Rise of the F-Rank Hero-Chapter 160: Reunion

They descended into the jungle. It was quiet. Too quiet.

Usually, a floor like this would be teeming with aggressive predators—Stalkers, Cave Drakes, Poison Frogs. But the jungle was silent, save for the dripping of water.

Ten minutes in, they found out why.

"Holy..." Rowan, the young knight, stopped dead in his tracks.

In a clearing ahead lay the carcass of a Cave Drake.

It was massive, the size of a carriage. But it hadn’t died from a battle. Its head was severed cleanly from its body, lying ten feet away. The cut was so smooth, so precise, that not a single scale was jagged.

Gerrick walked over, crouching to inspect the wound.

"One hit," Gerrick murmured, running a gauntleted finger near the neck stump. "Whatever killed this didn’t fight it. It executed it. Mid-lunge."

"Is it a bigger monster?" Daniel asked nervously, gripping his sword.

"No," Isolde walked past them, her boots avoiding the pool of black blood. "Look at the angle. It came from below. A humanoid striker."

She looked deeper into the jungle.

"He’s cleaning house."

They continued moving.

The further they went, the more grotesque the scene became. It wasn’t just one drake. It was a trail of slaughter.

Piles of Abyssal Stalkers lay heaped against tree trunks, their limbs severed. A Giant Centipede was pinned to a rock, split down the middle.

"This is insane," Jason whispered, looking at a stalker that had been bisected vertically. "He did this alone? Without a healer? Without a tank?"

"He doesn’t need a tank if he doesn’t get hit," Amy said softly, stepping over a claw. "And he doesn’t need a healer if the enemy dies instantly."

Her eyes shone with a mix of relief and adoration.

"This is Oliver. This is his true strength."

Lisa looked at the carnage, swallowing hard. She remembered how they used to call him F-rank trash. Looking at this trail of death, she realized that Oliver wasn’t just strong. He was a predator.

"The trail leads to the water," Gerrick announced, pointing to the drag marks and the direction of the heaviest fighting. "The subterranean lake."

"Then we run," Isolde commanded.

****

They broke through the dense treeline of giant mushrooms and stumbled onto the rocky shore of the underground lake.

The scene that greeted them was... anticlimactic.

After the horrors of the jungle and the tension of the descent, they expected to find Oliver fighting for his life, or perhaps wounded and hiding in a cave.

Instead, they found a picnic.

Under the glowing canopy of a massive mushroom tree, Oliver sat comfortably, leaning against the trunk. His coat was dried and folded neatly beside him. He was holding a book in one hand, reading with the intense focus of a scholar.

There were no enemies. The shore was cleared. It was peaceful.

"...Master?" Isolde called out, her voice breaking the silence.

Oliver looked up from his book. He blinked, as if waking from a daydream. He saw the battered, bloody, exhausted group staring at him like he was a ghost.

He smiled, closing the book (and subtly sliding it behind his back).

"Yo," Oliver waved casually. "Took you guys long enough. I was getting bored."

Amy let out a choked sob. She dropped her staff.

"OLIVER!"

She didn’t run; she launched herself.

She tackled him, burying her face in his chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I thought you died! I thought you fell into the abyss! You idiot! You idiot!"

"Whoa, easy," Oliver laughed, wincing slightly as she squeezed his ribs. "I’m fine, Amy. See? Not a scratch."

Isolde marched up to him. She looked furious. She looked ready to kill him. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Then, she dropped to her knees and hugged him from the other side, burying her face in his neck.

"If you ever," Isolde hissed, her voice trembling, "ever let go of my hand again... I will turn you into a ghoul so you can never leave me."

"Understood," Oliver whispered, patting her back. "Sorry to worry you."

The Knights and Heroes stood back, watching the scene.

Gerrick let out a long, heavy sigh, slumping down onto a rock. "He’s reading a book. We fought through hell, and he’s reading a damn book."

"He’s built different," Rowan chuckled, shaking his head.

Daniel looked at Oliver, then at the pile of dead monsters near the water’s edge. He let out a long breath, the tension leaving his shoulders.

"Yeah," Daniel muttered, finally dropping his guard. "He really is."

They rested for a few minutes, passing around canteens and rations. The Knights looked at Oliver with newfound reverence, while Jason and Ren watched him with a mix of jealousy and confusion.

"So," Daniel asked, sitting on a mossy rock. "What happened? How did you survive the fall? And how did you clear an entire floor solo?"

