Back in auxiliary squad no 8 camp.
After Anton explained the mission to the party and went back and Will was left in the camp full of unknown strangers alone.
Though most of the members were still teens, but there was not one who was younger or even near will age.
He was just a Fifteen year old kid after all. The team members moved back to their work after shaking hands with him once and didn’t come back after that.
While he sat there looking lonely, stargazing the bushes shook a little. That attracted his attention and also scared him a little, but he took a breath of relief when he saw that it was Rae.
She saw him sitting there alone looking like a fool. At first she didn’t understand what she should do, but then she started walking toward him.
Will who saw her coming tensed up once again, not because he was going to be confronted by someone of a higher post than him, but because from the first time he saw her, Rae had been wearing a ‘safa’, which was also covering her face. Only her eyes could be seen Normally that is. And right now she was walking toward him while removing the said cloth from her face and it was what was behind it that greatly shocked Will.
Her shoulder length black hair, small cut and pointed nose. Lips that looked so tender and juicy that made will unwillingly suck his lower lip. Her sharp but subtle chin which made him shy, last but not the least her big brown watery eyes. Will didn’t forget but willingly stopped breathing to not give away his state of mind to a thief of her caliber.
He clenched his fists super hard, as his voice saying Hug her, kiss her, hold her, started blasting across the plain fields of his empty mind.
“So, how are you will?”
She asked him with her honey filled voice which made Will want to simply drink her out till his senses drop dead, but he controlled, somehow controlled his blushing face and trembling mouth to spew out nonsense and replied, “Like a Bear.”
She smiled and broke his aching heart into two pieces, and she continued, “So you are a scout.”
“Yes mam.”
“Good. Will tell me what is your level and how high is your path finder skill?”
Will stared directly into her eyes as the angel asked him something and his mind automatically answered her back but the only thing he was thinking about was how to make this girl fall for him.
“My level is 13 and my path finder is at beginner lv 5.”
“Oh!”
His heart ached even more when he saw the slight disappointment in her eyes.
“Okay, no worries. Be ready tomorrow, we’ll be leaving at 0400 hr tomorrow, Alright.”
Rae was going to go back, but then she noticed Wills face turning red like a tomato and his hands shaking. She hurriedly held his shaking hands and spoke,
“Will are you alright? What happened…”
But her holding his hands had the opposite effect, His face turned even redder, and his world started rotating. He almost fell, face first onto her breast, but she held his head and screamed out,
“Hey what happened are you all right? Healer, Heale… Riana get your ass over here… Will need’s you.”
But before the situation could escalate Rusty jumped out of the woods and said something to Rae in her ear. She looked at will in concern but nodded her head, stood up and left.
Rusty who kept on looking at Rae until she went out of his sigh, turned his head, looked at will, and smiled.
“So how was she?”
Will saw how casually he had asked him the question and sighed.
“A heartbreak.”
“Haaha, damn right!” Rusty replied back as he slapped Will’s back.
“Ouch…!”
“But you did good kid. That head rotating was good, but did you really think that she would have let you rest your head on her mounds. You are delusional.”
“But I had to try.” Will replied. While his eyes still looked in the direction Rae had walked.
“Yeah right, what do you know? She is not an air head. You are lucky that you are new and this is your first time here otherwise she would have easily connected the dots and cut your head off. She is a genius you know and the princess of us younger generation.”
“Oh.” Will nodded his head as if he had understood what he was talking about.
“Anyways, my name is Rafael and everyone calls me Rusty.”
Will straightened up and held shook his hands.
“I am Pleased to met you Sir Rafael, I am will, a scout.”
“No need for pleasantries Will. Now onto business. I am here to inform you that, on squad leaders orders you will act as our official Scout and I will act as your helper and tomorrow you will be the one to lead us to the mission site, understood”
The news surprised Will. Not only was he allowed to go with them, he was even given a very important role.
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You are here to gain experience of working in a real team right. Well welcome and goodbye. And we will leave at 0400hr in the morning so be ready by then. ”
“But…” will wanted to retort, and say that he wasn’t expecting this, but before he could Rusty vanished into the Darkness, like he wasn’t even there a second ago.
‘0400 it is. I better get some sleep.’
And midst a lucid dream and wet underwear, the Night passed away and the time to leave came.
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“Where is the little kid?”
Ren the squad leader asked Rae, who was standing with the rest of the team in front of him in a single file.
“He is prob… oh there he is.”
Rae saw Will coming out of the woods and noticed that his clothes and face looked washed and cleaner than yesterday. She remembered how he wasn’t feeling well yesterday and her heart softened.
Will came and bowed to the captain.
“Good morning sir. I am sorry for being late.”
Ren noticed his swollen red eyes and sighed.
“Now…”
“Will sir.”
