Chapter 2

Next day in-game, they were in the town of Deepsilver. It was founded by a miner, who found silver in the area and attained

great riches. Now the silver ore was completely nonexistent here, but still some iron and copper remained, making it less but still profitable to mine here.

Thus, the city thrived. It was the only trade node near the mountains where raw and processed materials were on sale: metal

ores, wood, various japtem - also some rare goods from the mountains themselves that were hard to get one's hands on since it was such a dangerous area - and other various wares.

The city itself was rather practical than beautiful. It had geometrical, symmetric layout, with it's broad and straight streets and such. Basically, it was divided into three areas. First was residential area, which I'm sure I don't have to explain about. Second was trade district, where all the trade establishments were situated and all transactions were conducted, also all industry (or rather, craftsmanship) was located. Also, adventurers could find an inn to sleep in there. Last but not least, was the lord's palace - his dwelling as well as his post as a master of this town, all bureaucracy and military oriented personnel was stationed there. The town was surrounded by not massive but rather effective city walls.

This was the city where the party took the quest of eradicating lizardmen and this was the city they and Ken currently visited.

The previous day they logged out. Ken looked at the city at first, sold his japtem and hit the hay as well. Today they finally

reunited with their tank. It was a woman, a slender and tall - around Ken's height - good-looking woman with fiery red, long and curly hair. She had a peculiar something in her movements, as though she danced instead of simply walking. She got her two-handed sword back from her friends, they also filled her in regarding the part where they said that Ken was hardcore role

playing gamer. The five new friends Ken made went with her to the lord to report their mission completion (thankfully - or should I say, paradoxically? - they managed to finish it before she died) and then they met up with young swordsman.

"So you are Ken?", the woman regarded him with curious eyes.

"Indeed I am", he replied with a curt nod.

"I am Cinderella, Cindy for short. Nice to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine."

The woman nodded to him and turned to the other five, "Ok guys, I have found us some other job for now."

"A job?"

"Yep. It is a request from a big shot, he wants us to clear a dungeon."

***

Few hours later the party of now seven arrived at the dungeon entrance. It looked like an old, forgotten mine in the base of a hill that rose lonely in the forest. Cindy has opened the quest window and shared it with everyone.

"You really like to keep us in suspense, huh?", Iborelian commented on her mystery lover like attitude.

"We have to clear the mine", she ignored him, "our client seems to have plans regarding reopening it. That's why we also have to check if there's any ore to be mined left."

"What the, aren't the monsters respawning in every dungeon? What use will there be even if we kill them once?", the priest

once again grumbled in a quiet voice. He was once again ignored by her.

"So who is our client and what is our reward?", asked Flossie the mage in a disinterested voice.

Fiery haired warrior laughed, "The lord himself! And we can have one item from his treasury each should we complete the task, weapons, armors and clothes included!"

Hearing that petite woman grasped her scepter with readiness and prompted the party, "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Thunder, Marley and Ken laughed hearing that, while Acaleri watched them from distance in silence, with his deadpan face mode activated, as always.

Anyway, they entered the old mine. It was just as you would imagine - old, damp and dark cave, sometimes you could make out pillars standing upright, probably made so that a cave in wouldn't occur. It quickly became impossible to simply travel deeper - moist ground is one thing, but they couldn't even see.

That became a problem - they didn't have any torch and the likes, and only assassin Acaleri had passive night vision skill.

Thus, the mage had to use the spell, lingering light, and that made her ineligible for combat. If she casted any spell, the light

would vanish and they would surely perish in the darkness.

But the six were a party of experienced players so they didn't whine and simply assumed a new formation best suited for that situation. Assassin in the vanguard to spot enemies, then came the warrior to kill those enemies, mage illuminating the way, ranger to provide fire support from the back, priest and bard to provide buffs and healing and finally, covering the back was Ken.

For half an hour they traveled into the deep of the mine, but no monster has appeared. They started to grow uneasy - normally, they should have fought many times already. What's going on here?

