At a distance away from a cave that was supposed to be an entrance into a giant catacomb, a young man could be seen strolling directly towards the entrance of that dungeon, alone.

He seemed to be in his early twenties, and was clad in a light suit of brown leather armor, he was not strolling leisurely though. The young adult was grumbling while he was on his way there, looking slightly annoyed, miffed at the inhospitable treatment he received at the local adventurer association hall, when he just arrived.

“Curse those petty guilds and their impudent standards!”

He was swearing, but not out of anger and instead at his own inconvenience. Supposedly due to his unpopular profession, he was not allowed to join the various adventurer guilds found in the town or even be accepted by most of the guild members in their party, especially the religious ones, despite being an adventurer himself. 

In the end, despite the influx of new adventurers arriving in town after the war, he still could not find himself a suitable party to join and explore the dungeon. Even though he was quite an experienced adventurer already.

"This is why I hated travelling to other different towns."

Deralst felt that it was quite unfair. Since most of the guild's adventurers had chosen to party up with their own guild members, while the non-guild members could only to be accepted by another guild's party if their own professions were high enough in demand, or they just had to simply form a party with the other non-guild members. Which seldom tend to happen anyway due to their scarce appearances in towns and various other complicated reasons, especially the more experienced ones.

In any way, people would not just simply chose to team up with any known stranger for an adventure if they did not know whether the stranger was reliable enough or not. And especially not someone like him.

As a common understanding in this continent, people were allowed to freely choose and practice whatever professions, religions, studies and preferences they want, as long as they do not break the country's laws. But some of the professions were openly frowned upon by people due to clashes with their ethics and religion. Such as the professions that mainly dabble with undeads, demons, hexes, and various other forms of dark arts. While there may be some truth in why such practitioners were being despised by the people so much. But most of the time, it was just wanton condemnation.

Occasionally, the thought of just simply torching the whole town in fire just to watch the world’s society burn may just seemed like an option too. But it was just a reckless fleeting thought for Deralst actually, but amusing nonetheless.

While the society's standards may seemed troublesome and inconvenient at times, it did not discourage Deralst too much from becoming an adventurer though. He essentially took up adventuring just to get away from that very society in the first place, traveling around to see for himself what excitements the bigger world had to offer instead. Where the wild was free from the constraints of paltry expectations.

Walking up along the dirt path, Deralst tried to distract himself from his depressingly darker thoughts by repeating kicking the small round pebble in front of him, engaging in what he coined as Fantasy Football, not that he actually knew in actuality what the disparate version of the sport was anyway.

Actually, Deralst used to have a party of his own, albeit it was a temporary one. But the team had disbanded after having accomplished what they had wanted in the previous dungeon, causing them to go on their own separate ways.

Despite it all, Deralst actually did not miss them at all. In spite of their time spent together, he had only somewhat interacted with them when they were delving in the dungeon anyway. And that did not actually mean that Deralst had bad interpersonal skills though, he was sure about it, possibly.

Often at times, Deralst had to swallow down his pride just to join the other adventurers’ party. And still failing to be accepted at times, despite all of that in the end. But it was not that he had much of his ego to spare anyway, if he had any, he had lost most of it long ago during his adventuring days. Still, he had to begrudgingly admit that it helped built his character for these situations but he still believed that most of the other adventurers in the association require it a lot more than he do.

When he arrived in town, he had actually been invited once to join a party though, but he immediately rejected it without consideration for the other team’s honour. Afterall, he was keenly aware of that manipulative woman’s motive and how she was keeping the group of desperate men in the party together. It would do well for his life expectancy to stay away from parties like those, lest he be used as a fodder or got stabbed in the back instead. From his own experience, he was pretty sure that even diving into the dungeon alone had higher rate of survivability than joining a group like that. It was how he was still alive after all, in spite of various other implications.  

Not that he minded it too much for now, he was used to delving dungeons alone, and he usually prefers to be alone anyway. It was just that it had became a lot more inconvenient, troublesome and inefficient despite his preferences and his pragmatic side told him that he needed more than just himself if he had to take on more and more dangerous quests.

“For now, I guess I have no choice but to do things by myself a little while longer.”

Muttering under his breath until he had gotten near the entrance. Reaching the front of the dungeon's entrance, Deralst did a quick inspection on the functionality of his runic gears and briefly took out a dull small gem from his pocket. Which then he started to infuse it with mana and swiftly threw the thing at the ground in front of him. The dull gem begin to grow and eventually transform into something beastial and demonic, growing into what was also happened to be called as a hellhound.

Deralst's current profession was known as a diabolist, and while he may not be as proficient at binding the demonic creatures as compared to the other more specialised practitioners such as the warlocks and demonologists, he was still capable enough at controlling the less intelligent demons on his own. Otherwise, his profession essentially focused on infusing the infernal powers that strengthens and empowers himself over the limit of what normal person could do.   

He gave the hellhound his orders to follow and help lookout for dangers. And with this, his final preparation was completed. Without further ado, he entered into the dungeon to start his first adventure of his day there.

