After arriving at the dungeon site, I noticed that there were few tents here and there. ‘It seems some awakeners arrived earlier than expected to prepare.’
This dungeon suddenly appeared a hundred years ago. It was given the B-rank after several raids, but because of its constant change, the general guild had a hard time managing it, and even other guilds couldn’t buy it.
Before its appearance, the area was a silent valley full of huge rocks and strong winds that made it inhabitable, even wild animals couldn’t dare to approach it. However, the dungeon brought prosperity to the area due to the high concentration of mana surrounding it, which created the best atmosphere where life could prosper and evolve.
The place became the main hunting attraction of this country during the last dozens of years. The whole valley was warped from a dead place to a greener field full of life.
After contemplating the beauty of this place, I went near a tree and sat down.
The time remaining until the beginning of the raid: 5 hours.
***
An hour later, some members of the general guild came to organize the raid. The total number of participants was 37 awakeners, this meant that there would be two teams of 12 awakeners and one team of 13.
I kept observing the participants gauge their strengths. Several of them came in already-established teams. ‘They could be part of the same guild.’
From what I’ve seen, there were 3 JTs and 9 healers.
Four of the participant warriors distinguished themselves the most.
A giant tank that appeared to be alone, was sitting a few meters away from me. He was around 3 meters tall. He was wearing a bluish set of gears that seemed to be too heavy just from sight alone.
A human swordsman, who had a long samurai sword, was talking with the general guild members, alongside his 3 teammates. He was wearing a white tuxedo that didn’t fit well with his warrior status.
The last two were human mage twins. They were wearing matching magician robes, but with different colors, one was black and the other was white.
As I was looking at the different participants, a warrior stood in front of me. He was wearing a brown leather jacket and pants that matched his reddish hair. His black leather boots were longer than the normal boots and had some drawings on them. It seemed that everything he was wearing was fancy.
“Hey, you there!” He shouted.
I turned my head around looking if he was addressing someone else besides me.
“Don’t turn your gaze away from me. I’m talking to you.” He raised his voice.
“Do you have any business with me?” I questioned.
“Do you dare talk to me like that? Don’t think that just having a Mythological Weapon will make you a more superior being than me.”
I didn’t know how to reply to what he was saying. I couldn’t even grasp why he was mad. ‘Maybe he is one of those guys with an inferiority complex.’ I decided to ignore him and change places.
“Ignoring me now huh? It seems they didn’t teach you how to talk with people higher than you in position.” He brought out a gun from his inventory and tried to shoot me in the head. “Die, you lowly peasant!”
I was about to strike his hand with my sword before the giant who was sitting near me intervened and stopped the gunner from shooting.
“Stop it there. This is not a place to fight amongst each other.” Stated the giant.
“Take your filthy hand away from me.” Shouted the gunner. “Who told you to interfere, a lowly creature like you shouldn’t dare speak up to me.” He pointed his gun this time at the giant.
With a single stare from the giant warrior, the gunner felt shivers going through his body. He lowered his gun and retreated. “Tch, now I have giant grimes on my clothes. I need to change them before I am contaminated by these filths. I am no longer in the mood to deal with both of you. I hope you rot inside this dungeon.” He left while shouting.
“What’s wrong with this fellow?” I muttered.
“Don’t mind him, he was just spouting nonsense.” A voice came from behind the giant.
A human warrior moved from the back of the giant and tapped on his back. “He is just a noble who thinks that he is above everyone. Don’t worry about him, he’s all bark but no bite.”
He appeared to be an assassin-type warrior. He was wearing a green shirt with black trousers. He was hiding his mouth by a neck warmer. He had short yellow hair and a scar above his left eye.
“Yeah, thanks for your kind words, small friend.” Answered the giant. “By the way, my name is Zinouseus. I’m a tank-type warrior from Endemonium, a country located in the south of the world.”
“Nice to know you. My name is Akavic. I’m an assassin from the Storm Setters guild from Yamaria. That scumbag is also part of the same guild as me; he’s called John, that’s how I know him.” Motioning to the departing noble.
