The roving crowd dissipated after a few minutes of relentless protesting, leaving Reghan and the others on the podium in silence and contemplation.
In the end of the day, none of those who protested had other choices. They were generally low-leveled; some of them even remained as low as level 1, so getting out of the walls would be a death sentence for them.
As of this moment, the walls were still standing. God knows how long they would last, but they’d plan today’s defense with the walls in their minds.
“The previous defense squad will be delegated to the defense of this gate. The rest, we’ll divide into 4 teams.”, Reghan conjured up a quick plan, detailing the facets of the defense with a surprising clarity, despite having only a few minutes to think about it.
[Task updated!]
[Task #1 : Find the 4 keys to open the gate leading to the exit, located in the safe zone (1/4). 79 days left.]
[Owner of the 1st key : Zane Black]
Julie’s eyes popped open for the first time since Reghan met her.
Zane Black. That name appeared once more. Reghan couldn’t make much of an impression of him when they met for the first time. He appeared to be a mostly normal guy with a surprising amount of confidence on his back, and yet, he was polite and respectful of Reghan’s plight.
A part of Reghan wanted him to be on the defense since he seemed to be able to handle himself against the enemies outside, but…
As much as he hated to admit it, he was jealous of him too. If he wanted, he could’ve asked him to stay. Now that they were faced with a truly dire situation, he’d dearly wished he hadn’t let his ego to ruin everything. Again.
“Do you know him?” Julie asked, approaching Reghan from the side. There was a strange glint of anger in her eyes. Well, perhaps not, since she always looked angry. “I saw him in our camp yesterday, why is he not here with us?”
“A lot of reasons… Primarily, the others didn’t seem to like having outsiders take their ‘supposed’ loot.”
His reply was met with a tired sigh from Julie. She has never been the one to hold back her words, and her current actions didn’t betray that statement. “So he just up and cleared a dungeon while we’re stuck with dealing with… whatever this shit is? Why are we even entertaining those who are clearly just here to depend on you?”
Because I’d allowed it. And I loved their praises. Reghan mulled over to himself. It was stupid of him to have let all of this unfold, and he vowed to not repeat this mistake again. Going forward, only those who were willing to fight will be granted the right to stay.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————
“So… you’ve analyzed him, right? How strong is he?”
The rest of Julie’s party are hanging out outside the walls, overlooking the forest for any stray wolves that remained. Well, discounting Karl, who’s mouth was wide agape as he slept beside them.
“Stronger than him. Reghan.” Amanda answered, gripping the daggers on her hips.
“Whew…” A curt whistle left Richard’s lips. “It’d be nice if he was here for the defense.”
———————————————————————————————————————————————————
Trekking through the old forest once more, I gazed at the dark sky as took in the fresh air from all around me. It has been quite a long while since I’d been inside the dungeon, so the change of scenery was something I appreciated.
My Ally of Darkness talent was activated, granting me increased strength and speed, but that wasn’t the thing that I noticed the most, it was the fact that I could see in the dark with such clarity that made the darkness almost forgettable.
A rustling snapped my focus towards a patch of shrubbery nearby, hiding the legs of a giant scorpion minding its own business. Normally, it’d be a challenge to spot it within this darkness, but with my new skill, it was more than just visible.
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Tendrils of darkness emanated from my arms, forming themselves into a spear. At a glance, the spear I conjured wasn’t so different from the previous ones. But this time, there was some sort of dark haze that was covering the bladed edge of the spear. It was from the new modifier of Dark Arsenal, First strike.
Combining the modifier with my other new skill, Empowered throw, my spear fired through the air with such a horrifying speed that everything that was between me and the scorpion was blasted away.
The scorpion reacted fast enough to put up its usual defenses with both of its claws, yet, my spear simply glided past its claws and its body and penetrated the floor behind it a few meters deep with a massive boom. The torso of the scorpion exploded into tiny chunks as it died in a single attack.
[You killed Lvl. 18 Green-scaled scorpion]
I stared at the result of my combination of skills in disbelief. That is beyond anything I’d expected.
A few other scorpion emerged from the forest, it seemed like the sound had attracted the other scorpions into the vicinity. While killing them might net me a good source of experience, I decided to leave since the next wave is about to come, and well, I don’t think the system will reward me with any levels from killing those things anymore.
