Jain restlessly continued to run across the maze like passages of the dungeon to where he thought he heard the sound of an explosion come from ,or atleast something similar to its destructiveness.
That sound had came 3 minutes after Jain had been staring at Krohn's dead body , he had passed 3 minutes before leaving a dark tale upon Jain's shoulders of this dungeon's true colours.
It was a dungeon which changed places each and every day , a dungeon with dungeon bosses of different ranks , most of them were over the A rank with boasting terrifying strength and abilities.
As the dungeon shifted from place to place, so did the dungeon bosses and their levels of strength but that didn't mean you could time when a weaker dungeon boss was in rule.
No dungeon boss in this dungeon was ever lower than A rank , they could destroy a small town casually.
The rumours to why dungeon bosses this strong were in here to begin with was because the dungeon itself was the nest of a powerful ancient individual who boasted enormous energy forcing the monsters who had been here to succumb to it, evolve to higher lengths and prevent any foolish individuals from interrupting it's slumber.
Jain hardly believed it at first, how did Krohn know the dungeon to begin with ?
But those doubts soon disappeared after Krohn explained that the dungeon would look weak and easy to challenge from the outside and after the self invited victims stayed for more than 2 hours inside the dungeon , it would show its true nature .
He realised that this was the exact situation they were currently in , unfortunately Krohn passed before he could brief Jain more of this 'powerful ancient Individual ' and Jain had panicked after hearing the sound of the explosion.
He was currently on the trail to the place and he could hear a lot of rumbling the nearer he got.
" 𝙆𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙚 !!!! " a familliar sound filled the dungeon's walls as Jain realised horribly what that meant.
𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒅 !! 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒃𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔.
Jain was so worried for the other hunters' well being that he hadn't noticed that a large hole was infront of him on the dungeon floor and plummeted down to his doom.
" Aahhh "
The hole wasn't that deep, it was about 34 metres deep and led to a second dungeon floor where the action was taking place.
Jain fell , air whipping past his face. He took advantage of the momentum flipping his body so he could land on his feet to which he finally did but with his knees though - landing on something as hard as metal , probably harder. It was the back of a a strong killer ant , now rightfully called a murderous' ant.
If it weren't for the platinum armour Jain had on when he fell ,he probably would have broken his legs , thankfully his knees had a triangular pieced armour which reduced the force of impact although he did feel a little pain on both of his feet.
The murderous ant noticed Jain's presence on its back and began lifting itself backwards to knock him over.
it succeeded to its wittily surprise. Jain fell on his back and before he could pick himself up the murderous ant had already turned with one of its super sharp legs in the path to sever Jain's head, Jain quickly rolled out of the way and then used the momentum to unsheath his platinum sword by his waist and slash the creature's belly from underneath. Unfortunately the murderous ants were protected by a dark crimson exoskeleton which could stand up to 352° of heat and a force of 200N making the attempt look pitiful , to which the thin platinum sword broke into two.
" Damn.. I got that from my father ! " Jain exclaimed , even though the monster could never understand the concept of money and value. It was a sword Jain had inherited from his father , which strangely was the only thing in his bank , which was split into two in less than 2 seconds.
There was nothing Jain could use to defend himself now except quickly pick himself up and run for his life. He put the plan to action ,sprinting to where he had a sense of safety to his left. The ant was hot on his trail behind him ,not even slowing down even an inch . It would soon catch Jain in less than 4 minutes , it was fast by itself but Jain too had a little fatigue from running all the way here.
" Duck ! " A familiar voice exclaimed
Jain followed the instruction , bowing down his head as a small rock quickly flew past him striking the ant behind him and splitting it everywhere. Jain recalled the voice and recognised it to be Misha's , he looked around and just 10 metres away was the savage Misha with a disapproving look , it had been her who threw the rock which destroyed the ant.
It was an application of her gravity magic spell '𝗚𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗿𝗺' , instead of applying it on a much larger target ,she had applied it on a smaller one which had tremendous affect.
By pointing her hand and shooting there pebble towards the ant not only was she able to lift it and shoot it at a constantly accelerating speed , but she was able to reinforce the rock with gravity magic through pressing it with the force in an oppositely omnidirectional direction - compressing it from all sides , the amount of force was controlled so as not to reduce the rock to dust.
