Ty’s voice split the silence of the boss room.

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

“Oh bugger, here we go.” Allen groaned, but it was mostly because of the pain from his many wounds. Together they were almost definitely lethal. A few condensed messages flitted though his mind, but Allen put them aside for the moment with a quick thought.

Ty stormed over to where he was lying on the ground. The Defender’s expression was firm with anger, and he directed it all at the sprawled-out Assassin. He stood over Allen like a giant, bearing down on him with a stare of such intensity that any sane man would piss themselves.

“What is wrong with you?” Ty asked, voice like steel. The man was practically shaking, yet he didn’t make any sign that he would actually get physical.

Allen cocked his head to the side as blood dribbled out the corner of his mouth. “You mean, like, right now? Well… as you can see, there’s a big fucking hole in my tummy,” he began, nodding down at himself with a laugh. “Speaking of which, Amelia dear, I’m literally dying here!”

Allen heard footsteps but they were immediately drowned out as Ty snapped and roared down at him. “DON’T FUCK WITH ME! Answer the question, I asked what’s wrong with you!”

Allen gave his best manic grin. “You’ll have to be more specific,” he said, his tone changing to his very own over-practiced Heath Ledger impersonation. To his satisfaction, it seemed to have just the slightest noticeable effect on the Defender.

Amelia knelt down next to Allen a moment later, staying silent and not making eye contact. He couldn’t see where the other two were, but he assumed they were trying their best to stay out of the conflict.

Allen capitalized on Ty’s momentary shock and continued. “Fine fine, you’re wondering why I used candy-ass Kenneth as a distraction?” he asked rhetorically.

Ty’s face hardened. He leaned back and crossed his arms.

“There are three reasons,” Allen said, coughing. “One: he’s annoying, two: he’s useless, and three: I’m… seventy-five percent sure he’s a vulture. You know the type, right?”

Ty’s expression didn’t waver. He only seemed to by silently judging the Assassin even more.

Allen laughed. “Seriously? I know you said you haven’t been in many dungeons before, whatever the fuck that means, but everybody knows to watch out for vultures. They’ll pretend to be hurt or lost, they’ll join your group, then they’ll screw you over for loot or they’ll kill you for all the experience.”

Ty clenched his jaw. “You have no proof.”

“Proof?” Allen asked, “Was I just supposed to ask him? ‘Hey Kenneth, are you planning to abandon us in the middle of a boss fight?’ Yeah, that makes— OW, FUCK!” Allen’s whole body suddenly spasmed in pain as Amelia pulled her hands away. “Damnit woman!”

Amelia sighed and looked down her nose at the Assassin with a blank stare. “Pathetic. All I did was reattach your spinal cord,” she began. “Did you want to feel the pain of having your liver rebuilt?”

Allen didn’t bother to give her the satisfaction of an answer. He glared up at Ty and wiped away the sweat that had suddenly come to his face. “Kenneth should have been providing support, yet I got nothing when the monster skewered me into the ground,” he paused, gaging Ty’s reaction. “I didn’t really appreciate that,” he finished, smirking back at the Defender.

“He has a point,” Christopher said from a distance. Allen craned his neck, but he couldn’t find the professor. “Kenneth moved away from my position during the fight. Then he didn’t throw nearly as many spells as he should have been able to.”

Ty’s shoulders dropped, but he still wasn’t happy. A few more minutes pass as Amelia finished healing Allen. It took her nearly ten minutes to completely heal him due to the amount of damage. He couldn’t remember what his HP had been at, but Allen was fairly certain that he had come within fifty points of dying at least twice.

He had the chance to look over the messages that had come in, and he was more than happy with the outcome.

Your group has defeated 68x Shade Ghoul – Level 57 - 68

Your contribution: 58% Damage

For fighting 70 enemies in a team of 6, you receive a 11% XP bonus!

Awarded: 15795 XP

Your group has defeated 3x Shade Carrier – Level 56 - 61

Your contribution: 71% Damage

For fighting 70 enemies in a team of 6, you receive a 11% XP bonus!

Awarded: 589 XP

Your group has defeated 5x Gloom Caster – Level 68 - 74

Your contribution: 88% Damage

For fighting 70 enemies in a team of 6, you receive a 11% XP bonus!

Awarded: 3805 XP

Your group has defeated 7x Shade Walker – Level 67 - 72

Your contribution: 68% Damage

For fighting 70 enemies in a team of 6, you receive a 11% XP bonus!

Awarded: 3331 XP

Your group has defeated 6x Gloom Bulwark – Level 65 - 71

Your contribution: 84% Damage

For fighting 70 enemies in a team of 6, you receive a 11% XP bonus!

Awarded: 3163 XP

Your group has defeated Captor of Gloom – Level 100

Your contribution: 87% Damage

For fighting 46 enemies in a team of 5, you receive a 9% XP bonus!

For fighting an enemy above your means, you receive a 50% XP bonus!

For defeating a dungeon final boss, you receive a 200% XP bonus!