Finally, the fated encounter occurred. Well, you can call it fated... for monsters I guess?

Cindy stopped abruptly, and Flossie almost bumped into her back.

"What are you doing?! Do you want me to break my nail?!", the would-be-victim shouted angry.

"Whatever. Rather than that, Acaleri just signaled me from the darkness - we have twelve enemies inbound. As always, he will patrol the surrounding area so to warn us in case more appeared and join the fight in the worst case.

Everyone readied their weapons and stared into the dark corridor. After a few seconds, true to her words, hustle and bustle could suddenly be heard from the deep darkness, louder and louder with every second. What they didn't expect though, was the identity of their enemies.

"What the! Gross!", exclaimed Flossie.

She had an ample reason for saying that. After all, who wouldn't, if they had twelve hairy spiders rushing at them? Not to

mention their grotesque fangs dripping with saliva and creepy, black and beady eyes glaring at them with hunger?

"Ok everyone! Let's show them hell!", Cinderella shouted. "Marley, shoot them!"

"Got it! First Strike!"

Ranger used one of his skills, first strike. It allowed him to deal twice the damage to the first target he strikes, with a

cooldown of 5 minutes. He used it on the biggest, ugliest spider, and followed with a couple of arrows, killing it. And then the

rest of the spiders reached the warrior.

Three only slightly smaller spiders attacked her with a hiss. Or rather the place where she stood a moment ago, since she wasn't there anymore. Ken, who didn't have to fight yet, marveled at her skills.

Reason? Simple. She looked as though she danced through the battle, her attacks were following one, beautiful flow. With

graceful movements she evaded all of her enemies and their attacks, at the same time dealing serious damage.

"Pretty, right?"

It was Iborelian. He didn't have anything to do at the moment, since his buffs only worked against unholy creatures like undead and no one required healing yet. He looked pretty relaxed, but young swordsman saw that he was ready to chant the healing spell any time.

"Yes, I have never seen such a battle style."

"So have I, before I met her. She is truly unique... Healing hand!"

The spiders weren't so stupid as to continue the same pattern of attack infinitely, especially when the current one has been

proven useless. So two of them spitted their acidic saliva at her, forcing her to evade and then, targeting the place where she would land, they got their web on her leg, immobilizing her and it was then when she took damage and Iborelian healed her.

"Should I help you?", asked Ken with a worried voice.

"Huh? Don't look down on me!"

That was Cyndia's answer. Normally it would be cocky, but she had what it took to prove her words. Spider web? So what?

"Blade blaze!"

Her sword vanished in crimson flames, fully enveloped by them. Then, she sliced at the web, freeing herself. It took less than

minute to exterminate all enemies, only with Cinderella and Marley, who constantly provided her with fire (or maybe rather,

arrow/archer) support.

They ventured deeper into the mine.

From their first encounter, enemies started to pop up everywhere. This time, everyone took part in battle. Ken was surprised to find out what kind of people his new comrades were.

Cindy he already caught a glimpse of while in a first fight, so he wasn't surprised to learn that she was very straight-forward

and always attacked from the front, regardless of danger. He understood how it happened that she died recently.

Marley was very relaxed, whether it was taking a break, or... being in the middle of combat. He was never flustered, and nothing ever managed to break his composure. He was also very cheerful, to the extent that he could be seen as someone who takes pleasure from battle if Ken didn't know that it was the same outside of battle.

Iborelian was an unusual priest who didn't hesitate to whack enemies with his healing staff when they happened to come close to him. Ken even saw him chanting healing spell for Cindy and casting it while beating a mob to a bloody pulp with indifferent

expression once.

Flossie also surprised him, though less then the rest. Whenever enemies appeared, they had to stop. She couldn't fight, so what did she do than? Her nails. Yeah, she was doing her nails in the middle of a combat, occasionally even fixing her makeup using a hand-held mirror.