“Will do your best, okay.” Then he noticed Ren nodding at Riana who nodded back and mumbled something.
Will felt a strange energy radiating from her and engulfing him. Following which was a wall of notices coming and going before his eye.
+25% movement speed or the next 2 hours.
Wind god’s blessing
Your body will fell a bit lighter for the next two hours.
+100% Stamina regeneration for the next hour.
Mage Riana, is trying to establish Telepathic connection with you.
Accept/Reject
He looked at the Beautiful green haired lady, who had come to help him heal last night and saw her nodding her head. So he accepted the request and another prompt came to his sight.
You are now connected to the party members of Squad-8 through mage Riana.
Allows member Will to send and receive thoughts to and from all the members connected.
Though the buffs gave him an initial shock, as he thought about the ability, talent and skill required to pull off something of this caliber, but quickly accepted them too, thinking that it was to be accepted. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been given a mission of their own.
Then he met with the scout Rust, who casually smiled and waved his hand at him, before stealthy pointing his index finger toward Rae who was again covered from head to toe. Will smiled warily and went toward him.
He felt revitalized seeing he was being welcomed by at least two members of the team, even if he hadn’t gotten the time to talk with the other members.
Will and Rusty talked about the plan and dividing tasks, they soon moved out.
With Will leading and showing the path, Rusty keeping eye on the monster and both giving reports back to their leader Ren, they slowly made their way through the forest.
Though Will made some mistakes like being too engrossed in the surrounding trying to find monsters and only stopping when he was right in front of them, all the obstacles they met were quickly solved and removed by the team following behind him.
The scout taught him all the way through and will kept on performing better and better.
Though the day bats they met on the way sacred the shit out of Him, when one tried to suck his blood, but again the team took them out too easily as the bat were too low leveled and couldn’t do anything to stop their advance.
All in all it took them only three hours to reach their mission spot. The buffs played a huge role for Will and allowed him to keep going without stopping or getting out of breath otherwise reaching the destination alone would have taken a long time.
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“This is the place sir.” Will spoke to Runt, pointing towards the barren grayish yellow land which had too many stones and dirt scattered everywhere.
“Okay, the trip ends here. Get in the back now.”
Will wanted to retort, but he understood that it wasn’t his mission and that if something bad happened then they won’t have time to babysit him.
So although it was a little bit frustrating, he still moved back. Then Rusty climbed a tree to do a quick survey before he informed Ren through Riana.
Ren asked Rae to find a quick and safe route to the site and moved with the rest of the team to find a safe site, which they couldn’t find, as the forest was too lush.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
So Ren had to compromise with wills safety by bringing him along which he actually didn’t want to.
“Now, you know that we won’t be able to protect you if something bad ass came running our way. So what will be the first thing you will do I that case?”
Will didn’t know how to answer that! But because he understood the mission’s important, and knew the most about his powerlessness, he was able to the devise the perfect notebook answer to Team leader Ren’s question
“Run back to the fort and inform the commander?”
“Very well.” Ren smiled and said.
After five minutes Rae came back from the scouting.
Their conversations ended there and Rae shared the site with everyone.
Understanding the topography Ren asked her,
“So what is the situation, any danger?”
“Negative. There are no enemies nearby.” To which rust added saying he didn’t notice any monster activity from atop the tree.
“Though..” Rae added, “I saw some blood outside the site of impact and a dead white wolf.”
“A white wolf?”
“Yes sir. It body is still lying just outside the impact site.”
“Okay. So tell me something about the site.”
“I don’t think it was done by any monster. From the signs and destruction, I think the hole was blasted out, and not the other way around. So inside we will either find long and winding underground tunnel or…”
Seeing how Rae was explaining, Ren and Rusty quickly got to the same conclusion, “Or this is the entrance to a dungeon.”
“A new born dungeon?” asked Raymond.
“Probably, or maybe an older one that finally reached 100th floor.”
Rose replied looking at him with solemn eyes.
*Ahem*
Ren got their attention towards him. “We’ll retreat if it’s an old dungeon so no need to worry about that. Anyways…” he faced Rae and asked, “So how far is it?” To which she simply replied saying, “Just a few meters away.”
He looked at all the members present and nodded his head.
“Okay, we will do this like we have always done. Because the hole as Rae told is narrow, Raymond you are at the front. Following you will be me, then Rae, followed by Rose, Riana..”
He looked at Will who was staring at him and continued speaking
“And at last Rusty will enter. After entering we will assume defensive stance, with Raymond acting as the Wall, me and Rae as front line attackers, Rusty and Riana as support and Rose as the damage dealer. Our primary focus is to investigate and find the cause of the disturbance, and the decision to engage the enemy will be taken after gauging its strength. Any questions? No, okay let’s move out.”
Will opened his mouth to say something, but then looked at Rae and ended up not saying anything.
