Shining Blade froze as soon as he entered the tunnel, but he immediately got himself together and raised his sword. In front of him, he saw several human-like monsters walking in a vast corridor while carrying large wood crates.
He was surprised first upon seeing people inside, but he quickly noticed that the label above their head was blood red indicating that they were enemies. They were actually level 20 monsters that looked like humans; they were called Corrupted Servants.
Although they looked exactly like humans, they were in fact, spirits. Corrupted Servants were monsters commonly found in dungeons. They were level 20 but had an extremely weak fighting power. What this race excelled at was: labor work.
They were commonly used to carry out various tasks such as relaying messages and carrying items from one place to another. Food could be easily bought with DP, but it still needed to be delivered to the different floors and this was one of the main tasks of the corrupted servants.
Dungeon masters could naturally give this task to any other monsters, but Corrupted Servants were specially designed for this; they were like worker ants able to endlessly perform these tedious tasks without taking any rest. Their one weakness was their fighting power which was almost inexistent. That was because they were supposed to never need to fight to begin with.
If one was to compare a dungeon to a company, the dungeon master would be the CEO while the monsters would be the workers with which customers would normally interact. As for the Corrupted Servants, they would be those staff that tirelessly work in the backstage to ensure proper functioning of the company. They would often go unnoticed, but their work was essential.
Shining Blade froze for a moment when he saw that they were level 20 monsters, but after observing them for a while, he fearlessly swung his sword at the nearest corrupted servant. To his surprise, the monster was startled and fell on the floor. It did not even try to fight back. When he looked at the monster's health, Shining Blade saw that one-third of its health was gone!
It was just a normal swing. He did not even use a skill and yet, the level 20 monster in front of him lost more than one-third of its HP!
Shining Blade quickly slammed his shield into the Corrupted Servant before violently attacking the latter's head with his sword. At that moment, he received a system prompt:
[System prompt: You have slain a Corrupted Servant. You have gained 600 exp]
"This? Are they all that weak?"
Without hesitation, Shining Blade swiftly charged towards another Corrupted Servant who was trembling with fear. The monster did not even try to flee. Its legs were shaking. It did not even let go of the crate full of food it was carrying.
[System prompt: You have slain a Corrupted Servant. You have gained gained 600 exp]
As Shining Blade pulled out his blade out of the Corrupted Servant's body, one of the players finally went through the opening in the wall. The latter did not have time to observe the situation. Shining Blade immediately shouted: "Hurry up! Let's kill these monsters! They are real exp farms!"
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Shining Blade did not wait for his comrade's reaction. His eyes shone with greed as he charged towards the nearest Corrupted Servant. In front of him, were dozens of such monsters. If they were that easy to kill and gave so much exp, they were basically a free ticket to level up! In this situation, he naturally wanted to keep everything for himself but as he was the leader, he could not be too selfish.
The players behind Shining Blade quickly went through the opening one after the other. They quickly followed their leader's command and slaughtered their way through the Corrupted Servants. More and more players entered the room and no matter how many corrupted servants they killed, more appeared. There seemed to be an infinite amount of them.
…
On the Harpy's floor, Five was happily smiling but inwardly, he was starting to feel nervous.
‘I wonder how Kroff and the other monsters are reacting.’
The players finally broke into the internal part of the dungeon. He was naturally aware of the presence of the Corrupted Servants in the dungeon. Earlier this week, he even tried to talk to one of them, but the Corrupted Servant did not seem to notice him and continued his task as normal. It was his first time being ignored; all the other monsters he encountered at least nodded back when he greeted them.
His real target was not really the Corrupted Servants. He only wanted to cause enough Havoc in the dungeon to cause some damage to Kroff. Once the players had access to the internal part, they could enter any floor of the dungeon and attack the monsters from behind.
Five was well aware that many monsters resided in the internal part of the dungeon; That was even the case for the goblins, not all of them stayed in their village. A few goblins were kept in dormitories on their respective floor. These goblins were mostly in charge of receiving food from the Corrupted Servants but most of them were old ones that were lucky enough to not die to adventurers during their prime time.
Five was watching the hologram in front of him. As he expected, Shining Blade and his men easily killed their way through the Corrupted Servants. Many players even leveled up.
The Corrupted Servants were defenseless and tried to escape but it was their first time encountering this situation. Most of them could only fall under the merciless blades of the players.
The players, led by Shining Blade, continued to kill their way through and even unconsciously moved to the tenth floor. They were all immersed in their killing spree, greedily obtaining as much exp as possible.
At the same time, more and more players were entering the secret passage. Five was keeping an eye on the situation when he saw a fight break out at the entrance of the secret passage.
The newcomers belonged to another guild, they did not look any weaker than the first one but more importantly, they were accompanied by a group of guards!
Five watched as one of the players stepped out to speak, his IGN was Emerald.
"Stone Defenders! You should quickly leave this place; this secret room shall belong to our Gem Family!" shouted Emerald.
Visibly, the players had no intention of retreating and even wildly fought back. They had access to such a great source of exp. There was no way they would willingly give that to another guild.
"You should not be reckless! Look! Today, young master Kenor is gracing us of his presence! We are giving you face by allowing you to peacefully retreat!" loudly exclaimed Emerald as he slightly bowed to another man right next to him.
This man was clearly different. He was not a player but an NPC. He was the very reason guards were present on this floor. He himself was not very strong, only at level 17 but he was accompanied by powerful guards.
The players started to hesitate. They were not aware of the NPC's status, but no one would consider someone protected by guards as a nobody. That NPC should be someone important and could not be offended.
The players were waiting for their higher-up's commands but at that very moment, a loud warhorn sounded all over the dungeon.
…
"Huh? What is that?" asked Five. He had been observing the players and had not seen anyone of them use a warhorn. The only explanation was that it was something done by the monsters.
Harriet quickly deployed her wings and said:" It is the emergency warhorn. Something important must have happened! The leader monsters have to gather in the Throne Room! But I can’t leave you here, let's quickly go!"
“Won’t that cause you some trouble?”
“You are Kroff’s disciple. You already have access to the Throne room!”
"Mmmm, Alright I'll come with you immediately!" declared Five.
He already knew what was happening and was feeling more and more nervous. The warhorn indicated that the monsters were about to retaliate.
While he was observing the players, he was careful to use one of the functions of the Pseudo-Dungeon Core and that was to allow only him to see the projected hologram. He also projected another hologram that was showing the other floors of the dungeon in front of him. This way, Harriet would not suspect him.
Harriet was clearly in a hurry and quickly started to return inside the dungeon. She was not paying much attention to Five. As soon as she turned around, the latter stood up and followed behind her as if nothing happened.
But at the same time, his hands behind his back started moving as he inwardly thought about removing some items from his inventory.