Chapter 10 – Plot

“You alright there?” I smile as I offer Chase a hand, helping him sit up as blood runs down the right side of his face from a cut above his eyebrow.

“Yeah, when the fucker hit the shield it recoiled back against my head.” He grunts and shakes his head, then thanks me when I offer him a bandage to cover up the cut. Of course I didn’t tell them that my bandages are a Healing Skill.

“Where does the tunnel on the left lead?” I ask Jessy as Chase starts wrapping the bandage around his forehead, covering his bleeding injury with it before standing up with a slight groan.

“It’s like a spiral staircase. It just keeps on going and I came back before I reached the bottom, though I did hear the screeching of bats coming from below before I turned back.” She explains as she cleans up her daggers before sheathing them. She truly did come at the right time to help us and managed to land a perfect blow on the Cave Dweller that helped us kill it fast.

“The question now is; Do we go left, or do we check the tunnel from where the Cave Dweller came from?” Beth asks while rolling her shoulders, her eyes fixed into a glare towards the large corpse of the Cave Dweller.

“I suggest we explore the middle path. There is something that I’d like to check.” I suggest as I fix my cloak and riffle, the barrel feeling quite hot under my touch. I should really go about finding way to avoid overheating it too much.

“We’ll do that, but after a quick break…” Chase grunts as he drops down on his butt, then on his back. “I feel like I got hit by a charging horse…” I snort softly at that, then decide to sit down too. I can use this chance to let my rifle cool down and recover as much Mana as I can.

“You guys think that whoever went down that tunnel is still alive?” I glance at Jessy as she kneels down near Chase, a smile on her face as she pulls out some tissues to help clean up the wound and the blood from his face.

“I doubt it.” I answer her question as pull the grenade out of my pocket since it’s getting uncomfortable. “The Cave Dweller is an enemy that needs a whole team to take down, especially one with such a high Level. Whoever is down that tunnel is either very stealthy… or they aren’t alone.” I thought that it’d be a single person, but I’m quickly starting to doubt it. The bats alone can easily swarm and kill a whole team, let alone a single person.

The Cave Dwellers are very slow, so outrunning them isn’t hard, but what if they end up in a dead end? Or worse, in a bigger area full of bats? They can’t just keep running. It’s impossible, especially since the Cave Dweller can roar loud enough to stir the bats so that the Mercenary can’t sneak past them.

“How annoying…” Beth grunts as she stretches her back, kicks the corpse of the Cave Dweller, then sits on and crosses her long legs together.

I find my eyes drawn to the exposed skin for just a few seconds before I quickly pull my eyes away while doing my best to ignore the heat building up in my belly.

Jacob and Meredith were quite loud last night...

I shake away those thoughts and take a deep breath to relax myself, then patiently wait as we rest for a few minutes.

Then I watch as Markus stands up, grabs Chase shield, then pummels it from the inside, nearly fully fixing the dent on it.

Chase instantly stops him from doing more, afraid that he’d break the shield, then hugged it to his chest with big fearful eyes. That thing either costs a lot or it’s an heirloom, else I’d find it strange that he’d care so much for it.

“I think that’s enough rest now.” Chase sighs before he sends one last glare towards the grinning Markus while he puts his shield on. “Jessy, stick by us this time. I’d rather you don’t run into anything that you can’t escape from.” I sit up as our Thief puffs up her cheeks before nodding.

I keep hold of my grenade as we slowly walk into the tunnel in groups of two, with Chase and Markus taking the front while me and Beth stay behind them, and Jessy stays behind us.

We take the turn from where the Cave Dweller came from and were greeted with another long trail of Glow Stones.

This time the tunnel goes slightly upward, but I can’t see too far ahead since there’s another turn, one that goes right this time, but it’s not as sharp as the one we are currently in.

We follow the trail silently, keeping our ears up for any kind of noise or screech, but it’s all deadly quiet aside from our breathing and footsteps.

“Hey, over there.” Markus suddenly stops and points up ahead with one of his maces, and I tilt my head so to stare at what attracted his attention. “Is that… a hole in the wall?” He hums as I narrow my eyes, but luckily we quickly move forward and notice that it was indeed a hole in the wall. And in the floor too.

It’s semi circular in shape and is at least more than four meters large, and it goes down for at least six or seven meters before stopping into another tunnel down below.

“There’s light coming from below.” I point out towards the faint lighting coming from the non visible areas of the tunnel. “Think it’s artificial? Or is it a Glow Stone?” I ask as I turn to Chase, who frowns deeply as he turns his eyes to the trail of Glow Stones we were just following.

“I get it now!” Jessy suddenly speaks up, a hand clapping against her forehead as we all turn towards her with confused eyes. “They did this on purpose! It’s to deceive and confuse us!” I blink, then find my eyes widening more and more.