The fruit of her labour sprouted - which was a completely destroyed murder ant.
Jain regained his posture and ran closer to Misha , he saw others next to her casting some spells.
They all were arranged into a circle , Vin used his fire magic to push the ants back , Hanks helped in that as well and Misha's job was to make sure to forcefully drive back with her gravity magic any ants that sprouted out from below the ground. It was an excellent strategy , but with a liability - as soon as one of them ran out of mana ,the entire thing would fall apart putting everyone else at risk.
Barbra on the other hand who was in the middle of the circle made sure to heal any one who was caught in a surprise attack from ground sprouting ants after they had been eliminated.
" Great , another burden to protect. One that isn't useful at all. "
Misha insultingly complained as Jain grew nearer to them , just only a few metres away from reaching them.
But she didn't stop throwing rocks at the ants behind Jain which emerged out of nowhere despite the complaints.
Soon enough , Jain arrived near to the others.
Vin gave him a look of disgust once spotting him and a look which seemed to say , 'if it weren't for these monsters occupying my time right now , I would have murdered you right at this moment'
Jain gulped and ignored the hostility, inserting himself into the circle and standing next to Barbra and Nisha - who didn't look like had much fight in her to help , her mana reserves must have been drained dry and the backlash of using an unmastered art had an effect on her body similar to fatigue.
Regardless the situation around himself, Jain analysed his surroundings: the murderous crimson ants weren't as much as the killer ants before , but they did pack a punch and were really durable to magic which didn't have a force behind their impact. Vin's fire bullet magic spell was powerful but useless against the ants' dark crimson exoskeleton, at best it could only push the ants back from the recoil.
In Jain's observation , he noticed that ants which were once hit by the fire ball spell wouldn't be hit twice or any more than that.
They would quickly evade the incoming spell by either digging deep into the ground or swaying to the side.
Jain as one of the weakest hunters in Voz had learnt to keep cautious and a wary eye of his surroundings, he had even learnt to evaluate a monsters strength based on their performance in battle.
As a weak hunter he couldn't afford to challenge a stronger monster than himself since he didn't know much about monster types, and from this evaluation he came with a single conclusion
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈...
Jain's conclusion was on point ,and this wasn't coincidental.
The ants' were currently at a smaller capacity than the previous weak Killer ants ,these were murderous ants and made that quantity loss with power and speed - quality.
Even strong hunters such as Misha couldn't afford to be careless. It was only because of the team work that they were able to last this long but they wouldn't last long enough at this rate.
Jain had also noticed that the number of ants which were now capable of intercepting and dodging the magic spells were increasing.
𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝑰'𝒎 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 , 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒚 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒂𝒃𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔.
Jain had made his decision ,he was going to help the other hunter's one way he could.
His physical strength wasn't that much different than a normal human's ,this means Jain sometimes fought a powerful monster than himself so he was pretty used to these kind of situations.
" Hey ! GUYS ! I think It would be best if we changed tactics and instead of being on the defence and worked on finding a way out of here. "
In this kind of situation , fleeing away was the only way to secure your own life.
All you needed to figure out was how to smartly do it.
Jain's words were met with Vin's hostile eyes , and Misha's disgusted expression. They didn't even consider Jain's advice and shortly carried on with their own business.
" The plan is to defend ourselves , stalling for time until Sir Hindriad gets here. We aren't changing it just because an incompetent ally said so. I've also got rune cards placed outside the dungeon with my mana signature ,we'll use them then to leave after sorting everything out "
Vin coldy responded , the incompetent ally was supposedly Jain.
𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒖𝒚, 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒆𝒕?
" We can't rely on somebody we aren't sure will com- "
" Shut up , trash."
Misha cut in before Jain could even finish his sentence. She had been watching and waiting for the perfect moment to cut in.
And just when Jain was prepared to explain why they should go with the retreating strategy , a larger rumbling occured once again shaking the dungeon walls and floor once again.
Everyone all thought of the incoming danger , as this rumbling sound had all became familiar to their ears which could only signal to the hunters the ants had reinforced, the hunters could barely take on the few 100-200 murderous ants and now much more crimson ants appeared at the far edge of the dungeon's passage.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Vin had a look one could describe as afraid , they had barely managed to win the last battle with the large swarm of killer ants and now they had to deal with more monsters of similar structure but stronger power.
