Chapter 11

As soon as the smoke cleared, it was clear that 8 members killed their target and one member, who had the lowest level of them all, was stunned. So luckily others covered for him and he get to keep his head intact.

Out of relief, Dalmik sighed as he backstabbed the tank goblin from behind. Critical hit took effect and magnified the damage done. Not just that, now the other members of party too jumped in and ate away his massive pool of health almost instantly.

“Okay, so I have the highest level among you all. Naturally, I have the most health among all of you. So I am claiming the shield and will play the role of tank.” Dalmik declared.

“Well then I will assume a role for healer. Even though healing is not my natural talent but I have a few healing spells and mana. Please look for any first aid kits from loot just to be safe.” The member who got stunned back then spoke.

“Alright now that leaves 8 of you to play the dungeon damage dealer’s role. Concentrate on the damaging but make sure not to cause more damage than me. Doing so will make the monster agro you” Dalmik guided.

As soon as Dalmik lifted the shield, he got a system notification.

System Alert: Congratulations. You have earned a new title “Dungeon Tank” 1000 points

Never even wondering what those points even meant. This was just another title he had received and it barely gave him any amusement.

Dalmik proceeded with the plan.

“As explained earlier, stand in formation. I want healer to be protected at all cost. Healer will only concentrate on me and rest of you will have two jobs. Priority one is to protect healer. Priority two is to damage boss or mob.” Dalmik told the rest.

Everyone agreed and the group proceeded towards next room.

As soon as they stepped into one, they could see their wounds getting healed automatically. Their mana, health and stamina recovered at least 10 times faster.

There was a hot spring and mild fog.

“This looks like it’s a safe area” one of the members said cheerfully.

Dalmik felt a relief and started taking his clothes off. It was time to take some bath.

Away from the rest, Dalmik proceeded to swim in the spring and was relaxing. He could already feel the warm water touching his body, healing even old wounds he got way back. Satisfied, he took a deep breath and swam downwards.

There was a strange green light coming from beneath and he just wanted to check that out.

As he reached the bottom, he saw there was a cave. The green light was getting intense as he approached the cave. Curiosity took over him and it was already 5 minutes since Dalmik had breathed air. Noticing he needed oxygen, Dalmik calculated he won’t make it up the surface in time.

So he proceeded towards cave hoping he would find surface sooner.

As good as his dexterity and agility was, he swam like a fish and finally found his way out of water. It wasn’t dark as the water still emitted green light. But as he looked around, he saw there were plenty of gems embedded on the walls.

As a thief, he should have jumped with joy, but this thief was just a new one. Level 1 thief was just not instinctively cutout for such joy. In fact he was broke and had recently joined thieves guild.

Due to his level being so high, he was made a group leader for raids.

As he was walking and observing more, he found an unconscious girl surrounded by a strange shield. IT took glow like emerald. As he sat, to observe more Dalmik’s heart pumped. His throat gulped as his heart felt crushed.

This was a long time since he had found a woman this beautiful.

“Uh what do I do? I don’t even have appraisal skill to find out what’s wrong with her.” He mumbled.

“Ah idea!” he added.

“Eric, do you think you can heal her or at least check the ailments?” Dalmik asked the sole healer of his group.

“Umm I don’t have appraisal skill but I can see if we can heal her.” Eric said helplessly.

Sighing, Dalmik went ahead to check for surrounding. Wondering what could have caused such condition to her; there was only one thing in his mind. He wanted to cure her.

He opened his system page and checked out the dungeon information. If this girl was a part of dungeon quest, his heart would break. For dungeon creatures are made of dungeon and don’t exist beyond that.

That’s how dungeons play with people’s mind.

He checked thoroughly but didn’t find anything related to the girl. Dalmik at this point didn’t know whether to be happy or not as it was a good thing that she was not an instanced being. Bad thing was that they were still back to square one.

No one knew what had happened to her.

“Can’t we just leave?” one of the member said scratching his head.

“Get the hell outta here mate. You a coward or what? Even as thieves we don’t abandon pretty women” the other said teasingly towards Dalmik.

Dalmik passed a small smile as he sat next to the unconscious girl. He placed his hand on her forehead and silently whispered. “Wake up girl, it’s gonna be alright”

Well obviously, nothing happened.

Sighing, he decided to check for items she possessed to understand the reason behind this glowing aura or shield or whatever it was.

He inspected her ring. Since he didn’t have appraisal skill, he decided to take off her ring and wear it and then identify what the ring was. As soon as he took her ring off, he got knocked off and in midair; he was attacked repeatedly by lightning spear. In a mere five hits, his health came down to half.

The girl woke up, turned out the ring was responsible for her suspended state.

“You petty thief, die” she yelled as she proceeded to attack him.

Cold sweat dripped down his back as he didn’t know how he was supposed to explain to her that his intentions weren’t to steal.

He gave up thinking a lot and finally said it.

“Relax, I found you were unconscious and was only investigating on what happened to you.” Dalmik said as he brought his hands up denoting that he wanted to surrender.

“Liar, even your class is of thief and despite clarifying you make a stance of fighting?” She said angrily.

