“I can’t believe you two would-! While we were-! How could you just-!” Tyler had been going off ever since he learned that we already knew about the assassin before having sex. That in fact… it had been bait.

“It wasn’t my plan.” I said glumly.

“You! You! You! Why… just why-!” Tyler said, seeming to stare up at the sky as if it was falling down on top of him.

Riary’s face was still beet red and she refused to so much as look at me or Konohora. Well, I mean, Tyler wasn’t much better but the ‘safety’ aspect seemed to have finally knocked him out of his embarrassment daze. We were running, jogging at a good pace really. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between us and the town. Because that was the direction the assassin had been heading in. That meant a team. If we were ‘lucky’ it wouldn’t be a team of assassins. Because then we’d be fucked and die. Leaving the dungeon wasn’t even an option, not that I’d really considered it. We came down here to be tested in life or death battle, to finally break through these C-Rank walls and enter B-Rank. It wasn’t how I liked or wanted to do things but needs must. Running into five or thirty people like him once we left the city… yeah, no.

And more training was an option, we never got the chance to properly train as a team under Kasandra, but it wouldn’t be enough. I had a feeling that the only reason things had been so peaceful above for so long was that we were ‘under protection’ from our trainers. Me coming out of ‘seclusion’ with Xilvia probably ended that.

But more than anything… I was really just tired of being given the shit end of a stick and being told to row up the creek. So, now we were running in a jungle. A small one this time. While I was inwardly shocked Tyler had the stamina to both run at this pace and sound absolutely baffled and furious with us.

“It was a plan I felt had a high chance of success.” Konohora said. “And it was a success.”

“You nearly lost your head!” Tyler shouted.

Konohora nodded. “Nearly. Without baiting, the chances of death would have been significantly higher. Judging by the injuries Derek said he caused and the ability to sense his presence, it is not likely for him to attempt to attack in the same way while Derek is around. We are very lucky he didn’t wait till we were asleep. He was most likely overconfident.”

A pale expression appeared on Tyler’s face. No doubt he was imagining exactly what could have gone down if we’d been attacked while asleep. While we did do shifts… we don’t only do them with me. If anyone else was the one awake, the rest would most likely have been killed.

“We…. we can’t let this happen again. But… what do we even do?!” Tyler finally said, huffing and puffing now. It seems the run was getting to him. I could also hear Riary’s breath and she seemed just as exhausted. Sadly, they just weren’t as fast as me. We’d need to stop soon. We couldn’t afford to exhaust ourselves.

I frowned though. “Honestly… I didn’t think it’d be as much of an issue as it is. An assassin would have to get into our tents and I considered invisibility the worst possibility for a while. But when he moves through shadows, it’s like a whole different dimension. I’m surprised I could even feel him across it. Someone that can totally move into a new space or even just teleport around, I don’t know. I don’t have any good answers for it.”

Konohora also shook her head. “The issue is troubling and I don’t have any good answers for it at the moment. We shall have to think on this.”

Riary grunted, finally joining the conversation. “There are magical solutions but none I am well versed with. A simple alarm rune would not be enough and I don’t know anything about runes anyway.”

Through my nascent ‘sphere of perception’ I saw Tyler’s eyes widen at our words.

“Wait, you guys don’t have any answers?!” He seemed absolutely gobsmacked.

I shook my head. “I may be practical, Konohora experienced, and Riary a magical genius… but we don’t know or have a solution for everything Tyler. I’m doing the best I can at the moment by drawing us deeper into the more powerful sections of the dungeon.”

Riary snapped her gaze to me.

“What?”

I nodded, even as we continued to run.

“Need things to get in the way, slow them down. I’m avoiding the B-Rank monsters I can feel, moving us around them, before circling back. If anyone follows us in an absolute straight line, they’d run into trouble.”

“That’s dangerous.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t want to fight a team of four or five just as strong as that guy without some assurances. No, scratch that, I don’t want to fight that team of five at all. If we become too much to chew, they might leave us alone.”

I hopped over a log that Riary almost tripped on and frowned.

“Alright, stop.”

“W-What?” Tyler said, fully tripping over the log and rolling twice before landing on his back. Riary looked on in concern but also had to resist a smile from appearing on her face. Konohora slowed down and immediately sat down on it, causing it to crack in half. I coughed, immediately drawing attention away from that.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“So. Summary. We’re under attack from strong people. Not news. It’s just one of the worst outcomes. Things haven’t changed. We came down here to fight and get stronger, to break into B-Rank. Most of us knew that would mean shit like this, just not this soon and this dangerous. The way I see it… we’re on a timer. It’s one thing for B-Ranks to fight us while we’re C-Rank, it’s another thing if we kill B-Ranks, while in B-Rank ourself. The first is too much of a risk. A risk I think we’d win anyway but still. So, don’t die, rank up, tear our way through every person in our path if need be. That’s it.”

Tyler looked horrified.

