Red lights dimly lit the dark boss room.
The man holding me and Gesai dropped us both on the ground. I was able to land in a crouch, but the redhead was still unconscious and landed with a thud. I heard a noise and the lights changed to white, began to pulse, and then shone brightly to fill the room.
The leader ran at the boss as soon as he saw where it was. None of the other bandits put down any of the people they were carrying. They seemed to believe that their help wasn’t needed or the fight wouldn’t be that long.
The boss itself was larger than I’d imagined. I’d thought from the description, that it would be about the size of a large horse. Instead, it was almost the size of an elephant. And there were two of them.
He was moving almost faster than I could follow, and his swings were blurs. I could tell when he hit something, but it was so fast that was all I could see.
He took out the front left leg of the boss on his left, and kept running under it as staggered, knocking the front right leg to the side, bringing the whole thing down on its face. While it was facedown, he smashed its heads with his fist, then jumped on its back and shoved his right arm inside of it. The boss vanished in smoke.
The whole thing had taken less than ten seconds for him to wipe an Elite Floor Boss out. Granted, it was a level one Elite Floor Boss, but I still found it impressive.
The other Elite Floor Boss roared and stuck at him with its tail. He caught the barb and pulled it down. The massive monster crashed on its side as he pulled it to him. I couldn’t imagine how much the thing weighed, but he was moving it like he was pulling around a small dog that had latched on to a rope.
He stopped the monster with his left hand and jammed his right arm into its back up to his shoulder. The monster got halfway through a scream before it vanished in smoke.
The door to the second floor opened. And he walked over to collect us. He eyed me for a second before he grabbed Gesai Alard and threw her over his shoulder.
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“Keep up.”
It was all the instruction I got before he started walking towards the exit.
“Hogo! Pick up the loot!”
I watched the bald man carrying the male Noble they’d snatched pick up the loot as I ran to keep up with the boss. It wasn’t very easy, but I was at least keeping up with the other two bandits.
We got through the door to the second floor. This one looked a lot like the first, with woods and a trail leading the way. The boss grabbed me by the shoulder and walked me over to the gate with him.
“You’re going back to the Dispatcher’s Hub?” I couldn’t believe it. "How are you going to get out?” Actually, that didn’t make sense. I couldn’t understand how someone who said they made their living like this had been allowed into the dungeon to begin with.
“You think we came through the Hub?” He laughed. "Kid, didn’t your dad teach you anything?”
I looked down at my feet and kicked a rock. "He’s more of a ‘throw you in the deep end to learn how to swim’ parent.”
“Harsh, but effective.” The bandit looked impressed. “Okay, here's a freebie about these things. They don’t only go to the Hub.” I watched him select the thirty fifth floor.
There was a flash and I felt like I was going to hurl. I dropped down to my hands and knees and started coughing. The floor wasn’t that of woods, a cavern, grass, or even desert. It looked like dry, hard, devoid ground. I flinched as thunder boomed overhead.
“Give it a second.” The boss began typing on the gate. "It’s just floor pressure, you’ll get used to it in a moment.”
I managed to look up, taking in the dead trees, barren landscape and overcast sky. I could see something flying in the clouds and hoped that we were in a safe one, because it looked bigger than any bird I’d ever seen.
The other bandits seemed unconcerned and were putting down the others, who were all having similar reactions. Hogo took out a length of rope and began tying our cuffs together.
“What are you doing?” I had no idea how he planned on getting out of the Dungeon if he wasn’t going to go through the Dispatcher’s Hub.
“Gotta get rid of any wandering eyes.” The boss wiggled his fingers in front of me.
Hogo handed him rope and he tied it to his waist.
We’re going to jump a few more times. He smiled at me. "You’re going to love the forties.”
“Wha…” I wasn’t able to finish my response before we were yanked to a different floor.