The murderous ants were excellent in speed , as such they were able to cross the distance which seemed to be far enough for only the eyes to reach in less than 4 minutes.
The terror had began , not stopping to approach the hunters ; their exoskeleton in the back opened up to form two tiny holes to which a thin and transparent structure with a curved edged.
These were wings and they were sprouting,like the seeds of fear inside the hunters' minds as they watched.
The murderous ants quickly gained flight with their wings flapping so fast , one couldn't catch even the sight of them. They then all attacked as a swarm , their sharp legs infront of them clearly pointed out in preparation of an assault.
They moved so fast that Hanks hadn't noticed that he was the very first of the hunters to be attacked , one of the crimson red flying ants had chopped his left arm using their weapon-like sharp legs before Hanks or any of the hunters could register a thing.
It was only after Hanks screamed out loud from the pain that everyone tuned to look and realised the gravity of what was going on - blood was spurting out from his where his missing was supposed to be as if a high pressure water pipe had been severed.
The monsters were fearsomely overwhelming, they had taken out Hanks before he had any chance to use his two dual swords to the fullest.
Vin , Misha and the rest of the team were all in shock.
They had never seen a member of their guild team be easily defeated like that as if he were a easy prey for the monsters. The others were in a state that could only be described as frantic, even the boastful Misha was terrified.
Nisha was the second one to fall , one of the ants swooped down in unobservable speed , striking one of its legs forcefully into her right shoulder and flailing her around as it flew as if she were some kind of flag. Her blood rained on the dungeon, before she fell to the ground with a loud thud.
"Ack... "
Her soft pain induced painful moans which Jain heard , as she had fell nearer to him by coincidence.
Hanks was already leaning against the dungeon walls groaning, he was the one who was bleeding the most and would soon die from it if nobody came to help.
Jain glanced at Vin , who had froze when this entire killing spree took place.
𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒈𝒖𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒍𝒚, 𝒊𝒇 𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒑 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈
" Hey , tall guy ! You should use your fire magic t- "
" Shut up ! You have no authority to tell me what to do ! "
Jain pressed his teeth against each other in anger and disbelief.
" Your allies are dying , do you think you can afford to be prideful right now? !"
Jain shouted at him even though he knew it was dangerous , remembering the heavy bloodlust this one person had emitted.
But the bloodlust wouldn't be coming , Vin's frantic state prevented him from making rational decisions which is why he didn't know exactly what to do at the moment.
People like him were always the ones who easily fell into the enemy's palms, although Vin was powerful, he seemed like he had a fragile personality. Jain took advantage of the window of opportunity , and gave him an order.
" burn their wounds so they can stop bleeding ! Do it quick before the ants strike again. "
Vin's expression turned to disgust facing Jain , turned his head towards Hanks on the dungeon floor with blood pouring out and then Nisha curled up on the dungeon floor. Vin then walked to Hanks and tried something on Hanks' shoulder , the pressure Jain put on him seemed to work.
There was a red glow between his reaching hands and Hank's arm-less shoulders , the smell of burning flesh shortly followed although it was faint.
"A-hhhhh ! "
Hanks exclaimed in pain , he even tried pushing Vin away with his right hand but ended with failure as there was a clear distance separating the two and with Hanks in that state , he didn't have much of a chance of stopping Vin nor even enough energy to.
The magical spell was called 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵.
It was portable magic which released high levels of heat energy through the user's palm , it didn't have much of a strategical effect in a battle considering the heat didn't stretch much - only 8 cm at maximum.
It was foolish to think an enemy would let you just breach that requirement distance , and even if you did the heat couldn't do much of life threatening damage , at most it burned all the layers of the skin and forth, plus the range of the heat was palm sized.
Unless you used some kind of trick to draw near the opponent while also preventing them from knowing of your actions , you could get away with burning their face and such.
Vin used this magic for ignition , it was a creation of his which he used for lighting torches and roasting some food in some.
Ironically magic which was tagged useless by most fire mages was this efficient to this situation.
In less than 3 minutes Hanks' prodigious wound was burnt to a seal to prevent loss of blood. Vin quickly dashed to Nisha to make an attempted of working his magic on her , but Barbra had been already there and had patched her up.
