《Dungeon Misfits》


 Prologue: Perceive And Recognise

    Inside a silent dark chamber, where the only source of light available were the eerily blue flames that never seemed to fade away. Apart from the few furnitures, shelves, lamps and alchemy tables found in there, it was a fairly empty place.A completed ritual could be seen along with the remains of various used components, engravings and carvings found on the side of the ground nearby.


    At that time, a hooded man dressed in dark robescould be seen sauntering into the chamber. Followed closely behind him by a group of walking skeletons. He surveyed around the place and swiftly ordered the skeletons to start clearing up the remains of the ritual while standing there leisurely inspecting their whole process.


    Suddenly, he turned his face around looking towards a certain direction, frowning.


    ¡°Why are you staring at me like that? Please stop doing that, it''s quite unsettling.¡±


    ........


    There was no response towards the hooded man¡¯s questioning. Which prompted him to sigh. By this time, his profession should already be obvious by now.


    ¡°Alright, now that I have finished the ritual and started clearing up the place. We need to relocate everything to somewhere else deeper in the dungeon after we''re done here.¡±


    ........


    There was no response again, but the necromancerwas unwavered by the silence. He continued on his speech as if he was still talking to someone.


    ¡°Well...with your intelligence, you will eventually learn to speak anyway. You are after all my greatest masterpiece yet! Heck, aren¡¯t I just the greatest genius for creating you in the first place? All the while those conservative mages will continue to be stuck in their hiatus due to their own stubborn mentality!¡±


    The necromancer started gloating, grinning from ear to ear despite that there was no one else listening here except for his own constructs.


    ¡°Despite of what the peasants thinks of me, I thought of myself as quite an upstanding person you know. I do not rob from the graves, nor do I murder people with my magic. I simply do my research in peace while gathering any resources I may need from this dungeon.¡±


    While thecreature fromwhich the necromancer was currently talking at, could somewhat understood that this man may actualy be someone amazing. It still did not know most of what the man was even trying to convey to it.....


    ¡°I even help to prevent the dead bodies of the adventurers from getting horribly eaten by the monsters inside the dungeonby putting them to proper use too!¡±


    The simple creature was still more than inclined to agree with him anyway, he was its master and creator after all. He was the reason why it even existed in the first place. There was nothing else for it to think of anyway.


    ¡°The town should be grateful that I also prevented the corpses from rotting inside here and thus did a favour to some of their unwanted sanitary problems too! Not that the city needs to actually know what I am doing of course.¡±


    The necromancer coughed and paced around, still continuing the monologue about his exploits, somewhat looking maniacal. Until he eventually tripped and collapsed onto a skeleton behind him, falling onto the ground together with it.


    ¡°A-argh, get off of me you boneheaded undead!¡±


    If there was someone else here watching now, how would they comment about seeing a necromancer getting entangled with a skeleton and struggling to get himself free? It would never know but nonetheless, it was quite an amusing sight to see, or so it thought.


    After disentangling himself, the necromancer scrambled to get himself up and turned around to look around hastily. All the while managing to retain back his normal composure and acted as if nothing had just happened, continuing on his talk.


    ¡°A-ahem, since unlike those useless skeletons you are now a sentient being.....I should properly give you a name to address yourself too!¡±


    After saying that, the dark hooded man stopped himself to ponder on his new thoughts.


    ¡°Hmm, since you are sort of a golem with flesh as base, should I just call you Gol¡¯fesh then? How about Bolem or maybe Skineton instead? That actually sounds better!¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    If the creature could talk and think maturely, the first thing it may want to do, would be to slap the man¡¯s face just to point out how he had just so arbitrary decided its name this way. The second thing, would be asking about why his main focus on flesh had anything to do with bones and skin instead.


    Not that the simple creature would care about it''s name at that time though. It was pretty sure it looked expressionless despite what the necromancer thought of it at the start.


    ¡°No, you are not supposed to be just a pet, I should really give you a more proper name instead!¡±


    If anyone saw the enthusiastic necromancer eagerly listing off various ridiculous names for his own animated creation, they would definitely thought that the man has gone delusional due to loneliness from his long seclusion. And the person may actually have indeed gone insane....


    The necromancer continued on with his musings for a while, until some inspiration strucked him.


    ¡°Alright, I have decided! I will name you Disrot, taken after the Cardarvar Lord, Diseastrous! Hah! A name fitting for my greatest masterpiece yet!¡±


    After deciding on the creature¡¯s name, the necromancer soon noticed that his minions were now standing by waiting in silence. They had long finished packing up the things and were now watching the man''s antics. It prompted the man to compose himself again and ordered his minions to start leaving the place. At that moment, the creature had to obediently follow along his master too.


    The creature whose name was now Disrot, immediately noticed that there was something unusual whilemoving behind its master, who was now leaving through the exit. Something was skulking at the corner of the ceiling with an intent of a stalking predator.It quickly understood by instinct that the shadowed creature withsix limbs was aiming at the necromancer''s life, which also happened to be its master.On reflex, without being ordered to do so, it immediately shoved the necromancer awayfromthe creature that had tried to leap towards him.


    ¡°Gah!¡±


    The dark robed man that fell on his bump, turned his head to look around in confusion. Just in time to seethe culprit hiding in the shadows that had attempted to take his life before. It had landed beside him with silent grace, its body was covered with pus and short hair-like tendrils. Sharp threating teeth and long claws could been seen in the dim light. It made the man gasped.


    ¡°A cryper! Bloody bones! How was the monster even suppose to be here!?¡±


    Readingthe situation and acting onimpulse, Disrot immediately tackled the cryper, forcing both of them to wrestle and stumble against each other back into the chamber.The commotion with the cryper which added along with the necromancer''s unique disposition had started to attract hordes of feral undeads'' attention around the dungeon towards their direction from the dark passages.Some started trickling into the chamber from the other side while the others quickly moved towards the necromancer. These feral undeads were slowly overwhelming his own skeletons and overtime, pushing him further away from the chamber¡¯s entrance and deeper into one of the tunnels.


    ¡°Freaking hells! My masterpiece! The fruit of my labour, I can''t just leave it in there!¡±


    Despite the necromancer¡¯s effort, he was still eventually forced to retreat along with his minions. All the while shouting various creative curses on the way, his voice lost inside the dungeon.During the necromancer¡¯s retreat from the undeads, Disrot was struggling with the cryper inside the chamber. It does not have any experinece in combat and the cryper had simply overpowered it easily, tearing pieces of its limbs apart and ripping it to shreds. Forcing the creature to lie motionlessly on the ground with its body parts strewn across the place.


    After ending the one sided fight, monsterhadquickly crawled out through the chamber''s exit, by the ceiling, in itscontinued pursuit of the fleeing necromancer. Leaving behind the abandoned creature, which had laid there unmoving for quite some time.


    Eventually its body¡¯s flesh started to wriggle and extend, absorbing mana from its surrounding to slowly regenerate back some of the lost parts of its body. When Disrot was able to squirm back up again, it diligently proceeded to collect back the rest of its scattered pieces of flesh that were laying around the place.


    There were still some of the mindless undeads around, mainly zombies that had remain stranded inside of the chamber. They werewere either standing around idly or bumping into walls,ignorant of how to get out of there and ignoring the fleshy creature completely. As if there wereno reason for them to move around hostilely anymore.


    Noticing those undeads,Disrot was driven by some base instincts. It felt the need toassert its consciousness into the remaining undeads there. While it was having thoughts, small pieces of its flesh started squirm and shoot out towards the zombies'' necks. Eventually forming some sort of link connecting them to it in a much familiarway to how Disrot felt towards its master. But it felt that was nothing special about taking control of those undeads, not more so than an extension of itself right now.


    Afterit had done its thing, the fleshy creature immediately led the group of undead mobs out of the chamber. But even doing so, Disrot had already encountered its first obstacle. The pathway ahead of it had started to split into six different directions, some maybe leading to other different chambers while the others leading to somewhere else but which way had the necromancer went? It honestly did not know.


    Henceforth, due to various circumstances Disrot was lost inside the labyrinth of dark passageways, forced to slowly wander around pointlessly within the dungeon. Constantly searching for its all important master, whichwas so frustrating that it did not find it humerus at all!

 Arising Problems

    At a distance away from a cave that was supposed to be an entrance into a giant catacomb, a young man could be seenstrollingdirectly towards the entrance of that dungeon, alone.


    Heseemed to be in his early twenties, andwas clad in a light suit of brown leather armor, he was notstrollingleisurely though. The young adult was grumbling while he was on his way there, looking slightly annoyed, miffed at the inhospitable treatment he received at the local adventurer association hall, when he just arrived.


    ¡°Curse those petty guilds and their impudent standards!¡±


    He was swearing, but not out of anger and instead at his own inconvenience. Supposedly due to his unpopular profession, he was not allowed to join the various adventurer guilds found in the town or even be accepted by most of the guild members in their party, especially the religious ones, despite being an adventurer himself.


    In the end, despite the influx of new adventurers arriving in town after the war, he still could not find himself a suitable party to join and explore the dungeon. Even though he was quite an experienced adventurer already.


    "This is why I hated travelling to other different towns."


    Deralst felt that it was quite unfair. Since most of the guild''s adventurers had chosen to party up with their own guild members, while the non-guild members could only to be accepted by another guild''s party if their own professions were high enough in demand, or they just had to simply form a party with the other non-guild members. Which seldom tend to happen anyway due to their scarce appearances in towns and various other complicated reasons, especially the more experienced ones.


    In any way, people would not just simply chose to team up with any known stranger for an adventure if they did not knowwhether the stranger was reliable enough or not. And especially not someone like him.


    As a common understanding in this continent, people were allowed to freely choose and practice whatever professions, religions, studies and preferences they want, as long as they do not break the country''s laws. But some of the professions were openly frowned upon by people due to clashes with their ethics and religion.Such as the professions that mainly dabble with undeads, demons, hexes, and various other forms of dark arts. While there may be some truth in why such practitioners were being despised by the people so much. But most of the time, it was just wanton condemnation.


    Occasionally, the thought of just simply torching the whole town in fire just to watch the world¡¯s society burn may just seemed like an option too. But it was just a reckless fleeting thought for Deralst actually, but amusing nonetheless.


    While the society''s standards may seemed troublesome and inconvenient at times, it did not discourage Deralst too much from becoming an adventurer though.He essentially took up adventuring just to get away from that very society in the first place, traveling around to see for himself what excitements the bigger world had to offer instead. Where the wild was free from the constraints of paltry expectations.


    Walking up along the dirt path, Deralst tried to distract himself from his depressingly darker thoughts by repeating kicking the small round pebble in front of him, engaging in what he coined as Fantasy Football, not that he actually knew in actuality what the disparate version of the sport was anyway.


    Actually, Deralst used to have a party of his own, albeit it was a temporary one. But the team had disbanded after having accomplished what they had wanted in the previous dungeon, causing them to go on their own separate ways.


    Despite it all, Deralst actually did not miss them at all. In spite of their time spent together, he had only somewhat interacted with them when they were delving in the dungeon anyway. And that did not actually mean that Deralst had bad interpersonal skills though, he was sure about it, possibly.


    Often at times, Deralst had to swallow down his pride just to join the other adventurers¡¯ party. And still failing to be accepted at times, despite all of that in the end.But it was not that he had much of his ego to spare anyway, if he had any, he had lost most of it long ago during his adventuring days. Still, he had to begrudgingly admit that it helped built his character for these situations but he still believed that most of the other adventurers in the association require it a lot more than he do.


    When he arrived in town, he had actually been invited once to join a party though, but he immediately rejected it without consideration for the other team¡¯s honour. Afterall, he was keenly aware of that manipulative woman¡¯s motiveand how shewas keeping the group of desperate men in the party together.It would do well for his life expectancy to stay away from parties like those, lest he be used as a fodder or got stabbed in the back instead. From his own experience, he was pretty sure that even diving into the dungeon alone had higher rate of survivability than joining a group like that. It was how he was still alive after all, in spite of various other implications.


    Not that he minded it too much for now, he was used to delving dungeons alone, and he usually prefers to be alone anyway. It was just that it had became a lot more inconvenient, troublesome and inefficient despite his preferences and his pragmatic side told him that he needed more than just himself if he had to take on more and more dangerous quests.


    ¡°For now, I guess I have no choice but to do things by myself a little while longer.¡±


    Muttering under his breath until he had gotten near the entrance.Reaching the front of the dungeon''s entrance, Deralst did a quick inspection on the functionality of his runic gears and briefly took out a dull small gem from his pocket. Which then he started to infuse it with mana and swiftly threw the thing at the ground in front of him.The dull gem begin to grow and eventually transform into something beastial and demonic, growing into what was also happened to be called as a hellhound.


    Deralst''s current profession was known as a diabolist, and while he may not be as proficient at binding the demonic creatures as compared to the other more specialised practitioners such as the warlocks and demonologists, he was still capable enough at controlling the less intelligent demons on his own.Otherwise, his profession essentially focused on infusing the infernal powers that strengthens and empowers himself over the limit of what normal person could do.


    He gave the hellhound his orders to follow and help lookout for dangers. And with this, his final preparation was completed.Without further ado, he entered into the dungeon to start his first adventure of his day there.


    ¡ª


    After having entered the first floor of the dungeon, he continued to advance forward without stopping. Always fully on alert while holding on to his torch on one hand.


    For most of the time, there were little to no monsters to be found in this floor.The few that were actually found were not as threatening anyways. But it still pays to be cautious, as they always say. Carelessness will find no clemency in here, especially more so for someone who travels the dungeons alone.


    The surrounding areas were mainly full of linear corridors and empty rooms looted by adventurers long ago. The air was musty and stale with the only sound produced here being Deralst''s echoing footsteps, disturbing the tranquillity of this dark place.From what he knew,the first five floors of this dungeon were over explored by the adventurers in the past. So much so that it had started to become a relatively safe and easy place to travel around these days. Occasionally, these floors were only used for gathering around possible dungeon resources or as a place of practice for the novice adventurers.


    The true adventure though, only starts after the fifth floor. Where the aggressive monsters were invigorated and mutated by the moss crystals found there. Depending on the affinity of those living crystals, the strengthen monsters can be pretty dangerous to those who were inexperienced in dealing with them.Besides the dangerous monsters found there, the passageways around the place had also became twisted and shifted due to the collapsed unexcavated rubble or by the growing moss crystals forming to block the way there. This caused the already complex underground dungeon to become a huge slowly changing labyrinth, creating a maze within a maze.


    There were also many other possible hazards found there in the depth of the dungeons, such as the hidden and unsprung ancient traps or the new ones that were being set by the possible denizens found in there. Ready to ambush anyone unfortunate enough to trigger it.Which altogether had made survival seemed like a tedious proposition and a proposition that Deralst was currently willing to try took up on. It was why he was here in the first place, despite all of the dangers lurking aroundand not doing so would defeat the purpose anyway. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    After wandering through the network of pathways, stairways, disposing places of some huge spiders and weak undeads along the way, Deralst had finally arrived at the entrance connecting to the third floor, just in front of a small hall without even taking too much of his time.He immediately approached towards the entrance without delay, but he stopped his steps the moment when he thought he heard something.


    Someone was screaming, and the voice was starting to get louder and closer to him.Deralst quickly readied his weapon, ordering his hound to be on guard while in preparation to meet with whatever possible adversity that was rapidly approaching towards them. He waited in silence.


    Soon, a ragged man dressed in dark tattered robes quickly appear through the darkness of the entrance, screaming while sprinting towards him. Followed closely behind by a mob of weak undeads in various varieties. Some of the faster skeletons that held sharp weaponswere slashing furiously at the man, intent on mutilating him.


    At the sight of Deralst, the man quickly stumbled by tripping on his own robe, causing him to flipforward and sail through air, perfectly landing on the ground with his face planted in front of the bewildered adventurer.


    Even while still being surprised at the apparent mage''s awkwardness, Deralst could still calmly judge the situation. If he had to evaluate the man''s free flying with a comparison rating for what he had done, it would definitely be as smooth as a flying gecko, or at least among the other list of gliding animals he could think of anyway.While this was unknown to Deralst at the time, the sight of the mage who was supposedly a necromancer. Being desperately chased by undeads to the point of tripping, could actually be quite a pretty surreal scene to anyone who saw it, not that Deralst really needed to know that though.


    Putting aside his amusements, Deralst quickly stepped forward to help the robed man, using his sabre-like sword to swiftly decapitate three of closest skeletons consecutively by relying on his quick reflexes.


    The rest of the undead could still be seen rushing through the tunnel entrance at a short distance away. Without hesitation, Deralst raised his right arm in their direction, and began infusing the enchanted runes on his runic gauntlet by circulating his mana. Without the need of incantations, torrents of infernal fire started spewing forward as it burst out of the palm of his gauntlet towards the direction of the rushing hordes.


    Engulfing the undeads in a strong raging inferno which blocks the entrance, while searing the flesh of zombies and charing skeleton bones on the way. The fire continued burning as it took longer than normal to extinguish even without any physical fuel.


    When Deralst was distracted, some of the skeletons had managed to escape before getting burnt by the flames. They started striding towards the mage nearby, who had just risen on his feet. The mage quickly reacted by chanting a spell before an unarmed skeleton charged at him, itcrashes into the mage, sending him to the ground again andstarted grappling with him on the ground.


    Deralst hurriedly stopped his flames, and he immediately ordered the hellhound to take down any surviving undeads from the entrance while he started disposing the rest of the remaining undeads before any more of the undeads reaches the struggling mage.After a short time, the skeleton stopped struggling against the mage, motionless as the mage pushed it away while still sprawling out on the ground wearily.


    After Deralst cleared the rest of the undeads, he turned his attention back towards that particular surviving skeleton. It had risen back up after it got pushed away and remains passively still without attacking anyone. Perturbed at the turn of events in front of him, Deralst could only thought of one thing at that time.


    A damn freaking Necromancer.


    Whom the person in question was now gasping and sobbing on the ground, muttering some curses and irrational gibberish about his research and life, and he seemed to be getting over the edge.


    Deralst sighed, he tried to pull the miserable necromancer back up on his feet and tried to stop him from babbling anymore nonsense, but he just seemed to be out of it.


    ¡°Rotting flesh¡­.all my years of effort and resource spent on the research, down the drain just like that! I have nothing left, nothing to offer than stupid corpses, nothing!¡±


    Feeling annoyed at the wretched necromancer¡¯s blatherings, Deralst did something he felt any sensible man would do. He slapped him hard in the face, with his gauntlet armoured hand for additional effectiveness.


    Reeling from the impact, the mage winced at the sudden pain, but it is strong enough to distract him from breaking down and get back his attention.


    "W-what the...."


    ¡°You are a necromancer right? How can you be running away from the undead instead?¡±


    ¡°B-but there should be a cryper nearby! Out there, somewhere!¡±


    Shuddering at the meaning of the necromancer¡¯s stuttering utterances, without even caring to reply the mage anymore, Deralst immediately turned around to face the tunnel¡¯s entrance, ordering his hellhound to be on guard, weapons ready, high strung and full alert.


    Crypers, those vicious assassins should not even be found in a floor this close to the surface!


    The crypers were supposed to be one of those types of ghoulish undeads that were corrupted and twisted by some form of demonic miasma, steadily growing multiple sets of powerful limbs on the way. These corruption was either caused by the moss crystals¡¯ influence or by a possible opening connected to the infernal dimension, found deep within the tombs.


    Those demonic undeads were fully capable of instantly tearing a professional adventurer apart, proving quite a difficult challenge even to the veterans.


    ¡°Freaking nine hells below!¡±


    Deralst really wanted to curse his luck at this point of time, but if he had to think about it in another perspective, was this not a fortunate confirmation instead?He had received information about the probability of moss crystals with demonic influences residing inside this dungeon. Despite being skeptical about it, Deralst had still decided to take his chances, which had caused him to travel all the way here in the first place.


    After managing to calm himself down, now Deralst just needed to think of a proper course of action to get himself out of here alive and make the necessary preparations in the future to face whatever hellspawns to be encountered in the depths of the dungeon before reaching the source of the demonic influence, starting with the cryper.


    Just when Deralst was deliberating about such things, he received a warning growl from his hound. Giving him time to notice that there was something moving in the darkness slightly behind him at the side of the walls from the corner of his eye.It had managed to silently sneak into the hall during all the commotion to launch an assault from behind him.


    Quickly reacting, Deralst dived forward into a quick roll, evading an attack by the presumed cryper aiming to stealthily incapacitate him. But it turned out that the demonic undead was actually aiming to eliminate the hellhound, butchering the other demonic beast into various flying chunks of flesh and entrails like a shredder with its four powerful arms.


    "Bubonic Diseastrous!"


    The Necromancer started shrieking loudly, towards the ferocious corrupted undead. A grotesque rotting appearance of a monster with an extra set of fully grown, twisted looking arms. Multiple small swelling lumps of tumours can be found across its body, that seems to be contorting and extending.


    The sight of the creature as a whole, made it looked more like a bizarre beast instead of a dead man, prowling around the slaughtered remains of the hellhound that had begin dissipating away.


    Right after finishing the hellhound, the cryperswiftly turn to follow up with a quick swipe with its claws towards Deralst. Which he promptly parried the strike in return by swiveling his body along with his sword in a side sweeping swing, drawing black blood and possibly cutting some digits.


    Deralst then quickly rise his body to pursue his assault, with a forward raising thrust, aiming to pierce through its skull. However, the unfaltering cryper managed to avoided it with a fast crouch, which it then lunged at Deralst from below like a spring with a frontal tackle. And within such a short distance, he was certain that he was unable to dodge it, so he instead braced himself for the impact. Which the monster''s tackle still caused him to drop his sword on the way.


    While the cryper was steadying itself atop of him, Deralst immediately reached for the sheath fasten on his leg. Drawing out his dagger and started jamming it into the side of the cryper¡¯s torso, just before the cryper raked him to shreds with its four arms.He quickly infused the dagger with mana before releasing it, activating the runic enchantments within and caused the blade to explode as the purging flames of hell started bursting out from it, setting the monster''s whole body on fire easily through the spreading infernal flames.


    The cryper howled loudly, reeling away and releasing him from its weight. Deralst jumped back up and rushed to grab his sword, turning only to find out that the injured monster had already fled back into the darkness of the corridors, quickly escaping from the battle as if it had vanished.


    He continue to stand in tensed silence for a while to make sure the monster was really gone beforesheathing his sword.Despite the monster being weakened and gravely injured, Deralst had no desire to chase after it. Thatmonster was noweven more dangerous skulking in the tenebrous corners of this dark place.


    Furthermore, he could feel his fatigue rising when the adrenaline pumped excitement was starting to ebb after the scuffle had ended. And despite the various events that had transpired, the whole situation briefly only took less than five minutes to end.He really wished that these monsters were like the ones told in stories where they were just stupid enough to stay and fight to the death instead of running away when it become too dangerous for them. Although it was only a trifling victory In the end, but it was still a victory nonetheless.


    But now Deralst had to stop what he was doing, which he had only just started, and immediately return back to the association to report on the situation. Prompting him to think what had he really done to deserve all of this anyway, but then again¡­...

 Unforeseen Certainty

    ¡°Know when a legend becomes a prophecy? When it gains believers.¡±


    ¨DCorinne, the Oneiromancer


    The remote town of Argus, a frontier situated at the edge of the kingdom¡¯s borders, far from the devastating war up north.


    The town used to be just an outpost built there to keep out the feral monsters and a checkpoint for the elves from the forest. It started further developments after the discovery of a dungeon nearby, along with the further influx of travellers down heredue to the war. Even so, the environment around the town was still full of nature untouched by civilisation.


    Many of the travellers on the road, such as adventurers, minor peddlers, refugees and fugitives could all be seen migrating down south towards that place, hoping to seek new opportunities and fortune. Where in times of desperation, those people could still cling onto what little hope they had.


    With all this movement on the road, it had also attracted various other more unsavory attentions from the outlaws plaguing the area. Scenes of rape, murder, slavery, robbery and death, all sorts of crimes could be seen happening on the way there.


    To try prevent this misfortune, the caravans of travellers chose to travel together in huge bands instead, which was enough to deter most of the smaller bandit bands around the road most of the time. But unfortunately, this was not the case for one of the particular smaller band of the travelling caravan.


    The caravans escorted by some of the adventurers, had arrived in the vicinity of a dense forest. Heavy footsteps of man and horses, wheels of wagons and carriages on the dirt road could be heard as they send out dusty clouds of air.


    Among the nine wagons in the caravan, various sorts of provisions and equipments were being transported, accompanied by some trailing followers who looked tired and fearful. There were sixty people in total, some were just wanderers while some were merchants.And among them, roughly thirty were adventurers who had either happened to be the armed escorts protecting the cargos or just simply adventurers accompanied along with them on the same way. Some of them were riding on the carriages, some on horseback or just walking on foot.


    Suddenly, when the caravan were crossing on a road through a thick forests on both sides, volleys of arrows had started raining down the unsuspecting caravan, ripping through canvas, killing almost all of the horses and taking lives.


