Chapter 278 So You Are...
Nial had no idea where the others were but they should be fine.
They were strong and independent. Thus, Nial followed Timothèe to meet up with his group. Timothée's first impression had changed quite a bit. If he had seemed aloof and arrogant before, he was much easier to approach now.
Nial was not sure why his behavior had changed so drastically, but he presumed that Timothée was concerned about the gazes of the people around them. Many Elves and rather powerful Originals were looking at him and Nial. This was rare for Timothée even though he was fairly talented.
To gain the Elves' interest or the interest of one of the strongest human Originals, one had to be more than a bit talented.
That was also why he glanced to his side to look at Nial every now and then.
'So you are the one, who is attracting everyone's attention? In that case, it is about time for me to find out why!' Timothée smiled faintly at this thought. They met up with his remaining team and introduced each other in a simple manner.
"Now that everyone is here, I want to introduce you to a new member of our team. His name is Nial, and he will temporarily join us for the conquest of the large-scale Expert dungeon. If the group dynamics are excellent and everybody gets along with each other very well, we can become a permanent team, but that is something we can discuss after the conquest," Timothée's introduction was quite simple.
There was no need to say a lot because one could figure out the most important information during the conquest.
"The tiny woman with fierce temper is called Cecile, the tall and shy woman is called Kelia, and this wonderful fat pig is called Leo," Tiimothée introduced calmly, pointing to every single person in their group when he 'introduced' them.
"You piece of shit! Who is tiny?!" The shortest member of their group roared out as her red and curly hair was wobbling around.
She was obviously the tiny Cecile with a fierce temper. Cecile glanced at Nial for a moment after she calmed down before bowing to him.
"Don't hold us back, and we're fine!" She muttered while still trying to contain her fierceness. Meanwhile, Kelia blushed a bit as she noticed that Nial had turned in her direction.
But upon seeing his milky and lifeless eyes her heart skipped a beat. Her embarrassment vanished into thin air, and she immediately got comfortable.
Someone, who was not able to see, couldn't tease her for being tall and timid. That was a great sign, and she liked it.
'Wait, what am I even thinking? Am I just happy that someone is disabled? I'm such a despicable woman…' She mentally chided herself for what she had just thought.
"So you're this Nial, I've heard a lot about you!" The chubby man called Leo exclaimed with a bright smile and reached his hand out to welcome Nial with a traditional handshake.
Nial's hand reached out as well, and he shook Leo's without hesitation.
'Is that a contest of strength?' Nial suddenly wondered when Leo began to squeeze his hand. His body was wobbling under the force he was using to shake Nial's hand.
Everyone could tell what Leo was doing. Kelia was worried that her friend would break their new team member's hand.
However, upon looking in Timothée's direction, she could tell that their leader probably wanted this situation to happen.
'Why is his expression so bad?' Kelia suddenly wondered as she looked at Timothée.
At first, Nial accepted whatever Leo was doing, but the young man had overestimated his physical strength while underestimating Nial's brute force.
'As an Original at the 2nd Advanced Mirae rank you want to play around like this? Well let's do that then,' Nial thought as a small devilish smile appeared on his face.
All of a sudden, he squeezed Leo's hand hard, thereby easily overpowering Leo, whose hand had begun to cramp. His hand opened instinctively, only for Nial to let go of it as well.
"Nice to meet you," Nial greeted calmly while smiling straight at Leo's red and exhausted face. He turned around a moment later to face Timothée with the exact same smile on his face.
"Which dungeon will we enter?" He asked, completely ignoring the awkward atmosphere.
'Leo spoke about Nial as if he was someone popular, is his brute force the reason for this?' Timothée thought for a moment before answering Nial's question.
"It's the Nightfall valley. I'm not sure if you've already heard about this dungeon but monsters from the 1st to the 3rd Prym rank live in this dungeon. Their drop rate for ability crystals is quite high."
Nial nodded his head but he didn't look very impressed by it. Ability crystals were extremely valuable but Nial was more interested in collecting ingredients that could be used to create runic armaments.
'Well, I need to start searching for an ability crystal soon, either way.' Nial thought half-heartedly.
Due to the Odyssey seed's versatile functions, it was not like he needed another ability right now. His mana core may have reached the Mirae rank, which meant that he could bind his second ability to his mana core, but that was already it.