‘So there are many awakeners from different countries participating in this raid.’ I mumbled.
“You must be the newest Mythological Weapon user.” Stated Zinouseus.
“Well, yes I am. My name is Shiryuu. Sorry for the late introduction.” I replied.
“Nice to meet you Shiryuu, and let’s get along during this raid.” Zinouseus shook my hand.
“There are still a few hours left before the raid, so try to rest a bit and conserve your strengths. See you later guys.” Akavic disappeared afterward.
***
The time of the raid has arrived. The participants started assembling in front of the dungeon, but they were quickly dispersed. I wondered what has happened.
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Thirty minutes later, an hour later, but there were no signs of the start of the raid. I decided to go ask when Akavic appeared from nowhere. “It seems we’re still waiting for the last member.”
“Hmm, so someone was missing.” I declared.
Suddenly, the general guild members in charge of this dungeon called the participants to gather.
When all the present participants gathered at the front of the dungeon, one of the managers started talking. “Sorry to keep you waiting with us, we were waiting for the last warrior to arrive, but unfortunately we can’t wait for any more, so now we will begin the raid as originally plan—“
“Waaait for meeee.” A person was heard shouting from afar.
We all turned to check on the source of the voice to see a girl running through the woods in our direction. A minute later, she arrived at the gathering. Right before she stopped running, she tripped and fell over her face.
I was the closest to the fallen girl and felt sorry for the poor warrior, so I took her by the arm and pulled her. She was all muddy and messed up.
“Uh… Uh… S-sorry and thank you.” She sounded too exhausted.
On a closer look, the newcomer was in her twenties. She was wearing an armored dress long enough to hide her black boots. She had yellow short hair with bangs covering half of her forehead and some falling over her glasses. She also had an odd orb floating around her.
Normally, mages either use a staff or a magical book as weapons to channel their mana and use spells, but this mage girl had a floating orb, which was kind of odd and new to me at the same time.
“Sorry for being late, I’m Mika Trish, the warrior you’ve been waiting for. I was up all night thinking about this raid and I ended up oversleeping during the morning. I’m sorry.” She kept bowing non-stop.
Some awakeners started laughing at her, but they stopped when one of the managers resumed what he was saying. “As I was saying, we will proceed now as planned. Some of our members will join this raid. There are three of them, so we will divide them into the 3 teams. Each one will lead one. There are 3 JT scouts and 9 healers, each team will get one scout and 3 healers. I’ll be calling the other warriors by names and assign them to their teams.”
After he finished calling the names, he told us the last thing he had to say. “The reason behind 3 teams is to efficiently manage the participants so we could minimize the injuries and deaths. The goal is not only to gain experience and rewards but to find out a pattern to how these dungeons keep changing every time. This is an international operation, so try your best to find any minor information that could be helpful for the future. Without further ado, the raid will start now.”
I was in the same team as Zinouseus, Akavic and his guildmates, and also the newly arrived girl.
The general guild member who was assigned to be the leader of our team was a middle-aged man, whose name was Lucas Rol. He was a swordsman like me. He was wearing a red cape that covered his black shirt. He had an eye patch over his right eye and black gauntlets over his hands that extended to the middle of his arms. Also, he was wearing blue jeans and normal-sized boots.
The friend of Akavic who tried to kill me earlier was staring daggers at me, I felt that at any moment he’ll jump at me for the kill, but he was just annoyed by my existence, which I found not interesting to keep dealing with for the entirety of this raid.
Not only him, but I had another mysterious hater who kept staring at me since I arrived several hours ago. He was none other than the white tuxedo swordsman. ‘It seems I’m attracting needless attention.’
As we were entering the dungeon by groups, he stopped in front of me and pointed his finger at my sword, which was casually hanging over my wrist. “That sword doesn’t fit well with someone like you. It should have been mine from the beginning. You’re not destined to be its user.”
Before I could reply to what he was spouting, he entered the dungeon and left me confused and seeking answers.
I shrugged off what has happened, cleared my mind, and entered the dungeon after my teammates.
