“Guys, stop lagging behind!” the captain ordered the trio that was trying to find something interesting.

“Coming,” one of the men responded and let out a sad sigh.

“Stop acting like those greedy dwarves!” the captain shouted reproachfully. He was a hefty man in steel armor that was dotted with numerous scratches. “There’s enough loot for everyone, so don’t dig through every pile of rocks.”

“Yes, sir!” the warriors in less impressive armor shouted. They had worse equipment overall, prompting them to look for something better. They didn’t find anything, unfortunately.

The group of soldiers had been going through the underground tunnels for two hours already and hadn’t encountered any serious resistance from the monsters, thanks to the detachments teamwork, well-practiced tactics. and a great deal of training. The monsters in this part of the dungeon were relatively weak. Really, how could human-sized beetles ever harm a strong warrior that surpassed them in every way? That’s right, they couldn’t. That’s how the monsters ended up being slaughtered by the hundreds while protecting their even weaker brethren. The party made sure to exterminate all of them as well so that the monsters wouldn’t hit them from behind later on. In this dungeon, the bosses would call on almost all the mobs that hadn’t been killed in the caves, and then it would become very difficult to deal with all of them. That’s why they had to do the tedious cleanup.

Sometimes, the smaller mobs would drop something interesting, but it happened so rarely that many were skeptical of the claims and didn’t even expect to get anything. But the trio of warriors didn’t intend to give up.

The cave was vast, and it included quite a number of levels with many bosses throughout, as well as common mobs. There were so many kinds of them that players were still finding new types. However, not every raid could clear the dungeon and most were limited to only clearing the first level. As was shown in the dungeon’s status, it hadn’t been completed yet. That was why this dungeon was often stormed by the top guilds, with no success thus far, and now the first level was being farmed by the small clans.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“This way!” one of the trio shouted. “We’ve got a couple of the more serious mobs here.”

Karkant Warrior – level 39

Karkant Keeper – level 37

“A warrior and a healer,” the second one summarized, intercepting its sword with both hands and looking at the tall, mantis-like creatures with refined bodies and angular heads that looked similar to a human’s. “Okay, let’s warm up.”

The keeper, whose antennae formed something like a basic hairstyle, moved away, hissed something several times, and was almost hit by the third fighter, but the beetle warrior managed to repel the blow.

“This one’s good,” the attacker grinned.

“Check it out, guys,” the first warrior said in surprise. “They’re protecting that small beetle.”

@$##^&@, level 0

“That little beetle’s kinda bugged” the other one frowned. “Gotta do him in”

“That’s exactly what we’ll do,” the third nodded, and his sword glowed with a dim light, after which, with a burst of energy, he threw the beetle warrior back.

Meanwhile, the second one scored a hit using a sweeping attack. The keeper squeaked plaintively, clutching the stump of her foreleg to her thorax. The first warrior stuck his sword into the rising karkant, but the bug became enraged upon seeing the other two trying to kill the keeper, and despite the damage he’d taken, rushed over to help her.

“Ugh! Damn!” One of the attackers had blood on his face. “A skilled moron, despite his low level.”

“Not for long,” the warrior chuckled indifferently, cutting off the head of the beetle in a single, powerful blow. The body of the karkant warrior slowly fell to the ground, coating the floor in a disturbingly red blood.

“It’s time to finish up, otherwise RL will kick our asses,” the first said and plunged the sword into the body of the keeper several times, until the plaintive squeaking stopped. “For some reason, this buggie isn’t running away,” said the player indifferently, pulling the sword out of the keeper’s body. Blood gushed out from her multiple wounds.

“Well, he is bugged”, their colleague shrugged, and with one blow destroyed the zero-level mob who’d tried to attack the players at the last moment.