—

After having entered the first floor of the dungeon, he continued to advance forward without stopping. Always fully on alert while holding on to his torch on one hand.

For most of the time, there were little to no monsters to be found in this floor. The few that were actually found were not as threatening anyways. But it still pays to be cautious, as they always say. Carelessness will find no clemency in here, especially more so for someone who travels the dungeons alone.  

The surrounding areas were mainly full of linear corridors and empty rooms looted by adventurers long ago. The air was musty and stale with the only sound produced here being Deralst's echoing footsteps, disturbing the tranquillity of this dark place. From what he knew, the first five floors of this dungeon were over explored by the adventurers in the past. So much so that it had started to become a relatively safe and easy place to travel around these days. Occasionally, these floors were only used for gathering around possible dungeon resources or as a place of practice for the novice adventurers.

The true adventure though, only starts after the fifth floor. Where the aggressive monsters were invigorated and mutated by the moss crystals found there. Depending on the affinity of those living crystals, the strengthen monsters can be pretty dangerous to those who were inexperienced in dealing with them. Besides the dangerous monsters found there, the passageways around the place had also became twisted and shifted due to the collapsed unexcavated rubble or by the growing moss crystals forming to block the way there. This caused the already complex underground dungeon to become a huge slowly changing labyrinth, creating a maze within a maze.

There were also many other possible hazards found there in the depth of the dungeons, such as the hidden and unsprung ancient traps or the new ones that were being set by the possible denizens found in there. Ready to ambush anyone unfortunate enough to trigger it. Which altogether had made survival seemed like a tedious proposition and a proposition that Deralst was currently willing to try took up on. It was why he was here in the first place, despite all of the dangers lurking around and not doing so would defeat the purpose anyway.

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After wandering through the network of pathways, stairways, disposing places of some huge spiders and weak undeads along the way, Deralst had finally arrived at the entrance connecting to the third floor, just in front of a small hall without even taking too much of his time. He immediately approached towards the entrance without delay, but he stopped his steps the moment when he thought he heard something.

Someone was screaming, and the voice was starting to get louder and closer to him. Deralst quickly readied his weapon, ordering his hound to be on guard while in preparation to meet with whatever possible adversity that was rapidly approaching towards them. He waited in silence. 

Soon, a ragged man dressed in dark tattered robes quickly appear through the darkness of the entrance, screaming while sprinting towards him. Followed closely behind by a mob of weak undeads in various varieties. Some of the faster skeletons that held sharp weapons were slashing furiously at the man, intent on mutilating him.

At the sight of Deralst, the man quickly stumbled by tripping on his own robe, causing him to flip forward and sail through air, perfectly landing on the ground with his face planted in front of the bewildered adventurer.

Even while still being surprised at the apparent mage's awkwardness, Deralst could still calmly judge the situation. If he had to evaluate the man's free flying with a comparison rating for what he had done, it would definitely be as smooth as a flying gecko, or at least among the other list of gliding animals he could think of anyway. While this was unknown to Deralst at the time, the sight of the mage who was supposedly a necromancer. Being desperately chased by undeads to the point of tripping, could actually be quite a pretty surreal scene to anyone who saw it, not that Deralst really needed to know that though.

Putting aside his amusements, Deralst quickly stepped forward to help the robed man, using his sabre-like sword to swiftly decapitate three of closest skeletons consecutively by relying on his quick reflexes.

The rest of the undead could still be seen rushing through the tunnel entrance at a short distance away. Without hesitation, Deralst raised his right arm in their direction, and began infusing the enchanted runes on his runic gauntlet by circulating his mana. Without the need of incantations, torrents of infernal fire started spewing forward as it burst out of the palm of his gauntlet towards the direction of the rushing hordes.

Engulfing the undeads in a strong raging inferno which blocks the entrance, while searing the flesh of zombies and charing skeleton bones on the way. The fire continued burning as it took longer than normal to extinguish even without any physical fuel.

When Deralst was distracted, some of the skeletons had managed to escape before getting burnt by the flames. They started striding towards the mage nearby, who had just risen on his feet. The mage quickly reacted by chanting a spell before an unarmed skeleton charged at him, it crashes into the mage, sending him to the ground again and started grappling with him on the ground.

Deralst hurriedly stopped his flames, and he immediately ordered the hellhound to take down any surviving undeads from the entrance while he started disposing the rest of the remaining undeads before any more of the undeads reaches the struggling mage. After a short time, the skeleton stopped struggling against the mage, motionless as the mage pushed it away while still sprawling out on the ground wearily.

After Deralst cleared the rest of the undeads, he turned his attention back towards that particular surviving skeleton. It had risen back up after it got pushed away and remains passively still without attacking anyone. Perturbed at the turn of events in front of him, Deralst could only thought of one thing at that time.

A damn freaking Necromancer.

Whom the person in question was now gasping and sobbing on the ground, muttering some curses and irrational gibberish about his research and life, and he seemed to be getting over the edge.

Deralst sighed, he tried to pull the miserable necromancer back up on his feet and tried to stop him from babbling anymore nonsense, but he just seemed to be out of it.

