The Author's POV

-Khuala! -Khuaka! -Khuaka!

Like a tsunami, green-like creatures of shorter-than-human stature with flat and long hooked noses, bat-like ears, and malevolent expressions with twisted smiles appeared from every corner of the cave.

"W-hat's that?"

"Are th-ose globins?"

"Hiiii"

Surprised by the unexpected development, the students at the front immediately stopped running and huddled up together.

With their backs against each other, they each raised their weapons and nervously looked towards their surroundings. Goblins appeared en masse everywhere they looked.

"W-what do we do?"

"I-i don't know"

Despite goblins being the most common monsters inside of dungeons, they were still dangerous creatures.

With their excellent sense of smell, hearing, and tendency to hunt in groups, many aspiring heroes fell because of them

...lest needed to be said about students who had no experience of being inside of dungeons.

"We-re sorroun-ded"

Staring at the numerous goblins blocking their paths, one of the students couldn't help but say as his voice shook.

"S-something is defi-netly wrong. H-how can there possibly be so many goblins inside of a ranked dungeon. W-we're all going to die!"

He wasn't the only one who thought of it that way, as almost everyone at the front shook in fear.

I mean, although it was dark, the number of goblins before them counted to at least a thousand. How were they supposed to fight with that many goblins?

"Move aside you bunch of wimpy primates"

Indifferently walking ahead of the students, Melissa's figure appeared holding onto a long metal spear with flame engraving at the tip of the spear.

Without giving a chance for the students to figure out what was going on, leaning backward, Melissa adjusted her position and proceeded to throw the spear in her hand.

-Swoooosh!

Like a bolt of lightning, the spear traveled through the sea of goblins leaving behind a red trail of flames...

-Kacha!

-Booom!

Soon after, an explosion reverberated across the whole dungeon. The cave shook, and debris and dust flew everywhere.

debris cleared up, the students couldn't help but be stunned

"W-what?"

"Huh?"

was no longer visible, and what replaced it was a single goblin wearing a mage

it was supposed to look

body was lifelessly sitting on the hard ground with a spear imbued on top of

that a goblin

"W-hat?"

it was all

body of the goblin that was currently

soon understood what had

A more evolved and rarer

an illusion to scare the students into thinking that they were currently facing a horde of goblins. It was a fairly common strategy they used to hunt down their

they had to do was look for the reflection that

could instantly find where the goblin mage was and thereafter

had learned this in class, but it was evident that most

their nervousness, but it seems like everything that the students had learned in

of everyone, with the most gentle smile Melissa could muster, looking back at the students at the front

nuisance, so please either die or move out of the

looking back, Melissa picked up her spear

the back, looking at Melissa's disappearing figure, I nodded my head

that's Melissa for

Yup...yup...yup

most gentle face

to say, despite the fact that Melissa was only F ranked, her power was no

two to three rings would do the

"Let's go"

"Follow her"

students woke up from

"Huuuu..."

the students that followed Mellisa's footsteps, taking a

for no

was one of the criteria used to assess the performance of the students, I couldn't waste any more

mana inside of my body,

as I moved forwards, with each step I took, the wind

across the dungeon as my speed increased by small increments with each

-Wooosh!

"W-what was that?"

"Huh?"

surpassed some of the students who were running ahead. Though I was still far from the first placed people, I was confident that I would

-Clank! -Clank! -Clank!

forward, the loud sound of students fighting against

to somewhat dodge the battles...but I

...and I was right.

appeared before

have enough time to stop. Hence, briefly glancing towards my surroundings to make sure