    There were screams of pain and yells of rage heard among the assaulted caravan, as the situation quicklybreak into chaos. The attack was immediately followed by aseries of explosions at the front, blowing up gusts of hot wind and blocking their front path with the wreckage of carriages and dead horses.


    A large number of bandits started charging out from the thick forest, mostly surrounding the caravan from both sides and the front. They appeared to be up to around fifty people, which seemed to be lesser than the people in the caravan initially, but they still outnumbered the adventurers and those who could actually put up a fight.


    With their successful ambush with arrows and explosions, it had further decreased the amount of capable fighters alive. The prepared explosion also seemed to have killed the leader of the escorting adventurers, further throwing the place into chaos and confusion.


    Some of people had tried to turn and flee to the back side of the road, but they were swiftly murdered by a group men appearing from behind on horseback. They were twenty highwayman that had joined the ambush by blocking the caravan¡¯s final escape route, promising to chase down anyone trying for a quick escape.The highwaymen were either armed in longsword or had their crossbows held ready to fire, their outfit was a mixed of surcoat and chainmail that suggested that they may be cavalry soldiers before they had deserted the army, any emblems or trademarks for identifying their previous military allegiance were removed from sight.


    This amount of coordination and tactic seemed to have betrayed their expectations in a typical group of unruly criminals, clearly suggesting that they were overwatched by a capable leader among them. The survivors of the besieged caravan started to crowd around the wagons at the center like herded sheeps, fending off the encroaching bandits desperately.It had eventually turn into a stalemate after the initial clashes, with the selfish bandits brandishing around their weapons threateningly and surrounding thecaravan but unwilling to push forward into the Intimidating crowd of adventurers by putting their own lives at a stake even if they were clearly dominating the situation.


    It was a tense standoff, between the bandits who had the advantages of horsemen and archers while the adventurers who were experienced fighters against monsters,and used to adapting to dangers.This dragged on for a few short moments, until a person surrounded by ten heavily armed bodyguards started walking out of the covers of the trees, standing at the edge facing towards the adventurers. He clearly appeared to be the leader of the bandits.


    He was a fully grown adult who neither looked particularly young nor all that old, his features were stern and handsome looking. His light brown hair was well groomed along with his cleanly shaven face, gave off a neatly appearance that contradicted with what was expected of the unruly bandits.He was not too tall according to their world¡¯s standards, as his height was just a quarter slightly below two meters. He wore a gambeson lightly plated in armour, along with leather gloves and boots. He also had a leather belt along with a strap across his shoulder. Which his appearance as a whole gave him an impression of solemnity and discipline.


    ¡°LISTEN UP! There is no need for further deaths, just surrender the cargo behind and I assure that all of you can leave here with even your weapons and equipments....We do not need to fight another battle.¡±


    He spoke in a calm tone that was loud enough to be heard by the people across the forest without the need to shout, not something anyone can easily reproduce. His voice was mature and serene, without the smallest hint of fear or worry.His deep blue eyes looked cold and impenetrable, his inscrutable countenance give little away of what he was thinking, the presence he alluded would draw anyone¡¯s attention, either by pressure or probably christma.


    His natural commanding presence gave away that he was likely some officer of a military background and it was quite unthinkable that someone of his character would stoop to banditry. Although, what people would expect for bandits was that they would normally be made up of petty thieves and thugs but during times of strife and conflict, deserters of war were the most common instead.


    ¡°As if I will believe a dishonourable bunch of scums like you! We will not surrender! Not in a country fighting a losing war! And especially not in a country infested by monsters and bandits!¡±


    An female adventurer shouted out. She seemed to represent as the substitute leader, she sounds enraged at the death of her previous leader and comrades. Despite that, adventurers also have their own form of pride and principles. Even if it was still better to have kept their lives intact, but at such dire times, leaving behind all the cargo was as good as telling the people to go starve and die in the slums, both to the client and the reputation of those adventurer''s job career. They have accepted the job and so abandoning their client¡¯s merchandise to some lowly bandits just to stay alive disparages that, and they would not get paid too.


    ¡°Is that so.....That¡¯s too bad.¡±


    Whether it was intended to not, the bandit leader replied in a voice that sounded slightly disappointed. He calmly drew out his own long sword from the scabbard, a type of sword that seems more like a short edged glaive with intricate designs, and pointed it towards them. And shouted in a powerful and authoritative voice.


    ¡°The band of Bloody Harriers! Execute the plan and Attack!¡±


    After hearing their leader¡¯s voice, as if they had rehearsed it beforehand, the bandits immediately started moving back away from the assembled adventurers and unexpectedly, some members among the caravan drew out something akin to a smoke bomb and threw it on the ground, causing green and black smoke to cover the whole area around the center surrounding the wagons.


    Some of the faster adventurers tried to fire a few pot shots at the bandit leader. But the man continue to calmly stood there, observing the battle, Ignoring the arrows flying towards him and missing. As if he knew that the arrows would not hit him.


    The horsemen behind them began to charge forward like a ram, splittingforward at both sides of the wagon, kicking and slashing at anyone inside the smoked area until they got out from the front. Afterwards, the archers continued to rain death upon enemies with more volley of arrows, most of the victims were unable to dodge it due to the smoke. And when the firing arrows finally ended, the bandits then finally began their charge to the wagons again.


    The battle abruptly ended, when all the remaining resisting adventurers eventually collapsed on the ground, feeling hazy, paralyzed and unable to move.


    ¡ª


    After the raid had ended, Restler felt a slight sense of disappointment at the aftermath of the scene. It was partly due to the adventurer¡¯s decision, and partly due to the amount of deaths that have incurred afterwards.


    In this battle, he had lost around twenty five men out of the total of a hundred people he had brought with him. He also had five traitors planted within caravan whom had all survived the fight.They were supposed to use the the paralyzing bombs before the battle started, along with the antidotes his band carried to helped them resist it. While the final battle along with the explosion had caused three of the wagons to be an unusable wreck, most of the loot survived.


    Even so there were still around twenty survivors from the caravan and among them, only fifteen out of the thirty adventurers were killed, an amount even lesser than the dead bandits.


    Despite his overwhelming advantage, he still needed at least two bandits to match up to an adventurer, and by prediction, he might need to lose more than half the band he had brought just to kill all the adventurers if they were to fight directly till the end, which was already an impressive rate as compared to usual.As a lot of the adventurers here appeared to be veterans, it would be a pretty tough fight even if the bandits just simply tried to overwhelm them with their superior numbers. Even for experienced soldiers, they still could not match the veteran adventurer¡¯s individual combat experience, teamwork and adaptability for different situations.


    Fighting a bunch of people who were used to fighting dangerous monsters did not sound appealing to him at all, he would prefer a much safer way with less confrontation when dealing with them. That was why he tried to avoid it by offering the adventurers a chance to retreat, even to the point of allowing them to keep their weapons just prove his promise but it still turned sour in the end.


    Walking down the small forested hill to survey the aftermath of the battlefield, he saw that the the bandits had started scattering around to loot the corpses and wagons. One of his subordinates was moving beside him, while giving a casualty report of the raid.


    ¡°Sir, how do we deal with the captives?¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The man asked while pointing at the gathered surviving captives. The female substitute leader could be seen among them, clearlydefiant even when she was tied up and stripped of her weapons. As expected of adventurers.


    ¡°I don''t care, you bunch can just do whatever you want with them.¡±


    He had no interest in caring with what these unscrupulous bunch of men desired to do with the captives, so long as they were willing to follow his orders.


    ¡°Hahaha, thanks boss!¡±


    ¡°N-no, you cowards! You can''t do this to us!¡±


    The survived female leader of the defeated adventurers shouted, she was shouting demands at him even till now. But eventually she started to lose all pretense and started pleading him desperately when she slowlyrealise her despair andhelplessness.


    ¡°I have warned you already. Since you have made your choice, now you have to face the consequences.¡±


    The bandit leader said coldly, his face voided of emotions. Ignoring the despairing cries from the pathetic captives. He ordered some of his men to quickly picked up the pace of their work on collecting the cargos from the broken wagons and had the rest of his highwayman escort the other wagons through another path back to their base camp.


    Once he was certain that they were safe from being noticed by travelers, he led the rest of the bandits on the way back to their hideout, through the dense forest and up a slope hill, towards a sheltered area behind a plateau.He scowled slightly when trekking on the way there, he still remembered that adventurer¡¯s speech. He disliked fighting an unnecessary battle when there was no one to benefit from it, just like that war.


    It reminded him, of when he was left in charge of a company of soldiers. At that time, he was left with two choices, stay and continue to resist for the country till the end, or leave behind the war instead.


    Turning to look back at the sullen and weary faces of his soldiers at that time, he immediately chose the latter, ordering them to abandon their post and retreat from the battle. He led the soldiers down south, his band started swelling on way there. As more and more groups of deserters joined them.


    After absorbing and collecting various groups of people, shoddy or not. He now commanded roughly over two hundred and fifty people, the size of around two companies now. While it sounded pretty big for a band of bandits, it was still not big enough to form an army of coherent force.As essentially, a true army actually numbered over several thousand soldiers. Unless his soldiers were actually elite spartans, and if they were so, the country would not be losing the war in the first place. Even with a hundred of his rowdy subordinates, they still had difficulty performing a successful raid. His gang was still not the greatest yet but it was still the best he got.


    If he could, he will try to take down the other groups of bandits around here to gain a stable foothold on the south. As it stands, his little band of misfits should still be enough for him to dominate the area around here, even though they had just arrived recently.The rumours of his efficiency and success in raids were starting to attract more and more of the bandits and deserters to join his crew, and he might eventually gather a sizable force to start a mercenary army of his own.Even if the war was over, he needed to build up his influence quickly.


    Why was he currently in such a rush to build up his power?


    It was actually mainly due to his current profession.Because of it, he was able to foresee that another great war was coming. Even without it, he was still sharp enough to know it, but now he can feel it in his bones.He wanted to built an army just to be ready for it when that happens, especially more so when his country had lost the war once already. He will not see it happen again, not when he could help it. He will just make use of whatever he had for now, even if the army happened to be bandit deserters or some ragtag criminals, beggars cannot be choosers after all.


    While musing on his thoughts,their group took around half the day traversing in the woods to finally arrived at their destination. The camp for their base of operations was situated close to a cave nearby. Itstill appear to be in some form of construction, as some wooden buildings could be found half constructed around there. Some to be used as barracks, and the others to be used as storehouse and armory. Several of the clothed tents and animal hided shacks were temporary erected nearby around the place too. Something he had planned along to set up this place into a wooden fort in the future.


    When they entered inside the camp, he headed towards one of the bigger wooden houses found there, it was supposed to be the cabin for all the other important members in his band to meet at.


    ¡°Ah, the hallowed Harbinger of Hegrus, now the leader of the honourless and hostile Harriers!¡±


    A mangy but strong looking man covered in a loosed cowl could be seen at the side of the room.The man sat in the corner of the wooden building, and he was grinning in a delirious expression along with a mischievous glint in his eye while being dressed in ragged clothes.


    "It actually got a nice sound to it."


    Thescruffy manhad started talking sarcastically when Restler had entered the empty room with just a wooden table at the center.


    ¡°Said by hilariously hefty hellion.¡±


    At the other side of the room, Varick grunted dryly in reply instead. He happens to be one of the people who was with Restler during the raid, and the group of highwaymen he led had already returned back to camp with the cargo earlier than the arrival of Restler''s bunch.


    ¡°Hahaha, Varick Vulf, The Voracious Viper! I didn¡¯t know you could still tease people, still the same vitriolic vagabond as ever, eh?¡±


    The same ragged man whose stout body betrayed his true condition immediately commented in a mocking reply.


    "At least I am not like one of those poetic skalds who always harps about honouring their heroes.¡± Varick was graveling darkly in return now, scowling at the the jesting man.


    ¡°You should know that I am not as refined in composing poetry and songs! I can¡¯t be a skald, I am just some lowly rowdy savage who stabs and steal things, and sometimes I just sasses and sally others on the way too!¡± He enthusiastically retorted.


    ¡°Argh, you annoying arse, stop being an awkward embarrassment and start being useful already!¡±


    Feeling irritated, Varick answered in an even lower voice, his annoyed expression was starting to get even more dangerous now.


    ¡°Well it is a pretty sad day when I am actually your best hope at getting things done, which can also happen to be the greatest joke of all!¡± The raggedy man started laughing loudly condescendingly in a dramatic way.


    ¡°Restler, can I just strangle this guy already?¡± Varick was now seething with anger as he quickly demanded the leader''s permission.


    ¡°No, not yet, he is still necessary for us in scouting the dungeon, and he is also somehow too ludicrous to die easily anyway.¡± Restler replied with an indifferent voice, while he was unconcerned about their bickering till now.


    As he stood in front of the wooden table with his arms crossed, he looked on with half opened eyes, looking as if his thoughts was elsewhere. When he had finally decided that it was time to intervene between them before someone get hurt. But the hellion had managed to provoke Varick before he could stop them.


    ¡°Now, now Varick, why so serious? You are a valiant person, or used to be, so there is no need to resort to violence yet! Especially not to a vagrant such as mys¨D.¡±


    A knife was thrown as it flew straight through the side of the dirty man''s face and stuck into the wooden wall beside him.


    ¡°Shut your vile trap you freakish bastard!¡± Feeling agitated, Varick was shouting already.


    Restler closed his eyes, how meaningless....


    ¡°You can stop now Varick, I still have another task I need the hellion to do yet.¡±


    Still seemingly unhurried, Restler tried to sternly order the highwayman to stand down, before the man gets too emotional around here, it was not good form to dirty the meeting tent all over with blood, especially when it might give the people outside the wrong impression about it.Restler reprimanded the hellion before things gets too out of hand, and proceeded to get the order of things done. Under the cover of the shadows, the ragged man was still carried with him a smug grin but this time, his eyes seemed to be calmer now.


    ¡°Jesgle, stop fooling around now. There was something else I need you to do before you go down to the dungeon again. You are to accompany Rorg on his incursion in sweeping up the greenskin tribes in the western part of the forest.¡±


    "Hehehe, sure thing boss! Everyone here seem to be so grim and serious lately, one cannot get much fun out of life this way! Instead, you should get them to laugh and get into trouble a little more you know!"


    Jesgle expressed himself gaudily. Everytime he spoke, it sounded sarcastic to others.


    "The men can celebrate as much as they want about the raid during the feast tonight, and let''s just hope that their revelry had not cause them to be too drunk in getting work done tomorrow. For now, we still got things to do."


    Restler simply stated casually. Hethen signaled for one of the person standing in the room with his hand. Another person who had kept quiet all this time and stood in the corner moved forward. He was a big orc with a scar across his cheek, a huge battle axe hanging behind his back. He was only wearing an animal hide around his waist covering the area around his groin.


    ¡°I hope you can pull your own weight, noisy little man, I will not be able to save you when the battle starts.¡±


    Rorg, who had been watching their theatrics in silence till now, moved forward to talk with Jesgle. The orc promptly greeted him, and appeared to be in a rush to leave the building with the man so he can attend tohis ownbusiness.


    ¡°What a joke, even the orc is more cultured than you are, hellion.¡± Varick gave a last snip at the vagrant before he left the tent.


    ¡°Hahaha, I think pigs are gotta fly soon when agloomy person like you starts making jokes like these. It might not be so bad after all!¡± The hellion immediately answered with a laughing smile, he stood up and turned with his arm spread out dramatically as he left the room with the orc. Leaving the others behind in the wooden building.


    After they left, silence had returned to the room once more. With only him and Varick inside standing in silent attention now.


    As expected, things can be so predictable and pointless at times....


    Turning back to the table with a map on top, Restler continued to promptlyrevisehis plans for the cave once more. He intended to use it as a path of retreat should things turned awry or at least to prevent any trouble coming from the other side. He was pretty sure the cave was linked to the dungeon near the town, while the scouts had not found the exit to thetown yet.


    There had already been reports of adventurers being sighted inside there, hinting at the clear possibilities of civilisation close by, and if there was another way to access the town, it will surely made it easier for his band to smuggle and sell away the loots.But his current main focus on the dungeon was mainly about searching for another alternate hideout to use, should the need arise to stash away the loots or make an escape there.


    Now he just needed his men to stalk out some of the adventurers, or simply capture them and force the information of the possible routes out of them. He rather not do that though, he had lost enough men today already.He could also get someone to travel in the town to gather information, or posed as other adventurers in the dungeons to do it. But all those require tact, something a lot of his men lacked with.


    ¡°Varick."


    Restler called out after musing his thoughts for awhile.


    "I need you to accompany Zelink into the town, the occultist and sorcerer also wanted to come along on the trip there too. They are smart enough to keep out of trouble but watch over them just in case. ¡±


    ¡°Understood¡±


    After Varick''s brief reply, the man then turned to leave the room after giving Restler a proper salute.When the bandit leader was now alone in the cabin, he began to plan for various other matters on hand, there were also some greenskin tribes around Restler¡¯s base. Those goblins, orcs and ogres, are prospering at other¡¯s misery, though Restler''s band were no different either.


    But it was enough for one of such group to be around, and it was also better to put those resources acquired from them to good use too, be it stolen or not. Or what Restler had believed, at least. Besides, he currently had a willing orc berserker to assist him in dealing with the problem too.


    Restler needed to quickly make his preparations. Ignorance was truly a bliss, since he knew what was coming, now he just had to react. When he learnt something others would not know, a man just simply cannot stand down, he had to make a different decision that he knows others would not do. He needs to turn this situation into an opportunity.


    He was not omniscient nor was he a diviner, he was just someone who was like a scout or a forecaster. Unlike the people who gains insight from the future, he was just slightly better and more capable at looking out for the signs and indications forewarning something that others normally could not.Like how the plants and animals sensed prepare for the changing seasons, like how the fishes sensed the tides changing like no other. He could sense it, he could feel it and so he knew and so he prepares.


    In legends, some people started out with humble origins at times, while some suddenly raised to the occasion in the face of trials, but not matter what, it was how a legend begins¡­...most of the time.So would he be the herald of prosperity or the herald of destruction? He cared not, he will accept his fate to be a herald nonetheless, he knew and thus he reacts, even if he became an undead on the way, even if he had to darken his soul on the way. It was still the best expression he could use anyway.

 Cooperate and Compromise 1

    After returning to finish his report of the incident about sighting a cryper in the second floor. Deralst had also checked that there was no other interesting request at the moment, so he decided that there was nothing else to do by staying here.


    It was still afternoon when Deralst had walked out of the building afterwards to find a separate bar to drink at.Musing to himself while strolling down the street.


    He assumed that with such a dangerous monster roaming around in the higher floors, the association would definitely issue a warning to the adventurers and dispatch a team to the dungeon to eventually kill that thing. They would also set up extermination and confirmationrequests onthe quest bulletin board for anyone to take up on, with the necessary warning of course.


    The town was teeming with various adventurers. Most of which were aspiring newbies that had decided to take up on the adventuring career, especially back in the association¡¯s building.


    After walking down the busy town street for a while, he promptly decided to turn left into a dusty alley through the side to avoid the huge crowd of people down the street of the market district.


    The path to the town¡¯s market place was now constantly flooded with various adventurers. The atmosphere of the surrounding area was so full of energy that even Deralst could feel it five shops away from here.


    Usually Deralst would not mind such a thing, but today it just simply contrasted greatly with the dispirited emotions he wascurrently feeling right now.


    While walking through the alleyway that was supposed to be the shortcut to the other end of the market district. In there, various poor and homeless people can be seen lying about in the corner of the valley.


    They did not pay any attention to Deralst though, as his full body of light armour shows that he was well equipped enough to deal with anyone trying to mug him. Deralst was confident about that at least.


    Even so, he stillhad every reason to feel gloomy today, aside from the inhospitable reception here of course.


    ¡°I guess this was just not my day after all¡­..¡±


    During his previous venture into the dungeon, despite having acquired the necessary confirmation that the dungeon had relations to demonic influence. He had still lost the only hellhound he had left during the previous battle, and he was now left alone totruly do things on his own.


    While he intended to go back to that dungeon, he lacked the necessary team members do so. Especially if he needed to get far in the dungeon, even more so when there were possibly other equally dangerous demonic monsters roaming around there. But he could do so if he still have a team like he used to in the past, but that was something in the past.


    He could still try to conjure more demons to help him but it was very troublesome. Aside from the necessary offerings required during the ritual to attract the demons, one had to either overwhelm them when they appeared just to bind them, or form a contract with it by striking a deal.


    While it may be an easier method to form a contract with them, most people, him included just simply cannot trust those conniving demons that easily.


    ¡°I guess I have to somehow deal with it..¡­.again.¡±


    Deralst breathed out a sigh. Personally, he did not want to associate himself with other inexperienced new adventurers nor did he want to join them either.


    At the current moment, they were either only as good as a distraction or as a fodder when exploring the deeper parts of the dungeon. It was not that he was being arrogant here but merely being realistic, and he did not want their deaths to be on his conscience nor his already dubious reputation either.


    While he could find some new adventurers or even purchase some slaves to train from the scratch but it seemed to be too troublesome and costly to do it, and even more time consuming and inefficient to keep them too. In spite of all that effort, they could also easily die on the way or just leave the party after they got strong enough to do so.


    Which in the end, defeats the purpose of making them strong enough to accompany him in the first place. Especially with the amount of time he had intended to dawdle around here anyway.


    After when he was done here, he would leave and continue to travel to other different dungeons too. He was just someone who constantly move around with no roots of his own.


    ¡°I guess sometimes life was just simply like that, you win, you lose.¡±


    He murmured again. He had accepted that it was just the reality of the world that he had to deal with, no point in complaining about it. Not that he did much of that anyway, aside from ruminating about the problems he had encountered of course.


    When he exited through the alleyway to the other side, he continued to walk down the street towards his destination. He stayed away from the areas close to the church. That place was where most of the religious people gather at, and things will get pretty awkward and troublesome if he were to meet someone like that on his way.


    He had a bad day as it was, and he really does not feel like actually doing anything else today. So he would just head directly towards a tavern he had found at a remote corner of a street so that he could rest.


    It was a huge two storey building that was supposed to be the only other place where more unsavoury adventurers would gather at.


    The tavern would serve as a place for him to eat, a bar to drink and gather information while also as an inn for him as to sleep for the night.


    While the building at the adventurer¡¯s association could also do that too, but those facilities were mostly reserved for the guild members there. Besides, he did not wish to attract any more attention from those insufferable people as much as he hadalready.


    When he entered inside the bar, he tried to find a table to sit at while ignoring some curious glances. Just when he finally got to a seat he found, he was rudely accosted by a group of familiar adventurers instead.


    Derlast glared at these adventurers. They acted like they had just arrived here, but he had remembered seeing them somewhere before.


    ¡°Well, well, we didn¡¯t expect to see you here Deralst.¡±


    Said a huge adventurer plated in a heavy set of armour, while standing in front of him by blocking his way. The man''s size and height made him seemed like a tough warrior.


    Deralst sighed again, he really did not want to deal with this, it had been a pretty bad day today.


    Not having a suitable party to work with, having his venture in the dungeon being disrupted halfway and now this.


    So it would be pretty understandable that he was not currently in a great mood to deal with these annoying people, but he would still try to be civil anyway. He was not angry nor he did not want to cause any unnecessary trouble here.


    So despite him feeling weary right now, Deralst still tried to be reasonable and calmly placate the adventurers. No one needs to get burnt today.


    ¡°Look, I am sorry for not wanting to join your team last time, but I have my own personal reasons. It is all in the past now. So I really hope you can just let bygones be bygones and forget that we even meet each other here, I could even treat you all to a drink.¡±


    Hestill thought it would not hurt to be considerate for them now anyway, despite them being a jerk right now. At most, when the next time he saw their group in trouble inside the dungeon he will just simply ignore them¡­..or maybe lure some monsters to them for good measure too.


    ¡°Screw that! You demonspawn! A heretic like you does not deserve to have a place here among us anyway.¡±


    Deralst frowned, just before he was about to make a reply involving some rude slurring and creative insults. Someone else bumped into the warrior from behind and this in turn made the man stop what he was doing instead.


    ¡°Wha!? Hey! You should look at where you are going!¡±


    The huge adventurer shouted and he turned his attention around to his back, wanting to address the offender, but instead he just saw a hollow skeletal face staring back at him.


    ¡°AAH!¡±


    Despite how intimidating the man had tried to appear before, he immediately yelped back in surprise. It''s almost like he had just seen a cockroach taken flight in front of his face.


    ¡°Oh, I am terribly sorry about that, good sir! My fellow skeleton sure likes to wander behind people, causing trouble and scaring the plebeians masses around here and there when I had just slightly taken my eyes off it.¡±


    Deralst saw a familiar dark robed man appearing beside the skeleton dramatically, he spoke in a slightly haughty manner.


    Feeling indignant about his previous fright. The shaken man remarked loudly while pointing his fingers at him.


    ¡°Argh, this man is a necromancer! They are those freaking type of people who play with the dead!¡±


    The refered nercomancer scoffed instead.


    ¡°You don''t say? Now, there¡¯s no need to be so hostile, we are still fellow guests here.¡±


    The warrior continued shouting loudly, trying to be more persistent here. His temple could be seen bulging right now.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    ¡°Just stay out of the way corpse hugger!¡±


    The black robed man snorted again.


