554 There's Other Rejmars Here

"... And then all of you really decided that scattering and fighting by yourselves would be the best choice of action?" Sebastian lectured.

I felt a little awkward as I watched our Head Butler discipline the others for the sloppy battle we went through just now.

Unfortunately I agree with Sebastian on this one…

If this was a normal Dungeon dive, I would normally be the one giving instructions from the back since I would have the clearer picture of the fight as the support. But Sebastian intentionally removed me from that position and, while the girls are very capable in their own right, they seem to have differing ideas on how to fight around me.

Well… Considering the fact that they would most likely be with me most of the time anyway, it wouldn't be a big problem… But I guess Sebastian isn't going to allow the scenario where they can't function without needing my input remain a possibility.

The girls were all seated on their knees in a row, accepting their lecture silently as they reflected on their past mistake.

They had first tried to point out that they managed to defeat all the monsters anyway until Sebastian mentioned that it placed unnecessary stress on the support with their actions, which made them all quiet down immediately.

I felt a little bad because I was of the idea that it was my duty to adapt to my party and support them but Sebastian said that this would just encourage them to be more reckless in the future.

He continued to lecture them for a good half an hour before he finally turned to me.

"Aster, please do use your authority when you need to and be firm when you do it. You are not a follower and their lives depend on you as their leader."

I nodded, "I will keep that in mind."

Sebastian seemed satisfied by my answer and gestured for the others to get up, "Alright. I think that's enough from me. I believe all of you already figured out your flaws by now so I want to see how all of you work on it. For the next floor, I shall be the one navigating and all of you are to respond to any threats we face on your own."

All of us answered affirmatively and returned to our formation with Sebastian at the front this time.

We descended to the next level of the Dungeon and I was quite surprised to see a group of Dungeoneers camped there.

I almost thought it was that Self-Proclaimed Harem King again, but it was a completely different party this time.

The first thing I noticed was that all of them were Rejmars and judging by the quality of the armour and weapons they had, all of them should be veterans.

I did a quick check using [Screened] and it seems like none of them were Off-Worlders and the average stats in this party was around the three hundreds range. They're pretty good.

The Rejmar wearing an armour that had a blue sheen perked up when he saw us.

"Oh? Pretty rare to see non-Rejmar Dungeoneers down here. You guys would normally just head to Dungeon City instead."

Sebastian waved at them, "Please don't mind us, we are merely just passing through."

The Rejmar raised an eyebrow, "What's with all that getup though? You guys have some kind of costume thing or what?"

He must be referring to the fact that all of us were dressed as maids despite being in the Dungeon. I'm guessing that outside of the Lehcarouc Kingdom, our family isn't that well known.

Sebastian smiled wryly at him, "You could say that, yes."

"Hmph… Well you all fought your way down here so I won't say anything about that. But just to let you know, this floor has quite a lot more traps and monsters as compared to the previous floors. You'll die if you're not prepared, ay?"

"Many thanks for your concerns but we will manage."

The Rejmar let out a grunt and went back to conversing with his companions, letting us to continue our Dungeon exploration.

Sebastian led us down one of the corridors and not a minute later, we heard the sounds of metal clashing against metal coming from up ahead.

Our Head Butler showed no signs of altering our path and we continued until we reached the source of the noise.

In the corridor in front of us, five Rejmars were holding their ground against what looked like some kind of giant rat with long, skinny limbs.

[Name: Dungeon Rat Stalker

Race: Monster

Stats:

200 Strength

350 Dexterity

100 Endurance

100 Magic]

Hmm… And the party fighting it has about the same stats as the party we saw before so I don't think this should be a tough battle for them.

The Rat Stalker lunged at the Rejmars but their tank moved forward and caught the blow with his shield, not even giving an inch of ground from the impact.

His comrade then stabbed at the monster with his spear from behind the shield, catching the monster in its side and scoring a hit that drew blood.

It tried to swipe its other claw at the spear user hiding behind the shield but the tank simply repositioned himself to parry the blow away with his shield.

Another Rejmar then leapt from the side with a warhammer as big as his body raised in the air and smashed the weapon against the monster's head, causing it to let out a high pitched squeak of pain.

The last Rejmar behind the tank then pointed his palm at the warhammer wielding Rejmar and I realised he was casting [Strength] on him, outing him as an Iatromancer.

The buffed Rejmar continued charging towards the still stunned monster and smashed his weapon down on the monster again, this time completely crushing the monster's skull and turning it into paste.

Unfortunately, that also meant that the monster's blood and viscera were splattered all over the place and the tank had to raise his shield to block them from falling on him.

The spear user and support weren't that lucky and were pretty much drenched from head to toe in monster blood.

"Godamnit! Didn't we talk about this just now you twat?! Stop smashing up the monsters!!" The spear Rejmar roared.

"Huh?! You asking the guy with the big hammer to not smash things?! How about you don't poke things with your spear you stupid twat?!" He roared back.

The Iatromancer was frantically wiping his robes, "Ughhh… I just cleaned myself after the last one too… Bleh… I think some got in my mouth…"

The tank was about to say something until he realised that we were standing behind them.

"Ah, hello. Sorry, are we blocking the path? We'll get out of your way now."

The warhammer wielding Rejmar wasn't as courteous though as he pointed his weapon at us, "What are you looking at? You wanna fight or something? That monster is ours so if you wanna steal it from us, I'll--"

The spear user smacked him with the butt end of his spear, "Shut up, dude. You're always like this… This is why you're still a fucking virgin. Not to mention why no girls want to join our party."

"Sh… Shut up! This has nothing to do with it!!"

"Yes it does!"

The tank ignored his two teammates and gestured for us to pass them.

We walked by them quickly and the sounds of their argument could still be heard even as we turned the corner.

That's… Interesting. I suppose the Dungeons I've been to so far have been relatively empty so I don't come across other Dungeoneers while I'm diving in them, much less see how the other teams work in a Dungeon setting where I was not a part of their party.

I wouldn't have minded seeing how those Rejmars were going to process that monster though.

And as though the universe heard my wish, we turned the corner to see another group of Dungeoneers gathered around a defeated golem while hacking away at it with pickaxes.

This group was also Rejmars which made me wonder if only Rejmars would come to this Dungeon under normal circumstances.

This party even seemed to have a designated porter as well since they were placing all the rocks mined from the golem into one of their party member's bags in particular.

That porter in particular noticed us, "Hey, you aren't here to rob us, right?"

That prompted the rest of his party to stop and turned to us with their pickaxes still raised in the air.

Sebastian raised his hand in greeting, "We are just passing by. Although I wish to ask, there seems to be more Dungeoneers in here than usual, is there a reason for that?"

He shrugged, "We're just accepting a quest to get down here to gather materials. Dunno about the rest though. Client's paying us a pretty penny to do it too.

"I see… Thank you."

The Rejmar grunted and went back to disassembling the monster.

Oh, so there's normally not supposed to be this many people around huh. So what's going on here?