Chapter 140: Outrage

For a moment, nobody spoke. The only sounds were the wind shifting the desert sands and the distant, muffled sobs of Rebecca’s sister. The tension in the air felt suffocating.

Then, Aria exhaled shakily. Her lips trembled, and her shoulders started shaking uncontrollably.

“You can’t be serious, right? What instructions?” Her usual serene persona was nowhere to be seen. The Moon Valkyrie was just as outraged as her fellow Valkyries. “Your allies whom you trained and grew alongside for four years now were in extreme danger, with two even tragically falling, yet you dare not go all out as our strongest member? And you have the gall to shift the blame around? Have you no shame?!”

By the end, Aria had teared up. Her tender heart was overcome with grief thanks to the losses they suffered and the gruesome pictures of the fallen that were etched deep into her mind. She might not have known anything personal about them, but they were innocent humans nonetheless. All they had ever wanted was to grow stronger and live their lives, and now their journey was cruelly cut short.

“Tch! What a crybaby. This is just ridiculous. I find myself surrounded by clowns instead of dependable allies.” With that, the blonde woman turned around on her heels and strode off, leaving stomp marks in the sand.

Now that the tension had eased, Kaiden could relax. With a troubled expression, he moved to embrace his silver-haired lover in a protective hug. That was all Aria needed to have her dams truly opened. The stress and trauma hit her hard, and she was finally allowed to let it all out.

“Let’s take a break,” he said to the other ladies, who nodded with similarly grim expressions. They weren’t crying, but their eyes had the same haunted visage to them. Kaiden then reached for Aria’s lower thighs and lifted the woman into his arms. She immediately attached her legs around his waist in a very needy manner.

The four of them quickly found themselves back in their tent. Kaiden sat down on his bed and gestured for Nyx and Luna to sit next to him while the sobbing woman remained in his arms.

“We’re taking a bit of a personal break. Please enjoy the replay of our fight,” he said before stopping the live feed of the stream.

Luna sat with her arms wrapped around herself, staring blankly at the floor as she muttered with a pale face, “The harsh reality of our new life, huh…” She played many horror games and saw many corpses in said games, but those games could never do justice to the haunting sight that was Rebecca’s legless torso or her sister’s extreme wailing. It wasn’t just gruesome—it was viscerally real in a way that made her stomach churn.

“Poor woman…” Nyx whispered in a sorrowful tone. Her voice was so soft it barely registered over the stillness in the air.

Kaiden’s arms left Aria’s body to envelop the shoulders of his two other girls, bringing the pair into his sides to make a family hug. His heart was heavy, too. While Kaiden didn’t feel like crying, he was very far from being happy.

Elara, their dutiful aide, loyally followed after them into the tent. Once inside, instead of breaking down despite clear signs of distress being etched all over her youthful features, she fulfilled her servant duties by pouring fresh water into four cups and offering it to them alongside chocolate bars.

“Thank you…” Luna said before she eagerly began munching on her dessert.

“Are you okay?” Kaiden asked, examining Elara’s face while taking a sip of water.

She hesitated. Then, with an almost mechanical nod, she whispered, “Yes… I’ve been trained for this.”

Nyx’s sharp eyes caught the lie immediately. She displayed her social butterfly status when she reached out, not for the water, not for the chocolate, but for Elara herself.

Before the girl could react, Nyx pulled her into a hug.

For a second, Elara stiffened. Then, her composure crumbled completely. A small, strangled sound escaped her lips before she buried her face into Nyx’s shoulder and broke down, enveloping the curvaceous woman just like how Aria had embraced Kaiden.

They spent the next hour in silence, doing their best to cope with what had happened. Then, once the girls managed to collect themselves, the group left the tent and saw that the two fallen—or at least what remained of them—were just now being taken outside the portal. Tessa and the rest would take care of the corpses from there.

Kaiden and squad moved outside with them, curious if there was going to be any changes in their strategy.

The dark gazes of the instructors welcomed them, they were watching Vaelira’s stream to remain updated on the ongoings in the dungeon. Contrary to what Kaiden expected, Tessa wasn’t around. It made sense, though. She couldn’t do much here, her time was better used fulfilling her duties as guild leader instead of waiting around.

“Vaelira… I don’t approve of your behavior. Not in the slightest,” the grizzly man who sat in front of them back in the minivan growled while eyeing the blonde woman.

She shrugged her shoulders dismissively. “I don’t remember asking for your approval, Has Been.”

The man flinched at her harsh and outright insulting words but only gritted his teeth in response. Kaiden observed the bossy bitch’s every move as she turned around and moved back into the dungeon, accompanied by a haughty scoff.

The reasoning behind her choice to become a member of a smaller guild was perfectly depicted through this exchange. She truly was the queen bee who couldn’t be touched, having perfect blackmail material over the entire guild by the mere possibility of her leaving if she didn’t like being here any longer.

Vaelira had likely signed a contract stating she would be a member for X years in exchange for receiving their lengthy and thorough training, but any big guild would happily pay the fines for her if she promised to sign with them instead.

He quickly checked her stream to observe the audience’s response, but to his dismay, he was only seeing disgusting simps glorifying her actions, calling her ‘Mistress Vaelira,’ and sending heated emojis.

“… We’re going to look for backup mercenaries, but the chances of us finding them in time is slim,” a female instructor said. “The mission has not been canceled. After taking a breather, return to farming XP.”

Kaiden and his Valkyries nodded, happy with her instructions. Despite the trauma, they weren’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.

The instructor turned toward the sister of Rebecca, who had been sobbing incessantly up until now while clutching the cold hand of her sister’s corpse. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Dorothy. What do you plan to do?”

The woman’s entire body trembled upon her brain registering the words, and she closed her eyes for a few moments, deliberating what she wanted to do.

By the time she opened them, determination had replaced grief. “I’ll return and demolish the dungeon in Reb’s honor.”

The instructor nodded. “I wish you luck.”

And just like that, the teams returned to the D-ranked dungeon.