    ¡°Hmph, spoken like a truly ignorant fool."


    He fearlessly walked closer to the front the huge adventurer and glared dangerously into his eyes.


    "I would watch my words if I were you. Inside the dungeon, you will never know what is lurking out there, in the dark corners where monsters roam and corpses walked. Who knows, maybe you might just turn out to be one of them in the future. We can just never really know what happens inside the dungeon after all.¡±


    The mage sneered haughtily, the tone of his voice carrying a slight hint of threat.


    The men were clearly shaken by his treat-like words but they still leave yet. A more anxiousguy standing beside the large adventure nervously prompted his comarade instead, clearly wanting to leave.


    ¡°James, I think we should just leave these creeps here. I don¡¯t like the sudden feeling about this, besides we still have to leave for the dungeon with Mara afterwards too.¡±


    Sensibly, despite being a bit hesitant, the huge warrior had agreed with him too, feeling uneasy about the sudden change in the situation.


    ¡°Fine, but I will be back! Don¡¯t think I will forget about this!¡± Shouted the rowdy warrior.


    Those troublemakers hastily left the bar, leaving the duo of deviants behind. Drawing some strange stares from the other guests and a person smirking beside Deralst.


    ¡ª


    After having sat down on the seat around his own table. Deralst saw that the mage had also casually picked himself a seat across the other side of the table, his skeleton sitting beside him. Their presence was being quite out of place within the bar, dropping the temperature of the bar''s ambiance a bit slightly.


    In towns and villages, summoners and mages like the necromancer were actually free to bring their own constructs around with them freely, so long as they kept them in limited numbers and in a tight lease, so as not to cause trouble to residents around here.


    Slightly raising his brow Deralst stared at the laid back mage across the table. While looking closely, Deralst observed that he had pale skin, thin features and had a black hair with a slightly ducktail type of beard in the same color, he looked slightly more like a sick vampiric corpse than someone who was alive, not the ugly kind of course. In fact, he had sort of a normal scholarly look that let him seemed more like the impression of a learned man.


    Deralst could already guess why the person was here but he really did not feel like associating himself with the mage right now, at least not today¡­..


    The mage who was a necromancer began nonchalantly gesturing for the barmaid who was trying to ignore the whole affair that had just happened before.


    Deralst actually felt quite reluctant to treat the necromancer to a drink right now. He was not currently interested in having an awkward drinking buddy nor was he in the mood for it. Although the mage seemed to have helped him defused the situation just now, Deralst still felt that he could have handled it somehow¡­.


    Even even if the confrontation before was not resolved peacefully, Deralst still did not need to draw his weapon to murder someone here. Instead he would just taunt them into a fight just like they had intended, kicking their ass and simply end the incident as a ¡®harmless¡¯ brawl, or maybe losing it on the way.


    Even if they would try and seek revenge on him in the dungeon, he could just burn them all to crisp in there, and simply acted like it had never happened anyway. After all, not many people were able to prepare themselves much against someone who could retaliate back through the empowerment of demonic powers.


    But Deralst could not be stingy at a time like this, could he? Trying to turn his attention away from the necromancer, he chose to wave for the unwilling barmaid to order for a drink instead.


    ¡°Haaa, the quality of service for the staff here sure have deteriorated. I wonder how the customers have put up with this.¡± The necromancer complained loudly.


    This man was a bit too easygoing and talkative to be thought of as the stereotypical dark and gloomy necromancer. Not that a person¡¯s personality have anything to do with being a necromancer of course and undeniably, Deralst was not the one to judge either.


    The Necromancer continued on to complain about the tavern¡¯s atmosphere, the efficiency and the treatment of the people here, which also include some rude remarks about the Diabolist¡¯s current attitude too.


    Deralst really wanted to praise his own mild and temperate mentality, if it was anyone else who was less patient, they would have already jumped up and punched that self-important sack of embarrassment already.


    He sighed for the umpteenth time, not wanting to delay the fuss anymore. Deralst had decided to resolved himself and start the conversation with the bothersome mage instead.


    ¡°So what is a necrophilic necromancer like you doing out here in the bar? Don¡¯t you have something else to do? Like rising the dead or probably doing some other nefarious research.¡±


    Unabashed by Deralst¡¯s rude remarks, the necromancer proceeded to readily respond him.


    ¡°Ah, where are my manners! I have not yet given you a name to address myself yet. My name is Falsces Lethren, the mage known to be a necromancer! Now, since I had given my name, how shall I refer to you as, kind sir?¡±


    ¡°You can just call me Deralst, and you can stop with the formalities already.¡±


    ¡°Ahem" Faking a cough and trying to continue the conversation, Falsces had decided to jump straight to the topic instead. "Seeing that you have not yet form a team of your own yet, would you be willing to accept some new members to be joining you instead?¡±


    ¡°No, I am currently not accepting new members to join me, I am actually trying to find another team to join instead.¡± Deralst tried to answer him in a straight face, avoiding the topic.


    While he was indeed searching for new party members, that did not mean that he was desperate enough to accept an obnoxious necromancer yet. Rather, he felt that the mage who was forced to be chased by the undead were anything but reliable.


    ¡°In that case, are you willing to accept a request of mine as a job? Since there is no one else that is willing to associate with me and I have also deemed that you are the best person for the job.¡± Going for another tact, Falsces carefully proposed another subject to talk about.


    ¡°That depends on how much you are willing to pay.¡± Deralst was casually trying to prevaricate the topic this time.


    His cranky mind was not trying to think about anything else right now. Not that he was looking down on the necromancer being able to afford the request of course. And he currently occupied with many other things to work and focus on.


    ¡°Ah, as the matter of fact, I may not have much coin to pay you right now, but as an alternative, I am willing to offer you some useful services, so how about the idea of having some golems to serve under you come across as?¡± The mage offered.


    This got Deralst''s attention, he certainly needed something like that right now and while the idea of having a helpful construct was undoubtedly useful but he was actually more curious whether the necromancer¡¯s ability was reliable to construct a golem in the first place.


    Reading Deralst¡¯s doubtful expression, the mage started to explain himself.


    ¡°Aside from Necromancy, I had also practiced Golemancy taught under the magic academy of Magvus! Which is known as the best mage school in the continent!" Falsces announced unabashedly in a seemingly excited manner.


    "Although, I had learnt to conjure more powerful golems there, which normally requires a hefty amount of resources and such prices but I had managed to work around the problem by substituting certain components to a much more manageable amount required than it already had." The necromancer boasted, and he continued his bragging until Deralst had interrupted him.


    ¡°So what is the details of this request you are speaking about?¡± Already exasperated, Deralst did not really care about the tedious topic relating to the mage¡¯s achievements, so he chose to interrupt Falsces to talk about something else.


    ¡°Ah, in exchange for my services, I need you to help escort me back to my ritual chambers, and then back to main laboratory too. I have seen your abilities when you fought with that cryper, I need someone of such caliber to help escort me on my way there." The necromancer explained.


    Deralst was unconvinced, he was considering as their drinks had arrived to be served on table. Deralst took a sip from the fruity drink as the necromancer continued on.


    "Since I am feeling generous right now, I am willing to help construct the golems without needing you to provide the necessary resources too!¡± Like an obvious salesperson he had also try to pitch in something as an additional offer to tempt Deralst too.


    Ignoring what he just said, Deralst continued by asking why he needed to help escort him back to the research lab, which the necromancer responded vaguely stated that during his research, he had managed to conjure a special type of golem, but he had immediately lost it as he left it behind in a sudden commotion with the cryper, so he needed to retrieve it back.


    To do that, he needs to check back on his research chamber and if he failed to find it there. He would then return to his main base to use his guardian golems to protect him while he searches around the rest of the dungeon for it. It sounded important, at least to the necromancer.


    But before getting there, the mage needed a reliable escort. Which Deralst really tempted to ask why he did not bring his guardians along in the first place, but he had thoughtfully decided not to do so in the end. It may possibly be some reason like not wanting to bring something that strong to the newbie floors or that the man just thought it was just not that dangerous enough to bring it along.


    ¡°I had set three of my guardian golems there, each of them are as hard as forged steel. As a comparison, their abilities are capable of rivaling a B ranked team of veteran adventurers. If I were to be able to get them back, the safety of my travels in the dungeon would surely guarantee to be a brisk!¡±


    As the necromancer continued to talk on about the functionality of his golems, as if trying to promote them. Deralst contemplated on the benefits of this request, as he continued tasting his drink. It was a very useful offer as not anyone could get their hands on a helpful golem or find a person to build it.


    What exactly was his research anyway? Deralst thought. The mage kept saying that it was important, but was it some sort of golem cultivation experiment for a new type of disease? Or was it some sort of mutated undead experiment? He really hoped it was not related to huge undead spiders. But since it is related to a necromancer, it surely would not be something good.


    While deep in consideration of his thoughts, Deralst did not pay much attention to what Falsces was saying, until nearly the very end.


    ¡°....Only after I have started pursuing necromancy to integrate it and advance my proficiency in golemancy that I was finally able to make a breakthrough! It just shows that only those who dares to venture forward will succeed, like how Golumpus was able to discover a new continent in first place!" Falsces was still elaborating on.


    "It all seems worth it now to leave those snobby mages in the academy behind, who are unwilling to pursue and advance a certain field of study just because it is frowned upon!"


    "Alright, I will accept your request, Falsces." Disrupting the mage who was immersed in his speech, Deralst had made his decision.


    "But in the condition that you allow me to check and know the quality of the necessary materials used to build the golems and also agree to disclose the information of its makeup while letting me add or alter some of its contents when I may need to." Derlast started his negotiation with the mage.


    "Also to state, for this request, I will require two golems to be constructed as the amount of remuneration for me to help you, is that acceptable? And how can I trust you for upholding your side of the agreement?" Deralst had finally stated his requirements and doubts.


    While it may seem bothersome to the mage but it was still a lot better to be cautious instead. Falsces claimed to have a better method in building the golems but after said and done, the mage''s abilities was still unproven. He also did not wish to have the materials that cause the golems made for him to be weaker, or worse.


    "Haha, I see, there is no reason to argue with you about that now! You see, for the the golems, please rest assured that I am willing to loan to you two of my guardians as some form of collateral when we get there, until the time when the procedures for constructing the golems are completed." After answering him, the mage rised his almost bloodless looking hand for Deralst to accept it, which after some thoughts, he grabbed it in return.


    "I actually look forward to our partnership in working together from now on and maybe the possible future too."


    "That goes for me too."


    Since this was not an association''s request, there would not be any contracts formed, but just an agreement based on the understanding and trust on both sides as their responsibility to uphold and honour it.


    While Deralst did not expect himself to be going back into that dungeon that early, when the cryper was still roaming around. He certainly welcome the idea of the possible gains he could have gotten.


    But deep in the back of his mind, he had some sort of a slight doubt, a bad feeling, something uneasy, something dark, gnawing¡­. and struggling to get out. Did he truly accept the request because of the possible benefits or was it something else?

 Cooperate and Compromise 2

    The next morning, outside the catacomb entrance of the dungeon, a young man could be found sitting on a patch of grass nearby. He had been seen slightly strayed away from the entrance to make his final preparations at the area he had set up at.


    Before venturing into the dungeon again, the necromancer had told him that he needed some time to conjure some of the weaker stone golems to assist them in this venture. So Deralst had stay around here to wait for Falsces to finish whatever he was doing.


    In the meantime while he was waiting, Deralst was currently doing his usual maintenance for his equipments. His light suit of leather armour that was mixed with some metal platings had various runic symbols that could be found being formed around various parts of the armour to boast his abilities, so does his weapons too.


    They were not top quality gears but were still better qualities than what was commonly found and each had worth all the coins he had paid for it. One cannot be too careless in adventuring and in the maintenance of their own equipments, especially more so for him.


    He did the enchantments for the equipments himself, causing the gears to be a lot more useful and convenient than it normally had.


    He also had such markings being found across his body like tattoos, partially covering his fore arms, his lower legs, and from his chest, the magical patterns spreading out like swirling tendrils, to be more precise, centering around the area of where his heart should be as the source.


    Again, such were the basic practices of what the usual diabolists would focus on as their professions. Drawing and infusing the infernal powers from the another hellish plane to empower themselves and what they use.


    He had heard from stories that there were even some crazy eccentric people who would try to use this sort of method as a way to boost their own voice, so that they can kill things by just shouting, just to show off their extra oomph. Although it was a pretty amazing idea but it was still a redundant one, especially in a dungeon where adventurers would rely more on teamwork and communication as compared to what the monsters would do.


    After he was done with the maintenance of his armour, he put it back and proceed to look at his weapons'' maintenance while checking for any possible faults.


    Most of his weapons were empowered with flame based abilities. Such as his enchanted sword which had a simple burning property, allowing it to cut through things more easily like a flame cutter. Alternatively, his throwing dagger had a more stored form of infernal energy. Which normally he would try to instead activate and throw it at enemies, allowing it release the energy to burn the target a distance away.


    As compared to his own armours on other hand, which simply boasted his agility and strength to a more supernatural level, except for his gauntlets that could spew out conjured magical flames.


    Like typical enchanted equipments, he could use magical attacks by passively putting in mana and using all these powers without the need of chanting. While it was not as strong as a wizard¡¯s magic that could possibly destroy armies, but nevertheless versatile and convenient. He would take anything as long as it could just kill things efficiently, strongly or not. He just hoped he would not be too reliant on them though.


    Since such powers still came with a hidden cost. It could corrupt both the person''s mind and body. Some people got so drunk on power that they started a rampage just to get put down eventually. While some abused their powers so much that they started turning insane on the way and became vulnerable enough to easily allow demons to take over and possess them or they just simply became too corrupted that they began to turn into something that looked like some twisted demonic abomination, cursed to forever hide away from civilizations, never be able to show themselves again. The worse would be that all of that had happened together over the time.


    One can either protect themselves by using some warding charm accessories to stave off the corruption. They could also perform some rites to cleanse it or create some form of seal to either suppress or redirect its influence. But in the end, it would still all be for naught if the person''s mind had given into the influence easily anyway.


    So to truly manage such unstable and volatile power, one still required a great deal of discipline and moderation, not something someone who was unprepared and thoughtless should do just to gain some shortcut to great power, dooming themselves on the way. Unless they had understand the consequences like him and was ready for it.


    He did not have something grand like good will, honor or some sort of personal code but he had an understanding of moderation none the least, he felt the best way to do that was to resist the dark natural instincts in his mind. While it could be useful at times, but mostly it was just destructive emotions clouding his judgement.


    While Deralst was not a person who indulged much in debauchery. That did not mean that he was not interested in it though. He did enjoy it once in awhile, but he did it in moderation, since he did not want to fall into depravity. He liked his human body very much, at least enough to not cause harm to himself. Besides, he had other more important goals to prioritise on then just short sighted pleasure.


    Although he was curious about gaining a set of useful limbs and body parts, he clearly wanted to look human enough to be presentable for banters with people while not becoming a target to be put down. What was the point of being an adventurer if he just turn into something that could not visit a bar and gather information.


    So Deralst feared that he would lose himself if he did not at least hold on to some form of principle. He definitely understood that it would defeat the purpose if he let his emotions hindered his reasons and goals. Like when the time he was talking to the necromancer, he had felt that he was tempted too easily on his offer, it may partially be due to his dampened mood at that time but it was still something to ponder on.


    Nonetheless, he cannot deny the usefulness of what his powers have done for him. He was not exactly strong, nor was he talented, he was not a mage either, so he only got his own mind to count on. In the end, this profession suited him in a way that could make up for his shortcomings in a lot of ways. Sometimes as the sayings goes, it just takes one to become a monster to fight a monster.


    When Deralst had finished all his preparations and after getting properly equipped, he just simply sat down on the grass, idling considering some of his thoughts in silence while he waits for Falsces.


    Only after he had finished his work, could he truly took in the sight of the lush canopy of green trees spreading out across his eyes. The late morning air was misty due to last night''s drizzle and yet the sky was still shining down brightly past it.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    All of it painted a mesh of bright colors covered by the mist that seemed like a veil to another world, a breathless otherworldly view. Tranquil and peaceful, like it was detached from his world, where nothing was able to disturb it.


    A soothing rare sight in the morning, he wondered how many times will he get to see such a scene again. He wished he could capture this moment, he felt that time would stop. Wished that it would stop, and let him stay here forever.


    With the sensation of the moist cool breeze flowing gently past him, it felt refreshing for every breathe he took. It made him forgot the bad things, where no one needed to rush, no blood was spilled, and no one putting their lives on the line. It felt comforting, he felt alive.


    Deralst heard the sound of moving grass behind him, someone was walking towards him. And he already knew who that person might be. When you get right down to it, there was not many people here who knew about him, would walk towards him in such an obvious manner.


    ¡°So there you are, all this time while you were lollygagging here on the grass, I worked myself to the bone just to make all these golems! To the bones! Do you know how tedious it is to get these golems done within such short amount of time?¡± Mage in dark complained as he walked behind Deralst to face him.


    Deralst slowly turned his head to get a better look at Falsces, he was accompanied by six stone golems, and a skeleton. The golems'' size were only half as tall as a human, probably around the same size as a dwarf. The mage himself still looked like he had not gone out in the sun much often either.


    "Oh really? I don''t mean to disrespect, but I felt that it is a lot healthier to get your blood flowing this way if you still looked to be as gloriously pale as oaty shite under the bright sun. So quit your whining already."


    "This conversation sure is enlightening, Deralst. Some say that silence is golden and maybe it is, although I''m not sure it''s worth that much, given if I had to suffer another snarky remark from you."


    ¡°It sure has its price certainly, you did pay for it after all.¡±


    "I had not made the payment yet, so you should at least stand to be a bit more prudent here."


    Deralst just simply shrugged in response at the necromancer''s words.


    "You''re oddly awfully chipper today," Falsces said with a grimace. "Alright, no need to dally around here any longer now, lest the grass grow under our feet."


    "Agreed."


    Deralst rose from the ground and followed after Falsces. He would begin his second diving into the dungeon this time, and he hoped that this endeavour would at least last longer than before.


    ¡ª


    While walking through the passageways of the dungeon floors, from time to time, Deralst''s group would encounter some weak enemies along the way, such as the huge spiders again. Mostly, they would be easily dealt with by Falsces''s golems so Deralst did not really need to do much on the way there.


    If they encounter some monsters that were weak undeads like zombies or skeletons, the golem would then try to subdue them instead. So that the necromancer could come closer to within a certain distance from them to cast a spell. Afterwards, the undeads would then become compliant to him, adding them to Falsces¡¯s current retinue collection of escorts.


    However, both of them did not start a conversation after they had entered the dungeon. Deralst was not much of a talkative person himself, nor was he a willing one either and Falsces seemed like he was used to the silence here already. Despite that, both of their current relaxed composure showed that they were quite experienced in travelling in the dark confines of the dungeon.


    There was no immediate sense of urgency, unlike the time when Deralst travelled alone, most of the work this time was done by the golems. So it was pretty uneventful for Deralst most of the way aside from needing to keep a constant lookout for the cryper. In the end, Deralst eventually took out a piece of pickled fruit from a small wrapped jar to chew on. In spite of Falsces giving him a sour look but the mage did not comment anything about it.


    The fruit Deralst was currently eating on was called a peapple, a normally sweet, crisp and grainy fruit, now the flavour was tart with sourness due to the process of food preservation either by using brine or vinegar. It was just an added bonus to the taste of what Deralst usually liked though.


    ¡°You know, you can assist me in my research too, since your profession might even help me in gaining some of the insights I may have missed.¡± During the time he was chewing on the fruit, Falsces had decided to start a topic instead. He seemed like he really needed to do something about what Deralst was currently doing.


    ¡°If we worked together, you will be properly compensated for it if you agree to help me¡­.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, but I have to respectfully decline.¡± Deralst immediately gave his answer.


    Unlike the mages that persistently wanted to improve their spellcraft through their pursue of knowledge, part of the reason he mainly trained in his profession and strengthened his body was not just because he wanted power.


    But so that he could be strong and hardy enough to survive and traverse through any kind of dangerous terrains in every possible nature with lesser amount of difficulties, maybe even hell itself too. Not that he wanted to go anywhere close to that place, even if he was a bit curious about it....


    ¡°Is that so?¡± Falsces said thoughtfully, unaware of his circumstances. ¡°I could even offer you a place to train and practice your craft in seclusion, much like me. Away from the disdain and derision of others, I can even share with you some of the terrible wonders I have come to learn around here¡­¡±


    ¡°I appreciate it, but I am afraid that I still have to decline your offer. I currently have other personal plans to attend to, things to do and other places to travel after I have accomplished what I came here for in this dungeon. And like you, I take pride in what I am doing.¡± Deralst said smirkingly. ¡°You only lived once after all.¡±


    ¡°Damn, I thought your restraints had suppressed you of your humanity, stripped you from some form of emotions.¡± Falsces frowned. ¡°And here you are, being so¡­. careless, and still mingling among men.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t need restraints to strip men of their humanity. I¡¯ve seen plenty of examples.¡± Deralst drily argued as he dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ¡°People like to invent monsters and monstrosities themselves. So what is the point of not trying to become a monster, when there is already one within us?¡±


    It was not that Deralst minded about secluding himself away somewhere else. Heck, he really wanted to do that sometimes but it was simply not what he was currently after. He was not a fanatic person nor was he like some pagan cultists either, he just simply felt that doing things like this was a more convenient way in achieving his goals. He had to accept that it was the best way, he was changed man, or so he told himself.


    Their little group continued to walk on in silence, until they finally reached the necromancer¡¯s ritual chamber. Yet there was nothing to be found there, at least not what the necromancer was searching for.


    The area around seemed like a battle had just taken place here and various small articles and debris could be seen scattered across the place. It was a mess but nothing else could be seen there and thus there was nothing else for them to do aside from collecting some of Falsces''s leftover belongings and leaving behind the place.


    Before they went to the antechamber to travel further down into the lower floors to get back to the necromancer¡¯s main chamber. The followers had stayed to search the place for anything else that was reusable. All the while Falsces, he just stood there in front of the small chamber wordlessly, looking lost and dejected.


    At this time, despite not having known that person for long, Deralst felt that he had to at least say something inspirational and supportive here, so he chose to pat Falsces at the back and encourage him with some solemn words before they leave.


    ¡°You fall so that you may learn to pick yourself up once again, so you will endure this loss, and thus learn from it. Therefore, do not ruminate on this fleeting failure, our search could be long, but success will come.¡±

 Interlude: Lighthearted Neophytes

    "Take this....and with it, you can engage in jolly cooperation!"


    ¡ªSolaire, the Warrior of Sunlight


    I''ve made a terrible mistake¡­.


    What in the divine lights am I doing with my life here anyway?


    I should be out sword fighting against vampires, banishing demons, killing ghouls! All the while, choking them to death with my three pounds of steel!


    Yet I am here agreeing to act as a warden for a flock of bubbling greenhorns, camping with them in this accursed dungeon!


    ¡°Sir Vullen, the stew is ready for you.¡± One of them, a young priestess respectfully passed me a bowl of the stew that she had just cooked.


    I tried to kindly receive the bowl from her and thanked her for it, which in turn caused the girl to smile back sheepishly.


    The priestess had reddish blonde hair and a cute oval-shaped face that gave her a pleasing appeal, she wore what seemed like a sensible white vestment, typical of those in service to the divines.


    From what I know, the shy priestess was an orphan, seemingly under training so she could leave the temple and go out to see the world. Acting as a cantor for ceremonies and helping to spread the temple¡¯s teachings.


    In other words, she was just a wide-eyed girl, innocent to the world....and a possible liability I had to look out for, one that I had agreed to carry with.


    After I finished my meal, another cheerful young knight with brown hair immediately tried to offer pouring me a cup of tea.


    Bah, herbal tea were just not my cup of tea anyway, those drinks were for the ascetics. So I politely declined him. At least they have grape wine¡­.


    I needed a freaking drink! True warriors revel in ale and mead!


    So bothersome, I tried not to show too much of my emotions here. Furthermore, the people around here could just stop being so damn considerate already. We were in a bloody dungeon!


    How were they gotta fight monsters, if they just act so passively around me in this dungeon? Especially, against a horde of undeads. They looked so soft, they will appear like tasty lambs to be served on platter. The world was a dangerous place here and people need to be strong to be able to defend their beliefs.


    Though not obviously to the fanatic degree of those templars and crusaders. I had a hard time drinking just to listen to them preaching on about their faith every now and then, while praising the holiness of the celestial empyreans....and to think I have the same faith as them.


    Heck, what I am even thinking? I am not even a strong adherent of the divine scripture. I am just a believer who confirms with the existence of the teachings, the holy magic, the divinities and thus puts my faith in it.


    I was accepted into the temple in the first place because I was found out to have some form of divine blood in me, either from some of the nephilims, or the possible heroes of the past.


    That does not mean I am one though, I just simply gained some special vocation that was granted to me along with some special privileges and influence. I was then sent on various pilgrimage questes too, it was why I got here in the first place.


