Rex looked at the akward man, said condition mostly to be this fault. He could, of course, understand their reasoning in not abandoning their friends, since he was particularily greedy and unreasonable in that regard. He would much rather see the world burn than loose anyone from his circle. Even Eredar, Brogni adn Victor had earned quite high evaluation from Rex, so he would be willing to make some quite unreasonable mooves if even they were endangered. He was soft like that, fiercly protecting anything he formed solid bonds with.
"I have to ask though," Rex started "Just what kind of variant are these two? I have not read or seen anything regarding such a mutation. Could it be a new subspecies unique to this dungeon?" He was quite curious. These minitaurs were much more powerfull than the regular ones, while in these specific conditions were nigh identical to the regular ones.
"You are not from around here, are you?" the scout suddenly asked "Any of the regular delvers here know them as high minotaurs, and ussually they have some ornate weapons they carry with them, or they have some unique jewelery attached to their ears. For whatever reason, these two did not, thats why we engaged them without much worry."
"So, do these High minotaurs apear often here, or are they a rare monster?" Rex asked curiously. The two indeed were quite indistinguishable, if he did not have his eyes. HE could clearly see the difference, but for others that was not the case.
"Well, they are quite rare, though it is said they start to appear more often the deeper you go, and if one believes the stories, then in the raid tier, only their kind, just more powerfull roam. Thats when regarding their type of monsters." the priest spoke. Then Rex asked a few more questions regarding the dungeon, but nothing too specific, so it looked more like a simple curiosity, and not prying into said partiesunique personal knowledge. A fdozen minutes later, the party looked rested and as they were about to depart, the parties rogue asked, not being able to hold back her curiosity
"Say, where is your party? We have been here for quite some time, so even if you were a scout, they should have reached you already, no?"
"Dont be rude Lux, you know thats not our business." the priest reprimanded her. There were things you dont ask, and the numbers and specifics of ones party was among those. It was quite sketchy to inquire about such things, as that could indicate someone planning an ambush for your party and they need better information to limit their casualities.
"Ha ha ha ha ha." Rex laughed hearthily at the reprimand, then when he calmed down a little he added "Its okey, its okey. I am my party. Besides there is no way in hell you could ever hope to pull off a sucsessfull ambush on me, nor do I think you would even consider such a thing after you saw how easily I dispatched those high minotaurs, so her curiosity is easily recognizable as interest." The rogue girl slightly blushed at his words, that were on the nose.
"Sadly, I have quite a bit of important hunting to do, so now that you are fine, I will be on my way. See ya!" and with that Rex dissapeared from their sights. With his dissapearance, a silence took over the camp, with the five members just standing there in confusion.
""Say, did Rene just got dumped before she even started going out? one of the front line fighters asked, recieving a flying wooden cup and an annoying grunt from said rogue
"Ow, shut it!" With that the group started to laugh, slowly returning to their normal pace after their deadly encounter just now. Then they noticed the two dead high minotaurs untouched, causing them to brighten up. These beasts were quite the treasure trove and would net them solid profit, so they quickly got to the disassembly and collection on the valuable stuff, thanking the lobe adventurer for coming to their aid.
Rex in the meantime was already on his way to the next floor, his aim stil unchanged. He was aiming for the deep floors, and he would reach them withing a day or so. At least that was his asumption. Still, with him stopping for the night, once he could feel it was about time, and entering his shard world to spend it there, he still had to delve for another day before he finaly reached his desired depths.
As he took his last spe on the stairs and stepped on floor fourty, it felt as if he walked through a thin membrane, entirely changeing the atmosphere. He could feel the thick and rich energy floating in the air, that reminded him of the deep floors in Blythe. OF course there were differences, like for example the smell of the place. Blythe was an open zone dungeon with forests and lots of vegetation. Here it was a labyrinth of tunnels, caves and caverns, making most of the monsters here to be carnivores, devouring anything they could get their paws on. Of course the mana the life energy they passively absorbed from the air lowered their need for actual food manyfold, thus maintaining the amount of monsters quite dense, all things considered.
Another thing Rex had to admit was the high frequency he had encountered parties of adventurers during his descent. It was actually quite large, but he reasoned it was to be expected. The tunnels did not exactly allow for a wide spread over the area, thus causing more parties to run innto each other, thus adding another layer of dificulty to the delving in this place.