Then following Rae the team moved quickly, but not without taking note of their surroundings.
Rae had already removed the wolf, so the dark hole was clearly in open for them to enter.
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POV from Minnie’s side:
Minnie saw the same red warning message flashing in front of her and tensed up. Then a large screen showing a human, wearing black overall’s having a slim shoulder, back attached to it appeared in front of her. Minnie noticed that other than those iron pieces she was also wearing knee and elbows guards over her clothes. But the main thing was that all of them were black.
The intruder stood beside the wolf for some seconds, before she dragged it away and cleared the hole..
She looked inside and when she didn’t find anything interesting inside, she ran away.
Minnie took a breath of relief, but because she understood that her intruder had probably gone back to call her team mates and that they would be here in the next five minutes if they are near or fifteen minutes at most if they are far.
So now she had five minutes to think about what to do with them.
She looked at the cave and noticed how congested and narrow it was. Inside the cave there was not much space. But the main problem was about the enemy strength.
She knew nothing about them.
‘Ahh, If they are humans then e have a pretty good chance, but only if Rocky wake up anytime soon.’
“I hope, I just hope they are only her for some scouting…”
Yes she was told in her school that humans do send a small scouting party to places of disturbance to check out the dangers and everything.
So even though the dangers of her being disconnected from her dungeon core, no possibility to summon dungeon protectors, or not even having a place to hide were real, at least she would be safe. As she was told that humans are greedy bastards who will come to leech from her dungeon and won’t harm her until she keeps on meeting their demands, a request to which she was ready to comply.
Firstly a warrior holding a kite shield entered the hole wearing all iron equipment. His short sword hung from his waist on his left side and a helmet covered his face. Following him Ren cam down too.
Minnie hurriedly got her act together, but got struck in the hard and rock place. She couldn’t decide whether she should attack now and irk him or not attack him and irk his whole team.
Thinking how no matter which dungeon it was, is, or will be it was the duty of a core to send monsters to intercept the intruders and send them to their death bed. And she needed to do it too to at least make the situation look normal.
But her intruders were already attacking her protectors by the time she came to be.
“The hell? Are those ants?”
“Those are… Big? What should we do?”
“Let’s mash them.”
And they moved. Seeing the two humans sheathing their swords and coming towards the ants, Minnie ordered her babies to intercept them, while she hid behind the core.
After all a fairy wasn’t something that people could simply meet without having a destiny or maybe this was their time.
Raymond rotated his short sword in his hand, before grinning and sprinting towards one of the ant workers standing at the front.
He moved and stopped the raging ant with his shield and did a shield bash on its face which not only pushed it back but also made it fly.
The same scene played at his side, where Ren at first gauged its strength by playing with it but when he saw that it was just too weak, he crouched down and charged his sword with mana before performing a mana strike. Because his level was almost twice its level and he was using a special attack, before the ant to do anything Ren’s sword moved like lightening and struck its head.
The power from his strike cut and dissected the ant into two pieces.
Minnie looked with disbelief.
‘The wolf hadn’t been able to do such a thing, even with the help of its racial skill.’ She thought, but then remembered reading that humans were powerful not simply because of their intelligent, but because they could use their intelligence in a better way than most beings could.
She quickly understood that the difference between a wolf and a sword wielding human was not just the difference between their levels.
By the time Ren had killed the ant all the rest of the members had come down from the hole. Minnie saw their numbers and trembled ever so slightly.
‘There are too many of them here.’
She hurriedly gave the Soldier ant to move but she ended up making a mistake. The soldier ant was strong and he was also a fast learner.
So when he got the command to fight, he once again relayed the same message to dig and wait for its turn to the injured ant worker and stepped forward.
It looked at the humans standing in front of him and roared.
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Though Ren had killed one monster ant, he still kept his eye on the bigger, more menacing ant of the bunch, which was standing near the core aloof like the death of its comrade meant nothing to it.
*Roar*
But then it suddenly roared looking at him and charged forward like a raging bull, as if trying to prove that his thinking was wrong.
Its head glowing with mild copper light, it bashed its head on Raymond’s shield and cracked it. Raymond felt the ant, surging with power behind the shield, but was sent flying as his shield crumbled apart like glass. It stunned Ren, but he quickly grasped the situation and stopped the ant from doing a follow up attack on Raymond.
Meanwhile the lonely ant worker behind the soldier ant started digging.
While they were fighting the rest of their team came down from the hole and the scene shocked them a little.
The first thing the mage girls Rose saw was Ren’s shield cracking from the ants head butt and then him flying through the air and dropping mid way between them and Ren who alone was facing the ant on steroids.
*Clang* *Clang*
*Roar*
But no matter how Ren tried to cut, slash or stab the ant with his strength, his sword would always bounce of its exoskeleton leaving behind sparks.