    Trying to banish my thoughts, I tried to focus on what was in front of me. I could see four of the young hopefuls keeping themselves busy around the camp. The surrounding atmosphere was quite amicable but still a bit reserved....and a little awkward.


    I am already starting to miss my drinking brothers that I had fought side by side with¡­.


    ¡°Sir Vullen, pardon me for being discourteous but I am greatly curious to know the great tales that was told about you. Would you care to kindly recount the experience you had on your journey to us? Did you slay a vampiric dragon before? I heard you are the one to take back the holy city from the demon infestation!¡±


    If it was said by someone else, I would have taken it as some form of sarcasm. But clearly the excited knight errant was just an idiot. In fact, I wondered if the clouds ever looked down on us and say ¡®hey that guy shaped like an idiot¡¯. I still did not consider it appropriate to voice my thoughts aloud though.


    The boy had just became a paladin of the holy order. Before that, he was apprenticed to a knight as a squire but that knight died in the war before his training was completed. So for a quicker promotion, he alternatively choose to join the order to be accepted as a knight for the temple instead.


    The moment I had met him, the annoying lad was already eagerly trying hard to gain my recognition and acknowledgement. It could also probably because of my reputation or my current elevated status though.


    ¡°Jeroy, stop bothering Sir Vullen already! You are being rude to him.¡±


    A young elf looking girl interjected. While she was trying to be prudent here, the look in her eyes clearly showed that she was also interested¡­.


    ¡°Oh shut it Relsia, I know you are curious about it too.¡±


    ¡°Argh, at least I will not flaunt it as unashamedly as you are.¡±


    The young elf was found sitting at the side of the bonfire, her pretty face looked a bit irritated while she bicker with the young knight.


    If I remember, she used to be a druid like most elves, then she left the forest to join the temple to become a cleric here instead or so I was told. The reason might be due to her for being an half elf or at least still having some strain of human blood in her, I was not very sure, I may need to check on that.


    The beautiful girl was slim, and had bright golden hair. Her attire seemed to be in a white long robe with thin fabrics as garment which underlines her body curves. She also carry a wooden staff, that looks like a hunting spear or at least close enough to be called a stave.


    Unlike the young paladin who was eager to prove himself, the elf caster on the other hand seems reluctant to even be here. But she was still somehow drawn by curiosity and it may also be partly due to the elves covering a different yet nearly the same sphere of worship as us.


    ¡°Now, now, Relsia, we are all here as peers under the guidance of sir Vullen, we should at least learn how to be nice to each other.¡±


    Then there was this guy, what was he again? I thought he was a monastic fighter or a monk, a branch faith as a disciple under the martial path of the spiritual light since his birth. Among the younglings here, he seemed to be the most collected and cool-headed.


    Putting aside my musings while looking at them, they were all still new bloods and new believers here....


    So I will most likely just find some weak monsters around the top floor for them to kill as the front for some sort of training and after this short expedition had finished, I will probably just get rid of them to someone else! Before I screw something up¡­.


    ¡ª


    We continued to stay at the camp in an old hall, minding our own business and maybe listening to some of my half hearted stories, much to my dismay and the young novices¡¯ excitement. Given that they keep pestering me with questions.


    After a few moments at the camp, I was the first person to notice that there was something wrong. Something suspicious was lurking in the dark shadows in the far corners of the camp fire.


    ¡°Damnation¡­.¡±


    I quickly sounded the alarm and alerted everyone in the camp to be on guard.


    ¡°What is going on, sir?¡±


    Jeroy quickly came to my side. He had a determined expression, clearly ready for battle.


    ¡°Did you see that?¡± I pointed towards a corner of the shadow.


    ¡°See what?¡± Relsia came asking as she soon joined us, slowly following behind Jeroy.


    From the corner of my eye, I saw a dark shadow dropping down on top of the elf girl. I tried to push her away but it was still too late.


    ¡°AHH!¡± The girl shrieked loudly, when the monster landed on her.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    I cannot see the dark monster properly, but I quickly reacted by drawing out my sword and stabbed towards the monster before it killed somebody. I heard a loud piercing death screech before it stopped struggling, allowing Relsia to push it away.


    ¡°Oh for all that is holy¡­.¡±


    Jeroy muttered his surprise when both of us finally saw what was the creature that attacked Relsia. Take a guess, it had four pair of limbs.


    It was a giant mutated spider, but why would it attack a camp of adventurers so daringly? My thought was that it was a corrupted variant. The multiple small tendrils found growing on the ugly critter¡¯s body further supports my suspicion.


    The spider was biting on Relsia¡¯s shoulder dangerously close to her neck before it was killed. She was still alive for now but she might be poisoned by the venom that the spider carried. I walked towards her, looking at wounds while standing beside her. The expression on the elf¡¯s face seemed to have twisted unbearably from the pain.


    ¡°Can you heal yourself from the wound?¡±


    ¡°A-are talking to me?¡± The elf was barely able to pay attention to me.


    ¡°No, I was talking to the spider.¡± I spoke in a measured tone.


    The elf¡¯s expression turned blank, so does the young knight¡¯s.


    The truth was, you could kill hordes of undead, demons, unholy enemies and nobody even bats an eye, but if I seemed to break out of character of what they had expected of me, even by a little bit. Everyone started to lose their minds.


    Well at least I know that she was still sensible for now and fully aware of her surroundings, so I do not need to slap her awake.


    ¡°It was just a tease elf girl, now if you can still understand me, quickly heal yourself from the injury and get rid of the poison too.¡±


    My sharp senses had allowed me to perceive that there were still other critters lurking around the shadow. So I quickly called for the priestess to come over but I did not need her for healing right now.


    I told the others to get into combat formation, which was something I did not need to do if I was in a more experienced team. But I had to come to terms with that. I had made the decision myself after all.


    I give the priestess my order. She nodded and started chanting her spell. After she had finished chanting it, she then shouted her spell.


    ¡°Let there be light!¡±


    A light orb casted by the priestess flew up and burst forth with a shower of white brilliant light, which brighten up the hall instantly as the blazing star was born, revealing a moving swarm of huge spiders moving around the walls near the camp. They were covering the area in a huge moving shadow that seemed alive.


    ¡°Oh my divine light.....¡±


    ¡°BY ALL THAT IS HOLY! Did you see those enemies over there!?¡± The young knight shouted nervously.


    ¡°No, I am the only one who can see through walls. So just keep your mouth shut already before I let spiders do it for you!¡± I replied sarcastically before give him a disapproving look.


    By that time Relsia had recovered from her injuries, the spider swarm had started surrounding the camp already, only to be warded off by the priestess''s light. Preventing them from moving further into the camp.


    "Relsia if you can still fight, I want you to cast an area fire spell to burn the spiders here." I ordered the elf that still had a displeased expression.


    ¡°Yes sir, these maggots deserved to be burnt to crisp!" Relsia spoke with surprising glee and then quickly started chanting her incantation.


    "Let justice rains from above, Fireburst!¡±


    She casted her spell and similar to the light spell before, a flare flew up to the ceiling and burst forth as fire rains down on the spiders. Satisfying sizzling sounds could be heard from those multi legged creatures as they burnt and struggle against the showering fire.


    "Praise the lords!" Relsia exclaimed happily. Argh, that speech was unnecessary right now.


    Before I could give another order, Jeroy immediately charge into the breaking swarm of spiders, screaming and shouting eagerly. Most likely taking that spell as a cue to show off his courage.


    ¡°You fool!¡± Mortified, as I screamed as I watched him rushed into the swarm.


    The divines above....This is why I hate travelling with greenhorns.


    I cursed something irrelevant and ordered the monk to guard the others before I dive forward to chase after Jeroy.


    The young lad was hacking and slashing away at the spider swarm in a distance away, I quickly rushed to join him in the battle against the spiders.


    I started chanting my prayers to imbue my sword with divine powers, something which I could do through my profession.


    "Oh Lord, bless this sword, that so with it, I can allow myself to clear the path of enemies, in your mercy."


    When I finished my prayers and started slashing at the vermins with my shining sword of absolution. It was at that time, that I heard screaming from the other side. I turn my attention towards the source of the voice, and I did not like what I had just saw there.


    The priestess''s light spell had already gone out and Relsia was found lying on the ground unmoving, while the monk was trying to protect them while fending off the spider horde. He was still slowly getting overwhelmed and eventually he was going to be overpowered by the spiders.


    I smacked Jeroy on the shoulder to get his attention and quickly ordered him to follow me as I rushed back towards them. But I was too late, the monk had been taken down when I got there and was now being carried away by the spiders along with the elf.


    Meanwhile, the priestess was still trying to fend off the spiders by swinging around her staff. I ordered Jeroy to guard her while I tried to stop the spiders from carrying away their quarry. I chanted another prayer this time as I draw something out of my pouch.


    "Oh Lord, bless this grenade, that with your divine power may it blow my enemies to tiny bits, in your mercy."


    After I finished my prayer, I immediately threw the bomb towards the transporting swarm. Which it promptly blew up in a blinding bright light of absolution, disintegrating the huge swarms of spiders into various pieces.


    I quickly rush into the smoke of the aftermath to search for the young adventurers, I found Relsia among the mess but the monk was nowhere to be seen. The spiders must had managed to successfully carried him away while the elf was still left here, and she was still alive. My bomb was supposed to be only effectively in hurting the corrupted spiders, so she should be fine.


    "Ouch it hurts!" Relsia voiced out.


    Mostly. Anyway she could still talk? I looked at her and then I turned around to survey my surroundings and found out that most of the spider swarm have either been killed or had already fled from the battle on the other side. Jeroy was currently tending to the priestess right now.


    So I crouched down to check on the elf''s wound. She was covered in spider bits, it seems that her body was still mostly intact and she was conscious even. But the spider''s venom had caused her whole body to be paralyzed....except for voice coming out of her mouth. She seems to be fine but in pain though.


    "It seems my detoxification spell is not enough to fully remove the toxins. It is my incompetence that have just caused all this troubles, I am deeply sorry!" The elf had an expression of great remorse as she started blaming herself while fervently trying to apologize to me. Oh, do not say that....it made me seemed incompetent.


    "Relsia, be grateful that you are still alive, that means the divines have given you another chance to redeem yourself. So I will gladly appreciate it if you would stop whining while I think about a solution to get us out of this."


    When the other two young adventurers had finally arrived to where I am, I swiftly ordered the knight to carry the elf back to camp. I am not touching that elf, not when she was still covered in spider gore and ichor.


    "No offence, but if I die like this, I will legitimately haunt you." The elf girl wearily told the young knight while he was clumsily trying to carry her to the campfire.


    "Don''t worry too much about it! It is not like I will drop you to your death or something." The knight unabashedly answered Relsia in a confident manner as he carried her in a princess carry.


    "What could possibly caused the spiders to attack us so boldly here? This floor is suppose to be a safe place, enough for the novice adventurers to travel in." The priestess started asking the others with a hint of uncertainty and doubt.


    "Isn¡¯t it obvious? Demons!" Spoken enthusiastically by Jeroy who was still as jovial as ever despite the situation, ignorant of how much trouble he had just caused me.


    ¡°That is the most obvious thing I have ever heard, may the divines have mercy on your ignorant soul for stating something so obvious.¡± The elf girl replied mockingly, she was still lying down on the ground while being covered in muck, which did not help with her mood either.


    I frowned deeply, these ingrates, I just saved that pup¡¯s life and all they could do was talk nonsense. By the divine mercy, they should be happy I was even here to protect their troublesome party in the first place!


    Afterwards, I told the others to stay back in the camp while I would try to track down the spider swarm and save the other guy. I want them to stay alert for any other possible monsters until I get back. The young paladin had offered to come along but told him to stay in the camp to guard the other casters instead.


    The priestess may be able to heal Relsia''s wounds but she would not be able to cure her of the poison, leaving the elf girl to look pretty, but pretty defenseless. The priestess herself was not a reliable combatant either. Leaving the job to the young paladin instead, be it as unreliable as it seemed in my earnest opinion as it might be. I still do not have other better choices to choose from.


    "Sir Vullen!"


    The knight called out to me as I prepared to leave and go on my way to the temple disciple''s urgent rescue.


    ¡°It¡¯s dangerous to go alone. Please take this!¡±


    Jeroy handed me something, a parchment stringed together to appear like a small book.


    ¡°A bible....of the divines?¡±


    ¡°Hey you might need it, to let in some form of light from the faith! I don''t know, maybe you might be able to draw in some strength from it.¡±


    The young knight answered unconfidently, slightly fidgeting under my penetrative stare.


    If that was the case, you bunch might just need it more than me! I wanted to shout out my earnest opinion but I bite back the scatting remark though.


    ¡°Good point, if only I could be so grossly incandescent....Very well, I thank you for your consideration, I will be back soon, by then stay safe....¡±


    I accepted the holy scripture from the knight and immediately set myself on my path to save the other young novitiate. If he was killed, I will definitely be lectured for it by the temple and possibly tarnish my current honor.


    Ever since I came to this town, I actually held the highest standing in the town of this temple position-wise, despite being fully independent from their whole order. So I should still be fine to a certain degree, and they would not be too noisy about it. But driving out corruption was still an endless battle, and one that must be fought regardless.


    That moment when you realised the path was clear, where the goal was within reach. It was only then that one can truly require the resolution to follow it, even if the path ahead looked as suspicious as hell with the faint sounds of battle being heard on the other side.


    And after I finished whatever needed to be done here, I will seriously need to drown myself in ale like how those drunk dwarves would. At least, I deserved to get myself a good proper drink. May the divines have mercy on my liver.

 Interlude: Fear And Frailty

    ¡°I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.¡±


    ¡ªAnonymous, the Guard


    ¡°As I had said, I have already decided and made up my mind that I still want to apply as an adventurer.¡±


    I frowned as I repeated my answer towards the receptionist in front of me, after I had handed in my application form to her. Trying my best to glare as hard as possible at the nosy receptionist, who was showing a face that says ¡®Are you serious?¡¯


    How dare she take me so lightly, was this the kind of attitude a receptionist should have? I will have her know that I am as serious as poison.


    ¡°I apologise if I had offended you miss Lynton. Even so, I will still strongly advise you to reconsider this.¡±


    The receptionist in charge of the counter had a hard look on her. She seemed young but she was still obviously at an older age than me. Was she concerned about me, or was it something else?


    ¡°While it is true that anyone can become an adventurer, but being an adventurer was not as glamorous as it seems. Many people had lost their lives due to this and it is my duty to to warn the applicants of the possible hazards before they apply.¡±


    I was aware that being an adventurer was not as great as the rumors say. In a sense, the adventurers were no different than mercenaries except that they focus on hunting monsters than killing people. While many people tried to ignore it, their rates of death was not something to scoff at either.


    I still felt a bit uneasy when I listened to what the receptionist had to say. Was this some sort of test? I have heard before that all the newcomers will receive some sort of interview that will evaluate their resolve during the registration. Was this something like that? If it was, it must be quite effective.


    ¡°Additionally with your current profession, you will be hardpressed in trying to find a guild to join and you will be ill equipped in fighting against the monsters alone without forming a party.¡± The receptionist looked at me seriously as she spoke in a way that seems to be trying to dissuade me.


    I hesitated a little as I felt my confidence shaken a bit. This...this sounds a bit serious and troublesome too. I tried not to gulp as I kept my expression as straight as possible so as not to show my worries.


    ¡°O-of course I have already made my decision." I gave my response as I tried to appear as confident as possible, I would not be discouraged that easily. "So are you going to do your job and just accept my application already?¡± I tried to urge the receptionist. This was still the best choice I could think of, or at least it was what I tried to tell myself.


    ¡°Very well miss Lynton, I will respect your decision on this. Please wait for a while as I handle your registration.¡±


    The receptionist started inscribing something in a piece of parchment, she then stood up to enter the room behind the counter. She appeared shortly afterwards with something in her hand.


    ¡°This tag will serves as your identification document, it also allows you to accept requests in the adventurer association that are equal or lower than your current rank.¡± The receptionist proceeded to start giving me a brief explanation and she passed me the metal tag.


    Only after I had received the tag from her, that I finally breathe out a sigh of relief. I was a bit afraid that she might reject my application.


    ¡°It also gives you permission to use the various common facilities in the consortium buildings found across the other towns, such as our depositories and the inns. But that excludes the guilds themselves.¡±


    After she finished talking about various other privileges and functions of the adventurer system. She then points towards a large bulletin board.


    ¡°The requests are pinned onto that board. I would personally suggest you to start by cleaning the sewers and killing the giant rats to get yourself used to your job.¡±


    I raised my eyebrows when I just heard what the receptionist had said, that did not sound appealing at all. I really hope the smell would not stick to my robes if I did accept such requests.


    ¡°Alright, that¡¯s it for the registration. Thank you for coming.¡±


    The receptionist nodded at me and then she waved for the next person in line. A long queue was forming in front of the desk, so I quickly move away to allow the line to move forward.


    I had just became an adventurer, or so I thought as I walked towards the giant board in front of me. While I had appeared calm on the outside, my mind was still deep in thought, worrying about what to do next as I passed through various people in the building.


    The atmosphere inside the building was incredibly lively right now. There was a large crowd of people coming into the place at every moment. Some had come to take requests, while others came to report their progress, there were also people who was even here to make a request.


    It was obvious that the adventuring trade in this town was flourishing after they had discovered a dungeon nearby. And the amount of people flooding towards this town due to the aftermath of the war also helped to increase the amount of requests and applicants too.


    That said, it did not help to improve my troubled mood as I tried to stifle a sigh.


    I was one of those people who had just entered the town too, the army had raided village I was in and I barely managed to escape with my own life. All I had left now was the wooden staff in my hand, some personal belongings, a few coins and some other supplies that I brought with me.


    I slowed my footsteps when I arrived in front of the board where the job requests are posted. Staring at the requests, I was starting to get deeper into my thoughts to think about ways to earn some income.


    I really wanted to put off getting into the sewers as my last option but most of the better requests had been taken by the other adventurers already. I was still lacking in coins and I really needed to do something about it before I start earning pennies by killing whatever things found inside the town¡¯s smelly sewers.


    I could try to make some weak potions and sell it for a merger amount of money but it was still a doubt that whether people would even want to buy it from someone as shady looking as me. There was already an apothecary shop in this thriving town and they do not seemed to be the type to appreciate the competition either, not at this point of time.


    I could sell the potions directly to the shops itself but I needed ingredients to brew more of such concoctions. To do this, I either need to hire some adventurers to get it for me or I try to risk it by doing it myself.


    Even so, I do not think that I would be able make much of a profit by hiring adventurers to do it for me anyway. So that left me the choice of becoming one instead.


    Additonally, given with my current proficiency, the potions I brewed were not that effective even when it was compared to the low quality potions sold in shops. And it does not seem like the people would be any more interested in the medical tonics and salves that I produced either.


    What can I say? My initial training under my teacher was focused on training my familiar first. Followed by learning various basic hexes and curses, and then trying other simple forms of magic while assisting in rituals. It was only after it had taken two years of my training, that I was finally able to start learning how to brew better potions.


    But at that time, my teacher were one of those people who had stayed behind to fend off the raiders to ensure that the villagers and I could escape from the place before it was sacked. I really doubt I will be seeing her anytime in the future.


    Even after a month had passed, I was still barely more experienced than a novice in brewing potions, and I could not train myself in making better potions either. Not when I could not afford better ingredients.


    While I was desperate, I felt that it was not worth it to sell away the current few precious potions I still had for a few small changes. So the only choice I was left was to put my abilities to work as an adventurer, so I could gather enough money to continue my training again.


    Thinking over my options, I was actually starting to miss that old hag already¡­.


    ¡°Hi there, are you interested in joining us on an adventure?¡±


    While I was mulling over what to do next, my thoughts were interrupted by the loud voice of someone behind me.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    I freezed a little as I slowly turned around, I noticed that the person talking to me was a young woman clad in armor. She had light brown hair and she had a battle axe strapped behind her back. There seemed to be three other young girls standing not that far away from her.


    ¡°You are a witch right?¡± She asked with a serious face.


    ¡°Why yes, I am Indeed¡­.a witch.¡± I tried to replied carefully as I try not to stammer while speaking.


    ¡°Good, you are just the help we might need!¡± The tall girl started speaking cheerfully.


    They told me that they had noticed my conversation with the receptionist and knew that I needed a new party to join. It seems that they were also a group of newly formed team of adventurers but they already had a few experiences in delving the dungeon near the town together.


    They were a team composed of a warrior, a ranger, a mage and even a healer. While the mage in their team was a pyromancer, they did not have a person who could reliably use holy magic against the undeads in there.


    Since they will soon need to dive into the dungeon again for another treasure hunt, so they wanted to recruit me as an additional secondary support to bolster the team in their fight against the monsters. While I also had a sneaking suspicion that being a girl was also the reason why they wanted me join their full girls team. It was still an opportune offer, but one that I still had to consider first.


    While most of my abilities were restricted inside the dungeon, it does not mean that I did not have any options left to choose. I could still cast acid spells to deal with the undeads and I could help weaken the enemies with hexes in the battle for others to finish them off. I was also glad that the team already had a healer, so I could at least help preserve some of her spells by using my healing items for wounds when we were not in battle.


    It was a tempting offer and it was not like I was left with any other better options available for now, and I would need to enter the dungeon sooner or later anyway, despite it being a bit earlier than I had expected. So in the end, I chose to accept their offer.


    ¡°Welcome to the team!" she happily told me as she introduces the other members behind her.


    "You can call me Kelrine Lymsel.¡± She said as she patted my back in a friendly manner while she was smiling toothily. ¡°So may I know how should we refer to you as?¡±


    ¡°My name is Nevia Lynton, you can just call me Nevia.¡± After some consideration, I politely told her my name.


    ¡ª


    When I was standing in front of the dungeon¡¯s dark entrance that was only big enough for a single wagon to pass through. Yet I was hesitant to take a step further into the dungeon until the others hurried me on. The brown crumbling doorways was so dark that even the flames of their torch was only bright enough to illuminate the few stairs in front of them. Despite its diminished size, I still felt that I was small in front of it, like it was something out of my power, out of my league.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    It felt ominous and oppressive. The sight of it definitely does not look as welcoming for the adventurers to enter at all. The cold breeze that blew out from the entrance, carrying the stench of blood made fully sure of that point. Like it was sending an foreboding message, daring the people who enter here to uncover the possible dangers lurking inside. More like taunting them.


    I knew that it was not the time to back out now so I harden my resolve and continue to walk on, into the dark abyss.


    I would not be here risking my life just to collect some bat tooth for making my potions right? No, the spider eyes and venom found here could be pretty useful too, so does the other possible insects. What am I doing? Why am I trying persuade myself in doing this right now?


    Inside the dark tunnels of the ruins, the five of us were fumbling through the darkness. The flickering lights from the torch did not help to ease the uneasiness in my heart, as we walk through the claustrophobic hallways.


    The eerie shadows writhe and dance to the torchlights, its movement were sending false alarms about possible enemies. The only sound of the unnervingly loud echoing footsteps made by the adventurers in hallway was not helping either.


    The cold air was stale and dusty, as I tried not to shudder as I walked on nervously, clutching tightly on my wooden staff as if my life depends on it. All this stress was afflicting mild paranoia and delusions to my already strained mind.


    I casted a look at the others, the adventurers walking in front of me were the female warrior and a ranger. I was walking at the center of the group with the pyromancer and the healer following slightly behind me with a slower pace while covering my sides from behind. They all appeared calm as if they were already used to coming to this accursed and forsaken place.


    Despite the assuring feeling I felt when walking with the other adventurers around me, but it was still a bit uncomfortable as they were still strangers to me. I was already slightly regretting about entering the ruins with the others. I was not mentally prepared for this and who would know that delving in a dungeon could be so damn terrifying!


    Along the way, we had killed a few weak monsters as we tread forward carefully inside the ruins, the darkness in front of us was still as impenetrable to the torchlight as a pitch black veil. It unnerving to walk without being able to see anything in front of you, except the enclosing walls beside us and the few feet of ground ahead of us.


    Sensing my uneasiness through the corner of her eyes, the ranger walking slightly in front of me had rather been observing me for quite some time now. So she decided that it was better to strike up a conversation with me to help ease some of my tensions while being here. I recalled that her name was called Laria.


    ¡°I knew that witches are well known for casting curses and making poisons, but I was still quite curious about what you all do actually. You people were always so secluded, being in the forest while practicing your witchcraft.¡±


    While I was grateful that the ranger had started a conversation with me but that was still quite a rude topic to start as. I guessed that she was not normally the type person to start talking to others first.


    ¡°We mainly try to learn about drawing powers from the spirits by the help of rituals and potions. However, there are others that uses more¡­. drastic measures to bind the spirit¡¯s powers, such as the use of blood rituals and soul magic.¡± I give her a curt insight as an answer instead.


    I used to have a familiar with me, but it was lost when it was trying to help me distract the pursuers during my journey here. I could resummon it in a ritual, but that was something to be done later, since I had only just got to the town before I found a party.


    ¡°Oh, so you are just like a mix of a herbalist and shaman then.¡± The ranger spoke bluntly, her face was blank from any emotions when she saw me pouting my face.