“They said they left heavy resistance to ward off anyone too scared and weak from diving into these tunnels.” I mumble aloud, a frown slowly forming on my face. “And if anyone did decide to dive in here, they’d have to decide to either follow them, or take the path that goes down, which clearly doesn’t bode well. So they follow them, see this hole, and decide to ignore it as the drop is too high and since it goes down, so they keep on going forward for who knows how long. It’s very likely that the trail of Glow Stones doesn’t go far either.” It’s not a great plan, it’s very simple and anyone with a bit of brain can guess it, but even if they do guess it, what can they do about it?

We don’t know how strong the other team or person is, and we don’t know if they are even still alive. Too many unknowns and dangers to calculate and think about.

“This kind of plan… it sounds like they were in a hurry.” Chase hums as he stares down the tunnel with a frown on his face. “Usually a team comes back on the surface when they are out of Glow Stones, need a change of weapons, or have found nothing, but these guys clearly found something and came back to report that they met heavy resistance, took a rest, then went back in when no one was watching.” He clicks his tongue, then picks up one of the Glow Stones on the floor. “I bet that these Glow Stones do lead somewhere, but it’s just a large open area with monsters and nothing else.” My eyes widened a bit at that as Chase tossed the Glow Stone in his hand down the hole, then watched as it bounced off the floor down below with a loud clicking sound.

I didn’t think of that, and it sounds much better too. The trail of Glow Stones does lead somewhere, but it’ll just be a waste of time in case we are attacked by monsters, and maybe we’ll even be driven out of the caves by them.

“So when they found nothing, they jumped down, found something, and came back up to rest through the tunnel on the left.” I finish for Chase, receiving a nod from him as he sighs and runs a hand through his messy blonde locks.

We all fall quiet, but the silence doesn’t last long as a distant roar rings out from below us, echoing through the tunnels and out of the large hole in front of us.

“That… sounds like a juiced up Cave Dweller.” Markus grunts softly, face set into a firm glare. The roar sounded so much deeper and stronger than the ones from the Cave Dweller we just recently fought.

“Could it be the Dungeon Boss?” Chase whispers under his breath, hands clenching it fists as another roar rang out, and I narrow my eyes as I listen to it. It sounds… different. Almost like the Cave Dweller releasing that roar is in pain…

“I suggest we go check it out, but don’t engage.” I speak up as I stare down the hole. It is always better to know what we might end up facing, and we can come back and alert their War Company before coming back with a bigger force. “If there is indeed a Dungeon Core down there, then we can come back, report it, then bring back reinforcements.” Chase narrows his eyes in thought before sighing and nodding his head, though he quickly turns to look at his teammates and relaxes his shoulders when they all nod.

“All right, I’ll go first.” He hums, stands up and lifts his shield, then takes a step forward and jumps down as me and Markus watch him carefully.

Chase hits the ground down below with a grunt and loud slam, the bottom of his shield hitting the floor and releasing a metallic ring through the tunnels as he quickly looks back and forth.

“I’ll go next. Jessy, you’re with me.” I nod as Markus stands up and Jessy climbs on his back in a piggy-back ride before they both fall down, hitting the ground even harder than Chase did, but Markus doesn’t even look fazed.

I jump down next and grunt softly as I hit the ground, my knees aching from the fall as I lift up my rifle and move to the side as Beth swiftly joins us. There are two paths now, one that led to the monster we just heard and another that very likely leads to a cave attached to the spiral-like tunnel.

“Okay, guard’s up everyone. Jenny, go scout ahead.” Our Thief doesn’t waste time in rushing forward as fast as she can, and I glance back a few times as I notice the Glow Stones on the ground leading both ways. Someone clearly explored this area, and they might be very near right now.

The tunnel is a lot bigger than the one we were in before, big enough that we can walk side by side without problem.

“Bat corpses.” I nod ahead as we take a slight turn to the right, where at least two dozen carcasses of bisected or burned bats, some of them being quite a lot bigger than the ones we previously fought.

“That one is burnt…” Beth points out with a frown, and Chase instantly stops to inspect it, a large ugly frown soon covering his face. “Our War Company only has two mages. One is with the Boss, and the other is-”

“With the Vice-Captain.” Chase spits out, clearly not liking this ‘Vice-Captain’ man. “Yeah, he’s the type of guy that would covet a treasure for himself. Him and his rotten team.” Yeah, doesn’t sound like a good guy at all. Should we even go and try to save him then?

“Guys!” I perk up as Jess comes running back, eyes wide and face slightly pale. “I found it! The Dungeon Core!” She stops in front of us, bending over with her hands on her knees as she takes deep breaths to calm down, having clearly ran back here as fast as she could.

But still, she found the Dungeon Core, that sounds like fantastic news.

“Really?! Let’s go the-"

“It’s not just one! There’s three!” Jessy shouts, making my eyes go wide open at the new information. “It’s a Clash Zone!”

What the hell is a Clash Zone?