Another thing Rex was wondering right now was whether or not he will encounter any of the two raids that had descended just a few days , and a couple of weeeks back. Rex knew that they could not move with the speed he was moving, but with the headstart, there was a chance he could run into one, if not both, he had also noticed the rarity of return gates in this dungeon. As far as he could estimate based on his current experience, a gate here appeared every five levels, making this dungeon much more dangerous than in Blythe, since the distance between gates was so large. A difference, that most likely was the cause of quite a few deaths due to the poor planning or overconfidence of the adventurers.
So, with his current observations in mind, if the raiding groups were headed to the fourty first floor, they would have to return here to get out, if the difficulty scaled just as drasticly as it did in th deep floors in Blythe.Rex was not worried about the danger said raids could cause for him, but more so of the inconvinience they might become. Hearing of someone soloing deep floors was just that - hearing, but when some very powerfull adventurers speak of the fact, the rumors gain much more solid ground, and more adn more oportunistic, greedy and shady individuals start approaching said person in question, as well as more and more ordinary people start to fear and detest him purely of the power said person poseses.
And while Rex did not really cared about the opinion of the public, since he could easily live without them, it was easier and much more fun to experience live and fun alongside the little people. Still, he had quite fresh memories of life alone in the forests as he was funting during his growth phase, so he could go loner as well. But luckaly, he had enough people around him for that to not happen. And in addition, this was not his home court, so rumors spreading around about extremely powerfull delver who solo hunts deep floors would not affect him too much.
So, with his immediate concerns thought over and solved he proceeded further down the tunnels. As the party he rescued had spoke, the alpha minitaurs becaume more and more frequent as he descended, and now the first few encounters he had in the deep floors were packs of said minotaurs. These packs contained five to ten monsters, each carrying some sort of an ornamental weapon, that shattered upon their owners death, as well as some sort of indian themed feathered earings that each of them carried in their ear. Rex learned that if you remove the earing from any minotaur, they would ge full on berserk, fighting with the holder of said earing untill either was dead. It was these earings that were used as proof of these alphas deaths, since they could eventually because of the berserk state induced by its removal. It was a surefire item to guarantee the death of the owner of said item, so Rex collected said items in a certain place. The meat of the minotaur alphas was barely earth grade, so while Rex collected the good pieces, he drained most of the carcases untill nothing but mana dust remained.
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"I wonder, do I look like a demon or some sort of a monster due to my methods?" Rex murmured to himself as he delved deeper, dispatching alpha minotaurs with ease, His crows had quite the work to do, both the ones at his side right now as well as the ones still gathering information in the Echlisiarchy. With each passing day he could feel his anger slowly, but surely rising. If some people called him a monster, then he had no idea of a word that would describe the upper echalons of said theocracy, so he believed that his plan of action was more than warranted, even if he himself was not hundred percent on board with his current itteration. but then again, he only had to think back on what he had witnessed, and his resolve got immediatly fixed, bringing him back to his original plan.
A few hours and minotaur apha packs later he encountered his first monster variety in the deep floors. A couple of alphas together with a manticore. A giant lions body with the tail of a scorpion and smaller bat like wings. The green saliva dripping from said beasts mouth indicated a strong and powerfull poison, which would cause any other adventurer to approach with much more caution, however with his speed and power, he needed not to care for such weak poison, and besides, there was no way said manticore could ever hope to leave a mark on Rex body, Employing his sword 'Limitless' he quickly dispatched the minotaurs around said manticore, and then with a speed greater than the maticore could react to, it was limbless and disected as well as with a cleanly cut throat. In its confusion it gurgled its last breath before it became fully motionless.
Collecting materials of said monster was much more difficult, since Rex had to calculate and then extract ingridients that were part of quite the poisonous cheature. Still, these were monsters what ordinary humans would gladly collect and hunt since their parts are quite the demand among high tier alchemists, since a potion made with their ingridients can increase ones physical strenght few times for a limited duration. Such powerfull potions were very valuable for raid teams, since one could never know when that additional strenght could help,
With his collection done, he moved on ahead, repeating the same process again and again. Some might say that such actions are boring and that dungeon delving shoud be filled with fun and excitement among the group of you and friends, but Rex, as a near certified grind addict, could not understand such a point of view. He liked things simple, and he tried to keep them as such. An action that not always worked, but could be achieved just often enough for Rex to maintain his system nice and working.