“Ren let us help.”
And Ren felt two powerful attacks coming from behind. He noticed their trajectory and moved when they were almost upon him.
While the ants opened its mandible and moved its head to try and cut him to pieces, but Ren agilely used its pincer to jump upwards as the fireball and a glowing arrow, directly struck the ant on its face.
*Boom*
*Shyaa*
The fire which was its weakness completely engulfed its face and body, while the arrow got logged deep inside its left eye.
*Roar*
It started thrashing, and was going to move toward Rusty and rose when jumped off Ren reached the roof and used it as its foothold to down. His face facing the ant, he did a fully mana charged cross mana slash on the ants back.
When momentum from his jump, his own strength and the swords sharpness ad his skill they all combined, hi power unexpectedly jumped levels to easily pierce the ants back. He did not just cut the currently soft exoskeleton from all the fire, but the sword even went all the way through and left a foot deep cut on its body, which immediately spurted a fountain of white fluid and rained on Ren’s face, covering him completely.
*Roar*
Ren fell on its left side and unfortunately the ant almost thrashing like a bull came to collide with him.
*Bang* They collided, as Blood came out of his mouth, but before the ant could harm him more Rae came out from the ants shadow and cut two of its legs. Then she rolled under its soft bottom, creating another set of injuries there before coming from the other side and cutting another two of its legs.
The ant momentarily stunned from the sudden turn of tables couldn’t roar anymore and fell down, as its remaining legs couldn’t handle its weight and they broke. Its fall opened the wound at its bottom and even more white fluid gushed out; filling the barren dry land.
Rae came out of the shadows and stood beside Ren who was looking in the ant’s eye with his sword hovering over its head and glowing stronger and stronger by the second.
“Good bye little ant.” And the sword struck down.
*crush*
Like his first kill the ant soldier also got his head cut into two and it soon disappeared into multiple dots of light, but Ren instinctively felt danger.
And thinking about it he turned to face his team members waiting behind him and his face stiffened, his smile turned into a scowl and he screamed,
“Rose!!”
But before anyone could do anything, another ant came digging out of the ground, just a few centimeters from Rose’s feet and it jumped into the air.
Its 4ft tall body completely covered Rose’s vision.
“What?!” she uttered in shock, when the ant stabbed it six legs directly into her body.
“Huh?” Rusty and Riana who were standing behind her couldn’t react before Rose fell backward from the ant’s weight.
That fall finalized her death. The legs came out from her back after puncturing her lungs, stabbing her heart and completely ripping her stomach and bring it out with them from her back.
“Gwack!” she coughed blood.
“STOP!!” Ren shouted but as he saw that spectacle happen in front of him, but
*Roar*
The ant wasn’t listening to anyone. It looked down into her eyes, just like Ren had looked at the soldier ant. It opened its pincers and stabbed them downwards. They entered her cheeks like butter, before he closed his mandibles and cut her face off, killing her right then and there.
“YOU BASTARD!!” it was Raymond who had come running when it saw the ant coming out of the ground, with his sword already half way into the ant neck, but it was simply too late to do anything.
The ant vanished into multiple dots of light, leaving behind the mutilated and badly bleeding body of Rose.
With trembling hands Riana placed her head on her chest and when she didn’t fell any heart beat tears started flowing from her eyes as she looked at Raymond with her hands on her mouth and cried.
Ren gritted his teeth and turned around in anger. Though his mind was full of anger and it his inner voice was screaming inside his head to destroy the core, lit it, blaze it, it was actually Rae who had acted first and was currently slashing the core with all her might.
Her eyes red and her face uncovered. She didn’t care about her image, as she gauged the core and etched deep lines all over the crystal.
And she made a final cut, before she saw it gaining a purple tint.
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Minnie saw what happened over the screen and didn’t dare to look from behind the crystal. She was simply too scared to go in front of them.
She saw the ant soldier dying gloomed, then rejoiced when the ant worker killed the girl, but then gloomed again when she saw that girl who had played the greatest role in killing her soldier coming and attacking the core directly.
She finally took a sigh of relief when she saw the girl stopping and taking a step back. But then she got confused when she saw all the other humans taking a step back too.
Curious, she decided to look back and what she saw left her dumbfounded.
There it was the core of the dungeon which had been colorless till date was suddenly glowing with a purple tint and with time it was getting stronger.
But that didn’t stop there. The core soon started emitting a vile and awful aura as if it was a bloodthirsty monster. Angered by the humans for trespassing his land and then the cave started vibrating as if it was the end of the world.
“What is happening?! This this…”
“Rae, Raymond, let’s leave first.” Ren commanded but before they could actually move the core pulsed once, before purple colored glowing wave of darkness spread out from the crystal. And without leaving even a single corner unaffected, it soon engulfed the humans and the cave inside it.