    I tried to refrain myself from snorting childishly after hearing what she said, as I almost wanted to rebuke the other rude girl for being such an unsophisticated person by over generalising on our craft. Why dooes everyone have to keep on confusing over what we do?


    She might as well claim that a golemancer and a geomancer was the same too. Or even a wizard and a warlock. And so does every other trade that might seemed slightly similar to them. She should just call every spell caster a sorcerer instead of a mage and be done with it.


    ¡°No, despite us having the same roots, what we focus on are different from the shamans, alchemists, druids, or any other possible job classes.¡± I tried to answer the ranger¡¯s question as politely as possible. ¡°While many professions might overlap at times in their field of study, the direction and the method to use it differs from each other. Making up their own principles and specialities.¡±


    Just like the the same sky we share, the same air we breathe and the water we drink, magic can be the same yet different. It was why we had different types of professions in the first place.


    While we were talking, we had started to enter an area that seemed like an antechamber. Our path forward had started to split again this time. We had went through many forks and turns before, and such a case was no different when we had entered this place. But this time it was branch out to three different directions.


    Laria immediately stopped talking to me and started to take out a piece of parchment that seems like a map brought from the association. She then wrote something down as markings, taking notes on the direction we had taken before and the possible routes we could go ahead. So as to not get lost in where we were going.


    She then started discussing with Kelrine, about the possible dangers and benefits on which of the path they should take. Keeping track of the possible bounties and direction in mind.


    While the ranger and the warrior was talking. The mage and healer was now making preparations to make a campfire, they seemingly had decided that it was time for them to set up camp here. I tried to join in and help them in their work too as they were now trying to place a ward around the place.


    Just when we were about to start working, I was the first to hear something in a distance. ¡°Shh, did you hear that?¡± I quickly told the pyromancer about it in a quiet whisper.


    She also seemed to hear it too, as the faint sounds grew louder. It was the sound of footsteps. We quickly stop our work to notify Kelrine, interrupting her discussion with the ranger.


    Laria also noticed it as she moved in front of us along with Kelrine. The rest of us got back to our original position as we got our spells ready to face the monsters ahead of us. The echoing sounds of footsteps were now able to be heard by all of us, so does the faint noise of moanings and growlings in the distance had revealed to us of what possible enemies we were going to face.


    I was starting to feel nervous again, even when I knew about their weaknesses. Despite I had experienced fighting some spiders and bats with the party in this dungeon, but I had not personally fought in a battle against the undead before even till now.


    I could feel sweat flowing down my cheeks as I clutched tightly onto my staff again until whites began to form on my knuckles. The tension was unbearable as I watched on, waiting for the undeads to show themselves.


    But what we saw was totally outside of our expectations, I started shivering as I saw a swarm of huge spiders had started crawling out of the tunnel, like an ant''s nest. They quickly covered the whole antechamber in a swirling darkness.


    Despite the shock from the spiders'' appearances, our mage immediately reacted by casting a fire ball spell that shot forward onto the huge spiders that were moving in front of us. The spell burst forth in a huge flame as they burnt the spiders around it.


    It was at that time, that the undeads had started appearing from the tunnels following the swarm of spiders. I saw Kelrine rushed forward into a jump, rising her battleaxe as she slammed it into the horde of spiders, crushing them. She then swing it against a charging zombie, decapitating it, all the while roaring loudly in a battle trance and excitement.


    I also started releasing my own hex spells at both the spiders and the undeads, afflicting them with weakening effects. Even the undeads that were unable get tired were starting to move sluggishly. I immediately started casting another spell, this time trying to make them more vulnerable to attacks.


    While individually we were strong against each of the spiders and undead. But there were just too many of them. I did not have the time to count but just the estimation of the number of undeads must have already been over fifty, that amount was enough to put aside a classroom in Magvus for another lecture, or that was what my teacher had told me before. And there were only five of us!


    Even while the the healer was setting up some sort of a ward, the pyromancer was still casting her fireball spells at the horde with Laria rapidly firing arrows at the monsters. Kelrine was still fighting the undeads, bashing skulls and dismembering limbs as she was getting further and further away from our group.


    The undeads could sense the living and all these ruckus was starting to attract other undeads from the other tunnel entrances as they continue to flood into the antechamber through the corridors.


    Eventually a loud scream could be heard, it was from the healer, I could see a few arrow shaft jutting out of her chest as she slumped onto the ground. Tracking the direction to where the arrows came from, I saw a few of the skeletons were actually holding bows!


    It all started to go downhill from there after seeing that the healer had been taken out. Laria immediately called for us after she had swiftly fired a few shots at those skeletons¡¯ heads.


    ¡°There are too many of them, we need to retreat while we still have the chance before they overwhelm us!¡± Laria shouted as she pointed towards the path we had just came from.


    ¡°B-but Kelrine was still out there! And what about¡ª¡±


    ¡°Nevia, we don¡¯t have a choice here, we either leave now to report on this mess or we all die here together!¡± Laria stared coldly at me as she said that. It was obvious that in this new team, she did not know nor care too much about Kelrine or the other members of the party.


    The female mage was grasping tirely but she also seemed to agree with Laria about this, despite the fact that I had just voiced my doubts. Just then, another loud scream was heard. I turned my eyes to see the horrible sight of Kelrine getting engulfed by the undeads.


    Her movements seemed to be dulled as a huge spider was biting onto her leg. She was then seized by more of the undeads, pulling her down, repeatedly biting pieces out of her while she was crying out in pain, dying as she still struggled.


    The pyromancer and I continued to cast our spells while Laria tried to cover for us as we moved towards the path of our retreat. And finally, the mage had ran out of mana, allowing a few of the huge spiders in the swarm to take this chance to jump at her, causing her to trip and fell as more spiders gathered around her.


    After firing her last arrow, Laria quickly turned around to run but more of skeleton archers had managed to fire more arrows at us. Some had landed a few hits on us. An arrow hit me in the shoulders while two arrows hit Laria in her upper back and slightly above the back of her calf. She then fall to the ground in front of me, as her face distorted greatly in pain, but she was still alive.


    I was currently standing near the exit, I really wanted to escape but another part of me wanted to save Laria. The pain in my shoulders was unbearable as the arrowhead continues to tear at my muscles everytime I move. But I still tried to move forward, towards Laria but I froze up when I was halfway there. I could not help it as I saw a zombie was striding forward just behind Laria, more of them were joining in from behind.


    ¡°Help me! Please, save me!" Laria was shouting loudly to me.


    She crawling towards me, her wide blue eyes were desperate as tears were flowing down from her eyes, the rotting of the moving corpse moving ever closer behind her. She was pleading to me, but I just stood there.


    I was hesitating, as my breathing was starting to turn heavy, my mind was conflicting among my two choices. To try and risk saving her with the monsters being so close away from her or just run away like she always had. I did not move and I could not move.


    Laria was starting to scream frantically as a zombie grabbed her leg, I tried to help her as I raised my staff to fire an acid spell. My mouth was dry but I started chanting but¡­.nothing happen¡­.there was no spell being casted. My mind was currently so clouded and emotional that I could not visualise the spell without realising it myself amongst the pain and confusion here.


    I heard Laria¡¯s scream of pain as I felt my knee buckle and gave way. I slump onto the ground as I witnessed what was unfolding in front of me. Pool of blood was forming on the ground as chunks of flesh was bitten out of Laria while she was still alive and in pain, her cries echoing inside the room.


    I could not save her. No, I was too afraid to save her, I hated it but my mind was turning hazy as I stared at the gruesome scene in front of me.


    ¡°H-help me! Please¡­.help¡­.me.¡± She cried weakly, frothing as she loses strength. The lights had started fading away from her eyes.


    I was not a person who was afraid of the dead or the undead, but the sight of her dying haunted me. Her eyes was still staring widely at me even till now¡­. when she was alive just moments ago¡­. and the memories of the past was starting to resurface again.


    Of the times, when my teacher had tried to protect me from the soldiers. Of the times when I saw the villagers being chased down in the forest¡­.of the times when the soldiers started stabbing at them. Of the times when a villager had arrows sticking out of him as he lay on the ground dying. Of the times, when I saw someone pleading to me for help¡­.all the while, I was quivering inside a bush that I was huddled in.


    The torches that were thrown onto the floor when the battle had commenced, were begining to flicker out, and once again the darkness was slowly starting to engulf the surroundings. All that was left, was the faint noise of the moanings and growlings again and a dead pale face lying in front of me.


    My eyes were blurry as tears started flowing down my eyes as I turn to stare at the ceiling, my throat was sore and dry as I tried to grasp for air. I could not even cry properly, as I felt my lower body becoming a little warm. All I could feel that time was despair¡­. and sadness as I sensed the shadows of the undead moving towards me. I was afraid of the imminent death and reality¡­. Even more so, I was scared to face it as I could not do anything about it.


    In the darkness, a flickering ray of light could be seen as it flew past me, suddenly bursting brightly into a raging shower of flames, burning away the flesh and bones of the undeads, as they stagger and started falling one by one.


    "¡­.Huh?"


    I slowly turned my head around as I saw a person quickly rushing past me to decapitate a skeleton in front of me and then continued to fight the other undeads that had went past the flames.


    I did not have time to call out to him, nor could I do anything. I had tried to but there was no voice in my throat, amidst the stress and anxiety.


    At that time, I realised that there was a silhouette of another person walking in slowly from behind, with a second horde of the horrifying undead following after him as they started to surround me, they did not attack me as they just stood there silently, their faces were either rotting or disturbingly hollow.


    Without me noticing it, the person who was in dark robes was already standing beside me, it was as if his body was a spectre under the cover of darkness. He was facing towards me, his fingers that was holding on to a staff was ghastly pale.


    "¡­.Ah¡­." I tried to talk, but I was still having trouble pronouncing, as if it felt like I needed to learn to speak again.


    "Well¡­. as expected, there is still someone alive."


    The robed man was hooded as he looked at me. When I finally had a glimpse through the darkness of his hood under the light of the fire. What I saw was again a deathly pale face, almost bloodless, like a corpse¡­.and that moment, was when I threw up the contents of my breakfast on the ground.

 Cooperate And Compromise 3

    After Falces and his followers had finished packing whatever items they had use from the chamber, they continued to move on to the deeper floors of the dungeon.


    It was then, that the necromancer had informed Deralst that he was sensing an increasing amount of undeads from a distance away. They were all gathering towards a certain location.


    Normally, Deralst would stay the hell away from such a troublesome place but Falces had argued with him that this was a great chance for him to increase the amount of undeads from his own procession all at once from a single area.


    Which could be very helpful in their travels with such a huge horde around, it also helped to contribute toward his research of course. But Deralst was not amused, those things does not seemed like his business at all.


    The mage also tried to unconvincingly add on that it was also to help the adventurers that might possibly be there, since it might be one of the reasons why the undeads gathered there. Despite being reluctant about it, Deralst could not refute what the mage had ironically just said.


    While he was not a person who was interested in altruism, he was not just someone that would not help a fellow adventurer on the way either. And besides, Falces was still currently the guide to where they were going towards anyway.


    It was a pretty common thing for a group of adventurers to encounter another group of adventurers in the same dungeon and thus helped to save the other adventurers from danger. Deralst had experienced doing it himself a few times already. Just like yesterday, when he just saved a necromancer from getting himself killed. And in turn, he had been saved by others a few times before too.


    It was something like the general unspoken code amongst adventurers and between fellow people. Something he would have scoffed at in the past, but that was the past.


    Grudgingly, Deralst had to agree with the necromancer. But he told Falsces that he will require some favours from him after this. After having decided on their next course of action, the group then hurriedly head towards the place where the dead gathered.


    When they had reached there. Even through the darkness where torchlight could not reach, his enhanced eyesight allowed Deralst to be the first to notice the undeads¡­.and someone who seemed to be an adventurer here.


    He quickly drew out his dagger, infusing it with as much mana as it could hold and with a smooth motion, he threw it towards the undead in front of the horde, allowing the infernal fire to burst forth with much more power than normal after it stabbed on its first victim.


    After using his signature dagger throw, Deralst rapidly dashed forward with incredible speed to swiftly dealt with the rest of the undead streaming through fire from the front. He calmly side stepped any claws or bites that went anywhere near him as he countered by slashing with his sword and stabbing their heads with another of his dagger.


    During the time, when Deralst was disposing of the undeads around him, he managed saw though the dwindling fires blocking the entrance in one of the moments. What he witnessed caused him to unconsciously shudder and stopped his fighting for a while. It was an unexpected sight.


    The place was a chaotic mess, with large hordes of undead and spiders crowding inside the antechamber. Most of the spiders seemed to be retreating as they carried away what seemed like dead bodies and their pieces. Some of the spiders were actually fighting against the undeads as they tried to stop the living dead from chewing away the bodies of their prey.


    More of the zombies and skeletons were beginning to converge towards Deralst again as the fire died down. Some of the skeletons held weapons, there were even some among them holding bows and firing arrows towards him.


    Deralst decided to slowly backed away from the room as he tried to parry and dodge the arrows flying towards him.


    ¡°Falsces! What are you doing? I could really need some help right now!¡± Deralst turned to shout at the necromancer who was standing further behind him beside the survivor who seemed like a young girl.


    ¡°Ahem, pardon me. I was distracted a bit just now.¡± The dark mage answered back with recomposure. He seemed shaken before, but Deralst did not care for


    ¡°Just help me deal with the monsters already, before I decided to start scorching them into ashes instead!¡± Deralst was already yelling at the necromancer now, it was the only consideration why he had not start roasting everything before him.


    As if it was a response to Deralst, the necromancer ordered his undead to rush forward into the horde at the other side.


    Deralst quickly withdrew himself through the gaps among the undead as he regrouped with Falces. Initially moving forward slowly from behind the undeads, Falsces was being surrounded by his golems that were shielding him from the flying arrows, he started slowly chanting his spells to cast it at the undeads.


    The sight of the living dead struggling against the dead, was nothing less than bloody and gruesomely surreal sight. But at least, it seemed that Falsces¡¯s horde was winning as the necromancer calmly stood behind them to chant his spells to turn more of the undeads onto his side.


    ¡°Hahaha, all of you undeads are belong to us now!¡± Falsces started smiling gleefully when he became confident that the situation was now being handled in the way he had expected it to be.


    ¡°Oh really? If that was the case you should make full use of your time by doing just that, instead of just gloating to the dead.¡±


    Deralst nonchalantly pointed him out as he stood beside the mage, quietly observing the battle that was unfolding in front of him while keeping a lookout for potential dangers like the archers and spiders throughout the battle.


    ¡ª


    Deralst was now currently walking through the aftermath of clash as he examined the area around him, they could only truly rest after they had finished dealing with the remaining monsters around that might still be alive.


    Most of the huge spiders were already leaving even before they started confronting the undeads, but there were still some of their carcasses strewn across the place. There were some weapons and equipments found among the corpses too. Deralst moved to check one of spider¡¯s corpse that he had found.


    Which as Deralst had expected, the spiders were showing indications of corruption. As he randomly looked around the dead bodies strewn around him, he also noticed that some of the zombies also had such signs too. Their bodies were rotting and there were even fungus covered on some of them while they let off some very foul stench, but their flesh was slightly contorted as they show vague manifestation of mutations and growth.


    Falces was currently trying to convert the remaining suppressed undeads as he ordered some of his minions to guard the entrances. The rest of his followers was moving around to collect various pieces of body parts found on the ground for purposes that Deralst would not wish to know.


    Meanwhile, the girl was still crouched quietly on the ground in a corner near the same tunnel entrance. She sat there with her knees hugged close to her body while shivering in both pain and fear, an arrow could be seen piercing her right shoulder from here. She was sulking as she seemed despondent with her downcast looking eyes. Looking forlorn and small as she hugged her knees, with her body slouch forward.


    Like Falces, she was also clothed in a dark dress that seemed more like a robe. She was also wearing a cloak around her shoulder and a pair of long soft boots that almost go all the way up to her knees. Overall, it gave her a dark gothic appearance. She also seemed like a young and inexperienced teen. So Deralst assumed that she was still a rookie.


    ¡°Do you have any potions? If you have, you should use it on yourself.¡± Deralst talked to the girl while he walked towards her.


    While he may had saved the girl, but Deralst was not someone who was generous enough to use his own potions to help others if they were hurt with anything short of a dying wound. He would rather have the person use their own potions instead. Especially if the person was some new looking adventurers who seemed like they might die anytime soon anyway.


    ¡°I could not save her, even when she was just in front of me¡± The girl started talking sullenly as she ignores her wound. ¡°I just stood there frozen like a fool again. No, more like a coward who lets the dead devour her!¡±


    Tears were starting to form on her eyes as she started gasping between intervals as she spoke those words.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    ¡°Or incredibly ignorant and desperate.¡± Falsces chimed in as he also walked towards them. ¡°One does not simply come down into the ruins being unprepared without knowing from the association that there was a cryper creeping around, along with the increasing activity of the undeads.¡±


    She slumped her shoulders further into dejection, trying not to wince as she tried to ignore the pain. Clearly the necromancer¡¯s words had affected her.


    Deralst creased his brows, as he gave the mage a look of disapproval. Why does the people he met recently had to talk about random topics that clearly had no relation regarding the situation right now? Does he also have to console this girl too?


    ¡°You do know that all adventurers make mistakes rights? It is more about it being a matter of whether you will survive to learn from it in the end.¡± Deralst started speaking wearily as he leaned towards the wall.


    ¡°Freezing does not make you a coward. But if you are still healthy enough to sit here and whine about it, you might as well make use of the opportunity you obtained do something better regarding to it in the future.¡± He continued talking in a halfhearted manner as if he was stating something obvious.


    While Deralst could somewhat sympathise with her, but he was not a deep thinker, he did not want to dwell too much about it. What happens in the past, stays in the past....That also mean that he was not nice enough to babysit her either by giving her some cryptic speech as a pep talk.


    He had a feeling that this expedition was going cut short halfway again because they had to escort this girl back and even report on the deaths of the other adventurers. It was not the girl¡¯s fault here since they made the choice to save her, but it was still something to gripe about.


    ¡°My name is Nevia, Nevia Lyton.¡± The girl suddenly stated as she turned her head to stare firmly Deralst with her dark eyes, as if sensing something from him.


    ¡°You had saved my life and I am grateful¡­. I will also keep in mind and remember your rational words of advice¡­.¡± After speaking what she had wanted to say that seemed to imply something else, she then turned back to her thoughts again. This time, looking slightly more sanguine than before.


    Deralst did not speak as he looked at her. He could not guess what she was thinking right now but he had seen many different adventurers in the past, some who may had became devastated and broken after they failed their quests in the dungeons. So it stands to say that he was surprised that the girl could still talk to him so calmly even after all that she had been through just now, it was as if she was still clinging on to something....


    At least¡­.she was courageous when it comes to recovering back while facing towards reality. Or so Deralst had thought at that time.


    ¡°So, are you still not going heal that?¡± Deralst said as he points towards her shoulder. ¡°Take out your potion as I try to help pluck that thing out of you.¡±


    After Deralst''s words, the girl meekly took out a potion from her pouch as she passed it to Deralst, which he subsequently received it from her. He then proceeded to calmly place his hand firmly onto her shoulder as his other hand went to grab on to the arrow¡¯s shaft.


    Nevia started gritting her teeth but unbearably, she started screaming loudly as he tried to forcefully pulled the arrow out. Blood was starting flow freely out from the wound again towards the ground, so does her tears, as it began to stream down from her cheeks again.


    Deralst quickly uncorked the potion and started pouring some its contents onto the wound after the arrow was removed. He then promptly passed back the potion to the girl to let her drink the rest of it.


    It was at that moment that Deralst heard voice from behind him.


    ¡°Good morning gentlemen, do you have a moment to talk about what in the heavens had just happened here?¡±


    A heavy voice could be heard as a person was standing near one of the entrances, as two headless corpses laid on the ground near him. Deralst must have not heard the noise of the man fighting the undeads due to the girl¡¯s scream from before.


    The person just stood there calmly as he pointed his long sword towards Deralst while his other hand was holding something that was shining brightly while being aimed towards Falces and his horde of undeads.


    Deralst quickly reacted by drawing his sword in tensed silence, as the fingers of his other hand was now edging towards his daggers, ready to throw it when needed. Falces on the other hand hastily had his minions moved to guard him while the rest started to surround the tall man.


    The situation became tense as everyone stared at each other silently. While Deralst was unafraid as he continued to observe the man. The necromancer seemed visibly shaken, even the young girl was wided eyed, but otherwise she sensibly kept to herself as she quietly observe the situation, trying to ignore the slowly relieving pain from her shoulders.


    ¡°Now, now, there was no need to be so hostile. Why don¡¯t we just all calm down and talk this out? I had even brought some tea here for us to drink too.¡± Falses was the first to break the ice nervously as he tried to mediate the situation. The man raised his eyebrows as he heard what Falsces had said.


    He was quite tall, he may even be around more than two meters. His whole body was covered head to toe in metal armour. Even his helmet¡¯s visor was obscuring his face, preventing his emotions from being shown while only revealing his dark brown eyes. Deralst could sensed that the man was giving off a dangerous presence.


    ¡°You, I am pretty sure you are a necromancer.¡± As he pointed his index finger towards Falsces who surrounded by his reanimated followers while still holding on to the bright object. ¡°And you¡­.you are not just any adventurer¡­.I can sense some form of corruption in you.¡± The man said as he turned to look at Deralst, his sword still pointing towards him.


    ¡°I can tell you, the undeads and corrupted spiders were not of our doing.¡± Falsces quickly tried to deny himself in a dubious manner while Deralst was glaring at the mage in an annoyed manner. Even the holy looking man seemed to be giving them a suspicious look.


    ¡°You do not seem like a cleric either.¡± Deralst quickly interjected himself. ¡°Are you a templar¡­.No, you seemed to be too calm¡­.are you an inquisitor then?¡±


    ¡°Nobody expects the inquisition. No one.¡± The man answered back in a low yet stern tone.


    "So, what is a corpse juggler and a diabolical swordsman doing around here?" The armoured man said seriously as he continues to aim his weapons towards them.


    ¡°Please rest assured that I am just like any other law bidding adventurers here, I am not a demon nor anyone from the legions of hell.¡± Deralst tried to answer back in a considerate voice, yet his arms were still positioned in a tense manner.


    ¡°We just happened to pass by this place. We had fought off the monsters and even helped saved an adventurer, her testimony can help confirm to our claims.¡± He pointed towards the young girl who still seemed to be confused as she could not keep up with the situation.


    ¡°Very well, since I am now in a rush. Until we get back to the association, I will put my trust on your words for now." The man said as he turned his attention to look towards the young girl.


    ¡°You are¡­.surprisingly more reasonable than I thought, for someone of the faith.¡± Deralst said as he eyed the tall man doubtfully.


    ¡°What are you talking about? That¡¯s blasphemy, my passionate and zealous faith in the divines is as unshakable as the mountains.¡± The armored man said. While his speech may actually sound great but his monotonous tone of saying it, does not add any credit to his claims at all. It seemed like something that would prompt the other mage here to make a snide remark about it.


    "Should I remind you to keep your mouth shut of unnecessary heresy, lest I shove a bomb onto your heretical face, down your throat until you choke on it." He turned to look toward Falsces coldly, as the mage gulped as he immediately snapped himself shut.


    ¡°So¡­.I will ask again, do any of you mind explaining what had just occurred here?" The tall man calmly repeated himself as if he was just asking some stranger for road directions.


    Along with the help of others, Deralst tried to briefly explain to the man about the situation he knew in an abridged manner. The tall man listened on as he withdrew his weapons, so does Deralst. He seemed to be able to roughly grasp at what was generally going on around here.


    ¡°If that was so, have you seen the spiders carrying the body of a young boy through here? He seemed to be around his teens.¡±


    ¡°No, but we may know where they may bring it to, since the spiders had managed to carry away the dead bodies of the adventurers here, the pieces of flesh and stains of blood on the grounds could be one of such indication towards where they would go to.¡±


    "If that''s the case, I would gladly appreciate it if you will assist me in my endeavour to save the boy." He arbitrarily stated as he continued to add on. "For the much greater justice of course."


    Instead Deralst was hesitant to help him after he had heard what he said, so does Falsces.


    "I am sorry to say this, but we are already currently having something else to do as a quest. So I have to kindly decline you offer." Deralst tried to answer back carefully.


    "What did you say!" The man seemed shocked and enraged as he heard Deralst''s unexpected response. Normally people would not just reject a person''s request to save someone.


    "Ahem" He quickly faked a cough as he tried to recollect himself. "As you should know, this world is not just about you....unless you are a hermit." He started talking again as if he was pitching his objective.


    "You will keep encountering different kind of people, different places, different topics and even different requests as you continue on your adventures as an adventurer." Unfaltering to the silence, he resumed on his speech.


    "Therefore, there are times you will need to work to adapt and accommodate to various situations at hand." He kept on talking as he waited for the now silent Deralst to give another response.


    "While I respect your freedom of choice, but the life of a fellow adventurer is at stake here." He continue on persistently. "If you truly are as upstanding as you claimed to be, if you truly are seeking salvation, then prove it to me by assisting me in this."