Rex had a perfectly worked out system that he abided by. During the day he would continiue his delving, exterminating everything that he came across, collecting the valuable materials, and scattering any traces of himself into fine maan dust. The only possible trace of his presence was the empty tunels he passed through. And a few days later, he noticed a change in the dungeons layout once he descended the stairs of fourty second floor.
As this was a dungeon of a lower grade, the raid tier floor dificulty was also slightly lower and increased at a slower pace, so it was no wonder to Rex that the monsters were weaker than the innitial deep floors of Blythes dungeon. During the few days he had spent within the deep floors of this dungeon Rex had encountered more different monsters, like vyverns, not nearly as powerfull as the miniboss guarding his blade Limitless, but more numerous per pack, thne there were cyclopses, as well as a few medusas. He reasoned that medusas were quite tricky for most raid teams due to their unique atributes that did not provide much hindrance to Rex.He had way too much mana and his pjysical body was too developed, as well as his scouting abilities were too advanced. By the time medusas came into the range of their ability, Rex had already made a move and decapitated them. And due to their unique atribbutes he decided to drain every one of them he fell, ensuring no materials of medusas would appear on the markets after his grind session.
Yet another day was coming to a close as Rex was moving forward towards the deeper parts of the dungeon. He had already reached floor fourty four, and based on his calculations he should be closing in on the stairs towards the next level. The labyrinth had changed to a proper tunnel system with large caverns appearing from time to time with a unique biome withing each one. As he stepped inside yet another cavern, his deployed sensory abilities picked up a couple of interesting news.
First, he sensed a large and lumbering four legged beast, with a lot of necks and heads, an said knowledge caused him to smile. A hydra. The monster he was hoping to encounter more than once, and one of his main reasons for delving in here. Said monster was a walking treasure trove, and Rex wanted to get his hands on at least one of them. There were quite a few variants of said monsters, and depending which one was this one, Rex would decide on his final actions, which were somewhat limited due to the second piece of information he was intrigued by.
He sensed a large group of people approaching this cavern from another connecting tunnel, so Rex was presented with another decision to make. What to do with said group. Mulling over the question, he continiued his path, now walking straight towards the hydra.He was more than sure that with his current pace he would reach said beast way before the other group. While quite strong by the standarts of the outside world, they still posessed no threat to him, so he decided to just ignore it and allow them to leave if they dont decide to get in his way.
Very soon said hydra came into his view, and upon noticing the beast Rex was slightly dissapointed.
"Cant get lucky every time I suppose." he grunbled as he started his dash towards the beast. Said hydra had dozens of heads, all in the light purple shade with black stripes all over its body. This variant was more poisonous tahn most, making it the least desirable, if not oughtright disposabled of by anyone who happens to claim its life. Rex sighed at the revelation, drew his blade, causing the hydra to turn its heads towards him and to begin its own charge towards its prey.
Once hydra was close enough it started its endless attempts to bite Rex in half, its few dozen heads making an attempt to get a taste of its prey, each head failing miserably in its attempts. Of course , Rex did not waste time either, and swung his blade as he dodged and avoided the heads trying to get their shaere of said food source. So a few dodges later his sword cut off the first few heads chasing after his flesh, causing momentary stop on the assault, as the hyrda screached in a high pitched growl, its pain obvious, as well as mixed with the rage it felt right now. Its meal was resisting and causing it damage, if only temporary, Still enraged the beast redounbled its attempts to end her foods life, redoubling its efforts in chompinhg down said snack.
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The raid group under the leadership of Yakumo Ren was proceeding as planned. They would soon reach floor fourty five, where their raid would end, and they could use the gate there to return to the surface. His group had achieved moderate success, losing only a few of the adventurers from their rather large group. Out of the hundred odd people, they had lost only seven, and when considering their target, it was rather low loss count by all metrics.
He was quite happy they had been lucky enough to not encounter some of the rarer and more troublesome monsters within these floors, and he hoped that their luck would remain as it was untill now. Being a sharpshooter he utilised his supperior sight to scout out in the weakly lit tunnel. Soon, his group came upon a nother cavern, and their group breethed out in relief. Based on their maps and knowledge, his was the last cavern before the stairs towards the fourty fifth floor, and consequently the gate back home. Yakumos face displayed a light smile, knowing their raid is almost over, but maintained its seriousness aside from the light smile tuggin at his lips. While almost there, they could not let their guard down, and with that in mind, he ordered a nearby scout to rush through the raid group and relay his orders. He had heard enough tales of tragedies whn a raid group relaxed their guard only slightly and paid the umtimate price.