Rise My Elementals!

Proofreader: M_W Miss Fierce

"How's the situation for the rest of the floors?" Elvis asked. Though, deep inside of his mind, he was already somewhat expecting the worst-case scenario.

"They…" The soldier hesitated whether he should give the report or not due to how huge their losses were. 

"You can say it, Captain Enzo. Just from the group assigned on the first floor alone, I have already prepared myself to hear even more bad news from you," Elvis motioned his hand nonchalantly at the soldier.

"I have one good news and a lot of bad news for you. Which one do you prefer to hear first?" Captain Enzo asked.

"Oh," Elvis turned to look at Captain Enzo in surprise. He seriously didn't expect that there would finally be some good news for him to hear. Until now, he was constantly receiving bad news after another bad news. This is great for a change. "Let's start with the bad news first before the good news, so that my mood would be lightened up after hearing everything at the end,"

"I understand, sir Elvis," Captain Enzo nodded his head. He continued, "There are six bad news, apart from the previous one I told you about the first floor,"

"Let me guess," Elvis can't help but interrupt. He added, "The bad news is from the second floor to the seventh floor, right?"

"Yes," Captain Enzo confirmed.

Elvis was easily able to guess it correctly because the lower the number of the floor is, the more difficult they are. Take, for example, the tenth and ninth floors that they have already finished exploring. The tenth floor is currently the floor they are standing on. The passageway they mean about is the path in front of them, so it was only natural that it was the first one they have explored as they initially planned on going from top to bottom. 

On the tenth floor, they merely lost thirty soldiers before being able to reach the end, which was nothing but a mere storage room for food and various necessities needed for an Alchemist like papers, ingredients for concocting potions, and many other more items. While on the other hand, they lost more than seventy soldiers on the ninth floor even though they had already gained some knowledge and experience on the tenth floor. In the end, they only found a bedroom that contained some information to confirm that this place was indeed being managed by the number one Alchemist of the Evergreen Royal Family in the past.

After they finished exploring the ninth floor, they concluded that maybe the most important floor to explore is on the first floor. As such, they sent out the majority of their manpower to explore the first floor, thinking that they shouldn't waste any more manpower exploring useless places and focus all of their resources on what they truly intended to find in the secret pathway. 

However, shortly after they began, over half of the manpower they had sent had died, numbering more than one hundred soldiers. It was a quite devastating result just to explore ten percent of the first floor. But what they have gained in return for all of those sacrifices had allowed them to explore thirty percent of the eighth floor easily.

It was then that they discovered that in order to finish exploring this entire place, they would have to explore the other floors as well. 

That was the main reason why they have sent soldiers to explore the remaining eight floors all at the same time so that they could find clues that could help them traverse each of the remaining floors.

Elvis shook his head in disappointment before waving his hand and saying, "Go on,"

"I'll start from the very worst and slowly go down to the good news," Captain Enzo explained. "The eleventh group assigned in the second floor had received thirteen casualties in total and in the end had reached sixty percent of the floor,"

"The seventeenth group assigned in the third floor had received eleven casualties and had finished exploring eighty-three percent of the floor,"

"The twenty-third group assigned in the fourth floor had received eight casualties and had finished exploring fifty percent of the floor,"

"The twenty-sixth group assigned in the fifth floor had received four casualties and had finished exploring seventy percent of the floor,"

"Wait, did the twenty-sixth group ever been replaced by other groups?" Elvis suddenly asked.

"No, sir Elvis," Captain Enzo shook his head. He said, "As a reminder, sir Elvis, they are the number one best performing group we have in our exploration team. They are made up of the remaining survivor from the first exploration we have conducted on the first floor,"

"No wonder they are good. That previous exploration should have given them plenty of knowledge and experience in handling the traps. How great!" Elvis felt a bit delighted after hearing the news. But his expression quickly changed as he realized his mistake. He coughed and said, "I apologize. I didn't mean to be happy for those comrades of theirs that have died… Anyways, you may continue with your report,"

"Yes, sir Elvis," Captain Enzo continued explaining, "The thirty-fourth group assigned in the sixth floor had received three casualties and had finished exploring seventy-two percent of the floor,"

"Lastly, the thirty-ninth group assigned in the seventh floor had finished exploring ninety percent of the floor,"

"Hold on, shouldn't that be good news? If my memory serves me correctly, they were at seventy percent-something an hour ago, right?" Elvis asked in doubt.

"No, sir Elvis. Although the thirty-ninth group has explored more than the other groups in their assigned floor, it was in the cost of losing eighteen soldiers in total," Captain Enzo informed Elvis of the unfortunate news.

"What?! Only two people were able to survive?!" Elvis was instantly rendered shocked. Each group has twenty soldiers each, and there are more than fifty groups in total in their exploration team. If only two people had returned, it's the same as saying that the thirty-ninth group is as good as over, meaning to say that they have lost an entire group in their exploration team. These remaining two people would then have to be reassigned to the reserve group, which is a group where all the other groups would choose soldiers to solve their problem about the lack of manpower. 

"Strangely enough, sir Elvis, these two soldiers were also the only survivors from the thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, and thirty-eighth group that we have previously lost as well. In those three other teams, there were only two people that have survived, which are coincidentally these two people," Captain Enzo expressed his suspicion. Unbeknownst to Elvis, he had already been secretly paying close attention to these two soldiers from the moment they were involved in the loss of two groups. In his opinion, it would have been fine if they were only involved in the loss of one or two groups. But for them to be involved in not three but four groups, this is something that is no longer considered natural. He believes that there is something wrong going on behind the scenes when their group members died which they are still clueless about. For example, they deliberately left their comrades behind in order to save themselves, or worst, they are actually hidden members of the Naughty Elves Organization.

"I agree with you as well," Elvis also felt similarly the same as Captain Enzo. These two people should have probably done something in secret that ended up losing four groups in their exploration team. He instructed Captain Enzo, "Call those two people here. I want to hear from them personally what had happened during their exploration,"

"Yes, sir Elvis," Captain Enzo nodded his head. He quickly bid farewell to Elvis before going to the tent where the two people were requested to stay for further instruction.

After seeing Captain Enzo leave, Elvis started contemplating the most likely answer to his and the former's question. He was most leaning on the possibility that those two people were members of the Naughty Elves Organization that was able to sneak to this place successfully. The question, though, is how exactly they were able to do that? After all, these soldiers present here were the most trusted people of the Evergreen Royal Family aside from the Royal Magical Knights. They had conducted a series of tests to confirm that none of them were members of the Naughty Elves Organization before they were sent here to join the secret operation.

"The only possibility I could think about is these two people had sneaked here between the time when the reinforcement was on its way to this place. But how exactly could they be aware of the secret passageway that the soldiers had taken to get here? As far as I have known, only Queen Tina knew of that place since that path was intended to be used for evacuation in case someone dares to attack the Emerald Magic Academy," Elvis could still not find any possible answer to his question.

Since there is no way for him to get an answer if he continues to ask himself, Elvis decided, "I guess I have no other choice but to wait for Captain Enzo to return,"