    He stared at Deralst intensely as he tried pressure him. Which Deralst stubbornly returned back the stare. Mentally, Deralst knew that he would not be arguing out of this against this, especially when it was well known that people do not just win an argument against a holy preacher. Besides, there was no point in delaying this any further as the man had just hit a soft spot of the argument.


    "Fine....I will agree to come along with you, but the mage will have to stay behind to look after the girl." Deralst had conceded, after having considered it for a while and had finally decided to come to some sort of a compromise.


    "Very well, I knew there are still some truth in your words." He said. "Call me sir Vullen and long may the light shine upon you."


    "You can call me Deralst." He also replied curtly in dismissive manner.


    "Do know that if there are angels, then there will be demons. Just like when there is light, there will be darkness. But in the end, they all came from the same origin." Deralst said drily. "At times, you may never know which side it is on when it starts to muddle."

 Cooperate And Compromise 4

    Deralst always had to wonder, was today the day he ate his last pickle fruit? He thought so as he took out another peapple to eat while he holds onto a lantern on his other hand.


    He and Vullen were currently at around the fourth floor of the dungeon. It was quiet on the way there, as Deralst walks along beside the other armoured warrior. They had encountered a few more undead monsters along the way but they had easily disposed of them.


    The spiders'' tracks had began to become more vague but the tall man covered in plated armor seems to know where he was going. As he led the way for Deralst.


    ¡°I find your current lack of tension disturbing here.¡± He remarked in a gruff voice ¡°You also seemed to be quite fond of eating that fruit right now.¡±


    Even now, Deralst was still chewing on the pickled fruit he had brought with him. While He could sense that though the visor, the other man was definitely giving Deralst a sour look as if he had seen him sucking at a bottle of vinegar or mayonnaise but it was not something Deralst minded too much anyway.


    ¡°I could have said the same to you too.¡± He turned his attention towards Vullen.


    ¡°Besides.¡± Deralst continued speaking on in a low monotone. ¡°I never asked for this, about coming along with you.¡±


    Vullen still seemed to be unfazed by the statement of what Deralst had to just said. Ignoring what Deralst said, he continued on by starting a new topic.


    ¡°I could somewhat guess what is actually your profession by now. Your lack of familiars may be one those indications.¡± The man spoke on. ¡°It was unexpected that someone of your profession, whose emotions were dulled would care about morality.¡±


    Deralst frowned, why does everyone always thought that being emotionless was a bad thing? Like he was some sort of apathetic psychopath. If anything, it helped him think rationally, when it was used properly.


    ¡°What does it seem? Do I sound like I wanted to kill everything?¡± Deralst responded in an exaggerated way that sounded sarcastic.


    ¡°That¡¯s the problem about people like you.¡± The man asked back. ¡°Do you?¡±


    ¡°While I may not feel much right now but at least I still understand common sense." Deralst answered back coldly. "Even monsters have things they would and would not do, much less someone else.¡±


    ¡°Morality maybe subjective to many.¡± Vullen continued on his talk vaguely, his voice sounding more mature now as he walked on. ¡°It can make no difference and its degree is arbitrary, they can meddle and the definition blurred at times. But when it comes down to it, it all depends on how the world perceive it. Just like how you and I may perceive things differently.¡±


    Deralst savour the sourness of the fruit as he listened to him. After he finished eating, he went on to ask him a question that seemed to be bothering him for a while now.


    ¡°On other hand, you seemed more like a mystery to me. What are you exactly? Shouldn¡¯t a holy warrior like you already be quite eager to cleanse any form corruption?¡± Deralst insinuated mildly as he tried to observe the man''s reaction but he could not see behind those metal covers.


    ¡°I will have you know that while we may advocate order and justice, we still mainly believe in freedom too.¡± The holy warrior¡¯s deep voice sounded a bit annoyed. ¡°So did you expect me to start screaming heretic everytime?¡±


    ¡°Well no" Deralst spoke casually this time. "But you do have the heart of a lion, and that''s why I can''t trust you.¡±


    Changing the heavy topic, Deralst talked on. ¡°Well how about this? I may seemed emotionless and my speech skills is a bit rusty right now but I am pretty sure I can still crack a few jokes, do you want to hear about it?¡±


    Vullen slowed a down a bit as he thought for a while. The path to the spider¡¯s nest seemed to be ways ahead and it may be urgent to save the kid, but that does not mean that he needed to rush in quickly right now to save the boy especially when they were inside a dungeon. That would surely invite them to many kinds of possible danger.


    ¡°While we be in a rush, but this may seem interesting. Surely I can hear about some of it.¡±


    Deralst seemed to thought for a while as he asked. ¡°....Do you know the difference between ignorance and apathy?¡±


    ¡°....What is it?" The armoured man walked on while sounding a bit tactful.


    ¡°Well, actually I don''t know and I don''t care.¡± Deralst gave his answer quite bluntly, his face was blank.


    ¡°Har har, that is damn hilarious, can we move on now?¡± Vullen said in a weary manner, as he sound like he was starting to regret his decision immediately already.


    ¡°Argh¡­.fine I will crack one more joke.¡± Deralst grunted.


    ¡°So why is there a fenced gate around the cemeteries here?" Deralst spoke on "¡­.It is because the people are dying to get in and out.¡±


    ¡°That joke is so dead that only a necromancer can appreciate it.¡± Vullen remarked sarcastically as he shakes his head in disapproval.


    ¡°¡­.Then how about this? Your mom is so-¡±


    ¡°Alright Mister Deralst, while you may not be as good as a joker but I agree that you are at least¡­.quite knowledgeable in humour.¡± Vullen quickly interjected as if he was trying to placate him.


    ¡°Bah, Jokes these days are quite corny and cheesy anyways. Besides, you made it sound like you are way better about this than what I expect of the people from the faith.¡± Deralst talked on rudely which caused Vullen to knit his brows in his helmet.


    ¡°Fine, so do you want to hear a joke from me?¡± He asked back, sounding a bit more earnest than usual.


    ¡°Sure¡±


    There was a brief silence as Deralst waited for him to speak.


    ¡°Actually you have already just heard it.¡±


    ¡°Are you kidding me?¡± Deralst was a bit annoyed right now.


    ¡°No, I am joking.¡± He answered back in a lazy yet humorous tone.


    ¡°¡­.I can never tell you are joking. Well at least I still have reasons for my bad jokes, but what about you and your sense of humour?¡±


    ¡°What? That was really a joke, you just couldn¡¯t appreciate it.¡± The warrior spoke in an amiable yet sarcastic tone, as if he was grinning inside.


    That was a bit irritating for Deralst as he tried not to roll his eyes but it felt strangely nostalgic. He quickly repressed his sentiments as he regard the older man coldly with a frown. Whom could still be a dangerous stranger that was not a friendly comrade or a party member.


    There was a heavy silence for a while, as they continue to move forward towards their destination. Eventually, the way guided them to what appeared to be a large crevice on the walls of the corridor. The entrance through the cracked hole seemed to have led the way to another cavern. Vullen had insisted that the huge hole in the wall should be the right way, so Deralst had no choice but to accompany him inside.


    ¡°Even from here, I could still smell the foul stench of the miasma. We¡¯ll see what¡¯s in there, and then decide our next course of action.¡± Vullen had decided already.


    The ground had started to change from stone cobbles to dirt and rocks as they entered the cracked hole to the cavern. Many long stalagmites could be seen as they hung down from the ceiling, their long shadows twirl around in a circular motion as the light was shone on them. Several of them could be seen reaching all the way down to the ground to form what seemed to be wet, slimy looking stone pillars.


    ¡°I have a feeling we are not in the ruins anymore.¡± The older warrior made his conclusion.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I have to feel it to see it myself.¡± Deralst replied back in annoyance as he looked carefully around the cave.


    Both Deralst and Vullen kept quiet this time when they started walking down the path seriously. The air in the wet rocky dirt passages was quite humid, and smelled slightly of decomposed matter that seemed to have come from the various mushrooms and bugs found covering the place there. It seemed that the path Vullen had chosen was proven correct as more and more of the cobwebs was found covering the area around the place as they walked forward inside the deeper parts of the cave.


    Sacs of webs could be seen hanging down from the ceiling this time. It¡¯s contents of dead monsters and other corpses does not seemed appealing to him either. The twisting passages they moved through continued to be rocky and full of fungus. Until the way ahead started to widen up significantly. It seemed to lead to a natural chamber up ahead that was much wider than the passage they¡¯d just come from.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°The spiders are poisonous, approach with caution.¡± Vullen suddenly warned Deralst at an annoying moment just before they started to approach the chamber.


    ¡°That was exceptionally perceptive of you, but thanks for the reminder, I will keep it in mind so please stop talking about unnecessary things right now.¡± Deralst replied in a considerate manner as he tried to hold back on his remarks. He felt that this was not the right time to be rudely sarcastic and Vullen seemed to know that too. He must be doing it on purpose, Deralst just knew it. In fact, Deralst felt that the man might just be this kind of person.


    The entire chamber was covered in white coloured webs, making it seemed like a huge spider nest, as several dozens of spider like creatures could be seen from there, each one of them was the size of a large dog. Either it was due to the lights they carried on them or due to the webs they had cleared. The spiders seemed to have notice the two men¡¯s arrival.


    On a quick inspection, as the spiders started moving towards them, that Deralst had noticed that there were different types of spiders here. Some of their abdomen seemed bloated in a way that made them seemed like giant ticks while some of them had bristled fur that covered over their whole body, making them seemed more like hairballs. There were even some of them that seemed like a dark octopus that had tentacles for limbs.


    More of the corrupted monsters started to crowd towards Deralst¡¯s direction in large numbers, but he noticed Vullen pulled something out from a small pouch as he pushed Deralst away.


    ¡°Move out of the way Deralst, Justice ain¡¯t gotta dispense itself.¡±


    The man quickly muttered what seemed like a short prayer and with a swing of his arms, he threw the glowing object towards the spider swarm. Which seemed glow even brighter as its light covered the spiders. Loud screeching could be heard from the spiders as the bright explosion had caused the place to rumble slightly as pieces of rock fell around them, the tremble weaken as the chamber soon returned back to normal.


    ¡°You hear that?¡± Vullen told Deralst with slightly excited sound of zeal ¡°I just love the noise of explosion and the screams of filthy spiders dying in the morning. It sounds like¡­.victory.¡±


    ¡°....Yeah.¡± Deralst coughed as he had inhaled dust that had been thrown into the air by the explosion, more like overkill. He then eyed the man carefully, he could not see his face but the man sounded quite eager at the moment.


    ¡°I wonder how they are gotta glue them back together, if there is even a hell for them! Hahaha.¡± He chuckled humorously in a low and dark voice. ¡°Don''t underestimate the limitless destructive power of my faith!¡±


    Just like some people, Deralst always thought that a knight with holy powers was a bit overpowered, but this¡­.for some spiders. He wouldn''t know true destruction when he actually worked with someone who actually threw around holy hand grenades at their enemies, and that¡¯s coming from him. Now, he had second opinion on who was the crazy one now.


    He seriously wondered if Vullen was trying to send a message to him. The aftermath of the blast had left a few pieces of the spiders behind, as the spiders at the front were quickly wipeout and it seemed excessive. But Deralst was pretty sure that the armoured holy warrior could adjust the power of the blast and it must have certain limitations. All people of the faith have some.


    With a quick glance around, Deralst was able to notice that there was at least two other branching passages on the other side that seemed to lead deeper underground. He pointed it out to Vullen and they seemed have decided on a path to go next. But they still needed to clear out the remaining spiders around here.


    It seemed to be quite troublesome as Deralst knew that it was bad idea to use his fire in a place where the webs could burn easily, and Vullen had said that he needed to conserve his bombs. So in the end, they had to clear out the spiders in a less efficient yet handy method that require some metal swinging.


    ¡°If we¡¯re gotta go that way, you¡¯re gonna need more bombs.¡± Deralst helpfully reminded the other warrior obviously.


    ¡ª


    After spending some time clearing away the spiders that was left in the chamber, they quickly continued to move on before more dangerous spiders started appear in the nest. They move towards one of the passages, which Vullen claimed to be the place with densest corruption around here.


    As they walked on in the dark tunnel passage, the pathway forward had led them to yet another rocky chamber. But this one had a much lower ceiling than before and there was nothing inside the chamber except that the walls inside was covered everywhere in thick webs. A large shadow could be seen covering the center of the ground as they move inside the chamber.


    It was then, that Deralst realised that the shadow was actually a very huge corrupted spider, which it raised its body as soon as it noticed the intruders. It was as wide as six bears being put side by side to each other and as tall as a huge horse. If Deralst himself had to find something as a reference. And that was huge, when compared with the dog sized spiders he encountered before.


    It¡¯s grey body was covered in long black bristle hair that felt like messy dead human hair especially when it¡¯s hairy appearance was accompanied with the seemingly numerous amount of eyes revealed by it, which seemed to have a disturbing resemblance to human eyes and its pale grey body.


    ¡°I''m no coward, and I''ve a steady hand.¡± Vullen said in a cracked heavy voice. ¡°But that thing makes my skin crawl.¡±


    ¡°I never asked for this and I never should have come here¡­...¡± Deralst simply replied back in a cold voice as he view the arachnid monster in its full glory as if he had eaten something sour.


    The first row of the giant corrupted monster''s long front appendages seemed to be sharp yet appeared to be swelling like a bulb. It¡¯s fangs were dripping with venom and the huge spindex around its abdomen had started extruding wet, sticky silks as it weaved it into something that shaped like a bola.


    Vullen immediately took out another glowing bomb from his pouch which he quickly readied it before hurling it towards the giant spider without hesitation. The bomb shined brightly as the brilliant blind light burst out from it as quickly as it ends. Smoke could be seen rising from around the explosion but from behind the black smog screen, Deralst could see that the spider was still alive but it seemed to be hurt as it screeched loudly, some parts of its body seemed to have melted, making it appeared to be more ugly than it should be.


    ¡°By the sweet divines....Quick! Kill it with fire before it can spawn more of such hideous monstrosities!¡± A loud hissing noise could be heard from the spider as Vullen growled loudly through his helm. As he quickly rolled to the side when a long appendage was swung towards him, intent on separating his body into two.


    "Bloody hells!" Deralst quickly raise his palm as he infused his gauntlet to release a long stream of fire towards the smoking spider. More loud screeching could be heard as it starts to burn in fire along the webs around the chamber.


    Suddenly, as if drawn by the spider''s cry. More spiders started flooding into the chamber through the cracks in the ceiling and walls, some started spitting various fluids, while some were throwing threaded bolas towards both Deralst and Vullen.


    Deralst quickly cancelled his flames, and jumped out of the way as a seemly acidic liquid was spat towards him. He embraced the fall with a roll and quickly unsheath his sabre like sword and his dagger as he lowered himself in a low sword stance.


    ¡°If you acknowledge any of the divines¡­.pick one of them and start praying now!¡± The holy warrior was standing beside Deralst spoke in an excited voice as he started to yell loudly.


    "It''s been a while, a good old massacre!" The holy warrior rushed forward towards the spider, as his sword shined brightly.


    "I am gotta sent you all to hell with the brilliance of my shiny sword!" His sword cut through the hard chitin of the huge spider''s appendage as he curb stomped another spider on the ground with his metal greaves and then dive roll away as the huge monster tried bite him.


    Deralst grunted, as he could hear the crazy warrior''s ironic voice shouting that he will purge every corruption in this place, at least he did not need to see his stupid face right now. He stood to look around the place, the fire was starting to get stronger as it burns all web in the chamber along with spiders.


    "I sure love the smell of the roasted spiders in the morning." Deralst commented nonchalantly on way.


    The smoke was starting to thicken and soon it will cover the whole chamber and may eventually cause everyone to suffocate. But before that happened, Deralst immediately rush forward to join in the fray of the battle as he shouted to Vullen to call for his attention to quickly escape the place.


    The other warrior seemed a bit reluctant as he swing his sword to cut down another spider but he quickly came to an understanding as they ran towards the exit as quickly as possible. Leaving behind the spiders that were blinded and trapped in the chamber by the smoke.


    After they had moved back to the main chamber, Vullen quickly tossed another bomb back into the passage which its explosion had caused the tunnel to collapse on itself. Trapping whatever was inside with the fire.


    "As they always say, if you can''t stand the heat, stay out of the fire." The holy warrior turned to tell Deralst in a voice that it sounded like it was just another tuesday. Which almost prompted Deralst to roll his eyes again and was glad that at least he did not need to see the man''s possible annoying smiling face right now.


    They proceed to move towards the other passageway to search for the captured monk, who may or may not be alive right now. When they had entered the other chamber, they started searching the place for survivors. The place was also covered all over in webs along with various other objects and corpses stored there. They had managed to find the young monk covered in webs, alive and unconscious at the side of the area along with other webs that seemed to be bulging in human sized shapes.


    Vullen stated he had sensed some form of minor corruption from the boy. Whatever the cause, it was not serious so he should be able to live on without a problem after he was returned back to the temple to be cleansed.


    They also found a few other survivors inside the chamber, one of them was a girl who was wearing scarlet robes that seemed to be dirty and in tatters, showing parts of her skin but nonetheless alive. She was found beside the corpse of another girl with arrows jutting out of her chest.


    Deralst noticed that among the survivors here, her clothes seemed to be the most fresh despite it being ragged. He guessed that she must be one of the recent adventurers that was captured by the spiders. She was currently unconscious and was covered in sticky spider webs.


    "Just like the others, I can sense some form of corruption in her, it is not that dangerous either." Vullen said as he to check on the girl and the other survivors they found.


    "What exactly had happened to the adventurers here before the time we tried to reach here?" Deralst said while sounding slightly curious as he looked around the place.


    "I have seen enough misery to guess what might have happened here." Vullen answered back sullenly, his voice sounding old again. Deralst quickly realised what might have transpired here without the need to talk any further.


    "....No, I do not want to know or think about what had happened here." Deralst quickly said when he thought about how the boy might have been corrupted.


    "So are you gotta purge them from corruption too? You did say you are gotta purge every corruption here." Deralst continued on, as he looked towards Vullen emotionlessly.


    "Are you joking? This is not the time for it." Vullen remarked in a tired voice.


    "No, I am not joking."


    "Surely, you can''t beser-." He quickly bit back his words.


    "Yes, I am serious." Deralst said in a serious tone as his face remained expressionless.

 Cooperate And Compromise 5

    Deralst had already realised long ago, how small and insignificant a life was in this world, thousands of people die every single day and yet ironically...... people learnt how to cherish life due to this.


    He mused as he walked on at the front of a surviving group of adventurers through the hallways with a torch in his hand. Vullen was at the rear of the group carrying an unconscious female survivor on his back, while the three other survivors walked on silently, downcasted as they followed behind Deralst.


    They eventually arrived back to the antechamber hall, where they met up with the necromancer and Nevia, the other female adventurer.


    It seemed that nothing else had happened there during the time they were gone, aside from the mess around the place that seemed to have been cleared up by Falces. Except for some of the remaining gore stains, the entrails and visceras of the spiders and undeads seemed to be visibly gone from the area. It made Deralst wonder where the necromancer had cleared all this mess to.


    When the other survivors arrived there, they were shocked to see the huge horde of undeads standing at the side of the dark entrance. They were so scared to the point that they would almost flee on the spot. But fear and weakness had sapped them of their strength to do so.


    Even though Vullen seemed to have not comment anything about Falsces¡¯s growing bunch of ominous looking animated corpses. Deralst had noticed that he was eyeing them silently as if he was deciding whether he should do something to deal with it.


    In the end, he had instead just chosen to reassure the startled adventurers that the undeads were not hostile and aggressive when they were under the necromancer¡¯s control.


    Nevia on the other hand was initially surprised when she seemed to recognise that one of survivors as her party member but afterwards her expression turned into one of mourn and grief but she still stayed silent as she eyed the other female survivor occasionally. But whatever happen after this when the survivors got out was none of Deralst''s business. He was essentially just a bystander, so he tried to ignore her personal plight. It was not like he had anything proper to say anyway.


    ¡°Now that I have done what you asked me to do, what do you plan to do next?¡± Deralst proceeded to ask Vullen while walking towards him, anticipating his next reaction.


    ¡°We will return back to the town and report back on the incident. But first, we need to regroup with the other members from my party." The armored man simply stated.


    ¡°It was rather unfortunate but I guess we had no choice after making this encounter.¡±


    The necromancer looked dejected when he heard what Vullen had said. Hvaing silently decided to


    After hearing those words, Deralst slowly closed his eyes and started to ask himself. Was that it? Does it had to end just like that? It was a decision he had to make again.


    "No, not again....we will not be stopped now, not like this." Deralst declared in a low and serious tone as he open his dark eyes facing the other startled adventurers.


    "The rest of you can move on and return back to town but I will continue on with my own quest with Falsces from here instead."


    ¡°Wait, We are?¡± Necromancer was visibly surprised this time as he asked what he had just heard from Deralst.


    The holy warrior appeared to be similarly surprised as he seemed like he wanted to say something about it too but Deralst sighed as he ignored the armoured man and turned his attention to Falsces instead.


    "Do you have a moment? I need to discuss something with you." Deralst told the dark robed mage as he put his hand on Falsces shoulder and guided him further away from the others.


    ¡°Now listen here Falsces, if we return back with Vullen to the association now, we might still get into trouble if they suspected us for this incident. We cannot guarantee that the adventurers¡¯ testimonies are enough to vouch for our innocence.¡± Deralst talked to the robed man in a low whisper.


    ¡°What''s more, you do realise that our trip will be delayed even further if this was to happen. Who knows what will happen to your creature by the time when we started searching again.¡±


    The necromancer''s eyes widen in realisation when he seemed to immediately comprehend what Deralst had meant while letting out a sound of understanding.


    "Instead, we might as well try to continue on with our quest while we can and just treat this as a separate incident. By doing so, we will be able to let Vullen and the other adventurers sort out the procedure while we were gone." Deralst added as a valid point to try to convince the other mage. Which Falsces seemed to tacitly agree on too.


    "Are you all done with your own private discussions?" Vullen started asking them from a distance away in a loud voice as the two man turned back to face him, sounding impatient.


    "Ah well yes, we were discussing about our current quest and whether it was important enough that we had to abandon it now." Falsces answered Vullen in a formal manner.


    "Is that so?"


    Vullen voiced his skepticism as he crossed his arms while looking towards Falsces. But Deralst continued to speak on for the mage.


    "While it was common sense that we cannot divulge confidential information about the contents of our request, we should let you know that we are also currently in a searching quest and it was fairly urgent too."


    Deralst was trying to hide the fact that Falsces who was now standing in front of Vullen was the person who made the request, and thus making the situation a lot more complicated and less desirable.


    "While it was necessary to report back to the association about this incident, but it was fairly common for new adventurers at the top floors to encounter various threats and therefore, it was not necessary for two different parties to return back and report on a single situation. As that would definitely disrupt the work of other adventurers everytime." The necromancer chimed in helpfully at the right time.


    "While there is sense in what you are saying, but what we have here is a group of unarmed adventurers. The way I see it, it was not mere chance that we met each other. why not help one another instead of just leaving it to a single party to escort them on a risky journey out of here." Vullen thoughtfully put out his own point as he tried to considerately dissuade them.


    ¡°Now look here, I am not your friend Vullen. We had already compromised with you and helped to save the adventurers. But right now, we have other important things to do and we should not be balking at every little problem due to this. So this is where we will be parting ways for now.¡±


    After hearing what Deralst had to say, Vullen''s eyes turned cold as he looked towards him. But he did nothing nor did he tried to dissuade them anymore. Instead he said something else, his voice more deep and solemn than before.


    ¡°In this world we are faced with various adversities and hardships, Deralst. And in turn, you make the decisions in face of those trials. And in turn, your decision made who you are. I pray that the day would not come where you would regret the choices you made.¡±


    A cold shiver could be felt down behind Deralst''s back, it was not fear but a premonition. But he had enough of this.


    ¡°I will decide on my own path and I will seek out my very own light. I do not need the guidance, old man.¡±


    Deralst stood his ground as he returned the stare back to Vullen. After a moment of tensed silence, the other warrior simply turned around as he walked back towards the other adventurers.


    "Very well, then so be it. I hoped that one day you would come to see the light in your path."


    "Do not seek to convert me, you holy preacher¡± Deralst narrow his eyes as he looked at Vullen sharply with hidden aggression.


    ¡°.......I am already a person who understands about the darkness...... and with it the light."


    "We shall see, the pure can be tainted but can the tainted be pure again?"


    Vullen turned to give Deralst one last once glance, his eyes, only his eyes could give a glimpse of what the warrior had experienced.


    And just like that, he walked away guiding the rest of adventurers to his next destination. They continued moved on and eventually, their figures were lost in the darkest part of the entrance.


    "Hah, those believers, you know I just couldn''t stand them." Falsces finally spoke beside Deralst as he still looked on with his eyes hidden in the shade of his hood.


    "They seemed to treat the world like their own huge cloister. I guess some might have even literally lived too long in one too." Falsces continued on in good humour as he started smirking again.


    "We should get going now, before we encounter even more monsters here."