“We’d we even come down here if it was so dangerous!”

“Xilvia seems to think that if we don’t leave this city at B-Rank, we’ll die. Well, I’ll die. You all might get lucky. Well… it might even be more grim than that. It’s really setting in that staying a party was a ‘Bad’ idea.” I said

“You most likely would have been targeted anyway.” Konohora spoke up.

“Yeah but… well, whatever. Past is the past and now we’re all stuck together till we get strong enough to kick the world’s ass, complete my goal, and send Tyler home. Oh and stop a psychopathic bard. So. I say we rest and then keep moving.”

“How far do you think we should go?” Tyler asked.

“At least a day from the town.” Riary said.

I shook my head.

“At least a day from the town if I ran there. So, three more days of this.”

Everyone’s eyes boggled at that. Ah, whoops. I guess I had slightly forgotten how fast I’d become. I hadn’t really gotten the chance to test it but… I knew my body better than anyone else ever could. Even Konohora didn’t have the instinctual amounts I did because of my Analyze.

“As for sleep… well… I guess I’m in for some really late nights…” Suddenly my words seemed to turn to ash in my mouth.

*

*

*

*

The days passed uneventfully for the most part. Oh sure, we fought a few monsters here and there, mostly dinosaurs. More running dinosaurs, spitty dinosaurs, etc etc. I didn’t actually know which were ‘monsters’ and just ‘animals’ at first. They felt almost identical power wise and it didn’t help that they died in moments, all being C-Rank. Don’t know what that said about either monsters or dinosaurs. Some things were just outright… weird. I saw three walking plants that looked like someone had fused about fifty tentacles together. I stared at them as they walked by, my mouth open, jaw dropped, before Konohora had to pull me along. H-How could people not be in absolute amazement of them?! We had to come back and check them out! Like holy shit.

But beyond that, the only other thing… was nights. Nights were terrible. The dungeon sun did set and if I didn’t have my Analyze working all the time at 24/7 like a second vision, I’d have gone crazy. It wasn’t merely dark. It was pitch black. The shadow user could probably come right in front of my eye without any issue. Let alone anything else out there in the dark roaming about. I was the only one who could detect him and that meant I stayed up during the night and got some sleep during the day. Those times weren’t any more fun, but they were easier. We had light, both from Riary’s fire, a few torches, and some light stones that apparently had been included while we were in the elven town. All in the big ass giant pack Tyler carried for us.

There were absolutely no shadows while I slept.

Finally though… we were far enough away. At least so much so that it would take actual effort to find us. Not to mention that we hadn’t been attacked over the last few days and any time I’d sensed adventurers, which had only been twice, we moved very, very far away.

“Alright.” I said. “I think we’re good.”

Riary practically collapsed to the ground.

“Thank the Goddess. Fucking hate running.”

“Yeah. It did seem a bit like overkill…” Tyler said.

“Bullshit. B-Rank isn’t a joke. Even the average normal person who reaches it is as strong as us. And we have a lot of stacked advantages to even get that far. That guy might kill us. His whole party would easily kill us. Anyway, now would probably be a good chance to go actually fight some monsters.”

I’d avoided damn near everything but that was going to be much harder going forth. I was going ‘deeper’ into the dungeon and could practically feel the power increase all around me. The last two dozen B-Ranks had been hard to ‘dodge’. I suspected a few had noticed us but just weren’t that territorial. Any deeper and we would be in too much danger.

“Sounds good to me.” Riary said. “I really want to burn something right now. The weak things we’ve been killing haven’t been enough.”

“Wellllll, we could go back to those weird tentacle plants and-”

“Derek. Please. We don’t want to go back to the, as Riary and Tyler have put it, really freaky tentacle plants. I have no idea what your obsession with them is.” Konohora said, receiving nods from everyone.

I didn’t pout. Definitely didn’t pout.

“They’re just so cool! They were walking on their tentacles. Like they were made of a bunch of vines but were very clearly not vines. Isn’t that just, I don’t know, fascinating?!”

“”“No.”””

“Spoilsports…. Fine fine. Well, there’s a B-Rank T-Rex a few hundred feet that way.” I said pointing.

All three of them flinched.

“”“What?!”””

I frowned. “Did you think I wasn’t taking my job of scout seriously? We’re surrounded by B-Ranks this deep in. I know we haven’t ‘seen’ any but… well… they really are all over. It’s pretty intimidating. Should give that shadow guy some problems if he chases us though right?”

“Derek, I do not feel safe knowing we are surrounded by B-Grade monsters, one of them being a T-Rex that’s so close by.” Konohora said.

Sadly for her, I already knew we were going to fight it. Tyler might have gotten to see the dead T-Rex briefly… but now? Now he had the chance to see and fight a living one.

His eyes were practically shining.

“Let’s go!” Tyler said.

I smiled. We had been attacked, hit back, and ran. Now it was time to kick some dinosaur ass.