“Rotting flesh….all my years of effort and resource spent on the research, down the drain just like that! I have nothing left, nothing to offer than stupid corpses, nothing!”

Feeling annoyed at the wretched necromancer’s blatherings, Deralst did something he felt any sensible man would do. He slapped him hard in the face, with his gauntlet armoured hand for additional effectiveness.

Reeling from the impact, the mage winced at the sudden pain, but it is strong enough to distract him from breaking down and get back his attention.

"W-what the...."

“You are a necromancer right? How can you be running away from the undead instead?”

“B-but there should be a cryper nearby! Out there, somewhere!”

Shuddering at the meaning of the necromancer’s stuttering utterances, without even caring to reply the mage anymore, Deralst immediately turned around to face the tunnel’s entrance, ordering his hellhound to be on guard, weapons ready, high strung and full alert.  

Crypers, those vicious assassins should not even be found in a floor this close to the surface!

The crypers were supposed to be one of those types of ghoulish undeads that were corrupted and twisted by some form of demonic miasma, steadily growing multiple sets of powerful limbs on the way. These corruption was either caused by the moss crystals’ influence or by a possible opening connected to the infernal dimension, found deep within the tombs.

Those demonic undeads were fully capable of instantly tearing a professional adventurer apart, proving quite a difficult challenge even to the veterans.  

“Freaking nine hells below!”

Deralst really wanted to curse his luck at this point of time, but if he had to think about it in another perspective, was this not a fortunate confirmation instead? He had received information about the probability of moss crystals with demonic influences residing inside this dungeon. Despite being skeptical about it, Deralst had still decided to take his chances, which had caused him to travel all the way here in the first place.

After managing to calm himself down, now Deralst just needed to think of a proper course of action to get himself out of here alive and make the necessary preparations in the future to face whatever hellspawns to be encountered in the depths of the dungeon before reaching the source of the demonic influence, starting with the cryper.

Just when Deralst was deliberating about such things, he received a warning growl from his hound. Giving him time to notice that there was something moving in the darkness slightly behind him at the side of the walls from the corner of his eye. It had managed to silently sneak into the hall during all the commotion to launch an assault from behind him.  

Quickly reacting, Deralst dived forward into a quick roll, evading an attack by the presumed cryper aiming to stealthily incapacitate him. But it turned out that the demonic undead was actually aiming to eliminate the hellhound, butchering the other demonic beast into various flying chunks of flesh and entrails like a shredder with its four powerful arms.

"Bubonic Diseastrous!"

The Necromancer started shrieking loudly, towards the ferocious corrupted undead. A grotesque rotting appearance of a monster with an extra set of fully grown, twisted looking arms. Multiple small swelling lumps of tumours can be found across its body, that seems to be contorting and extending.  

The sight of the creature as a whole, made it looked more like a bizarre beast instead of a dead man, prowling around the slaughtered remains of the hellhound that had begin dissipating away.

Right after finishing the hellhound, the cryper swiftly turn to follow up with a quick swipe with its claws towards Deralst. Which he promptly parried the strike in return by swiveling his body along with his sword in a side sweeping swing, drawing black blood and possibly cutting some digits.

Deralst then quickly rise his body to pursue his assault, with a forward raising thrust, aiming to pierce through its skull. However, the unfaltering cryper managed to avoided it with a fast crouch, which it then lunged at Deralst from below like a spring with a frontal tackle. And within such a short distance, he was certain that he was unable to dodge it, so he instead braced himself for the impact. Which the monster's tackle still caused him to drop his sword on the way.

While the cryper was steadying itself atop of him, Deralst immediately reached for the sheath fasten on his leg. Drawing out his dagger and started jamming it into the side of the cryper’s torso, just before the cryper raked him to shreds with its four arms. He quickly infused the dagger with mana before releasing it, activating the runic enchantments within and caused the blade to explode as the purging flames of hell started bursting out from it, setting the monster's whole body on fire easily through the spreading infernal flames.

The cryper howled loudly, reeling away and releasing him from its weight. Deralst jumped back up and rushed to grab his sword, turning only to find out that the injured monster had already fled back into the darkness of the corridors, quickly escaping from the battle as if it had vanished.

He continue to stand in tensed silence for a while to make sure the monster was really gone before sheathing his sword. Despite the monster being weakened and gravely injured, Deralst had no desire to chase after it. That monster was now even more dangerous skulking in the tenebrous corners of this dark place.

Furthermore, he could feel his fatigue rising when the adrenaline pumped excitement was starting to ebb after the scuffle had ended. And despite the various events that had transpired, the whole situation briefly only took less than five minutes to end. He really wished that these monsters were like the ones told in stories where they were just stupid enough to stay and fight to the death instead of running away when it become too dangerous for them. Although it was only a trifling victory In the end, but it was still a victory nonetheless.

But now Deralst had to stop what he was doing, which he had only just started, and immediately return back to the association to report on the situation. Prompting him to think what had he really done to deserve all of this anyway, but then again…...