    Deralst want to sigh again, but at least this time, he let out a sigh of relief. He decided that there was no point for them in staying here either and that they should continue their journey deeper into the dungeon too.


    "You know what?" The necromancer suddenly spoke again with enthusiasm. "All this corruption and the cryper, I know what this is¡­. it must be a conspiracy!"


    ¡ª


    As they walked on the long staircase further down into the deeper parts of the dungeon, they had finally moved past the entrance from the dark passage connecting to the fourth floor to reach down to the fifth floor now. Which was quite oddly easy, given that how much trouble they had encounter that happened at around the third floor.


    When they finally exited the tunnels to the fifth floor, the dungeon¡¯s terrain started changing as the path ahead started to widen up and what appeared in front of them was.....huge. It was a huge ruined underground city.


    The place was so huge that even the ceiling could not be seen from the ground, except for the pitch black darkness above the wide underground complex. The only light around the area was the blue coloured will-o-wisp floating around the place as they illuminated the area around it.


    Since he had just came to the town, he had only heard about it from the tavern, but when he had seen it himself. The old ruined city in the fifth floor was far more convoluted and imposing than the town above the dungeon. He felt astonished......and melancholic. A grand city reminding others of their past glory, and ruin.


    Collapsed buildings, crumbled houses and the rubbles around it spread out as far as the eye could see. The streets around the city were made of cobblestones and the place was a lot more compact with buildings than it was, like a warren. With dark alleys and streets along with the rubbles as obstacles formed complex system of tunnels that weaved and blocked the old paths, rendering the maps almost useless here.


    Despite that, Deralst had still brought a few maps about this place just in case for their possible landmarks and signs. And this is just the fifth floor, Deralst had to wonder how difficult it would be to navigate through the floors that were crystal infested after the fifth floor. And the necromancer¡¯s base was said to be at the sixth floor....


    They continued to walk on with Falsces as the leading guide. Following behind them were the necromancer''s long processions of animated constructs. After saving the adventurers, Deralst had took the liberty to check with Falsces about his current amount of followers.


    From that, Deralst had received information from Falsces that excluding his six stone golems, his undeads currently had a total count of roughly more than sixty of them. He told Deralst that during the new adventurers'' battles before, those adventurers had killed around thirty of the undeads with the addition of half of that number as spiders. Yet it was from that battle, that Falsces was able to greatly expand his collection of followers. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    That amount was around six times more than the typical group of unprovoked undeads the adventurers here would encounter. Falsces had left half of his undead followers to gather in the streets near the entrance to ruined city and had the rest of them follow him through the clustered buildings and rubble.


    Deralst was constantly on alert as he began to scan the surroundings for enemies while walking on. This was a dungeon afterall and the whole place should be crawling with monsters. So encountering monsters should a norm by now.


    "Hah, crypers, zombies, skeletons, spiders, what next?" Unsurprisingly, Falsces was actually looking expectant for their next monster encounter.


    "You could try to dig around the place to find out." Deralst offered helpfully and maybe sarcastically.


    "Yet there are many things that could not be found......"


    Wait, Deralst thought that sounds different.....


    He turns his head to see a floating head with two empty eye sockets. Surprised, Deralst shouted out as he backed away from it.


    "It''s a ghost!"


    "Well to be more specific, that was actually a ghast, a wild grieving ghast had appeared." While visibly shaken, Falsces tried to add on helpfully.


    The head had disappeared into a wall and all around them were just more buildings and rubbles along with the dreadful silence. But now it felt strangely eerie and clearly unsettling when accompanied with the darkness of the blanketed dark sky that was the ceiling, the shadows of the alleys, weak light of the blue will-o-wisps.


    Deralst hastily unsheath his sword as he scan his surroundings. While Falsces ordered his undeads to move to shield him. Deralst was not sure that doing that will help protect the necromancer from the ghast, but he had other things to be bothered with right now.


    While it may seem a bit inappropriate for a necromancer, Falsces seemed to feel a bit uneasily and spooked. He turned around to look at Deralst with his already pale face, becoming paler if that was a thing. But in short, he just looked afraid.


    "This is going to be troublesome. Ghasts were elusive monsters well known for afflicting torment on their victims and like other ghosts, they were able to possess people too."


    "I know."


    Falsces said as he looked around nervously. It seemed that this situation was highly unexpected for him as he seemed to be talking more now to reassure himself than to inform Deralst. He understand it, so he simply dismissed him. But this was bad, Deralst had not prepared himself to fight against incorporeal beings.


    "Erm, well I may have a few ways to defend myself from such foes but a good swordsman like you Deralst? You stick with me."


    "Heh.....heh.....heh....."


    A low and soft voice echoed around the ruin buildings like a whisper and it came out of nowhere.


    ¡°Show yourself, monster! I will roast you so hard that not even death can save you from me!" Deralst shouted around loudly.


    "Let¡¯s quickly get the hells out of he-"


    Suddenly the mage turned quiet and when Deralst turn to look at him, he saw Falsces looking at him or behind him in muted shock. Which he immediately understood what it means.


    "Oh hells...."


    Deralst rotate his body to swing his sword backwards but he felt no resistance. Instead from the corner of his eye, he saw something floated directly towards him. He dodged the dashing ghast by sidestepping his body while he pivoted himself on one leg which he then crouched down to support his front with his other free arm to prevent himself from falling over.


    "Damn it."


    Right now, the ghast had finally shown itself. As it appeared floating above the path in between Deralst and Falsces. This caused Deralst to be separated from Falsces''s group. Deralst click his tongue as he rush to shout at Falsces from the other side.


    "Falsces you should quickly move on ahead! I will stay behind to deal with this myself!"


    "Are you going to be alright here?"


    Deralst could hear Falsces immediately shouting back at him.


    "Wait for me near the entrance to the sixth floor for as long as you can! I will return to meet up with you there later!"


    Within a few moments, they had quickly decided their next course of action. The necromancer had his minions followed him as he tried to retreat through an alleyway at the side of the building. There was no point in leaving behind any undeads here as they were practically useless in the battle against the ghast.


    Deralst had made this decision because he felt that the best way for them to deal with a single ghost right now, was to have a person stay behind to focus on fighting the ghast while everyone else had to separate and leave the place to get as far away from there as possible, so that the ghast would not be able to complicate the situation anymore by possessing anyone else within its vicinity. And Deralst immediately understood that it would be risky without a holy class, he was still currently the best person here to deal with the ghost right now.


    "You will not escape from me.....necromancer."


    The ghost tried to fly towards the necromancer but a dagger flew through its side and hit a wall. And fire immediately burst out from it, causing the ghast to stop halfway on its tracks while the burning fire continued to block its way forward.


    "Ah.....fire, how troublesome....."


    "Did you presumed that you could do anything want in front of me? Even if you tried to get away from me, I will still hunt you down, even to the depths of hell." Deralst spoke towards the ghast in a seething but controlled tone.


    "......Do you.....really think that I will just come here.....while not knowing who I was really aiming for?"


    "All the more reason for me to stop you. I am the necromancer''s escort and I will not let you get to him."


    Now that Deralst was able to look at the ghast properly, aside from its horrible expression. The head seemed to be floating among a mist that was tinted slightly in green which Deralst assumed it to be its body.


    The rippling mist lacked any form of arms and legs as its light limbless gaseous body drifted through the air. Its face was constantly distorting unnaturally into what seemed to be a mocking simile. It felt like more like an unattached mask instead of a face while Its vacant gaze continue to stare on disturbingly at Deralst.


    It was a sight that the more faint hearted people who would have been scared stiff by now when they looked at it, becoming hysterical or even turning insane in face of fear, but not Deralst. Not today. Not anymore.


    "What are you.....gonna do about it?"


    "I am gonna sent you to hell." Deralst challenged it defiantly, the blade of his sword began to glow slightly as it turn hot when Deralst started pouring mana into it. He continued to stare at ghast with his sharp silent eyes. "It is more than what you deserved anyway."


    Deralst knew that was risky to taunt the ghost, but by doing this he was able to attract its attention. While it may not be physical, that did not mean that it lacked any mentality either. This means that he could keep it distracted while the necromancer get further away from here.


    "You don''t know what you are dealing with.....we are but mere pawns.....to much greater beings of power...."


    It suddenly flew forward towards Deralst as he reacted by swinging his sword at the ghost. While the ghost was not fast but it could bend and twist its body at impossible angles that no people could do......unless if they died trying it.


    "Agh, get away from me. You gutless spirit!"


    It started swirling forward around Deralst''s arm, as Deralst was unable to avoid it when the spiraling mist collided on his head. It started covering his body, forcing Deralst to inhale from it.


    Deralst''s head started to ache painfully as if his head was about to split. He tried to resist the possession, but his surroundings was starting to turn dim, as the darkness was creeping closer and closer to him.


    He had thought that was he was turning blind but eventually he saw that something appeared in front of him. It seemed like a spectre as it moving closer to Deralst. More and more of those spectres were appearing before him, as they slowly started to take forms. They seemed familiar as one of them stood directly in front of him.


    "You sure have fallen. Kid."


    The spectre started talking to Deralst in a dry gravelled voice, it had an appearance of a man with a bloodless wrinkled face. He had what seemed like a scar on his left cheek.


    "What are you doing here wasting your time inside a dungeon?"


    No, this was not real. Deralst was struggling as he was transitioning between reality and his own mind.


    "Why do you numb yourself? Pup, are you trying to become a golem?"


    Deralst tried to ignore its questions as he felt his awareness becoming more and more distant. He was losing strength and control from his body. He felt like his body was becoming more and more like a burden.....and a prison.


    "People died just so you could live."


    He could not draw any strength from his body neither could he perceive any sense of control from his body.


    "People die everytime. Old man."


    Feeling more and more helpless and irritated, Deralst finally decided to reply back to the spectre.


    "And yet you are still alive. Stop with your excuses, boy." The spectre rebuked him sternly instead.


    "You had given up on yourself, your past. Just so you live on your life meaninglessly."


    The voice resounded within him. He felt his heart wrench as something deep within him began to well up inside him. It was not something as simple as emotions but deeper. Feelings of guilt, regret.....and remorse. He tried to ignore it but he could not.....


    ".......I am sorry."


    "People have died in your hands. Good people who trusted you!"


    The wrinkled man¡¯s voice was loud and penetrating now. As if he was angry, berating and talking down on him.


    He had nothing else to say against it. All the while, more and more of the spectres moved in to appear around Deralst. He could not do anything about it....nor could he say anything else.


    "I am really sorry!"


    Deralst shouted out shakily in grief as if he trying to drive them away. The darkness creeping closer and closer to him.


    "Apologies are pointless to the dead."


    "You are just a coward who runs away."


    "You are just a deadbeat wasting his time away."


    "You are just a failure who threw his chance away."


    Different voices wash over him. Deralst closed his eyes, and yet the voices continue to rang through his very soul. He could not forget it nor could he reject it.


    He wanted to cry but he could not.


    How depressingly sorrowful and.....meaningless.


    He should just give up already, and just end it all here.


    Nobody would care anyway.....


    It was hopeless.


    Eventually, his senses was gone and he felt that he was within a sea of darkness.


    And It loomed in front of him. Dark, darker, yet darker, there was darkness everywhere.


    Darkness, silence and madness, his old friends.


    How sorrowful and painful.....


    How meaningless, it was a lot easier to just submit to reality and fate.


    There shall be peace in death, and in death. Release.


    It this age, the world was a cruel, unforgiving, and pointless reality.


    What was the point in trying anymore if everything was just going to end up as grains of sand in the flow of time.


    Why continue to suffer?


    There was silence.


    .........


    "I am disappointed. So this is how far your resolve goes, is this how much your promise amounts to?"


    The man looked at Deralst with cold eyes of disappointment, yet his sharp words caused Deralst to remember something in the past.


    His fading consciousness returning back slightly as he turned his attention to the voice.


    "You are better than this. Deralst."


    Deralst opened his eyes again as he looked at wrinkled man. What was this?


    "What have happened to that promisingly adventurous youth? Where is the energetic and cheerful boy with hopeful aspirations and dreams?"


    He remembered that he had a goal, a reason not to die. And live on.


    "Others may forget but you will always carry on."


    "Remember that we are people who lived at the moment of time."


    "Remember that we may fall but we do not break."


    "Remember that we may be small and weak but we had lived like it was a miracle."


    As the man spoke on, Deralst widen his eyes as he remembered what spurred him on.


    Even sands could pile slowly over time.


    "I am sorry.....and thank you."


    It was simple was it not? Just a few words. The old man smiled, it almost looked naturally reassuring and....comforting.


    The first step was the hardest, or so he was told a thousand times. He closed his eyes, he felt something surging within him.


    One more time.


    Deralst focused everything in his body, filling with determination. He tried his best to force himself to move again.


    He will not give in now¡­....He will not go down now.....He. Will. Carry. On.


    As if waking from a nightmare, Deralst gasped painfully as he choked on air while falling onto the ground. He had quickly began to regain his senses but everything was still hazy and groggy.


    "No....how was this possible!?"


    The ghast was staring wide eyed at Deralst with its empty sockets after it was forcefully expelled out of his body. Deralst felt heavy and tired, but he will not give up now.


    Deralst gritted his teeth as he tried to stare forward with his eyes filled with conviction. He put all his effort into raising his slumped right arm while facing towards the newly reformed ghast, flames erupted from his palm as it quickly engulf the ghast in front of him in fire. And a loud piercing scream could be heard after.


    "Ahhh! I''m on on fire! I''m burning!.....I''mmm buurning!...I''m...."


    "Burn in hell." Deralst spat those words as watched the ghost burnt into nothingness.


    Deralst felt wobbly and disoriented when he attempts to stand back up. His head was hurting but he still tried to look around his surroundings for other possible enemies, instead he found that he now was on a different street, among unfamiliar buildings and houses.


    He must have walked a distance but he had no recollection of how he had gotten there or how to navigate back to where he had came from. But there''s one thing for sure, it was that Deralst had realised that he was lost in the city.

 Cooperate And Compromise 6

    The dungeon was known to be a really dangerous place, to the point such that people could just potentially be killed by anything in there.As an adventurer, Deralst would not be surprised if he was to be killed by a monster right now.There would be no laws and restriction set by human around here, just kill or be killed.


    Deralst knew that he was not someone who was really special around these parts, the things he could do not exactly unique either andthere will always be something else stronger out there that could easily kill him, even inside the dungeon. People were weak like that.


    Even so, Deralst was now calmly sitting on a huge rock from the rubble of a collapsed building, alone. He had long learnt to be more composed than usual when encountering the unknowns when delving inside the dungeon or it may just be a trait of his.


    He had been lost in a dungeon before, while not in such an absurd manner it was still an experience he had. He quietly checked on the maps he had brought with him, while trying his best to identify where he was currently at right now.


    The wide ceiling of the ruined city was so dark that it was like a night sky.The veiled darkness here covers not just from above but also from the corners of this place in the silent alleys and crumbling walls.


    He was not able to get much of a bearing of this place. The surrounding was dark even with the help from the dim illumination of blue floating orbs, his own enhanced eyesight and even with the torch he had just lit.


    The unsettling feeling about not know what was lurking among the shadows could be quite stressful to many. There might be something lurking among the shadows here. Some werecommon like the spiders, some could be as dangerous as the cryper, and some might be a lot moreless known and just as dangerous to people. It was risky like that.


    Aside from darkness, many things were blocking his view of his surroundings, like the various crumbled buildings that seemed more and more like the walls of a labyrinth. If Deralst were to try and understand where he was right now, he needed to find himself a higher ground to stand on. So he could get a better view of the subterranean city and any of the possible landmarks.


    Actually, he would not be surprised right now if the necromancer had just simply took advantage of this situation and left him behind when he had finally reached the destination. Not that Deralst minded that too much right now.


    Essentially, the current request he was doing was only somethingsupplementary, as it aligned to what he was already planning to do anyway when he wanted to reach into the lower parts of the dungeon. He was currently more curious about exploring around the ruined dungeon city than finding the necromancer.


    Even so,he still needed more information, more preparations and more scouting of the place, before he could delve even further into the depths of the dungeon. He still had a goaland many other things to do. And right now, he had to go and check that the necromancer was still around for him to continue the current request.


    While examining the map, Deralst took out another of his pickled fruit to chew on while he continued to sat on the rocktorecuperate his psyche. Despite how he seemed to be, hewas feeling quite weary right now after his fight against the ghast.


    It was not a physically straining battle but a mentally stressful one.He had encountered incorporeal monsters in the past, but he had not been possessed before. That was not a thrilling experience but at least he was able to get free from it by himself.


    Deralst guessed that why he was able to do it was because his mind was suppressed to a certain degree, thus allowing him a stronger mental tolerance in overcoming the possession. Diabolists were known to be mentally resistant people anyway, they would have turned into corrupted insane monsters long ago if they were not so self restraining.


    After taking a short rest to catch his breath, Deralst quickly riseback up and start to move to scout around the place.Deralst was not the type of person who just idlely sit and mope around anyway.


    The city was quite hard to transverse around alone. Especially for someone as lost as him, who did not even know where his bearing was when he got here. The lost might get even more lost in this damnable dungeon.


    As he walked through the stone paved path, there will always be rocks or various other debris found scattered across the streets or blocking his pathwhen he was going though the dark alleys between buildings. The abandoned houses here were either made of hard bricks or some other stones.


    The houses were mostly basic and bland. He found that most of the rooms in those houses were mostly empty or simply hada few basic yet rotting wooden furnitures. It seemed some of the houses even had storage rooms that were kept with a lot of pots containing variousmiscellaneous items. But they were not places that adventurers would expect to findtreasure chests popping out of nowhere.


    Deralst had also encountered a few more of undead monsters along theway. While they were not as dangerous as a ghost, they were still enemiesthat hewould want to avoid wasting time and effort to fight against. As he was risking too much for too little gains.


    He continued wandering around the ruined city searching for a better vintage point. Eventually, Deralst heard something coming from around the corner of the block. It sounded more like desperate shoutings that were hard for him toignore, so he had to at least move to investigate the ruckus there.


    He smothered his torch and threw it on the ground while stealthily moving closer to the source of the commotion as much as he could. Eventually, what revealedat the scene appeared to bea group of large prowling spiders encirclingaround two furry rodent looking creatures standing on two legs. They were being cornered and backed to a wall.


    ¡°Argh! DON''TZ COME ANY CLOSER!¡±


    One of the rodents was shouting loudly in squeaky voice while swinging a short dagger around desperately towards the six spiders that seemed to be of another variant than the ones he had seen at the upper floors.


    "HA! I canz take on all of you! I DARE YOU!" The one holding the dagger among them was shouting in a threatening voice against their to be predators.


    The more rat looking one could certainly talk butif it was any other circumstances, Deralst would have just leave and ignorewhat was bizarrelygoing on around there if he were none the wiser. But instead of leaving, he had decided to stay behind this time to observethe struggle from behind a wall.


    There were actually reasons why he had done so. Deralst had heard from the adventurers in the association before aboutthese rodent like critters.They were commonly known as the rodent folks, but the adventurers tend to simply just call them Ratlings as a convenient slang.


    Therodent folks mainly lived around the fifth floor, andwere well knownfor their extensive knowledge of the underground city. Theycommonly encounter and interact with the adventurers around here.


    They were mostly a bunch of elusively mousy denizens who were even helpful to the adventurers at times. So their presence were greatly tolerated by the adventurer association. But due to some of their shrewd personalities and even their past histories with humans, some people would be quite distrustful of them.


    While Deralst was neutral in his opinions about the rodent folks, he was not currently keen on associating himself with them either. But he knew that their insight around the city could be very helpful to him right now when he needed to ask someone for directions inside a dungeon.


    After some considerations while watching the standoff drew on pointlessly. In the end, he had chose to step up and help them. Having made a decision, he quickly went forward from the shadows of the wall and threw a dagger at one of the spiders, which started burning after it was struck.


    "Whatz!?"


    Without stopping, he drew out his sword andrushed towards the remaining spiders, with a low sword slash, he sliced one of the spiders in half while its still on the ground and he kicked away another spider jumping towards him in thethorax.


    These hunting spiders were a lot larger but lesser compared to the ones above that were hunting in groups large enough to form a swarm. They were at least twice the size of a large dog. Their long yet lowered legs gave them the impression like that ofthe ambush jumping type of predators.


    After having killed two of the spiders, Deralst swiftly continued to slash through the apendages and body of another one as it attempted to grab at him for a venomous bite. Deralst then moved back to take on a defensive stance after his initial surprise attack. Heating up his sword as he swung it threateningly at the remaining spiders.


    Having just been overwhelmed so suddenly and easily. By intuition, the other spiders sensed that their life was in danger, and so like retreating grasshoppers, they insteadreacted by quicklyleaping backwards from Deralst''s swungs and hastilyretreated back into the shadows.


    Deralst clicked his tongue, those spiders were smarter then he thought....and now they had gotten away. There was no point in giving chase to the spiders now either so while still holding on to his sword, Deralst simply turned to looked at the other two rodent folks. Both of the ratlings just stared at Deralst in shock but one of them simply shouted.


    ¡°Wow!You have chased away the spiders!"


    Itwalked up to Deralst carelessly and cheerfully with its hind legs, it looked chubby and had an appearance that seemed more like a mole with longer claws and feet than a typical rat. It had brown fur and was only wearing a baggy looking green pants with a cloth bag slinged behind its back. It also appeared to bequite dopey and naive.


    "You have saved us! So you must be a good guy!¡±


    The adorable mole looking one exclaimed happily in a slower friendly voice but other more rat looking one was initially hunched low at a distance away, seemingly to be more cautious and uneasy. But it quickly snaked foward to smack the other one on the back its head with its paw like hands.


    "Ow! Rak, thaaat hurts!"


    "Shutz up,Pacon! How many times do I have to tell youthat we don''t suddenly talk to humanz like that!"


    The leaner one seemed to be called Rak. It was shouting angrily at its other buddy, while still keeping an eye on Deralst. It talked so quickly in way that spit would sometimes fly out of its mouth. Most likely also due to its two long protudingupper tooth that was projecting over its lower lip. After it finishedberating its partner, it turned to look at Deralst.


    ¡°Hmph, so you saved ussst. Big deal, we can eazily ezcape from those spiderz. I still don¡¯t trust yer. Humanz.¡±


    ¡°But Raaak! He is a good guy who saved us!¡±


    It smacked the cubby looking rodent again.


    ¡°Ooow!¡±


    Like the mole looking one, Rak was also wearing a pair of clothed brown pants and with it a haversackbehind its back. Additionally, it was also wearing a brown shirt too. It had a slightly lighter but similar fur color to its other companion.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Rak turned back to look at Deralst suspiciously in the eye, its eye looked rounder from Deralst''s height and angle asgiven that it was only tall enough to only reach Deralst''s stomach. Which was also in a sense as tall as a young human child.


    "I don''tz think that you saved us out of yer kind heart."Rak snorted.


    It spoke rudely as it spit to the ground on the side. Its body was still hunched and arms lowered, it still maintained some form of cautiousness and tact when talking to Deralst.


    "So, what do yer want human?"


    "I am a bit lost around here, so I want to know if you could give me the directions towards the entrance to the sixth floor?"Deralst spoke frankly, there was no point in lying now.


    ¡°Of courze we do! Who do yer think we are?" It snorted again.


    "But It¡¯z gotta cost yer!¡±


    ¡°But Rak, he saved us¡­..¡±


    The rat looking rodent smacked his buddy in head angrily again.


    ¡°Ow, stop doing that!¡±


    ¡°Shut up Poby yer fat idiot! The dungeon iz getting more and more heretic lately. How do yer think weget food in our belliez? We need to be more forzeful here!"


    Rak was talking faster and faster, as spit was flying everywhere from its mouth.


    "You know that some of the spiders are still out there right?Would you be fine to accept my additional assistance to protect you on your trip as a favour for you to show me the direction?¡±


    Watching them in interest, Deralst instead politely offered from the sides but Rak simplygrunted in reply while crossing its arms.


    "Ok! That sounds nice! I will help you!"Pocan simply shouted.


    Rak placed its own paw on its face as if it was already regretting a lot of things when it heard thatPocan simply just accepted the offer from Deralst just like that. That''s not hownegotiations works.


    ¡°Argh whatever, but know thiz, human. This iz still just a compromize!¡±Rak eventually gave up, as it just continue to shake its head, sighing.


    ¡°Now follow me, human.¡±


    Rak said slowly as it waved its paw as an indication.


    "Yeah! Now we got another job to do!"


    Pocan said cheerfully asDeralst followed them on their path.After a while walking around in confusing twist and turn,they then moved into a few different buildings where they moved towithdraw packaged items from various pots found in the houses.They also seemed to specifically know which one to look for andthese folks were at least confident enough to know where they were going. He hoped.


    Afterwards,they led him inside of yet anotherbuilding located in the more wrecked parts of the city. Which the room inside was simply empty and dusty, aside from a bed and a few rotten furniture there. The two legged rat simply squat down to move a large stone tile on the ground at the side of the bed by sliding it forward.