Thunder... well, his name suited him well. Why, you ask? Because as a bard he was using his powerful voice to buff his allies. Nothing strange about it, right? Yes, unless his buffs were self-made skills based on power metal and his electric guitar (rather, there was something like that?! Ken didn't know so he asked him at some moment, and found out that it was a one-time custom order working with mana as an energy source made by some talented artificer he met somewhere). At first Ken thought he got hit in the head since he started headbanging in every battle.

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Well, among them all, assassin Acaleri was probably the most normal one. Maybe because he never said anything so Ken suspected he might be some other queer guy in disguise of silence. But this has yet to be proven.

The enemies where literally flooding them, if they wanted Flossie alive and kicking, not to mention her illuminating the way, they had to give it their all during the battle: all possible buffs from bard, all possible debuffs for mobs as well, all the healing they could get from priest who had to drink mana potions from time to time covered by the rest of the party, and lastly, Acaleri had to cease his recon duties to join the battle.

Despite all that, Ken still wasn't even using his real skills. Actually, he wasn't using any skills (skills meant as actions, not his quality). Why? Because the enemies wasn't even worth his time, and only their number was a pain in posterior for him. It just

didn't make any difference, since he was able to kill any enemy that appeared in 2-3 strikes.

The enemies didn't vary much, making young swordsman quite bored. There were only giant spiders, only once upon a time did they encounter something else along the lines of a gigantic centipede or other creepy tank-sized bugs.

It was three hours of fighting later that they have finally arrived in something besides the cramped mine itself. It was a large room, it was pretty low for it's size (which was half a soccer pitch's) that is around four meters high. The ceiling and walls were all covered with round holes approximately one meter in diameter.

"What the hell is this place?"

It was Iborelian the priest who first broke the silence.

"As if I'd know", replied Flossie with annoyance present in her voice. She was finishing doing her nails with great focus and

apparently his loud voice ticked her off. The man only glanced at her with irritation.

"Look, aren't those cobwebs?"

They looked at Marley and then followed his hand, stretched out in a direction to the left and before him. There were indeed some cobwebs with some sorta nodes on them, and they decided to investigate.

Upon a closer examination they understood that the nodes they saw were human bones and old pieces of equipment like rusted shields and weapons.

"Aren't we in trouble?", asked Thunder tilting his head to the side while looking at the rest of the party askance.

As before, there was no source of light other than the mage's spell and they apparently have arrived into a spiders' den. What

could be worse?, is what they thought.

"But, at least we killed all the spiders, right?", asked Cindy, seemingly trying to convince herself. For all her valiance in battle, it was obvious that she feared and hated spiders and it was difficult for her to fight them.

Before they could answer her, gales of loud hissing exploded in the silence around them. And even though they didn't see the

cause, they could make out one thing: that there were a lot of the ones responsible for that sound...

Thankfully - or not - they didn't have to think about that a lot. From all the holes in the walls and in the ceiling as well, lots of spiders were coming out rapidly. They weren't as big as their cousins from before, they had to fit in the holes after all. But the sheer number of them was numbing, there were literally hundreds of them!!!

This was not the time to be loitering around. If nothing (or not enough) was done, they were as good as dead!

They had to fight all out, so they took a triangular-shaped formation with Ken, Cindy and Acaleri at the points and the rest was relatively safe inside behind their backs. The three hacked and slashed at the spiders, with bard and priest supporting them and mage providing with light.

It was a difficult battle. Ken was going all-out. Whenever a spider approached him, he would cut it down, but it soon became

apparent, that it wouldn't be enough. So he decided to finally draw the ace up his sleeve: the mana-consuming skills from Soaring Sword style repertoire.

"Heaven's slash! Air sundering slash! Iron jet! Sword of judgment!"

It was not enough, but at least he didn't have to focus solely on what was before him as every one of his attacks stroke home.

Thanks to that he could have a glimpse at how others were doing.

"Blade blaze! Die, creeps! Blade blaze! Fire whip!"

Cindy was quite engrossed in the fight, passionately killing all the spiders that neared her. She used blade blaze several times, and also once a new skill he hasn't seen yet, fire whip. It made her blade lengthen into a few meters worth blazing whip which

she cut more then ten spiders into pieces with. It seemed to be pseudo AOE spell for middle range combat, probably with per second mana drain, as she used it for a few seconds.