"Luck," Oliver shrugged, taking a bite of an apple. "I landed in the water. The monsters here are sensitive to sound, so I used stealth. Picked them off one by one."

He stood up, wiping his hands on his pants. He wasn’t going to tell them about Seraphine or the fact that he just blitzed through them with superior stats.

"Anyway, enough storytime. Follow me. I found something."

He walked to the edge of the dark, subterranean lake.

"Found what?" Ren asked, eyeing the black water suspiciously. "It’s just a lake."

"The exit is down there," Oliver said.

Before anyone could protest, he pinched his nose and jumped.

Splash!

He disappeared under the surface.

"What the hell?!" Jason shouted.

Amy didn’t hesitate. "Oliver!" She took a deep breath and jumped straight in after him.

"Well," Isolde sighed, adjusting her corset. "If Master goes, I go." Splash.

Seeing the two women jump, the Knights looked at each other, shrugged, and followed. Daniel signaled the rest, and one by one, the expedition force plunged into the freezing water.

****

They swam through the dark tunnel, lungs burning, guided only by the faint light of Oliver’s mana ahead. When they finally broke the surface inside the hidden cave, gasping for air, Oliver was already waiting on the stone floor.

He wasn’t looking at the architecture. He was looking at the water.

Specifically, at the women climbing out.

"Puhaa!"

Amy was the first to emerge. She crawled onto the stone, her chest heaving as she sucked in air.

The white robes of a Saintess were designed to be modest and holy. But wet? They were a translucent disaster.

The fabric turned sheer, clinging to her body like a second skin. Oliver’s eyes locked onto her chest. The cold water had hardened her nipples into diamond-hard points that poked aggressively through the wet cloth. The outline of her pink areolas was clearly visible, practically begging for attention. Her wet panties clung to her hips, digging into the soft flesh of her thighs, revealing the perfect, plump outline of her mound.

"Haa... haa..." Amy panted, unaware that she was putting on a peep show.

Next was Isolde.

She didn’t crawl; she rose from the water like a dark siren. Her black silk dress was plastered to her hourglass frame. Her massive tits looked even heavier wet, the fabric straining to contain them. As she stepped up, water dripped down her legs, the slit in her dress sticking to her inner thigh, outlining the meaty lips of her pussy so clearly it left nothing to the imagination.

Then came Lisa and Sophia.

Lisa’s mage robes were heavy, but the water weighed them down, pulling the neckline low to reveal her deep cleavage. Sophia, usually the strict one, was in a thin under-tunic that had become see-through, showing off her dark nipples and the curve of her waist.

Oliver stood there, arms crossed, ogling them with zero shame. His eyes bounced from Amy’s perky nipples to Isolde’s fat camel toe, then to Sophia’s wet thighs.

’Jackpot,’ Oliver thought, a lecherous grin spreading across his face. ’The Archmage really blessed this dungeon.’

Sophia looked up, wiping water from her eyes. She saw Oliver. She saw his gaze fixed directly on her chest. She looked down at herself, then at the other girls.

Her face went bright red.

"You... you pervert!"

She raised her staff.

"[Wind Art: Gale Dry]!"

WHOOSH.

A blast of warm, pressurized air hit the group. It wasn’t gentle. It was like standing in front of a jet engine.

"Eek!" Amy squealed as her hair fluffed up instantly.

In three seconds, the water evaporated. The clothes dried, fluffing back up and hiding the goods.

Just as the spell finished, Jason and Daniel surfaced, coughing and sputtering.

"Puha! God, that was deep!" Jason wiped his eyes. He looked at the dry, composed women, then at Oliver who looked disappointed.

"Did I miss something?" Jason asked.

Oliver clicked his tongue, looking away. "Just the best view of the expedition. Let’s move."

*****

Oliver led them down the corridor, stepping over the piles of rubble.

"Whoa..." Rowan whistled, looking at the shattered remains of the Stone Guardians. "These things are huge. The mana residue on them is A-rank at least."

"Did you defeat them alone?" Gerrick asked, kicking a massive stone hand the size of a shield.

Oliver kept walking, his hands in his pockets. "Do you see anyone else down here?"

"Unbelievable," Daniel muttered. "He smashed them. Literally smashed them to pieces."

They reached the end of the hall. The heavy stone door was already open.

"Behold," Oliver announced, stepping aside. "The Archmage’s Study."

The group rushed in, expecting gold, jewels, or powerful weapons.

They stopped.

The room was... empty.