Awarded: 21476 XP

Congratulations, your group of 5 has cleared a Dungeon – Level 100

Awarded 200000 XP

Congratulations, you are now level 36 … 55

Requirements met: 15001 XP

Awarded: 100 Stat points – 20 Skill points – 2 Job points

“More numbers,” Allen thought with a chuckle.

He stood up and swapped his shredded clothes out for another fresh set in the blink of an eye. Somebody had helped Christopher down into the pit while he had been getting healed. That left everyone accounted for, along with Camila moping at the edge of the group.

“You can’t just kill someone over a suspicion,” Ty started, turning to look Allen in the eyes. It seemed as though his anger had died down, but he was still scowling to himself. “You don’t get to ignore the value of life, even in this world. It’s not right.”

Allen snorted while he walked over to the Captor of Gloom’s inert corpse. Pieces of Kenneth were strewn about here and there, mostly unrecognizable. “Human life is literally worthless in this world,” he began, “It’s the one resource that’s actually infinite.” Allen turned to face Ty with a flat expression. He actually, truly believed what he said next. “Unless a reaper is involved, when people die, they just respawn. Sure, they might feel helpless, and they might feel pain, but that only makes them stronger… In this case, it isn’t about right or wrong, Ty, it’s about experience.”

The Defender grunted scornfully. “That’s so messed up that I can’t even describe it.”

“Well, I agree with him,” Amelia said, much to Ty’s surprise. “That’s how this world works,” she added in response to the Defender’s wide-eyed stare. “If you can’t see that, then I don’t know what world you’ve been living in all this time.”

The Healer’s hard eyes made Ty back up a step. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting her to change attitude so drastically. Allen chuckled to himself as he finally found what he had been looking for in all the gore. A dead body’s inventory would be unlocked, allowing anyone to loot it. The trouble was finding the head so that it could be accessed.

“Speaking of experience, since Kenneth died, we all got one fifth of the reward for clearing the dungeon instead of one sixth,” Allen added. “It’s a win-win.” Ty only groaned and shook his head in response. “Does he really care that much? I can’t really tell… If not, then he’s got to be lying to himself.”

Kenneth’s head was mostly intact underneath a nearby Shade Ghoul. Without hesitation, Allen focused on the severed, barely recognizable head and the inventory popped up a moment later. He grinned as he started scrolling down the long list of Kenneth’s items. There were dozens of sets of armor and weapons, a lot of assorted gear, some food, and a considerable amount of money. He pulled as much of it as he could into his inventory, taking only the higher quality gear. Two particular items caught his attention and he smiled gleefully.

“Oh, what’s this?” Allen asked, drawing the others’ attention. He summoned the two glassy black, golf-ball sized spheres into his hands. “I guess I should take back what I said, Kenneth wasn’t completely useless after all.”

Christopher hummed in response. “Those look like dark gems, high quality it seems. You found them in Kenneth’s inventory I presume?” The professor grunted after getting a curt nod from Allen.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ty started. His tone was still accusatory, yet his stance seemed more defensive than before. “I still don’t understand why you think you can just kill someone over a suspicion.”

Allen took a deep breath. “Can we get out of this hole first?”

“I agree,” Christopher announced. He swiveled around in his chair to face the dejected Berserker. “…Camila, we’re leaving.”

The woman groaned and slowly got up from her spot near the edge of the pit where she had been curled up with a bottle. “Okay,” she mumbled.

Christopher hummed. “Come on, you’ll feel better when we’re out of this place.”

The Assassin didn’t wait for anybody to follow; he just walked off towards the center of the room. Nevertheless, everyone fell in line behind him. The pool of blood in the middle of the room had drained itself empty at some point. There was a black orb of solid darkness at the bottom of the pit, embedded in the stone. It was opaque and gave off the impression of being asleep somehow.

Allen didn’t care to know how dungeon cores worked. The ones in Natural dungeons weren’t interesting at all. What was interesting, eliciting a grin, was the golf-ball sized dark gem hovering just above a stalk of viscous shadow that sprouted from the top of the inert core.

“And here’s the final nail in the coffin,” Allen said as he jumped into the knee deep, empty pool. With a smirk, he plucked the third dark gem from its spot and turned to face Ty. “Kenneth was so nice that he even cleared the dungeon twice so he could share. He definitely isn’t a vulture who just kills whatever group he’s tagging along with when their weakened after a battle.”

Ty’s face scrunched up as he caught the dark gem when Allen tossed it at him. The core started humming and shining dimly as soon as the prize was taken. Tethers of dark miasma connected to everyone around it, enveloping them all in magic.

Allen watched with disinterest as space shifted around him, pulling the others out of view. There was no colorful wormhole effect or anything, the cavern simply stretched away as daylight forced itself inward. In an instant, the group was back outside the entrance to the Well of Gloom, in a clearing somewhere in the middle of the woods.

There was no one in sight and, judging by the sun, it must have been no later than early afternoon. A gentle breeze blew through the trees, scattering leaves into the clearing. There was another new campsite outside the dungeon entrance, but that didn’t concern them anymore.

Allen took a deep breath of fresh air, sighing with contentment. He spun around to face the rest of the group. “Alright, where to next?”