15 minutes had now passed since the epic scene.
Vin was following behind Jain like a puppy, he hated the thought of it.
Jain had walked away without informing Vin of his destination , Vin had decided to follow him and luckily Jain had not decided to abandon him when he did so.
Vin was a 19 year old hunter just as Jain but a lot more taller and manlier while Jain had his shorter and frail looking body - well atleast he did when he entered the dungeon.
Vin had noticed that Jain was growing more fit as his muscles were slowly building up per passing second.
The difference wasn't visible at first glance but after 15 minutes of observing him he had noticed that Jain's clothes were growing tighter from the growing muscles, funnily enough these muscles weren't even that big , Infact Vin judged them to be slightly below average
However it was a massive improvement to someone who had looked so frail that even the smallest of breeze could have blew him to the other side of the world.
Vin collected his mind to observe Jain once more.
Back then he had referred him as 'the boy' because he had been stuck in that naive impression that Jain was an inferior being to him in strength and ranking.
Vin wasn't the type of guy to be cocky , he just hated having people around him that would weigh him down making his work even harder.
He had read the details about 'Jain' on a pamphlet before the entire raid had even began , the guild they were in - Kingsman was alerted that Jain would be joining them in their next raid , the paperwork had all been finished and a pamphlet had been sent to them revealing most about Jain's details to the guild members.
Misha of course threw it away ,uninterested in reading 'garbage' by her standards.
Hanks followed her lead, Nisha had procrastinated to read it and ended up not reading it till the end leaving only Vin and Krohn to read about this guy's information , Barbra on her side wasn't that good at reading.
The pamphlet had everything that would be needed by the guild to permit this strange person's intervening in the raid ;
his name(s) : Jain Mcguire
age : 19 years old.
Along with some other unimportant and minor information such as his birthplace and motivation to joining the raid - apparently which was to : 'observe how my superiors do' , Vin had believed the motive because he hadn't know any better but he started questioning the motive after seeing that Jain guy being accompanied by one of the strongest and only B+ rank hunter , after all what was the point of observing 'superiors' when he had Hindriad by his side who was essentially more powerful than them ?
Vin sighed heavily to himself , Jain was a bit far ahead for him to hear it.
𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝑰 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐?
He asked himself this question repeatedly, there was nothing he could do to change anything now.
The damage had already been done , the only thing left would be to deal with the collateral.
If he could do that , he needed to know exactly what was happening in the dungeon now , why and what they could do to fix it. He was more than certain that Jain had all the answers.
Vin had gained his composure over the past 15 minutes and no longer feared Jain.
If Jain wanted to get rid of Vin , he would have done so a long time ago instead of letting him follow behind.
So Vin walked nearer to Jain before intentionally clearing his throat to ask for attention.
" So , where are we going ? "
He asked in an attentive tone , Vin had asked just the question in hopes that Jain would give him all the answers he needed in one large summary.
Jain slowed down , inhaling heavily before answering.
" To the dungeon boss. "
Vin could hear the heaviness in his voice showing his seriousness, he couldn't be lying about visiting the dungeon boss
After all why would you bother lying to someone weaker than you when you could just always get rid of them there and carry on with your suspicious deeds.
But still , taking on a dungeon boss was absolutely no joke.
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Unless a person was B+ ranked or higher , they absolutely couldn't take a dungeon boss on their own.
The dungeon they were in was certainly not normal , and was definitely stronger than the average dungeon in Voz ; Mana here was completely absent making it difficult to cast magic and risky as one couldn't refill their mana reserves while using the mana inside of them to cast the spells ,so it would undoubtedly need an A-rank hunter to even have a shot of defeating the dungeon boss.
Monsters in here were also crazy strong and resilient , their large numbers just made matters worse.
Vin had assessed and understood the reason why they all had suffered defeat in here , they all were wired and skilled only at fighting individual enemies and not several overwhelming opponents at once.
If they had been thoroughly prepared they probably would have atleast managed to retreat before suffering this much damage.
If the dungeon boss's minions themselves were this strong - which overwhelmed and took out 3 of the guild's members in one go , what would be the dungeon boss be like ?
It was common sense for a dungeon boss to be largely stronger than it's minions for domination , so that would mean the dungeon boss in this raid would be strong enough to pass current modern human comprehension In Voz.
Vin was filled with even more dread.
