John and the group turned to see two figures lumbering through the hall, both seemed to be larger kobolds though... fatter, and with heavy armor and better weapons. one bounded over it's long ears flopping like it was some demonic easter bunny and swung at one of the soldiers who were with the group. the man blocked it but his wooden shield shattered and exploded into pixels. They screamed as they brought their sword down on the man's head, he exploded, and they started running for it, the exit wasn't far but the large kobolds weren't as slow as they originally believed with their large kangaroo like feet letting them make leaps and bounds toward them at a rapid pace.

"Leo, the fuck are those things!?" Tyrese shouted.

"Kobold knights, they're stronger and faster." Leo shouted back.

"John, keep an eye out for traps, the dungeon has a few." Leo shouted.

"Now you fucking tell us!?" One of the soldiers said as they ran as fast as they could

John looked around as saw some holes in the wall, then a pressure plate disguised as a stone brick, though it was raised and wider than others. there was also a skeleton with a hole right through it's skull, it did have a cool looking dagger clutched in it's hand. "Watchout for that brick." John said, as he quickly ducked down swiped the skeletons dagger from it's hand, though didn't actually stop, so when he looked at his hand he found that he was also carrying a few finger bones with it, They parted around the brick though a couple leapt over it, one of the kobolds leapt over it but the other was impaled behind it. apparently only some monsters knew their home, they did get a fat stack of experience from kiting the monster through the trap. The Kobold knight roared in rage and threw it's axe, it impacted with Leo's back and but he kept going, but they lived. He spun and threw a crimson slash their way before continuing to run.

It impacted with the Kobold knight but barely slowed it down, it slammed it's chest plate with it's empty hands and howled, a distinct red aura coming off of it. Leo cursed a storm. "I was hoping this wouldn't happen!"

John looked at him. "What?"

Leo cursed some more before answering. "Every fucking kobold in this floor is hunting us now, and are going to hit a lot harder, best we can hope for is that we get to the exit before they block it off."

They turned a corner with many kobold's all of which had red aura's they turned and shrieked, they started toward them, John slammed his new dagger into the skull of the first one that came at him, him being the only rogue meant he was the fastest and also meant there were no shields between him and the enemies, to his surprise it was a one shot kill, dashed back as a pair of Kobolds leapt at his last location swinging their crude weapons, one of which was a cleaver the other an axe, and one leapt over those two and came straight at him, John watched a couple of golden blasts slam into the creatures chest and John cut it's throat of it as it landed. Leo slammed his sword into one of their chests and started running forward again. "Let's fucking go!"

John heard the pounding of the Kobold knights bounding leaps toward them as it's large body slammed into the ground with each landing. thump, thump, thump. John or anyone else for that matter, didn't need anymore encouragement to start running. The last Kobold tackled another soldier who didn't have enough time to put up his shield as he was too busy trying to get away, it raised it's cleaver and brought it down on his head several times, they left him his screams echoing in the stone halls. ahead was the exit but there were a group of kobolds in front of it, Leo cursed and sent a crimson slash at the group of kobolds, and then another after two seconds, but they hit, causing them to all hyper focus on Leo, They started forward but ran into a metal wall as Tyrese moved his massive tower shield in the way of the oncoming enemies, one of them was running so fast and low that they landed head first into the shield and a critical hit for a whopping total of 2 damage floated over their head. John rushed at one of the kobolds and brushed his new knives blade across it's throat causing it to vanish into pixels, he needed to inspect this fucking knife later. He turned and stabbed another one in the chest, it stumbled back and slammed against the which glowed red hot as the monster touched the cold iron, it exploded into pixels. "Throw them against the door, it kills them!" John and Leo said at the same time.

John Kicked at one and it stumbled back a few steps and into the door, the kobold exploded into red pixels, and Leo started what many in the larping community called the dance of death, he was cutting punching and kicking, and many of them stumbled around, granted he was banned from the larping community for using this very thing, though granted, the other team were saying some pretty foul things about his mother, so it was a fair trade, frankly, John thought he missed his calling as a rogue.

The soldiers and started pushing them all toward the door by doing what John like to call the haunted house attack, with the walls closing in the kobolds started panicking as many were pressed up against the door and it burned them extra crispy before they exploded into red pixels. it only took a few seconds for them all to die.

John hurried up and pressed the door open and the others hurried out there, the thump thump thump of the kobold knight was now more akin to a THUUUM THUUUM THUUUM, as the huge creature bounced through the halls and swung it's axe as the door closed, Leo the honorable bastard that he was, decided to be the last one out, the axe missed by a hares breath and the door closed onto the kobold knights arm, which proceeded to be burned and crushed between the door, after about four seconds the bones joint was crushed to powder and the arm fell off a large one handed axe clanking on the stone stairs, though to Leo's disgust and rather despair the arm didn't vanish into pixels. "Damn it all, it's still alive."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"So?" John asked, and many other players nodded in agreement, they didn't know why he was so pissed.

