“Awoo!”
The boss’s howling snapped Roy out of his reverie. He took out his longsword from its sheath and dashed toward the incoming wolf. Claws and steel clashed with a flurry of sparks. Even though Roy wasn’t as strong or as fast as Robb, he was still able to block the beast’s attacks with relative ease. His feet were light and always moving, allowing him to dodge all incoming bites.
After half a minute of constant back and forth, Jaimie found an opportunity and pounced on it. Roy and the beast were stuck in a stalemate, with their claws and sword clashing with each other. The young boy jumped out of the shadows and plunged his dagger into the boss’s neck. While it didn’t penetrate through it, Jaimie was still able to cut the beast’s flesh and make it bleed.
Roy used this opportunity to thrust his sword into the monster’s chest, before pushing it with all his might on its back. Both Roy and Jaimie had let out a flurry of attacks as the beast laid on the ground with its feet in the air.
“Awoo!”
The beast screamed and howled as a silvery moonlight descended. The boss basked in the light before its muscles contorted and its size enlarged.
Good, I was waiting for that
Roy channeled his mana to his palm and a fireball conjured on top of it. As he pushed in more and more mana, the spell grew to a formidable size. Before the beast could finish its transformation, Roy launched his spell with a spin.
At first, the fireball looked as if it was going to miss the beast, which made the latter less tense. However, just as the danger was seemingly averted, the spell took a sharp turn. The moon wolf only had enough time to open its eyes in shock before it was blasted with an explosion that illuminated the room.
“Congratulations on clearing the Easy difficulty of the Wolf’s Den small-scale dungeon. You can receive your rewards from the treasure chest, and exit through the portal.”
The words of the gods that appeared in front of Roy and Jaimie signaled the end of the fight. A silvery chest appeared in the middle of the room while a white portal was conjured behind it.
“Did we win?” Jaimie looked at Roy with expecting eyes.
Roy nodded at the young boy with a relieved smile, “Yeah, we did. Let’s go check our rewards.”
“Yay!” Jaimie jumped with joy before running to the silver chest. When the young boy opened it, what they found surprised them.
“Ehh, I thought we were supposed to get a weapon,” Jaimie looked at Roy with confused eyes.
“I thought so too,” Roy scratched the back of his head before looking back inside the treasure chest. There was a considerable amount of a silver-colored metal along with a scroll similar to the ones he found before with Robb.
Roy took the metal from the treasure chest to find out what it was.
Silver Iron Description A piece of iron ore that has been embedded with the power of the moon. When crafting a piece of equipment, there is a high chance that the resulting equipment will have moonlight properties.
To say that Roy was confused by the description would be an understatement. What does “been embedded with the power of the moon” even mean? What were these moonlight properties? Roy couldn’t understand with the limited information that he had access to.
He then took out the scroll in hopes that it would be something useful or at least understandable.
Silver Dagger Forging Scroll Rank Sentinel Description Learn how to forge a Silver Dagger using Silver Iron. A dagger that has been imbued with the power of the moon. The cutting power and mana conductivity will depend on the rarity of the produced weapon.Silver Dagger Forging Scroll Restriction Your production class needs to be Blacksmith or a branch of the archetype.
Roy looked once again at the silver Iron, “Well, that’s at least one use of them.”
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Jaimie looked at Roy with confused eyes, “What are they?”
Roy handed the young boy the metal ore and the forging scroll, “Here, take a look at them.”
As Jaimie read through the two items’ descriptions, he furrowed his eyebrows even further. “I don’t understand this. What is a class?”
Roy shrugged his shoulders, “Who knows? Maybe it will be explained later.”
Jaimie nodded before Roy turned and looked at the milky portal, “Well, there is nothing left to do here. Let’s go.”
The two then walked toward the white distorted portal. Just as they were about to cross it, the same familiar floating words appeared once again.
“Congratulation on your clear. You will be rewarded with 50 red monster gems (tax not included) (Available once you become an official citizen of a territory).”
