Noelle put the white cardboard plate in the crashcan at the side of the road, then wiped his mouth with the hankie offered by alan, feeling the sweet aftertaste of chocolate pastry, vale's mood further improved.
As soon as the pastry was finished... Vale finnaly realized that they had crossed most of the distance to the dungeon.
He kept walking, but his eyes wandered to his surroundings, the sun was going setting currently so the lights were a bit dim.
The area around him had been completely abandoned, the buildings were empty and the roads were desolate, the buildings looked like there hadn't been any movement in them for decades, many had their doors removed from the hinges and many more had almost all glasses broken or completly removed. likely due plunderers or scavangers taking anything of value, including the glasses.
the only sign of movement were in the far distance, illuminated by the light emitted from the gigantic sphere of darkness.
Out there, in the distance was a giant sphere of complete darkness, as if light was simply being swallowed inside it, not even giving the giant sphere a colour.
There was a golden white layer of light surrounding the entire sphere, but the layer in the in the front couldn't be seen so it looked like a ring of golden white light inside of a layer.
It did, in many ways, resemble a black hole, but it wasn't one, it was instead the most famous dungeon in the continent called 'the nullstar'.
As vale moved forward, he could make out the movements as actual people, and as he got closer, he could discern that they were wearing armoured clothing and had swords, bows, crossbows, spears and all kinds of other weapons.
a few moments later, he arrived at a large area cleared of all houses, roads, and all other obstructions, it was a plain area. The stone land beneath his feet made noises as he walked on them.
There were a lot of people in the entire place, but not nearly enough to call it 'filles' ir was very much empty.
There, alan was taking vale to a group of people wearing some armoured clothing. As soon as vale saw them, he instinctively knew they weren't normal people, they were awakened.
Wind was howling past him once again, it was actually a bit weird, the wheather in the autumn season in this part of the continent was pretty somber, unlike the northern part, where not only was the wheather lively but it also gave a pleasant feeling, for some reason....
"Ah, you must the new member of the extermination force"
Vale's inner monologue was broken by the sound of a man in his late twenties. he looked to be in his late twenties, at least. It was hard to pin point a awakened's age correctly due to their ascension removing a lot of their impurities like wrinkles, spots etc.
The man had sleek black hair, pale skin, and a lean, well built body. He had thin metal armour over his chest, arms, and everything below the knees. There was some sort of long sword to his side, only that it was curved slightly, vale did not know what it was called.
Behind the man, was a women in her mind twenties, she similarly had jet black hair and flawless pale skin, her eyes were a deep shade of green. She was wearing black leather Armour that covered most of her body, and there was a scimitar and a dagger to her side, she also had dark circles under her eyes.
There were two other people, brothers probably, they both had dirty blonde hair and dark brown eyes, they were both tall and looked very similar.
One of them had a bow with a quiver while the other hand some sort of orb surrounded by multiple rings.
The man with black hair had extended a hand to vale, who stared at it for multiple full seconds before reaching and giving him a firm handshake.
Alan to his side cleared his throat and spoke, sounding a little strained for some reason.
"Mr. Adel, this is vale Noelle . Mister Vale, this is mister adel yorimov..... Uh, vale can't speak"
Adel looked at vale curious for a while, maintaining a firm hold on his hand causing vale's brows to knit together slightly
Then, as if realising what he was doing, adel quickly pulled his hand back and said
"Uh sorry, it's just that you are so young, I was a little startled"
Oh well.... He wasn't wrong, even though there wasn't a limit to who can and cannot awaken, most old people and most young people didn't...no, almost no youngsters and elderly do.
Vale watched intently as adel introduced the rest of the force.
Adel gestured to the tired looking women and said
"This is kia ameron, she is a close quarters combatant"
The women looked at him, tried to give a smile and waved at him.
He then gestured to the two other people
"These two are twins, Miguel ilan and ander ilan, both of them are long range combatants"
The one with the bow was Miguel and the one with the strange looking orb was ander.
Both men nodded at him before going back to what they were taking about.
Adel then went on to chat with alan for a while before all members of the extermination force were right in front of the dungeon.
Due to the sheer size and how close they were to the dungeon, it simply looked like a gigantic wall of darkness that seemed to stretch to all directions.
Adel turned to them, looked around for a second before looking straight at vale.
"Ah, you don't need to be tense okay? We mostly deal with grain rank eternals, plus, we will protect you until you can adjust to it"
Vale nodded seriously
"And also, the eternals won't know we are there, our presence will take a lot of time to actually fully adjust to the dungeon since we are pretty weak, so during this time where it is adjusting, which is one week, no eternal can sense us..unless of course, they have the ability to search us"
That was... interesting. and definately something alan should've told him
Sending a silent glare towards alan, vale listened to the rest of what adel was saying
"So, we will go inside, do a scouting in an ovel route, and by ovel i mean go towards the left for a day and a half while slowly Advancing invards, then go to the right for twice the distance they went to the left and then come back to where we started at. Oh and, just so you know, what were are doing isn't insignificant since there are hundreds more extermination forces going into the dungeon the same time we are"
'...I know what a ovel is'
Adel looked at vale a bit more intently before asking
"Do...you know how to use the weapons, vale?"
Vale looked at adel straight in the eyes and shook his head, he knew how to fight with a weapon but using it properly was another story.
Adels expression strained a little as he threw a glance at alan with a strange expression.
Then, he sighed and said
"Well, no worries, kia will teach you"
And with that, adel turned around, and walked into the black hole like dungeon, followed by kia, then ander and Miguel.
Vale took a deep breath, and then entered straight through it.
Immediately, a strange sensation travelled through both his body and soul, while his Existance was completely un effected.
A few seconds past he Opened his eyes.