"..."

Acaleri seemed to be his usual self. Deadpan face, not saying even one word... Well, master Magnus has once mentioned that there were people who could activate skills without calling out their names. Ken wasn't sure, but he would say that assassin used dps and critical hit type skills, as he targeted spiders one by one, often oneshoting them.

"Yeah!"

Suddenly, a loud yell coupled with electric guitar tunes startled the youth. It was Thunder, who finally started singing. Ken could feel a bit lighter, it was probably a buff from the bard. He could also see that spiders' movements became a bit sluggish, and the party members' movements became a bit more accurate and swifter. It must be the song's effect.

"Die you bastard! Poisoned arrow!"

"Oh shut up already, will ya?"

"What now?!"

"I told you to shut up already, I'm trying to heal people here!"

"Omfg ok, ok, is it so wrong for me to laugh?"

"No, but going into a loud laughing fit like that get on my nerves!"

"Ok, I got it already! Don't be such a jerk!"

They were Marley and Iborelian, having a row in the middle of the battle... Ken marveled at them when ranger started to laugh fearlessly and the grumpy priest who while healing all the three people on the front line tried to silence him.

Probably the most amusing one was Flossie who, with disinterested face, ignored the battle around her and was fixing her haircut...

The fight continued. Almost ten minutes have passed and everyone's mana pools were more or less depleted, making the

situation not only very dangerous but rather life-threating. And it was then when, as if by some unknown signal, the spiders

ceased their assault.

Humans looked one at each other. What the...?

As if to even deepen their puzzlement and lack of understanding the current situation, the spiders started an unanimous retreat.

"What the...", asked Cindy, "why are they retreating? They had the upper hand since there was more than hundred of them and yet..."

"Everyone, drink your mana potions and prepare for second battle!"

Everyone started, looking at the one who said that. It was the never-speaking assassin, Acaleri! Ken was doubly surprised, since he thought that the man was mute!

"What the deuce... Acaleri, you actually said something..."

Marley was the first one to express his astonishment, but he didn't have the chance to finish.

"Whatever! Just stfu and drink your mana potions now!"

Everyone looked astonished, but they had no problem with that. Although they didn't have the sense of urgency, they would do it anyway, in case the spiders came back. It's just that they were puzzled by the whole situation.

"Well then..."

Ken was the first one to follow Acaleri's words (apart from the assassin himself, of course) and others promptly followed suit.

Only Flossie abstained, since she had almost full mana anyway.

They barely managed to replenish their mana as they heard a strange sound from the wall. They all turned around to face it and again heard the sound. It was similar to the sound of dead body dragged on the ground (author's note: No! It wasn't me! I never ever heard that kind of sound, I just imagined it! Please believe me, Mr. Judge, Mr. Police, I'm innocent!).

Eventually, after a minute of silence, they heard a quiet hiss and saw a pair of two large, glowing eyes shine in one of the

holes, glaring at them. Then it came out.

It was a giant snake, strong enough to scare away a horde of spiders that were courageous enough (or maybe just plain stupid) to attack an enemy who halved their headcount without taking any serious damage. Of course, as befitting a giant snake, it was over ten meters long, had large, a quarter meter long fangs and looked ominous.

They stared at it like a frog looking into the eyes of a snake (lol), until finally Cindy managed to get a hold of herself and shouted to Marley.

"Identify it!

"Got, gotcha!"

And after a moment, "Holy fuck! It's level 300!"

Everyone was shocked. A level 300, even if a boss? Here? What the blue blazes?!

The snake boss returned their gaze steadily. It was readying itself to attack.

Well then, how will our heroes fare against the giant monstrosity? Stay tuned!

Author's rant: this is the last f***ing time I'm using notepad to write it first. An unimaginable amount of work with fixing the spaces! Gotta use the drafts. You might wanna look into the feedback topic now.