Chapter 151
The Nature of Dungeons
Unlike the impressive entrance like the Alabaster Atrium, the entrance to the Untouchable Marshes Dungeon was bland and uninspired. It was made of porous, grey-colored stones. Stacked on top of each other to form a rough rectangular shape. Mold have grown well between the gaps and a few resilient plants have dug their roots into the stone. As if an entrance to a forgotten temple.
It was large enough to allow five men to enter together, with its height as tall as two full grown men. On either side of the entrance were large, broken statues of what might have been a deity of some sort, standing on top of large, stone pedestal. But the stumps that were left atop them were not enough to know who the deity might have been.
“So, this is it, huh?” Nick tapped his helmet with a frown. “Place looks old.”
“You think so too, eh? But this Dungeon is not even five years old,” Caelin said. “Many scholars have tried to make sense of them, including a personal friend of mine. Sadly, the more we know about Dungeons, the less we understand them.”
“So where is this hidden path that we are supposed to use?” Illumca turned to Arryn.
Arryn and Leyn nodded and walked towards a seemingly ordinary patch of wet land a few meters from where they were. Leyn plunged his hand into the mud up to his wrist before pulling aside a stone slab covered in dirt and mud.
There is a hidden path all along?” Barney scratched his head. “Dammit! if we had known we could have explored further!”
The path is something the Demons found after months of exploration in the lower floors. Regular humans would have died.
“But how did they get past the fourth floor?”
I don’t know. We’ve only been assigned here after they made the Dungeon theirs.
While the others were busy with opening the path, Connie noticed that Chen had returned. She took a look at the poisonous materials that he had gathered and opened her eyes wide.
“I know that you’re a glutton but you have outdone yourself!” she held a piece of leaf with thorns that secrete fluid with grassy smell. “If I refine them, I could prepare myself to break through to the next stage!” Connie said. “All I need is the right moment.”
She then proceeded to refine half of it and absorb them into her body via her connection to Chen. A sensation of fullness came over her Poison Core. “Mmm, it’s been so long since I ate well.”
While she was relishing the rare sensation, she heard curses coming from the group. Arryn had gone down with Illumca to check the path, but by the sound of it, something did not go well.
“The path had been blocked by rubble,” Illumca said, seething.
“Ah, figured that we aren’t going to be having such luck,” Nick groaned when he saw this. “Is there any way we can remove the rocks?”
“No,” Illumca said flatly as she shook off the dust settling on her clothes. “It’s all rock all the way down. It’s definitely not a cave in. Someone deliberately destroyed the path.”
“Hm…It seems that our enemy has been preparing for us,” Connie said. “Then we are going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
The blonde-haired girl turned to the Hunters, her hair swaying as she did. “I am sure that all of you had been told what we are going to face here,” she paused briefly. “However, I will tell you this again. The enemies that we will face will not just be monsters, but also Demons. Yes, the same Demons that we faced last night. And perhaps, some Dark Elves that were forced to do their bidding.”
All eyes fell briefly on the two Dark Elves. The stares caused them to flinch.
Our lives are in your hand. We will not betray you.
“Don’t you worry about them, Connie,” Illumca remarked. “I’ll make sure they don’t do anything strange.”
The blonde-haired girl rubbed her chin. “These two will be instrumental to this mission, therefore I hope you all will try not to get them killed. Also…there is also a possibility that we will find captives that the Demons keep as food,” Connie paused when she saw the gaze of one of the Hunters changed.
“Ahem, excuse my friend here. One of his old friends had been missing for a few months. He was a Daydreamer,” Barney said apologetically.
“…We will try to save anyone that we can. But the priority will be the Demons. We must make sure that they will never put their hands on our people anymore.”
Connie’s eyes turned red for a second as she said. “And to achieve that…I want nothing less than full extermination.”
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“By Hurgul’s Beard. I thought that this place is going to be better than swamp, but this place is as humid as outside!” Akula complained. Sweat had caused her thick clothes to stick to her skin. She wished she could take off her coat, but even she had a little awareness of men.
Because of her tall stature, she also had to deal with the roots growing through the dirt ceiling of the dungeon.
“Every Dungeon’s different,” Nick explained. With him in full gear, he acted as the lead alongside Barney, who had explored the place before. “Not just the inside, but the monsters we are going to have to fight will be different.”
The flickering of the torches held by Barney and Caelin made their shadows dance, adding to the depressive atmosphere of the Dungeon.
“Aye. This place is filled with poisonous monsters. That’s why we can never be too careful. Many Hunters have risked their lives to map out the first and second floor of this damn place. Took them months!”
“Just the first and second floor? How come?” Connie asked.
“Because the third floor isn’t something you can map. Also, the monsters here are completely different beasts compared to the ones in Alabaster Atrium.”
“And speaking about beasts,” Caelin raised the torch he was holding and saw cold eyes with vertical slits staring at them. “We’ve got Bearded Lizards!!”
Ten Lizard-like creatures leaped at them aggressively. Their slim, saw-like teeth emitting the foul odor reminiscent of rotting flesh.