Jain was indeed powerful as Vin had gotten front row seat to his action , but he didn't believe he could defeat the dungeon boss while also fighting it's minions at the same time, that was simply impossible
Vin was currently too weak to take on the minions , atleast that was if he didn't reveal his trump card.
" It's going to be difficult to defeat the dungeon boss , that I am sure you are aware of. "
Vin finally voiced out his thoughts.
Jain turned to face him hearing Vin's words full of doubt , his eyes had a strong determination as he stared deeply at Vin
" If I quit now who will save your friends ? "
𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔..𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒎𝒚 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒎?
" But they aren't my friends, they are just the people I work with.... "
Vin said coldy.
He was the type of person to keep a work relationship professional.
It was true that he had once been Misha and Nisha's friend in the past , but that was history and now was the present, the others - Hanks , Barbra and Krohn were just rookies Vin met along the way.
" You're really naive , you know that? If you consider them just colleagues then why haven't you left this dungeon then? A guy with your skills could have been out of this dungeon by now, you have that rune card tracking thingy pasted outside the dungeon so you could track our way in and leave any when you want. So leave "
𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕. 𝑯𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚?
Vin didn't understand the meaning behind Jain's words , but he did get the instruction.
It was true that Vin could leave the dungeon any when he wanted to , his teammates deaths wouldn't fall upon him anyhow as he could simply give a thorough report of what had happened and get away with it.
But somehow he couldn't do that , he couldn't abandon his teammates and he didn't know why.
" I thought as much , look I am not going to give you some sort of motivational speech like one of those cliche goody two shoes guys. What I am going to tell you is to try to build a better relationship between you and your teammates and stop being an assh*le , okay? Because right now , your teammates need you the most and I am going to help you. "
Vin's eyes were widely opened in shock from the words , his mind was pulled straight to his own past actions.
It was true , all of it was true - what Jain had tried to get him to understand.
Realisation hit him hard , he understood now , understood why he acted the way he did.
𝑰 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒐𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔.
Years ago , a 15 year old boy was titled to be the next fire mage prodigy after he had taken a rank determining test , the test involved casting a spell - any spell shooting it at a dummy.
the dummy measured the magical power behind that spell therefore giving the user a rank.
The boy who had been practising on a new spell decided to put it to action , the spell was called '𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗻'.
It was spell which was stronger version of the weak 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗹 spell , while the 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗹 spell condensed fire shaping it into ball before shooting at a target ,𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗻 condensed an even a larger ball of fire shooting it at a target. But the spell malfunctioned at the test , instead of just incinerating the dummy the fire immediately went unstable after it hit it spreading the fire everywhere in the form of an explosion. Regardless , the explosive power was higher than the average power some mages of the same affinity.
The magical energy released in the spell gained him the B-rank, he could have become a hunter in that moment but he didn't really have an interest.
He was above 15 so he could join , only 14 years and above people could become a hunter if they had the strength, experience was gained along the way.
A year passed and the boy's mother fell ill into an unknown disease, each and every day her strength dissipated and there was nothing he could do about it.
Doctors in Voz tried to heal her with potions but that didn't work , the only thing that kept her alive was the medicine 'Diok' , originally it was supposed to be a liquid full of mana which replenished mana reserves almost instantly.
It extended her life for a day after being used but a convenient liquid as such cost an arm and a leg.
The boy was therefore forced to become a hunter , a prodigy in fire magic of course excelled.
Each day he read books about magic , giving less and less attention for his girl friend - Misha.
The boy's name was Vin.
By the time he was 17 years old , he wanted to research about the disease his mother had to find a cure.
His mother - Tera had grown shrivelled and lost most of her hair , Vin visited her atleast almost every day.
She spoke less and less each visit , it had reached a point where she now stared into empty space as if she was already dead although she still was breathing and alive.
𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑰 𝒅𝒐 𝒊𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 , 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰'𝒎 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒂𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒔𝒂𝒌𝒆.
Tera was a kind and thoughtful woman , back then Misha used to drop by with Nisha to Vin's place and his mom would prepare sweets and desserts for them as they played under the warmth of the sun.
Tera was a single parenting woman but she did magnificently well in raising Vin.
She was a tall woman with brown hair and analysing eyes , that's where Vin got most of his features from.
In the dungeon's darkness Vin could almost see her smile shining through it , reaching him.
He opened his eyes staring at the almost short guy in front of him who had brought such positive memories to him.
A blonde haired hunter who had saved him from his self-torture.
He smiled.
" Well then , let's go my friend. "