*'Nio'*

Well, this is dull.

Our break was over with about... an hour or two ago, and we haven't really had a good fight. I mean, we've only explored the second level, but it's a carbon copy of the first where the enemies take maybe one more hit. However, we still didn't want to stop quite yet. We've accumulated about 20k so far, and our greed has gotten the better of us, at least, apart from Doki. I can't put my finger on it, but he seemed way too quiet like he's listening out for something. Of course, I met the guy yesterday, so I could just be imagining things, I mean, he's always had a bored look in his eyes anyways...

"This is SOOOOOO dull! I mean, to repeat the same enemies as the first level, this deity obviously doesn't have style..." said an annoyed LOD. He seemed to be very opinionated on any topic he could, but I at least agreed with him on this one.

"Well then, we might as well start talking casually then," I replied. Wanting to get at least some sort of conversation going to prevent us getting too bored, LOD nodded encouragingly, so I asked. "So, I've been wondering, what is 'LOD' short for?"

"Lolicon of despair..."

We all turned around to the source of the quote, and it was surprisingly Doki. Turning to LOD, I saw that his face went red.

"That's NOT it... It's short for..." He seemed to cut himself off as if he's embarrassed to tell us.

After another while of silence, he tried again. "It's short for 'Legend of Daruna'." Oh, it's an obvious game reference then... I mean, it's not as if we're not playing a game right now, I don't understand why he'd be embarrassed by that of all things.

"Eh? But Legend of Daruna is a good series... I mean, the choice of a male protagonist in the newest game could have been fun, and not changed anything about the game but a visual nod to gender equality, but it's still a solid series that dares to make changes in each game. So what's so embarrassing about that?" Nio said, attempting to make LOD feel better.

"... The console. My friends were in the PC master race, the mere thought of me playing on this console was the reason for complete mockery," LOD replied.

"And? Mockery is mockery, grow a thick skin and it doesn't matter," I added, attempting to help him shake off his friend's jokes.

"It's, personal..." he replied in a cold tone.

'Oh... That's great, now I feel like a dick,' I thought, assuming that I hit a weak spot or something.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better I generally find at least the fifth generation of SoC..." I said, thinking back to all the mockery it had caused me.

"Wait, you like Shackles of Conscription... Wow! The series that never changes a damn thing, re-posts re-skins of previous games in the series, and charges the premium price for them..." LOD said, tearing my opinion apart with glee.

"... You're just proving my point LOD. I get ridiculed for having the tenacity to enjoy some games in the series since I just have fond memories of playing them with friends." I replied, slightly hurt by his commentary.

"Silence!" Doki said, all the 'banter' immediately stopped. I wanted to ask the reason behind Doki's outburst, it was self-explanatory, though.

"Ha ha ha. How cute. Newbies like you, actually noticing us. I mean, we wanted to silently kill you from behind... But we can kill you up front too. Well?" Said a man who came into the light. I could see his head over Doki, and he seemed serious...

"Well? Are you trying to stand us? Well, kudos for not crying away like babies I guess. But your deaths are still on my list. If I were you I'd start running, you wouldn't want to be mad enough to die putting up a pathetic fight, would you?" The same man said this, and in perfect sync, about 50 odd people stepped out of the darkness, completely surrounding us.

There was a slight moment of pause, as I think I heard Doki mumbling something, he then coughed to clear his voice and stated. "Sorry about that, but thanks for the compliment you egotistical, hard-headed old man. But I need to correct your statement. You see, you don't know the meaning of the word 'mad' do you?"

As he said this, he stared straight into the eyes of the giant of a man, completely unfazed.

"Who the hell are you. Our gripe is with the Jeehan Family. If you don't want to die, flee and leave Han Jeehan to us!" the thug said, reasonably angry at Doki's insults.

"Nah. I mean, you're a fool who thinks it's mad for us four to fight your entire clan," Doki replied. "Formation 2, O's 360. Jeehan and Nio, tank and try not to die. LOD, get near me and wait for them to get weakened."

Doki got out his staff, starting to stare the giant right in the eyes again, and then said, "Madness is the thought of your entire clan fighting, and even attempting to win against us."

... Wait, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?! As Doki finished his sentence, all of the men surrounding us started charging, their weapons flashing . I tried to fight them all, but most just ran right past me. I start to think I failed, but hearing Doki say "[Bind]" seconds later filled me with hope.

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Then, as before, the people around me and I were all stuck in a bind of tentacles, with our health being sapped away. However, Doki maintained our hp with [heal] and trapped about 20 of the 50 within the tentacles, which created a massive wall around Doki, blocking us off from attacks from the other 30.

Oh, so he was biding his time... That made sense, but when Doki's MP ran out, we were fucked, weren't we? I mean Doki wouldn't have much hp since he was continuously healing me and Jeehan. LOD's AP was probably not that high either with how many skills he's been using. The majority of these people who out leveled us left were still outside Doki's trap too...

As I saw his AP had decreased about half way, we heard something happening on the other side of the tentacle wall. There are people talking on the other side, but it sounds like nothing but incoherent muffling from in here. Was someone helping us, mobs attacking those outside, or what?

"Wha...!" I heard the same threatening voice as before, but this time he seemed shocked and scared. Grunts and slashes pierced the walls, as a bloody battle took place outside of them.