    What revealed underneath the stone tile seemed to be a sloping hole big enough for a human to walk down. The hole seemed to be a dirt barrow that seemed to be dug through by someone instead of it being a natural occurrence.


    ¡°What are yer waiting for? Get in there!¡±


    Deralst hesitate a bit about the idea of following the rodent folks into a dark narrow tunnel but in the end, he still decided to continue to head on inside the tunnel anyway.After everyone got inside of the hole, Rakdid a final look around through a peek from below before moving the tile to cover back the hole. And the room finally returned back to its quiet and empty state.


    __


    The tunnels under the ruined city were about three metres wide and was large enough for a human to walk comfortably inside with a burning torch. The tunnels were constantly shifting and twisting while forking into different paths, presumably leading to exits to the surface of ruined city or to another path of various other destinations.


    A person could get lost in here, while continuing to travel in circles without getting anywhere near an exit. It actually made Deralst wonder how the rodent folks were even able to recognise the path so easily without any confusion or hesitation. They just moved through the tunnel paths like usual without even slowing down.


    Eventually, through a hole of a large crevice, Deralst was led into what seemed like a huge tunnel but it was actually more like a dark underground sewer, the dirt path started to turn into a path made of paved stones again. Over the time, It had now became dry and relatively free of any foul stench from the stinking water carrying the waste of the city in the past.


    Standing at the end of the tunnel path was a huge mole like creature that appeared to be as big as a bear standing on its hind legs while it seemed to guarding an entrance to somewhere else. Looking at the huge creature while using references from the association, Deralst immediately recognised that it was actually a buggane.


    "Zote, so it is now yer turn to look after the entrancez?"


    Rak spoke in a slower and a more respectful tone as it waved at the buggane a distance away.


    "Ah Ranrak, didn''t expect to see you here at this time."The buggane responded by waving back its huge claws slightly.


    "Remember to send my regards to your mother."


    "I will, but rightnow I need to bring thiz human inside firzt."


    The buggane turned its face towards Deralst, it looked....hulking and hairy. It was an unexpected of the conversation just now to show that the buggane was actually quite intelligent.


    "Alright then, no point holding you all back. You all may move on now."


    After greeting the buggane and moving through the path. What the two rodent folks had led Deralst next was even more astonishing. He was led to another huge underground sewer complexthat was now a thriving subterranean rodent community.


    Various rodent looking folks of any kind could be seen moving on two legs there. They were not afraid nor surprised when they saw Deralst walking though the place. Not that Deralst minded being stared at anyway, he was used to it.


    Many types of different rodent residents could be seen there.Such as moles, rats, mice, and even some hybrid looking ones such as the mole rats could be found there. He could also spot some other human adventurers among them too and even more of those bugganes moving around the place.


    Stone houses could be seen being build there along with various good selling stalls managed by the rodent folks and even torch stands lighting up the area. It was a huge bustling community. The streets was full of busy people, children running around and playing.


    Nobody would expect that an underground dungeon to be safe and teeming with people.Actually, given that people do not normally lived inside a dungeon, this place was one of the few good areas to serve as the very few resting stops for the adventurers. It was well known in the town above that the rodent folks sold their services to many of the adventurers as guides or for trade and even as transporters at times.


    But some of the adventurers tend to be unwilling or even downright refusing to travel among the rodent folks into dark tunnels and dirty sewers due to many reasons. Afterall, many people were distrustful of the rodent folks due to their cunning and thieving personalities


    But after some agreements made with their own representatives, the rodent folks had agreed to stop their own kind from attacking and robbing the traveling adventurers. Any of the rodents who were to do so these days will be tracked and hunted down by their own tribes.


    Presently, a lot of the new adventurers tend to willingly rely on them for supplies and guidance. Meanwhile, many experienced adventurers also use their services to conveniently get through to the lower floors without having to always go through the troublesome labyrinth ruined city. It was also an optimal place for other more unsavoury adventurers to gather at.


    The ratlings could be found commonly around the fifth floor of the ruined city seeking out adventurers to promote their services or scourging for abandoned equipments and trinkets to resell them back to the humans for othergoods.


    While the langguage they mostly used in the past were incoherent and disjointed that varied across tribes in the past. But overtime, they eventually started to use human langguage as their main form of communication among humans and themselves.


    "Oh look! It''z the shady individual in his shady cloak again! I will alwayz see more of him walk by in a good every thirty secondz. How shady!"


    "Rak! You always say that when you see an adventurer wearing a cloak!"Pacon pointed instead.


    "Well, I don''t trustz them, I have seen more and more of those cloak wearing humanz lately like them owned the place."


    While walking through the crowd, Rak was now talking casually with Pacon while Deralst was following them from behind.


    "You just worry too much, Rak. You don''t even trust any humans."


    "Grrr...."


    Rak was sulking now as they walked on the sewer streets until they had eventually reached the front of a food stall. A bigger ratling that looked familiar to Rak could seen standing behind the stand.


    ¡°Hi, Ma¡­.here¡¯s the amount from my work.¡±


    It greeted its presumed mother as it passed on packages that were wrapped in cloth to its mother.


    "Oh Ranrak! You got back quite early today!"


    "Ma! I got into some trouble with the spiderz there, besidez I have to other thing to do. So I had to give up on some potz."


    ¡°You younglings sure have it easy these days! You know back before the five tribes were united, I was just a wee lass! It was a tough time¡­.¡±


    ¡°Argh, ma I had heard that a thouzand timez already!¡±


    ¡°Now, now. Ranrak, you shouldn''t talk like that, you should also get your buck tooth filed soon too."


    ¡°.....I had talked with uncle ritz, herez the invoice and message he toldz me to pass to you....¡±


    Deralst was not listening much to what Rak was saying right now and he wished that they would just bring him to the entrance already instead of just wandering around with them here.


    "Psst, hey!"


    WhenDeralst was in contemplating boredly, he was interrupted by a voice he heardcalling for him. So he turned around saw a small rat that looked even smaller than Rak when he looked down at it.


    "Hey, wanna buy some mushrooms?" It spoke in a soft voice that was even more squeaky sounding than Rak while holding a brown mushroom as big as it in two of its small paws.


    "What? No, I am not interest." Deralst simply dismissed.


    "Awww."


    The small ratling slumped his shoulders.


    "Do you sell any food instead"


    He was a person who did not bring much along with him everywhere he goes, even into another community on his own. But at least he was self sustainable. He had carried with him his own food but since it was getting near lunch time, he wanted buy some meals around here to eat instead to save up on rations.


    "Well, I got baked moths, fried maggots on sticks, and we even sell ma''s homemade raisin cookies!"


    That last one sounded pretty normal to Deralst....


    "Do you accept human coins?"


    He was a person who was quite mindful of his own finances but Deralst was stillwilling to pay for something fruity to eat right now. He actually wanted to see if he could buy some fruits from the stall merchants, he hoped that he could buy it with coins....if not, maybe trade it with his own fruit instead.


    "Pafrok! I thoughtz I told yer not sell weird things to the humanz!"


    Rak came shouting at its younger sibling after it noticed that Pafrok was bartering with Deralst


    "H-hey, brother!" The younger ratling spoke in a nervous voice.


    "Weren''t you supposed to be tending to the garden?"


    "Yes, I have! There''s a new batch of mushrooms that was already ripe enough to be harvested already!"


    "That does not mean that you can run off to do something else!"


    ¡°B-But Wait! There''s more!¡±


    "What?"


    "I have also finished harvesting the pink shrooms too!"


    "You what, Paft!?


    Rak was visibly shocked of what it had just heard, but its eyes had widen with interest as it licked its lips.


    "Let me show you my collections! I have more of them in the back of my base!"Pafrok seemed to be trying to convince Rak now, as it whispered softly to Rak''s ears. What they were talking soundeddubious to Deralst too, were they even allowed to talk in front of him?


    "You know that I am very busy right?"


    "I also got Hia and the other girls to come too! And with you, we will be set for a party!"


    "How did you do it!?"


    "I just told her that I got a bucket of mushrooms, and ask if she wants to do it?¡±


    Pafrok was smiling innocently as it spread its paws widely right now.


    "I had enough of you and your honeyed wordz, and I smell a rat in this...."Rak shakes his head.


    "How did you even think of thiz, my imagination iz that of which a potato...."


    Deralst was simply standing further behind them now, trying to look somewhere else. While the topic was interesting, what they were talking in secret was none of his business right now. It seemed some like something that he should not be hearing, so he simply acted like he had heard nothing.


    ¡°But Rak! You still have a job to guide the other adventurers!¡± Pacon shouted out to Rak from behind. But it just simply put an arm on Pacon''s shoulders while smiling widely.


    ¡°Well, you are old enough now, I will let you guide the adventurers all by yourself now!¡±

 Cooperate And Compromise 7

    It was a common understanding among people to avoid problems that were unrelated to them. Andjust like those people, Deralst would not want to stick his nose into other people''s affairs where it does not belong either.


    It was not that he was insensible to the affairs of others but simply that he tend to ignore it. He had seen enough injustice and suffering. About people who starved to death, people who killed for petty reasons and people who were dying from torment to understand it.


    It was quite a confusing rationale to some people at times.


    He may occasionally help someone or save a person''s life but he was not an enforcer or a philanthropist. He could not stop people from killing each other, fight the powerfully wicked, nor could he feed everyone who were starving right now. He just simply accepted it and move on.It had became an increasingly common occurrence in this time of age after the war. Those were the things that he would not be able to do much about it anyway. So he just simply became inured to it, not minding or caring much about such affairs. Overtime, he gotten used to lot of things in this cruel world.


    Just like everyone else, living through his own life with some form of resignation. And like everyone else, helpless and yet surviving. But even so, he would still encounter people who were able to find various ways to make their mundane lives slightly more interesting now and then, even if it was just for a short moment.


    Such was the ruminating observation of a certain Diabolist, as he walked through the crowd bustling with various furry rodents that standing on two legs. It was a dim and damp place for these folks to live in, even with the help of the torch stands and lamps.And yet through the limitations of living within the confines of such miserable complex, they were still able to make full use of it. Everyone around him was always busy living their lives to the fullest without even being bothered by such things.


    Some of them opened wooden stalls or selling local merchandise on mats located on the elevated stone worked platforms that served as walkways at sides of the wide sewer channel. And like a busy wet market, the place was very crowded with ratlings haggling and browsing the stall''s wares around the place. But most of the crowd''s path were mostly congregated at the center area where wastewater used to flow through in the past.


    Feeling like an outsider towering above them, Deralst stared down at the crowd of rodent folks below him. They mostly ignored him or gave him a wide berth. At times, some of them were seen on all fours moving quickly around places instead.


    The ratlings continued to scamper past him like sliding through walls.It made him wondered what would happen if he were to trip now? He was careful not to let that happen though.


    Trying not to lose track of the mole ratling called Pacon that was leading the way. Deralst tried to force his way through the fast flowing crowd below him without colliding with anyone. But it was still an irritating task and Pacon even had to considerately come back a few times just to make sure that he was going in the right direction.


    "Aww, this is easier with Rak around....He shouldn''t have left his job like that¡­." Pacon was now complaining beside him but it was as eager as before. Which made Deralst thought that it was not actually bothered about it.


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind about it.¡±


    Deralst responded simply.


    Aside from the unusual circumstantial situation that came to this, it was uncommon but not rare to have just a single Ratling as a guide. But Deralst did not really care much about it, so long as he was able to reach his destination, no matter who or how many guides there were.


    His guide led the way as it continued to chatter on merrily. Navigating through various of the dried up water channels and corridors, until they had finally travelled a distance away from the market area. The tunnels were getting narrower and more twisted. A contrast from the wide straight tunnels at the main hub of the Rattling colony.


    "You chase away those bad spiders so easily! You must be really strong!" Pacon spoke on, continuing its chatter while walking beside Deralst. "I wish I could fight like that too!"


    It was enthusiastically waving its paws around eagerly. Since Deralst could not discern its expression through its long muzzle and small eyes, he just assumed that it was grinning though the voice of its tone.


    Which was an unexpected attitude for someone who had just survived a life threatening experience recently. It may just be a trait of the Ratlings, that were already used to such a lifestyle traveling inside the gloomy dungeon.


    "You may be able to do it too....if you move fast enough." Deralst grunted as he turned slightly to look down on Pacon.


    "I cannot be an adventurer like you." Pacon said as they rounded the corner into another side tunnel, the place was a lot less crowded than before now.


    "Rak said that I cannot go up to the surface. He said I cannot see well up there." It shrugged. "I always wonder what it''s like up there.¡±


    Pacon did not seemed to mind much about it. But Deralst sensed from its oddly cheery tone that there''s hints of a child''s curiosity and excitement for adventure. So he kept silent and walked on.


    People would only crave for things they had tasted before. But if someone did not know anything to begin with, they could only be driven by either curiosity or the fear of the unknown. Call him a pessimistic, but as far as Deralst had known, both were not normally something great to have in abundance for a dungeon travel.


    After wandering through the sewers for a while, he was eventually led to an alcove of the tunnel after they took another turn to the right at an intersection.


    Inside, there''s a metal rung latched onto the stone wall with an iron grate positioned at the ceiling above it. There were some glowing faint torchlight revealing a group of people equipped with various accessories standing around there.


    They were most likely adventurers and they appeared to be waiting for someone. They were also quick to notice Deralst and Pacon moving in their direction. As expected of adventurers, normally.


    "G''day stranger! You''re passing through here too?"


    An unfamiliar voice spoke out as a man wearing a set of brown jacket, trousers and a cap approached them openly in a conspicuous manner while speaking in an oddly friendly tone. There were four other adventurers gathered there. But it seemed that they had decided to stay around and observe the new arrivals while letting that man do the talking instead.


    The man in brown was walking towards them casually in a seemingly unguarded manner. He seemed to be some sort of an archer, what with the bow strapped behind the man''s back. Deralst assumed that he was possibly a ranger or a hunter. He had also noted that the ranger''s silent steps which betrayed his cautiousness and experience and possibly his party too.


    ¡°Erm, Hi! I''m Pacon! Nice to see you again!"


    ¡°Oh it''s you! So you''re our guide today again, eh? I thought there was supposed to be at least two of you!¡±


    The man talked in an obvious way to start the conversation. Pacon greeted back to the man by waving its paw. Then they started talking with each other as if they had met before this. Now closer to Deralst, he tried to keep his expression neutral as he assess the brown capped man. His features looked to be in his mid thirties, his hair was brown and so does his brown tan skin too. In fact, almost everything that guy wore was brown....like dirt or soil.


    "Rak''s busy, so it''s just me. I hope you wouldn¡¯t mind it!¡­.Do you?¡±


    "Of course not! You''re our guide afterall!" The ranger simply shrugged and accepted Pacon''s reasons and move on to his next topic.


    ¡°So now that we are done with the greetings, you wouldn''t mind me asking who''s the strapping young bloke behind you, do you?¡±


    The ranger turned his attention towards Deralst. The indication of his intention clear despite him displaying an easy going attitude.


    "Oh, he''s just another person I have to guide too!"


    Pacon, like a simpleton it was, simply told the ranger.


    "Is that so? Well it is unexpected that there is another adventurer joining us but you''re the guide, so it''s yer decision anyway."


    The ranger seemed to accept it easily, as he looked at Deralst up and down as if he was apprising him in which Deralst returned it was a sharp gaze of his own.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "Well mate, nice to meet ya! My name''s Rendal Mundy. What''s yer name?"


    He raised his hand towards Deralst and offered a handshake. While Deralst''s had a waryimpression of the ranger who portrayed himself to be a causal yet direct person. But he still deemed the ranger to be an appropriate stand up guy and considerately returned the ranger''s greeting.


    "Just call me Deralst."


    "Hah! If it''s not rude to ask, why are ya travelling alone around here in this miserable dungeon? Are ya lost?"


    ".....Yes indeed I am, I need a guide to get to the floor entrance so I can meet with the other members of my party."


    Deralst tried to answer the ranger''s question as honestly and as vaguely as possible. Falsces was travelling with him before, so he was technically considered to be a member of his party.


    "That so? All right then! You''re welcome to travel together with us! Since we''re on the way there too! Now excuse me mate, I have other matters about our trip to discuss with our guide here."


    "Oh sure." Deralst nodded and stepped slight away, Rendal turned to talk to the guide more comfortably beside him. Seemingly nonchalant about talking here.


    They held their conversation in front of Deralst without care of him hearing the contents of what they were talking about in front of him. It was most likely to help keep the newcomer up to date too, since he may be joining these adventurers in their travels for a while.


    And While Deralst did not know Pacon for long, as the Ratling may seemed airheaded and aloof to him but it was definitely knowledgeable and smart enough to hold a conversation with someone properly.


    Deralst understood that the ranger and his party were actually Pacon''s clients who had requested a guide that was scheduled for their usual travel to get past the sixth floor''s entrance too.It was known from the talk that they had also arranged to meet with yet another party of adventurers so they still had to stay around for awhile longer to wait for them to arrive.


    "I reckon those adventurers traveling with us will be quite an experienced bunch this time. It may not be the A class sort of bunch, but I¡¯ll be expecting a B.¡±


    "If I may ask, is there something going on here? Your group seem to be large enough already and yet you all still need to travel with another group of adventurers?"


    Since the ranger was addressing the issue with his guide in front of him, he might as well take this moment to join into their conversation. He may be able to gain some useful information here too.


    "Ah, the dungeon''s been quite hectic lately, so the association came up with this corker of an idea to send a group of adventurers to investigate the dungeon''s demonic crystal infestation at the lower floors and we''re to accompany them too!"


    While Deralst appeared to be indifferent, but mentally he was cursing his luck right now.


    "That''s problematic."


    In a lot of ways actually, since he also needed to find those crystals for his own purpose too. Another team of adventurers wandering around clearing the crystals might interfere with his objective. Especially that an investigation group regarding anything of demonic origins will definitely have someone with holy classes in it. Which he really needed to do something about it before he tries anything with the crystals but he could not immediately come up with a proper solution right now.


    "No worries mate! We''re strong enough to deal with whatever that''s inside this dungeon!" The ranger patted his back, misinterpreting his frown. "Now! Let me introduce you to the others in the party!"


    And just like that, Deralst was pushed by Rendal to meet with the other members of his group. The other adventurers while more reserved, seemed to have accepted him easily enough and he was treated normally just like any other adventurer. It was not hard, as Deralst had experienced working with other adventurers before, but he still felt a bit uncomfortable meeting these new strangers.


    He felt like he was out of place being here among them. While Deralst needed to have a party to travel with, he had prefered to work alone lately due to multiple obvious reasons related his questes and situation. He guess that it should be fine for now if he was just travelling together with them for a short amount of time, just like when he was working Vullen before. There were other more urgent things to think about for now as he stayed with Rendal''s party to wait for another group of adventurers to arrive.


    While he could trust the integrity of the people from the holy faith as the type who would not do something as underhanded as stealing or backstabbing others, they were still the typeof the adventurers he was least keen to work with right now.


    Deralst mauled on his thoughts about ways to deal with the investigation of those people as he start to idly pace around the edge of the alcove.


    What will he do? What could he do? All this was unexpected for him as he was stuck thinking about it, his thoughts swirled in circles inside his head. Despite so, how was he going to explain about Falsces if the other adventurers were to meet him? At least, if he was gotta wait, he might as well, take out something to chew on for now......


    ¡ª


    After some time of waiting, another three adventurers came into sight through the tunnels walking towards them.


    Even from a distance away, Deralst could feel the familiar yet unpleasant sense of apprehension towards those adventurers again.He immediately knew that this the group of adventurerswere mostly of the holy faith, and he was sure that they could also sense the same thing towards him too.


    Even so, he had made his choice about this, and he would not be withdrawing himself now. So he had to uneasily watch the newly arrived adventurers approaching closer and closer towards him.


    Among the adventurers, a young blonde woman in bright armour swiftly strode out of her party directly towards Deralst. Despite her rushing, she still moved with elegant steps and dignified posture until she had finally stood in front of Deralst and stared directly at him.


    ¡°You¡­.there¡¯s something wrong with you¡­.¡±


    Great, that was not something he had heard for first time nor was it going to be his last either.


    The woman spoke in a stern voice that seemed to be stating a fact. Despite being half a head shorter than him, her sharp piercing gaze still looked straight at him, demanding his own attention in return. So Deralst decided to make full use of it instead.


    Her silver coloured armour was covering her full body in what seemed to be made of light steel. There''s a metal kite shaped shield strapped onto her left arm, with its sides curved in a manner that made it appear to be smaller than it actually was, designed in way that was more comfortable to carry around and less impeding while moving in combat, like abuckler.


    She was fair-skinned and slender even in her suit of polished armour. Her face was scowling slightly, but still retain a mature feminine beauty to it. Rounded features, dark-red lips and shoulder length hair that drew people¡¯s eyes to her. But it''s not hard for Deralst to wonder why she did not wear a freaking helmet like Vullen.


    "He''s corrupted, I wouldn''t advise associating with him too much, my lady."


    A white haired man snortedas he walked to stand beside the steel armoured woman, it made Deralst frowned at his blunt statement. That man was carrying a long mace with him and he seemed to be quite well equipped too. He was wearing a metal breastplate, some other light protection and a white robe under the armour. He had a full beard covering his face and a stout figure that made him seemed morelike a taller dwarf than a fat man. While mature, he does not look that old though.


    ¡°Yes, I am¡­.got a problem with that?¡±


    The white haired man ignored Deralst without even sparing a glance and continued speaking to the blonde womanat his side.


    "He''s a person who threw away his humanity, he may look human......but he was also no different from a monster, in human skin."


    ¡°G¡¯day y¡¯all!¡±


    The bearded man''s words was interrupted by Rendal as the ranger walked out of alcove to greet the other adventurers.


    ¡°Hey there, beauty! So whatcha talking about with the young lad?¡±


    ¡°Mind your speech! This is lady Leonate Brightness you''re speaking to here!¡±


    Shouted the third person among the newcomers, whom Deralst would not even bother to pay too much attention at the details by now. But he did notice that the man was wearing armour too.


    "I will talk how I want to! So how about ya rack off, ya wanker!"


    He sighed inwardly, this was also why he disliked meeting new people inside a dungeon, it''s stressful and troublesome at times. Why could he not just meet and talk things with people over a table of hot meal and nice drinks instead?


    ¡°That¡¯s the type of person I would expect from someone working with a demonspawn.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Rendal exclaimed as his eyes narrowed in doubt.


    Deralst closed his eyes. Should he stay silent about this again? And how long will that last?


    No


    ¡°I am whoever I choose to believe in, but what are you going to do about it?¡±


    Deralst spat out his words seriously, as he turned towards the third adventurer, to stare at him in the eye. The adventurer who appearedto be a man glared back at him, his eyes seemed like it would pop out.


    ¡°Let him be, it''s his choice to be faithless.¡±


    The white bearded fat man sighed as he said in a tone of disapproval. Now these were the sort of jerks he was used to.


    ¡°Well I actually believe in the light, I just don¡¯t like them very much.¡±


    Deralst simply retorted back, which made the white haired man gave him the stink eye but said nothing in return.


    ¡°Should we really let someone like him travel with us?¡±


    The third adventurer asked in irritation. Deralst simply filtered much of the words from that annoying person. Since he was sure that he would not be meeting that guy in the future, nor even wanted to.


    ¡°We will compromise for now, I just want to get this done and over with.¡±


    The blonde woman who was Leonate nonchalantly said to the others as she turned to walk towards the alcove, disregarding everyone else.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, there¡¯s no point staying here to argue with these people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with their own speciality."


    After the white robed man said something pretty profoundly sarcastic, he also turned to follow Leonate with the other adventurer who did it more reluctantly.


    ¡°Bloody pikers¡­.¡±


    Rendal spat out.


    Deralst looked towards the newly arrived adventurers and sighed, the path ahead was not going to be easy and full of potential problems to come.


    ¡°Why are ya looking so grim? Cheer up mate!¡±


    The rangergave Deralst a painful but reassuring slap in the back.


    ¡°Yeah! I don¡¯t know what happened but don¡¯t worry!¡± Shouted Pacon from behind Rendal.Deralst did not notice Pacon until the last moment though. Did it just returned with Rendal or it was here all along?


    In these parts of world where most people always either looked constipated and grumpy. It was rare for aguy with big personality to be around and it was sad that even these people had more personalities than him¡­..


    At least it was enough to make Deralst smile back.

 Hiatus

    Well, first I have to appologise if anyone was waiting for the chapter, that there''s still no chapters released yet.


    I was occupied with another new project lately along with a new game that draws in all my time. Time flies pretty quickly this way that I just could not properly complete the chapter. Especially, when the world building of this story was starting to become a bit tedious to finish in time, so does the editing.


    I realised that having an idea to write things down and having to actually properly finish it into a complete presentable story that were sensible and understandable to the readers, were two different things that require different attention. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    Sigh, I am stopping the chapter here for now, I am not sure when I will continue it, but I will be busy overseas for the next few months. Probably gotta take four months or even five. Meanwhile, I can still try to improve my writing in private.


    It''s a long and time consuming process to write the story, but I guess I have to set a pace and take my time to slowly build and write it for now.


    So again, appologise again for the delay.