"It's labeled as an intelligent monster in the game, that also means that it's going to want vengeance, it's going to ask the dungeons boss for permission to leave with a fucking army and we might not be strong enough to stop it, luckily it'll go back to the dungeon if it catches the people it had a vendetta against, saw a man enter the dungeon one time and bragged he got away from a bunch of kobold knights, only for it to become the shores of Normandy with an army at the city walls and a certain someone was not happy with the person who did that." Leo explained.

"Shit... Wait, it has to ask permission right, that means it's request can be denied right?" Rin asked, hope in her eyes.

"Yeah, but the problem is... Iligsir the red dragon is considered to be a very prideful creature, it believes that it's the best, and as such it's armies are the best, one might even say part of it's treasure horde, if someone like say a bunch of ratty players come in and kill like fifteen of it's kobolds, killed a knight and injured another one of it's knights say it was injured, well..." Leo made a go on gesture.

"It'll send an entire army out to hunt the people who harmed it's treasure, Shit!" Lenda said,

"Yeah, best we can hope to do is grind and level up as much as we can, because once it get's permission that door will no longer harm them." Leo said, Before looking at John. "I noticed that nifty little blade you picked up from the skeleton, Come here, I have the inspect skill."

John handed him the knife, and Leo looked at it, his eyes glowed red. "It's called Glamthring, apparently it's an elvish weapon, Very nice, elves are extinct in this game, which is why elven drops are so rare, it's a rare grade weapon, can't think of anyone more fitting to use it." Leo said, handing it back to John. "I did some reading up on the lore of my own weapon songthring, Mage King Allant was the king of the elves, and a powerful spellblade."

John took he knife and sheathed it, but he did notice that the large red dragon was gone, He looked around and saw it flying up and saw it perched at the top of the tower. "Let's get back to town."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2 hours later.

"We got quite a bit of gold coins." Rin said, looking very happy about that with an old wooden mug of mead, she was a very light drunk, but a very happy drunk.

"Well... how much do we have if we pool?" John asked, eating a drumstick.

Leo put on a pair of spectacles and looked over a few papers, a list of their earnings so far. "We have just enough to become an official guild."

John was shocked. "Guilds are really that cheap?"

Leo nodded. "Yeah, kinda, together we have atleast two thousand gold after grinding for three hours."

Rin pushed her gold across the table and the rest of the guild did the same, they all trusted Leo with the money, despite his childish attitude he was an expert in management and a natural leader to them all.

John took a bite from the chicken as leo left the building. He took another bite of the chicken before setting the empty bones on the metal plate. "Christ I hope we don't get lead poisoning from the dishes."

Rin went slightly pale looking at the mug she was holding.

Tyrese snorted. "I doubt the game devs would do such a thing."

"Maybe not, but what about the people who hacked the game?" Rin asked.

"I doubt it." Tyrese said, taking a drink from a mug of ale, unlike Rin he could drink a bathtub of liquer. "On the bright side, if it does, we can do the Isekai thing and introduce new bullshit to the world."

John chuckled. "That does sound fun, how much money would noblewomen pay for a-" SLAM! the door smashed open as Merlin kicked down the door.

"Bourbon on the rocks bar boy!" He said, leaping onto a barstool that spun around as he sat on it. "Weeeee!" His spinning stopped leaving him looking toward John. "Hello little lion cub, how are you today."

John blinked. "Hey there you anarchistic psychopath, how are you doing? still drinking I see, rehab not working out I guess?"

"Shove it, I'm dead, I'll drink if I damn well want to." Merlin said, slamming back the drink and slammed a coin on the counter. "another."

John shrugged. "Fair enough, drink away buckeroo." He said in the most patronizing tone he could make.

Merlin's eye twitched a bit at the tone. "I've not even had my second drink yet and you're already giving me a hangover."

"I know, I'm just intoxicating ain't I." John said.

"Pffft." Rin spat out her drink at that and started giggling.

"Oh put a sock in it." Merlin said, downing another drink. "Another." This time he didn't put down a coin.

the bartender glared at him. "We don't do tabs here son."

"I was about to give you some fresh meat to serve, fresh tender cuts right off the cutting room table." He said, glaring at John.

John shrugged. "Welcome to try it, I'm always up for some flaminyon." John took the new knife from it's sheath and many others did the same. But Merlin didn't attack, instead he took the large cleaver out of it's sheath and cut the bar tenders arm off, this shocked everyone, especially the bartender who started screaming and ran out of the building to get guards. "How long 'til he bleeds out I wonder, one step, two steps, three steps, four." He sang musically before the arm shattered into pixels, meaning the bartender died.

John just sat there his mouth agape as they watched Merlin grab the bottle and walk out of the building. after fifteen minutes Leo came back to see the guild talking about what Merlin did. He noticed their haunted looks and asked. "The fuck happened?"

"Merlin happened, he killed the fucking fucking bartender, cut his arm off and pranced off." John said.

Leo gave a muttered "Jesus..." He cleared his throat. "Well, we're official now."

They got shot an invite to join the golden lions. when they accepted they got the symbol of a lion on the side of their sleeves like military insignias.