, the unease that had swept through the city turned into excitement, as everyone understood very well that there would be no way that the situation would reach the point of turning into a dungeon breach before reinforcements from the Adventures Guild Headquarters showed up.

A dungeon stampede was possible, but hardly a concern for those not inside the dungeon. Not to mention, a dungeon stampede was a clear opportunity for the adventures to show off and kill a rapidly increase their strength, renown and wealth.

With knowledge of the headquarters reinforcements being on the way, those who had originally escaped from the dungeon after finding out about the increasingly dire situation inside wasted no time diving right back in. Not planning to miss out on the upcoming clean up that would be done when the headquarters appeared. Even hoping that they would stand out enough to be allowed to act as support for the team sent by the headquarters, as those powerful teams would normally not care about the materials of monsters below the A Rank. Giving those following behind a massive and lucrative opportunity to handle all those abandoned B Rank Monster corpses that would be left behind.

Of course, it wasn’t just those who wanted to earn a lot that wanted to follow behind them, but also those who wanted to explore the deeper floors of the dungeon, as this would be a rare opportunity to relatively safely enter those lower floors that had remained out of reach for anyone below the A Rank in the past.

The fourth floor was one thing, as there was still an advanced town located there allowing most C or B Rank Adventures a glimpse of the danger that lurked on the fourth floor of the dungeon if they wanted to go down there, but the fifth floor and beyond was completely outside what the local branch had explored and remained out of reach for anyone but the strongest Adventures and even then, the danger so far down was enough to even threaten S Rank Adventures. Meaning that, a team of adventurers rarely ended up exploring anywhere beyond the fourth floor of the Howling Caverns.

For now, at least, the information the guild had on the Howling Caverns Dungeon was still not a complete layout of the dungeon, as the farthest explored floor was reaching the sixth floor.

The reason why this was considered incomplete was not because the exploratory team of adventures who had mapped out a large part of the dungeon when it had first been discovered was unable to reach farther down into the dungeon, but instead because they had been able unable to find the passage leading down to the seventh floor after having determined such a floor did exist through ancient ruins scattered throughout the lower floors of the dungeon.

The guild did want to figure out more about the seventh floor that was supposed to exist, but after repeated failures to find a passage and the Howling Caverns Dungeon being considered stable without any issues, the guild had given up on continuing further exploration of the dungeons lower floors and had instead dedicated those resources involved in exploring the depths of the Howling Caverns Dungeon elsewhere where they were seen as more needed.

In a way, it was this mysterious seventh floor that had been the reason behind the early construction of the town on the fourth floor of the dungeon to act as a frontier base of operation for those powerful adventures attempting to uncover the seventh floor of the dungeon. Allowing the Howling Caverns itself to have a far more developed infrastructure compared to normal dungeons, as most standard dungeons infrastructure only covered down to the third floor.

Only under special circumstances would the guild invest more and push the infrastructure of a dungeon deeper during the initial development of a dungeon.

Normally, for a dungeon’s infrastructure to reach all the way down to the fourth floor would take an immense investment and time for the dungeon branch. Even then, it would still not be certain that the first town established would be able to survive in the long term like the town in the Howling Caverns Dungeon had been able to do.

As for dungeons with infrastructure stretching beyond the first four floors... Those kinds of dungeons were extremely limited and could be considered amongst the most important under the control of the guild, as they were sources of unique materials that couldn’t be found elsewhere or were specific training grounds designed by the headquarters with great difficulty over thousands of years.

Of course, the adventures guild wasn’t the only power in the world that controlled dungeons, as their enemies, like the Holy Flower Sect also controlled dungeons of their own along with the different kingdoms and empires also controlling their own dungeons.

It was just that the Adventures Guild held an almost universal monopoly of dungeons throughout the world. One example would be the Great Sky Kingdom. Inside the kingdom there existed a total of five dungeons, four under the complete control of the Adventures Guild, while the last remained under the partial control of the Great Sky Kingdom, with the guild still somewhat involved in the management of the dungeon.

Only major empires or kingdoms were able to fully control dungeons on their own and even then, a majority of the dungeons inside their territory still fell under the control of the Adventures Guild.

Unfair as this might seem to the different kingdoms and empires throughout the world, the dungeons under the control of the Adventures Guild remained open to everyone and it was a simple fact that only the Adventures Guild had the ability to properly develop the infrastructure required to run a dungeon properly.

For this reason, the Adventures Guild didn’t directly claim the dungeons under their control, but instead simply waited for those different empires and kingdoms to come begging for their help after first realizing that they wouldn’t be able to develop a dungeon on their own.

Those able to develop a dungeon on their own could ignore the Adventures Guild and do everything on their own, but the Adventures Guild didn’t just build up dungeon infrastructure, they also had experts capable of processing any monster materials and gave access to a market that essentially spanned the entire world.

Because of this, even if some of the strongest empires could survive and establish well-functioning dungeons on their own, they still ended up handing over a majority of their dungeons to the Adventures Guild. Knowing that the trade that the flow of adventures provided was far too good for them to give up on.

After all, outside of dwelling into dungeons, adventures also helped control the monster population outside the dungeon and provided a far cheaper way to get rid of monsters compared to using soldiers.

In a way, the Adventures Guild had carved out a way for it to exist everywhere throughout the world without falling out with the local powers.

Of course, it was under the requirement that the Adventures Guild remained neutral. Only acting out against massive organizations like the Holy Flower Sect that was jointly condemned by the world...

"What!? The Howling Caverns Branch informed the headquarters and asked for help!?"

At the same time that the people inside the Howling Cave City were filled with joy learning about the reinforcements from the headquarters, somewhere in a dark corner, a lanky man spit out a large mouthful of ale as he looked straight into the eyes of his now ale covered companion with shock.