Infinite Realm

"I'm back." Sato announced as he stepped into the cave that was used as a temporary hideout.

"Oh." Cecilia blinked with surprise.

In her mouth was a piece of dried meat that was held by her hands. Meat particles had tainted her luscious lips with even her blue-white gown not left untouched.

Seeing Sato staring at her, Cecilia hurriedly put the meat away and dusted herself, but she was unaware that her lips still had a bit of meat on them.

"You're back so soon?" Cecilia innocently blinked at Sato.

'So soon? I took at least an hour to get back.' 

While he thought this, Sato didn't plan on letting his thoughts known as there was no need for such.

"You've got a bit of meat on your mouth." Sato pointed out.

"Huh?" Cecilia widened her eyes before her cheeks flushed red as she hurriedly turned her back to Sato and wiped her lips clean.

In the end, she was still an aristocrat and a female one at that. Her appearances mattered the most to her and with her being alone with a young man like Sato, Cecilia was even more obsessed about that. If was only because she was injured before that she failed to realise this. With Sato having gone away for while, Cecilia had enough time to recall her circumstances and self.

"Sorry about that." Cecilia whispered.

"It's time we head back to civilization. Let's go." Sato plainly replied.

"Oh, alright." Seeing that Sato thought nothing of the matter, Cecilia recovered herself and prepared to leave.

After Sato had packed the remaining herbs and food he left behind, he turned towards the exit and departed. Cecilia followed right after him as to her, Sato was her key out of here.

The distance from the cave to the original exit of the cavern was quite large but nothing much for Sato. It was Cecilia who happened to be dragging him down. Even though Sato had administered treatment to her, she was still in the recovery phase so she couldn't overexert her body. So even though he could make it to the exit in less than 2 hours -since he had to be cautious for monsters-, Sato had to slow down his pace for Cecilia to catch up.

"Meow."

The little feline led the way as usual, keeping a lookout for monsters that maybe closing in on them.

It took the party of three almost 3 hours to make it to the exit. 

'Sighs. With all this time spent, I doubt we would be able to clear the dungeon before the top guilds.' Sato began accepting a fact he originally refused to.

Since he left the team, at least 14 hours had gone by. Adding that to the previous 15 hours of the various guilds starting their raid, a whopping 29 hours had already gone by. This was equivalent to slightly more than half a day in reality. With the e aggressiveness of the various guilds in raiding their respective dungeons, this amount of time was enough for the overall strength of the raid teams to increase by a substantial percentage even if they had yet to conquer their dungeons. 

Considering that the dungeon Sato and the rest had aimed for was much higher in difficulty than the rest, it was inevitable for them to fall behind the too guilds in terms of progress. While Sato knew this, he still held onto a bit of hope that it wouldn't be so. But now, Sato couldn't see that hope again.

'Sighs. Oh well, it's just a first completion achievement. There will be many such achievement in the future.' Sato comforted himself.

"Meow Meow." Milo abruptly halted.

"What's up?" Sato asked.

"Meow." Milo 'spoke'.

Sato frowned as he looked up ahead, seemingly stuck in a dilemma.

"What's up?" Cecilia asked as she couldn't understand a word from Milo. The auto-translation effect seemed to be only between the pet and master.

"There's a strong monster up ahead. A very strong one. It's going to be quite difficult to get past it." Sato said with a wry smile.

"What? Impossible. Wasn't the area clear when you went past the first time? Why now?" Cecilia almost broke down.

She had already suffered to a monster assault before and now that there seemed to be another infront of her, it was inevitable that she would react this way.

"I wish I could answer that." Sato smiled wrly.

From what Milo had said, a powerful monster was resting right in front of the exit of the cavern. Even though it was asleep, Sato didn't want to take the risk of coming close if it wasn't worth it. Who knows, maybe it would sense them once they got close and attack. 

'The cavern is quite big. Who knows whether I will find another exit even after exploring it. Heck, would I be able to survive?' Sato was stuck at an impasse.

"Looks like we have no choice." Sato sighed.

"You want to go there?" Cecilia widened her eyes in fear and shock.

"Apart from the exit before us, the only option is to scale the walls of this cavern and aim for the opening at the ceiling," Sato glanced above, staring at the opening at the ceiling that let in sunlight. "and that's impossible."

"But, the monster is there. It could spot is once we get close." Cecilia refused to give up.

"Indeed. Once we get within its sensory range, there's no doubt that we would alert the monster. If it's in a deep sleep, then we won't have to worry about that. However, I doubt that so we also have to take precautions." Sato said.

"Then why?"

Sato asked explained, "Who knows whether there's another exit here. Even if there is, how long would it take us to find it? Can we be assured that we would find it without exposing our existence to the other monsters? Rather than take such a risk, I'd rather take the one before us." 

Cecilia went silent as she knew that Sato made a point. Looking for another exit was not only risky but extremely time-consuming. Who knew whether they would even find one? There was also the fact that she was in a hurry to get to the Duke's manor as her family's heritage was at stake. Cecilia couldn't bear to spend too much time on this as each second that went by was a second of her family being at risk. The faster she got to the Duke's manor, the better. 

So even if Sato's plan was extremely risky, Cecilia didn't straight up reject it.

"Let's go then."