"Oh, they're finally here?" Doki said. I don't know to who, but it appears someone Doki knew had come to save us.

"So this is where you guys were, you could have said the directions..." a familiar female voice said.

"Alice?" Jeehan's voice said. Wait, did Alice and the clan she works with come to save us? But why would she be here too?

I heard lots of death, from what I presume to be the clan who tried to kill us. It calmed down, Doki ended his bind and healed me and Jeehan up to full, then we turned to the one member still alive, the person I perceived as the leader. I didn't understand what was happening, but apparently this was something against Jeehan, that we all just got caught up in.

"Well, Doki. Nice plan, that went as well as you said it would." Said a relieved looking Alice. Did she think we'd die or something? Just what exactly is going on!?

"Obviously my lovingly dubbed 'Walking the blindfolded off a cliff' strategy would work. Now then Mr egotistical fool, Care to explain what was so important that you fell for my plan so beautifully?"

"I..."

"Oh, sorry, it seems like I don't give a shit." As Doki said that, the man instantly jumped to attack him, he took a step back, dodging the man's attack, so the man just fell on the floor and sighed in defeat.

"Wow, so jumpy. I've heard about your heart-breaking story of love for Alice that was crushed before it even started, and, quite frankly, I don't care! You're selfish and vindictive acts were the main reason she said no in the first place. Do you really think that going off on a temper tantrum and trying to kill her beloved brother would get you any chance? You just led yourself and all your colleagues to a stupid defeat to four 'newbies' due to your hotheadedness, and you think you have the right to tell your 'tear-jerking love life'. Fuck off!" Doki yelled, concluding his argument.

The man Doki was yelling to was silent, unable to come up with a comeback, and surrendered completely to Doki and Alice.

"Doki, that was a bit rude... But it's surprisingly correct. To state my view, I'm not interested in you. I wasn't when you asked, and I'm most certainly not now! If you harass any more of my family, I will make a vendetta against you, so please stop whilst you're ahead. Since Doki's plan worked out so well, I'll forgive you for this now. But I won't be so forgiving next time." Alice added.

'A bit' ? Wait, so Doki knew about this... Oh right, that must have been what he talked to Adam about yesterday.

"To explain to those who don't know, this is... 'Sam' was it?"

After Alice gave confirmation from a simple nod, Doki, who was explaining, continued. "So this 'Sam' is the leader of a clan which had strong ties to the clan Alice accounts for. He supposedly fell for Alice during a meeting, so asked her out. She said no, so he was distraught. This is what Adam and I discussed yesterday, and made the plan. Alice tried to talk me out of it with Hiiro earlier today, but she didn't succeed. To be fair, we could have completed the dungeon today. But seeing as how it would have taken longer for them to get us later on in the dungeon, and these guys had been stalking us for a while, I deemed not proceeding to be the best plan."

He continued, changing his tone to a more apologetic one, "Sorry to keep it a secret, but for my master plan, I needed as many people to charge in blindly as possible, and your innocence and confusion was enough to make them."

... So that's what he means by 'walking the blindfolded off a cliff.' He made them think it was an egotistical last stand of us four, for another bigger and stronger clan to get behind them and annihilate them. Since the issue is emotional rather than important, it was clear to see why it worked.

"Well, it worked and we didn't die. So I can't bring myself to hate you Doki. But, I think you missed something in your great plan..." Said LOD, pointing at where Sam was, and he wasn't there now.

"Well, I was told not to kill him, so instead I weakened him... I mean, we're in a dungeon, it only takes a surprise encounter for him to die. That should be enough to get our message across. The point of this was to break the group's morale anyway, with such a humiliating defeat, at least some members should have left, weakening their threat on our lives in the future. By the way, I think we should start to leave and go home, it's like 7pm right now..." Doki said. Everyone looked at the time and realized he was correct. Thinking about a panicking Adam, we decided to go back immediately.

-

We were back at the Jeehan family house... Doki already ate and went to sleep, and the rest of us were just talking.

"So then Alice, considering my level is 19, Nio's level is 17, Jeehan's level is 20 and Doki's level is 21, do you think we could go straight to the boss tomorrow, or do you think we need to grind more to do it?" Lod asked. I mean, Doki said that we could probably have done the dungeon today, and we leveled up like crazy, with that fight in which we killed about 15 over level 20 guild members, so level ups came at a ridiculous rate. Alice also had some idea of how good our teamwork and skill usage was, and since she's probably heard things about the dungeon, and how hard it's boss is, it was only reasonable to ask.

"I don't want to spoil it, but if I were you, I'd decide whilst going through the other layers. It's boring I know, but you might as well use them to test out the skills you've gotten since you last checked. I mean, from what I've seen, your dynamic is strange, and you overuse individual skills, like LOD's [assassinate] skill, so added a bit more range to your attacks would probably be better. Also, you have a lot more money now, so buy yourselves better equipment, please... I mean Lod is still wearing casual clothes, and has no armor..."

She was right, I mean, we were pretty repetitive with our fighting style, and our equipment was now beneath our levels. I think we think about what to get and sleep tonight, then go shopping tomorrow. Maybe we should also consider the pros and cons of all the skills available, to see if we could be more efficient with other skills too. After stating my plan, we all ate without Doki who ate before and went to sleep.