His dark energy, [Mana Sense], and the Curse [Hodur's Heir] were already very powerful and there were numerous things he had to learn about his Innate ability, the Odyssey seed, and his Curse.
And then, there was also the Ankh, which invigorated Nial upon getting activated.
There were too many things Nial had yet to comprehend but time didn't seem to slow down in the slightest. Thus, he didn't actually bother to actively research finding a new ability.
It would take quite a while to find a suitable ability that was compatible with his Odyssey seed like [Hodur's Heir] either way.
After Timothée told them where they would go, the group of five went their separate ways. The fierce tiny Cecile showed interest in Nial's physical strength. He looked so weak and he was obviously of a lower rank than Leo, yet, his brute force was stronger than that of her friend.
This was very interesting, and her biggest reason to approach him and bombarding him with questions.
Meanwhile, Kelia followed the two silently, while playing with her long and wavy brown hair.
"You used all your strength, didn't you?" Timothée asked Leo when the two walked far ahead of the others so that they couldn't be heard, or so they thought.
"I definitely did…but it doesn't look like the same applies to Nial…I knew that he was a monster ever since I had heard about him…but still…" Leo said in a depressed tone. His confidence had been crushed, and Timothée saw this clearly.
He felt a bit bad about it. Without much force, Timothée slapped Leo on his shoulder.
"Don't worry too much. Many Elves and very influential Originals seemed to be interested in him. I had already expected him to be somewhat different," Timothée revealed with a deep sigh.
"Do you have no idea about the rumors pertaining to Nial?" Leo suddenly asked, his expression changing a bit. He wondered if his leader was just ignorant about the events that happened in and around the Forest of Life, or plain stupid.
'It is not like you met a young blind man around our age, whose first name is Nial. Even his hair is silver as described in the news…' Leo thought with a frown when he noticed the confused expression on Timothée's face.
"Well, then let me tell you…" Leo started with a sigh, the thought about his loss against Nial slowly waning.
Nial just smiled upon hearing all of this as his highly sensitive hearing sense picked up everything. He didn't care if someone knew him or not, but Leo made it look like he was some sort of high-class Celebrity.
And based on the way Leo explained the incidents about the Forest of Life, Nial clearly understood that someone had exaggerated the story.
'Well, I don't really feel like a superhuman existence, but if someone wants to share such a story with me, why not?' Nial thought, not really caring about it.
Finally, after walking for a while, they reached the Nightfall valley dungeon portal. It was much bigger than ordinary dungeon portals, but the mana it released was quite similar to an ordinary Low Expert dungeon.
There was no need to be worried about anything so Nial wanted to enter the dungeon instantaneously.
However, a hand reached out to him all of a sudden when he was about to step inside the portal and pulled him back.
"Don't. We need to prepare ourselves first. We should also go in with a formation so that we can face the beasts inside the dungeon the moment we enter it," Cecile suddenly warned in a very serious tone.
Nial didn't say anything but his expression seemed to speak volumes about what he thought of their behavior.
'Is that really necessary?' was written all over his face. Cecile frowned at his reaction and she wanted to beat him into a pulp.
However, everyone in their group had to be in their best health, both physically and mentally to prevent any mishaps from occurring.
She let go of Nial and finished her preparations by taking out light metal armor and golden shining gauntlets.
The others put on their armor, wore their accessories, and wielded their weapon of choice as well. They put a few vials inside their belt's potion pockets before they nodded their heads.
"I'm ready," Timothée declared while wielding a Superior graded longsword. He smiled confidently while looking over his small group with pride.
Everyone was well geared and was looking at him with battle lust. They wanted to get rich, and the Nightfall valley was one of the best and safest ways to achieve this at their rank!
"So am I. Let's go then," Nial's confident voice suddenly reached them. A cape covered his back partially. Other than that, he had no protective garment on his body.
'Is he insane? Does he want to die?' All of them thought at once at the sight of Nial.
However, nobody said anything as the Dragonflame Spear manifested in his hand all of a sudden. It released strong mana currents on its own. The weapon in Nial's hand was much better than anything the others owned.
This was as clear as day.
Quieting down before they could even say something, everyone sighed inwardly, wondering who exactly Nial truly was.
They entered the dungeon with the same greed as before.
Yet, right now, their mind was also on Nial as they began to wonder just how strong their new comrade was.
'He won't snatch all of our loot, will he?!'