As they stepped into the portal, a spectrum of colors overwhelmed the two. They were surrounded by a barrage of vibrant shapes and forms, all moving at an otherworldly velocity through a tunnel that twisted and turned in peculiar angles.
The rainbow colors merged into pure white before the two returned to the entry of the Wolf Den. It was dark outside, and it took a couple of seconds before Roy’s eyes could adjust.
Robb’s and Alfonse’s group were sitting next to a tree, forming a circle around someone. As Roy and Jaimie walked toward their friends, they saw who was leaning on the tree.
“Derek? What happened?”
The middle-aged man had burn marks on his arm and torso, along with a dastardly claw wound around his ribs. His complexion was pale as he was barely holding onto his consciousness.
“Good thing you came out so quickly. We just finished,” Alfonse looked at Roy with a serious expression.
Fred nodded at Alfonse’s words, “Let’s go get him back home.”
Roy did not need to say anything, he just carried the now unconscious middle-aged man in his arms and ran in the direction of the village. The two groups did not dally either and immediately followed after him.
In a second, Robb ran next to Roy and looked at him, “Give him to me. I can go to Jacob faster.”
Roy nodded at Robb’s proposal and handed him Derek’s body. Robb then used Ghost Step and flashed through the forest trees with ungodly speed. In but a few seconds, Roy could no longer see his silhouette.
With the responsibility to carry the middle-aged man off his shoulders, Roy slowed down his speed so that Alfonse and Robb’s group could catch up to him.
“What happened? How did he get so injured?” Roy looked at Alfonse. Even though the middle-aged man's life wasn’t in any danger, he still needed to understand what had gone wrong.
Alfone bit his lips for a second before responding, “I-”
“I messed up,” Fred cut in. “I should have been the one to block that monster, but it slipped past me.”
“Okay,” Roy took a deep breath. “At least Derek is still alive. If it was the Red Bear, it would have been a different story.”
The group stayed silent at the mention of the Red Bear. Even though most of them have never seen the monster, the tales that they heard about it painted a clear picture in their head. Derek would have died.
“Ehm, talking about the Red Bear, when are we going to fight it?” Brian joined in on the conversation.
“I don’t have a time yet,” Roy shook his head. “After we stalk it for a bit tonight, I will have a clearer idea.”
As Brian broke the silence, Roy used this opportunity to lighten up the mood. He looked at Robb’s group and asked, “How was the dungeon clear with Robb? Was it hard?”
“We didn’t have much trouble with the wolves before the boss,” Tyler answered. “Honestly, they were fairly easy to deal with. It was just those black ones that gave us a bit of trouble.”
Roy nodded, “Yeah, they’re annoying. What about the boss, how was it?”
“Robb did all the work against him,” Thomas answered. “His sword just sliced through it like butter. We just had to fight it when two of its legs were cut.”
“Yeah, that was truly amazing to see,” Brian laughed. “And here we thought that we were strong. Robb was just something else.”
Roy smiled before looking at Alric and Conrad, “How were the rewards? Did you get something good?”
“We got a long sword,” Conrad responded. “Alfonse has it.”
Roy turned to look at Alfonse, and just as the latter was about to show him the weapon, Alric cut in.
“I’m sorry, I know that you want to lighten up the mood, but it wasn’t just Fred’s fault what happened.”
Roy looked back at the knight with interest while Fred just shook his head.
“It was a collective mistake. We got too greedy and comfortable; we thought that we had basically won. That’s when that big wolf took us off-guard. It didn’t care that it was wounded or about to die, it just madly charged at Derek while putting its life on the line.”
Alric’s description reminded Roy of the madness the small grey wolves had shown toward him. Just as fear was about to overtake them, something switched and they became true murder machines.
Roy nodded at Alric’s words, “As long as you guys understand this lesson, then it’s all good. Don’t let your guard down, especially in that dungeon. Those monsters are hard to see coming…”