***
The scene in front of us was something out of this world. It was marvelous. The beauty of the area was too beautiful to be real.
The first area we entered was a dream aqua land. Several waterfalls were descending from the surrounding mountains and pouring into rivers that connected with a vast and round lake. Colorful trees were all over the lower area. Several isles could be seen inside the lake. It was such a happy and calm place that didn’t fit with the context of the dungeons. It was not a place for fighting.
There were no signs of monsters, traps, or anything that could give us a hint on how to proceed.
Lucas called us to gather and agree on a plan.
First of all, we introduced ourselves and our abilities to have an idea about what we could and couldn’t do.
My team consisted of two swordsmen; Lucas and me. Two mages; the girl called Mika and one of the teammates of Akavic called Nicos. Zinouseus was a tank. Akavic the assassin. A gunner; the little noble John, and an archer; who was another teammate of Akavic called Yuta, alongside the three healers – Sherry, Sidney, and Rydel -, and finally the scout Kirin.
Sherry was from the Feline Followers guild, and Kirin, Sidney, and Rydel were all from the Flag Wavers guild. These two guilds were one of the most known guilds in my country.
“As you may already know, the objective of this raid is to find a pattern to control the information of this dungeon. We already know that it always spawns B-rank monsters, but everything is a mystery for us.” He announced. “As you see in front of your eyes, the area setting is unpredictable, and we don’t know which monsters we have to fight, so we are fighting blindly, with minimal preparations.”
“So what do we need to do exactly? With all the B-rank warriors that you’ve brought, this doesn’t seem to be a small operation.” Said the archer.
“Yeah you’re right, we need you to fight the monsters as long as possible until the scouts find a hint,” Lucas replied.
“Fight as long as possible, what do you mean?” Asked Mika.
“A month ago, some of our S-rank warriors stumbled upon a legendary grade item that could re-activate a dungeon from within. The condition is to not kill the final boss, so theoretically we can keep changing the settings of this dungeon until we find a pattern.” He replied.
“That’s a busted item there. You can keep powering up infinitely here.” Said, John.
“Yeah, but that’s not the point of this raid. We need you all to keep fighting for us until we have enough information for our goal, this is why we have three scouts with similar abilities that are perfect for this operation. They all can scan a specific area using the constant change of mana to find monsters and traps. They can also collect data about defeated monsters and store it inside their inventories. This way we can analyze the spawn patterns of monsters in a specific area and setting.” Explained the leader.
“It seems you’ve prepared for this raid for a long time.” Said Zinouseus. “Then how about supplies? We brought with us the necessary, but at some point, we will run out of food, potions, and stuff.”
“Yeah, that’s a good question, that’s why we will be rotating the teams fighting, so we can have a long time to recover our strength and mana, and with 3 healers, that should be enough to be ready when our time comes. Also, don’t worry about food, we have enough rations for all the participants for as long as two months.” Replied Lucas.
“Fair enough.” Accepted Zinouseus.
“If everyone is okay with everything I said so far, let’s move on to our battle positions. This team has quite a diverse cast, so I think we should go with the tank as our front row, one swordsman and the archer behind him, then at the center the mages with the scout and the healers, and finally the back row will consist of the gunner and the final swordsman. For the assassin, you’ll move ahead of us to check the area without being noticed by potential enemies, strike them if necessary and provide support when the front or back rows need help. As for when we’ll start moving, each team has a 4 hours rotation. At the end of each period, they will send their location to the next team so they can move and continue from where the first team stopped.” Explained Lucas.
“What is our number?” I asked.
“We are the second team, but for the first two hours, we will all move in different directions to check our surroundings and secure safe zones. Then the first team will continue for the other 2 hours, and will relay the work for us and so on.”
“I’m fine with this,” I said.
“Yeah me too, it sounds like a good plan.” Said Akavic.
“I didn’t sign for staying here for an eternity, but I can’t decline an offer to get even stronger and get rid of filths quickly.” Smirked John.
“Well then let’s start moving and discovering this new place.” Lucas clapped his hands.