“Shield Rush!!” Nick dashed forward with his large shield facing forward, crushing the oncoming attacks easily. A few of them managed to cling to the walls and attacked the others. With a practiced move, Caelin slashed one open while Illumca’s dagger swiftly hit the vitals of the last two.
When she recovered the knife, Illumca covered her nose in reaction to the acrid smell emanating from the secretion of the lizard monster. Chen devoured all of them within seconds, earning looks of fear from the other Hunters.
After that first unfortunate attack, they all had more encounters of the local monsters. Illumca and Akula took charge and defeated most of them with speed. A few unlucky Hunters were affected by the monsters' poison, but Connie's Pills took care of them.
“These are level 46 to 50 monsters. One is enough to kill inattentive A-Rank Hunter,” Caelin whistled. “And you guys are still C-Ranks?”
“To be exact, the only Hunter in our party is Milady, though,” Nick said. “I’ve quit official Hunter business a few years ago.”
“What?”
“There is no rule for Hunters to have to party up with Hunters only,” Martell said.
“Aye,” Barney agreed. “Goes to show that Ranks are not all that it’s about. We’re at the end of the second floor already! This is very fast, even with the help of our map.”
Barney held the torch aloft over a set of stairs heading down into the darkness below. “After this, you’ll see why no one managed to map the third floor.”
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“By Hurgul’s Beard…”
The moment they entered the third floor, they were greeted by a vast expanse of marshlands covered with slight fog. The sky above was grey and unpleasant and seemed to have no end, as if they were back on the surface. The air too tasted clammy and unpleasant.
“Amazing,” Connie looked all around her and saw no sign of any walls. She then looked back at the entrance of the third floor and marveled at the odd appearance of the stairs connecting the third and second floor just being there. Completely bereft of any substance, like a painting of a stairs to nowhere.
“The third floor has no map, because the place changes every time we enter,” Barney said. “The only way to go down to the next floor is to find and defeat the Floor Boss.”
“Okay, so where is it?”
“We don’t know,” the man shrugged. “We have to do the legwork and search for it.”
Connie turned towards the two Dark Elves.
We don’t know either. We’ve never been to the other floors. Leyn wrote.
Martell coughed. “Let me do this one.”
“Telekinesis: Control,” he declared. The Sword Box on his box slowly levitated and he rode upon it, taking care not to step on it with his dirty shoes. When he managed to get on, suddenly he felt a weight that almost made him topple. He looked back angrily and saw Illumca’s impassive gaze.
“Go up,” she said succinctly.
With a grumble, Martell used his Skill to go up until they were about a hundred meters above the ground.
Arryn was used to being on tall buildings, but it was the first time that she was up in the air with just a slab of wood under her. As such, she involuntarily gripped hard onto Illumca. The sudden intimacy reminded them of the past, causing both of them to look away from each other.
“You used to be the best with your eyes,” Illumca then said with an exaggerated calmness. “Can you see anything?”
Arryn was slightly taken aback by her words. But she quickly did as she was asked to. Her passive skill, Eagle Eyes, allowing her to look far beyond the capability of normal humans.
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Once they returned to the ground, Arryn reported what she saw. Albeit using letters with clear traces of trembling hands. She gestured at a certain direction while lifting her slab.
I saw something that way. It looked to be a gathering of monsters. But the foggy terrain doesn’t allow me to see as clearly.
“That’s better than nothing,” Connie said. “Good work. Let’s head there. With luck, that one might be what we are looking for.”
With no other way to go, the party made their way forward following the Dark Elf’s suggestion with the same formation they used up to now. They met a few monsters on the way. Stragglers who had more gumption than strength. These ones were dispatched quickly by the other Hunters.
Then suddenly, Nick raised his hand and gestured towards a large boulder near them. The party quickly moved behind the it.
“Torches,” the scruffy man said as he nodded at a few firelights floating in the air, visible through a thin veil of fog.
Caelin quickly dipped his torch into the marsh water, dousing it. Barney followed suit.
“Enemies. Clearly,” Illumca said. “Still a few hundred meters from us. They have torches. So, they are not just monsters. Demons too, perhaps.”
“Let’s ambush them!” Akula said as she readied her bow and arrow. There was a clear excitement in her eyes.
“Agreed. They don’t seem to have noticed us,” Martell said.
What if there are also Dark Elves?! Arryn wrote in alarm.
Connie was about to answer when she felt the back of her neck tingle. Connie was a person who knew that to survive, one must trust her instincts. The moment she felt that tingle, she quickly turned and sent out a blade of Energy to a direction a few meters above them.
There was a loud shriek and something fell onto the ground near Caelin’s Feet. It was a large, single eyeball the size of a man’s head. A few tendrils forming a pair of diminutive bat wings were the only other thing the eyeball had.
“A Seeker!!” Caelin cried out. “Dammit! That means - !”
The shriek roused movements and cacophonous clangs of iron mixed with angry roars from the directions of the torches.
“Well, there goes the element of surprise,” Connie said as she calmly made her way to the front. “Hunters!! Prepare for combat!” Barney shouted. “Let’s make these shits regret they ever met the Bearkillers!!”
Akula nocked her powerful bow with an iron arrow, her arm muscles bulging as she grinned under her veil. “They will make great head on spikes!!”