“Wait wha….” Before he could finish his sentence, a massive lightning fell where he stood. Dodging as instinct kicked in, he survived but seeing the damage on the ground, cold shiver passed and he instantly wished if the girl would go back to her sleep.

“Never gonna butt my nose in other people business. Especially, when I am in a dungeon.” He screamed as he ran around dodging the repeated attacks.

Where were others? All were running away from the battle as far as they could.

A mage was a dangerous entity. It didn’t matter what world you’re in. It didn’t matter what level the mage is. If the conditions were favorable for a mage, she/he will win.

A furious mage was far dangerous as she was around high level mage too. Based on spells, she could easily cast five low tier spells repeatedly without waiting to recharge her mana. This only meant that she had a large mana pool.

Large mana pool meant higher level.

Dalmik frowned at the situation he was in, feeling defeated in his quest to clear the misunderstanding. Dalmik resolved that he must force his way out of the mess. It was obvious this mage won’t sit still until she kills everyone here.

For a mage, the most sworn enemy is another mage. But there is another class that could give a mage run for his money.

A close range class that could reduce the distance between him and mage was a disaster. The girl knew this too well. Hence, waiting to meditate and recover mana was not an option.

She must maintain utmost concentration and keep the track of everyone in the area. Everyone was a threat and every one was potentially capable of coming close to her without alerting.

She had enough enchanted gears that would ensure mana recovery is high and she even drank mana recovery potions that would recover mana over time. Spells she was using wasn’t very costly and were flashy enough to scare them at least.

If you wake up to thieves lurking around, what sort of reaction would one give?

Dalmik used smoke and disappeared he threw smokes everywhere and limited her sight.

Frustrated, the girl started using AOE spells. Even though they were costly, surviving had higher priority.

“Ouch!” She said as she was hit by a pebble that came flying her way from the dense smoke.

But before she could unleash higher tier spell, she saw a notification and froze.

System Alert: you are cursed and therefore your mana, health and stamina are reduced to half.

System Alert: Mana have depleted completely.

Recalling what had caused her to rest in such a state, her face fell. But before she could say anything, she was hit from back and she fell unconscious again.

Dalmik wanted to talk peacefully but she didn’t give a chance. Now when she wanted to talk, there was no way a former assassin would take risk. Dalmik still felt guilty as he tied her up.

“Such a shame, wish we could have a thing with each other.” Dalmik said

“Shutup, if you hadn’t been greedily stealing her ring, she wouldn’t attack us in first place” a member said.

“Coward, you don’t get to say a thing. All of you are cowards. And by the way, regardless of my actions, she would have attacked us.” Dalmik said.

“How and why?” someone asked.

“She’s got appraisal skills” Dalmik said quietly.

“Damn, such a rare skill. She must be a high level mage. Maybe she is a noble?” thieves deduced

“I don’t know but chances are that she is one.” Dalmik concluded.

After few hours, she woke up only to find her all tied up. At first she frown her brows but then calmed herself down.

“Untie me thief” She yelled at Dalmik

“Well fine, but promise not to attack me” Dalmik said.

“You got yourself a deal” She said

“My name is Dalmik, here I have untied you” he said.

“You may call me Erisa” She said while stealing her eyes.

“We are stuck in this dungeon and while exploring, we found you unconscious and wrapped in some field” Dalmik explained everything to her.

“Oh, interesting. Well I was thrown in the dungeon as a punishment. In my society throwing a mage in dungeon is like death punishment. So I can’t go back outside as I will be thrown back in. Clearing is my only ticket to portal. I however, managed to survive long enough as you can see.” She said.

“I got cursed by a witch boss so I rushed my way back to safe area to recover myself. But it seems I have no way to lift the curse till I am in this dungeon.” She added.

“I see so is witch is final boss of the dungeon?” Dalmik asked with a frown

“Well no of course not. There was a troll and then second boss was a witch. That’s as far as I could go soloing” She said.

She had given Dalmik valuable information and he was pleased. But still a boss that was mage user was really bad news. Basically a boss mage was a mage with huge health pool, mana pool and stamina pool. This was a disaster for his team mates who were under leveled.

He needed this girl to join the party so they could clear the dungeon.

“So this dungeon does provide portal?” He asked.

“Well yeah this one does as it’s literally written in dungeon information if you can appraise it well” she said.

“We don’t have appraisal skill.”

“Well you don’t say” she said with cheer coming back to her expressions.

Confused Dalmik could only scratch his head.

“I propose…” before Dalmik could say she cut in.

“Huh! Already? I’m blushing hah”

“Not that, be serious. We should team up and clear the dungeon” Dalmik said

“Hmm, okay but no backstabbing me after we clear the dungeon. We go our separate ways and mind our own business. Deal?” she asked.

“I promise I won’t backstab you but won’t agree to going separate ways. That, we can decide then.” Dalmik said.

Looking at his eyes without blinking, Erisa finally broke silence.

“Okay”

As Erisa teamed up with others, now the team had two mage users to protect. One healer mage, who was a commoner and could only barely use magic, other was a noble high tier mage who could use destruction magic.

“Okay, I am gonna open the door to next room now” Dalmik said as he opened the door and his eyes spread wide with fear and awe as the only expression on his face.

“That’s not a troll guys. It’s a fucking minotaur”

***