The question probably on everyone's mind was 'why didn't she do her work on Hanks then ?'
Barbra was a healer, and not some sort of miracle maker. Hanks' wound was too big to be dealt with healing magic , atleast not at Barbra's level. Attempting to heal him would be a waste of both mana and time. Her healing magic could only heal slightly higher than minor injuries , she couldn't fully heal both of them nor replace missing limbs which is why she left Vin seal Hanks' wound while she half-healed Nisha by patching up the skin and blood vessels , Jain understood that much.
Suddenly , the murder ants' ferocity increased and all of them swirled into a tornado , trapping the hunters in the heart of it with no way to get out.
𝑰𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒆'𝒍𝒍 -
Jain's thoughts werecut in half as he heard a thud behind him ,another followed.
In panic , he quickly turned his head to check and next to his feet on the dungeon floor was a blonde haired girl , her face covered by her long hair with a sharp and narrow thorn like thing sticking out of her back - the girl was Barbra , and she had been not so far from Jain but not close to this extent so how did she get over here ?
Jain's eyes darted all over the place in panic , before seeing Misha too rested on the floor. The same thorn thing was sticking out just from her left leg.
𝑫𝒂𝒎𝒏. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒅 ?!
Jain asked himself this question with no answer he could conceive.
He looked around and noticed that the creature's swirling had slowed down to an extent , on top of that he noticed that the same thorns which had impaled Misha and Babra were sticking out of some ants' behinds. And he slowly realised what had happened.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 , 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒓𝒂 𝒈𝒆-
" She protected you. "
A voice called out near Jain , it was Vin's.
He continued -
" I don't understand why she would , but she did. It's all your fault. "
Jain turned to face him and there was seriousness in his voice he couldn't be lying , and there was no other way to explain why Barbra had been all the way over to him.
𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕..𝒘𝒉𝒚?
Jain wondered over this question, he had never considered the possibility that someone like her who had so much to live for would protect a weak hunter like him, which is why he denied all of it even though his heart and mind knew it was true.
" This makes a lot of sense now. "
Vin's voice was heard from a distance as Jain kneeled to check whether Barbra was still alive
Fortunately she was still alive and she looked like she was in great pain , her eyes were half closed and she had quickly developed heavy eye bags under this small amount of time.
She seemed like she couldn't even move a finger nor noticed Jain's presence and on top of that her eyes were dark grey.
This couldn't be normal considering she wasn't bleeding heavily despite the 5 cm wide thorn sticking out of her body , it was only 17cm long yet had this much effect.
Jain had come under the conclusion that Babra's worsening condition was caused by some sort of poison in the Thorn because Misha as well seemed to be in that case , and considering it being a coincidence wasn't in Jain's mind.
"Hey. Barbra, can you hear me ? "
Jain called out to her , but his question was met with silence.
She couldn't be dead because Jain had put his index finger near the nostrils and felt warm air coming out , meaning she was alive and breathing and her chest was moving indicating breathing.
A beautiful woman like her was on the floor and completely helpless ,it made Jain really upset especially since it had been his fault.
He realised it now.
One of the ants had targetted Jain with their thorns , Barbra seeing this jumped into Jain's rescue and became his meat shield at the expense of her suffering from the attack.
" If you weren't here to begin with ,none of this would have happened. It's all your fault , that explains why a weak Hunter like you was In a much higher dungeon raid than your level. I should burn you now , but I'll let the monsters end you. I don't know why you are here or what you are here for , but is it worth trampling over other people's lives to get it ? Huh?! "
Vin had entered complete anger mode , and Jain realised while Vin looked like he didn't shred even ounce of consideration of his team ,was actually a softy who did all of that because he cared too much.
Otherwise if it weren't so , he wouldn't be going mad over Barbra's accumulated harm.
Jain had no words to defend himself so he just let Vin insanely shout, and even if he did Vin wouldn't believe them anyways.
Jain folded his hands into fist as he watched Barbra closely for any signs of reclaimed senses , she seemed to be mouthing something. He paid more attention to make out the words and so far he came up with , 'it hurts' , it made him feel extremely guilty so he looked away.
" it hurts , it hurts so bad. "
This time Barbra spoke , as if on purpose after noticing Jain turning his head away.