Jumping and gliding past the tall trees, the sense of newfound speed and power somewhat overwhelmed me as I closed the distance between me and the Gate of Beginnings. It wasn’t until a few minutes later before I saw a hint of the gate from a distance, indicating that I was close to where I wanted to be.
Once the walls before the gate came into view, I dropped down from the trees and paused when I saw the state of the encampment from the outside. It wasn’t the peaceful scene that it once was, now, traces of blood and wolf corpses were all over the place, and the walls didn’t fare any better either. There were holes and burnt marks from what I assumed to be the wolves’ magical bolts. It never came across to me that they’d face this much of a difficulty on repelling the first wave until I got here.
Also, I acquired the first key to the dungeon. I wonder what kind of response they will give if I showed up again. Would they be upset, or would they be thankful?
There were close to no sound coming out from inside the walls, even with my innate senses.
Stifling a sigh, I stepped towards the wooden gate, which was now a few notches darker as parts of it was burnt. To my shock, there was nobody on the gate when I stood right before of it.
Stuck outside with no way in, I pondered if I should jump over the gate if there was no one here to answer. That train of thought stopped when a familiar pair of eyes approached me with a cautious look.
Amanda.
“It’s you…” Her steeled eyes remained locked on to mine. There was a pause there that I could not for the life of me understand before she continued. “Do you want to come inside?”
Nodding, I returned her intense gaze with a curt smile. I still didn’t understand why she gave me that look yesterday, but there was no good way of asking that sort of question.
She directed her glare to the gate. “Open up! It’s him!”
The creaking of the gate echoed throughout the silent field filled with death and gore. Amanda stood still, periodically glancing over to her side as if she wanted to ask a difficult question.
“Thanks…” Scratching my head, I couldn’t think of a way to make this any less awkward.
Once the gate was fully open, two of her other party members entered my frame of vision with an inquisitive look. They were sufficiently battered from the previous fights, a sore reminder of what they had to go through to keep the gate safe. Another pang of shock struck as I stepped inside the encampment once more, watching the sheer… injuries that they had amassed.
The past midnight had not been easy for everyone here. Honestly, I thought that the defense should be a cakewalk for them.
A couple of curious eyes were stalking me as I walked deeper into their home. The previously enthusiastic tone from the color of their faces were all but gone now, replaced with a somber, hopeless expression. The only bright things in this encampment were the dimly lit torches that barely gave much of a vision inside of the encampment, but not enough to turn [Ally of Darkness] off.
“The defense were more difficult that we thought it would be.” Amanda said, peering at the slouched figures resting below their tents. “Some of us died. It was mainly the defense squad, but still…”
Well, I felt bad only for a certain population of the encampment; Those who’d chosen to stay and cower in fear were completely irrelevant to my eyes, but I owed those that fought for the defense since they kept the gate safe without me. In essence, I had cleared a quest without taking part in it, and honestly, it bothered me quite a bit.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. The sole reason they died is that they’re not strong enough. That’s just how it is in this world.”, Amanda resumed speaking. “And from what Julie told us, you weren’t treated that kindly when you got here. Hell, I wouldn’t be excited to help if I were you too.”
“Hey, we were pretty much treated the same way too. But they stopped bothering us once Julie rose into prominence.”, The big guy spoke from quite a distance behind us. “Right, Karl?”
“Whatever…” He sighed, clearly exhausted from the previous defense.
“So, You cleared a dungeon. That’s crazy.”, Amanda’s question shifted my focus away from the dudes, “Was it tough? We’ve entered another type of a cave once, but the shit that was in there proved to be too much for the four of us.”
“Well… I was infected with some kind of poison that drained my life every second. It was brutal, and also the primary reason why I was absent last night.”, My answer came a second later, my mind reminiscing the time I was inflicted with the death poison.
“Huh…”
She didn’t say another word afterwards.
Once we walked past the destitute crowd, the podium quickly came into view. There, a few tough looking players were seen discussing, no, directing the others to form some kind of a group below while a pair of individuals stood above the stage watching all of it happen.
It was Julie and Reghan. From the way our gazes met, it was obvious that they wanted to have more than just a talk with me.
For the first time since I came into this camp, the three possibly strongest players in this sector were about to have a discussion.