It made Jain's heart heavy as he considered the possibility that Barbra could perfectly see and hear but just ignored him out of pain.
But this was a coincidence Jain wasn't aware of.
"B-Babra ? "
He lightly asked but Babra's eyes didn't waver to suppport the possibility that her senses were alright.
Instead tears came out making the guilty Jain even more guilty with dread on the side.
" It hurts so bad , 𝗜 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝗲... "
With those few words left , Barbra's eyes closed and seemed to enter a slumber. Jain had thought it was something more than that and had checked her heartbeat in a panicky state. Thankfully , it was still there but faint.
Jain stood up and moved further away from her , fearing that just being near her would make her condition worsen.
𝑯𝒆𝒉- 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒈𝒖𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 , 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕?
Jain asked himself regretfully , before unintentionally knocking his head against a firm and hard wall. He shook from the moment , his mental state was in terror with high levels of emotional instability.
Hanks was there next to him , he had passed out from being partially burnt alive immediately after Vin had finished the spell.
Now that Jain noticed it ,The only ones conscious who remained were only him and Vin.
Everyone else had passed out and apparently all of it was his fault , he was indirectly the cause of it which made him curse himself.
𝑰𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒖𝒍𝒕. 𝑰 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒘 , 𝑰𝒇 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒅.
Jain was too much in an unstable mental state to bother asking himself how it could have been his fault , so he continued taunting himself.
𝑩𝒂𝒃𝒓𝒂 , 𝒂 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒕'𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒉𝒚
𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒏, 𝑰 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔.
𝑨𝒓𝒈. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒎 𝑰 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝑰 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒐. 𝑬𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒉 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒚𝒍𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝑰 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆
In actual truth ,he didn't have a choice but to accept the offer. Becoming a knight would have severely multipy his hunter income which barely was enough to afford food , while not doing much work.
Hunters gained money according to their ranks and level of performance. This system was organised by the government of Voz and made in a way that a Hunter gained their usual income per day even if they had not done any work, but got a boost in the income once they did - according to their raid's difficulty level.
Hunters claimed their money from their guild owners who received the money straight from the government ,to lessen the opportunity of the money distribution being swarmed in corruption.
Jain as an E-rank hunter - the lowest of the barrel earned 11 silver coins per day in the low rank guild he worked for.
The price of living in this world - rather country was too high. I
t was high to the point that just a loaf of bread cost 8 silver coins. Of course Jain couldn't just casually ask some extra coin from his friends who earned 45 more coins than him , Jain wasn't the type to ask help from others , the thought of it would make him shudder and his 'friends' didn't even know that Jain was always in a state of financial crisis so they couldn't lend a hand even if they wanted to without being aware of it.
𝒀𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒚 𝑰 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓. 𝑻𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓.
𝑫𝑨𝑴𝑵 𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝑰𝒇 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝑲𝒓𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒔 𝑯𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒅. 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒍𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑬𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒉 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒍. 𝑰 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒃𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒏 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉.
Jain's heart screamed in agony , he wanted to cry but knew that wouldn't solve anything nor change anything. So he cursed himself for his own foolishness and powerlessness.
He reached out for his chest and folded it under his grip as if crushing his heart which was overwhelmed by dread as he leaned against the wall.
There was a swirling of something inside his chest , Jain could feel it but couldn't fathom what it was , to him it was probably all the guilt and helpless he felt taking manifestation. He looked up to see the ants moving in a constant rotation , he could atleast see their after-images shaped into a circle as they moved with their great speed.
They were undoubtedly preparing to launch another attack in the following minutes or seconds judging by the sharp thorns which slowly came out of their behinds.
Jain smiled bitterly at the sight.
There was nothing he could do to survive , or fight then so he patiently waited for his death.
With a few words left to say to nobody but himself , Jain voiced out his regret as if each and every corner in the world would hear them.
" Ah. If only I was a bit stronger in this life, if only I had the power... "
He closed his eyes , waiting for the ants to attack , when he felt a strange thing come over him.
Something seemed to be developing inside of him rapidly - inside his heart , mind and 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗹.
His body felt all new to him and a strange strength had filled his fists, making him feel like he had the power to take on a weaponized army of thousand alone.
A new determination and courage overtook him as he opened his eyes and faced the enemy , which now illuminated in a yellow-ish colour.
His wish for power had come true.