I look at Helius and respond to his question, “Well, that’s the only thing that resembles an entrance,” I pause a second before continuing, “The only other thing that would make sense, is that Khalmog’s acquaintance has lied to him.”

Looking at Khalmog together with the other party members, we wait for his response.

Let’s see if he thinks this might be a possibility.

“Heh,” Khalmog shrugged, while he continued walking towards the fissure.

Warrific immediately followed Khalmog, while Enza just silently shook his head and also started to follow him.

I look back at Helius and say, “Well, I guess he trusts his companion…”

I quickly increase my own pace to catch up to the others, behind me, I can hear Helius doing the same.

I was able to see the fissure in the ground because we were standing on a slight hill, while the fissure expanded until far in the distance. The part I could see was pretty narrow though, so it didn’t look like an entrance at all, but if what I think is right, then the part closer to us should get a lot broader.

While we are continuing through the forest, Khalmog is quietly speaking with Enza, while Warrific interjects every now and then. Helius and I walked a little bit behind them in silence. We were both admiring the view of the nature around us. The trees were so big that if you looked up, you wouldn’t be able to see the top of the trees.

I heard that there are some forests in real life that have such big trees too, but I hadn’t seen those until now.

Five minutes later we reached a dense part of the forest; there were a lot of bushes, preventing us from seeing any further. Behind the densely packed plants, we could vaguely hear some commotion.

Hmm, sounds like people are yelling to each other.

“Yo, what are you guys waiting for? Let’s go.”

Enza snapped me out of my thoughts, and it seems the others had paused for a second too. We probably blanked out for a split second, debating internally whether to continue through the bushes and confront the commotion.

Enza walked towards the bushes while drawing his sword. He slashed at the top side of the bushes –they reached till above our heads –a few times, creating an opening. He made a movement with his head, signing us to follow him, and then he proceeded to jump over the obstacle.

Khalmog was the first to follow him over, after him Warrific jumped over. I saw Helius looking at me with a questioning gaze, probably inquiring whether I wanted to go first.

I smiled at him and opened my hand, pointing at the bushes, “After you!”

Helius nodded and slightly increased his pace to set up his jump. I could hear him mumble something resembling ‘thanks’ while he left towards the bushes.

He jumped over, but I could hear him stumble when he landed on the other side. I catch myself grinning subconsciously. Maybe I should’ve gone first.

I slowly jog towards the opening, and just like the others, jump over.

The scene that greeted me after I left the densely packed area was something I didn’t expect.

There were four smug looking people standing before a big opening in the ground. The opening was big enough for people to pass through.

That fissure is probably the entrance to the dungeon.

In front of the guys blocking the entrance there was a group of six. They consisted out of two females and four males. They’re probably a party; they looked like a well-balanced team. Three of the guys from the party were furiously shouting at the four guys in front of the fissure.

Looks like they have some kind of a problem.

Our party was around fifty meters away from them, just close enough to hear some vague yells now and then, but too far to be able to discern actual words from their conversation.

Or well, more like a fierce discussion.

“So, should we just try to pass them?” Helius said to no one in particular.

Enza quickly replied to him, “Well, I doubt we’ll be able to pass them without their attention,” he pointed his free hand at the fissure before continuing, “It looks like the fissure isn’t big enough for more people to pass. They are blocking the only entrance.”

Warrific nodded in response while speaking up, “Yeah, those four there must be blocking the way for that party.”

That’s probably why they’re arguing so loudly.

We had stopped walking during this conversation, but we continued walking towards the fissure. I took this moment to convey my thoughts, it looked like everyone was thinking about what to do, thus their silence.

“Those four in front of the entrance must have some reason to block people from entering the entrance. Or maybe not, let’s hope they’re just blocking that party. They might let us through as an exception,” I say, smiling at the last part of my thoughts.

Looking at their strong body language, it looks like they’ll let no one pass through there.

Although, nothing is just black or white, it might be a good idea to hear them out first. They might have good reasons for blocking the entrance; maybe they’re in trouble or something.

“Hmhm,” Khalmog hummed in confirmation, “Let’s hope so.”

I could hear Helius sighing at my left, while Enza chuckled and spoke up, “Looks like you doubt that outcome as much as I do.”

“It won’t hurt to hear them out at least, we have nothing to lose anyway,” Warrific said while grinning.

“I agree with him, they might have a good reason,” I say, supporting Warrific’s remark.

We walk on, while everyone has their own thoughts about the situation. It seems like we reached a consensus, to just walk to them in silence, without directly saying anything to each other.

“How many times do you want me to repeat it to you imbeciles?” One of the four guys blocking the entrance says, and then he proceeds with a raised volume, seemingly on the verge of exploding, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

Did he seriously just quote Lord of the Rings in his anger…?

“B-But, why can’t you just make an exception for us?” One of the girls in the party said, blinking her pretty eyes at the guy who just yelled.

The guy who almost exploded and had his eyes pop out of his head was about to start yelling at her, but he was stopped by the guy standing next to him.

He looked slightly above average with his sharp features; looks like he has some Asian origins. He was wearing some elegant expensive beginners clothing.

Wait a second, this situation is pretty strange.

Those four guys standing in front of the entrance are looking like lower leveled players. They’re probably not any higher leveled than our own party, which is relatively really low if you want to challenge a dungeon like this. We can only do it because of our special classes and good synergy.

The guy who stopped his companion from yelling at the girl directed his attention to her, “Well, if you give me your number you can leave their party and come challenge the dungeon with us,” he smirked while saying that, seemingly already convinced that she would agree.

“Hmph,” the girl just snorted while stamping her food, quickly stepping behind one of the bigger looking guys from her party.

Damn, that guy is pretty arrogant; those four look like scum to me.

Seeing that he was rejected, the guy’s face contorted in anger, “Scram, all of you can leave now. You don’t want me to call a few high leveled users from our guild right? They don’t care to go unruly, we have ways around that.”

Normally, people who are angry will start to raise their volume and yell. That’s something that happens naturally, just like animals that make themselves look bigger by raising their arms.

But this guy, he unexpectedly started to talk with a really low volume. Somehow this comes across more threatening than yelling.

“Let’s just leave, we can’t afford to offend their guild,” said the guy, who the offended girl stepped behind.

Their other party members agreed with the guy, who looked to be their leader. I could hear them mumble something about ‘how it sucked that it took them so long to their way to the dungeon, only to be sent away’, when they walked away.

Just when they left, we reached the entrance ourselves. The four guys in front of the entrance saw us coming, but they didn’t show any intention of stepping aside.

I guess that this won’t be pretty. We don’t really have a party that just submits to others, too many people with egos too big.

Let’s see, for now I’ll think I’ll just go with the flow.

Warrific was the first to speak up among us, seemingly trying to assess the situation, “Yo guys, is it possible for you guys to step aside a little? We would like to pass through,” he smiled, saying that without talking too fast.

One of the four guys who hadn’t spoken up yet was the first to respond to Warrific, the two guys from the previous exchange with the party were speaking quietly with each other.

“Nah, you guys can just leave, don’t force our hands now, just obediently leave.”

Damn, guess they won’t allow us to pass through after all. I wonder what their problem is.

I heard the guys who just left say something about their guild… maybe that’s of importance.

The only one from their small group of four who had not spoken –also the only one with a bow– turned to the one who told us to leave, “Pffft,” he scoffed, “Look at them, they’re intent on entering, so many scrubs here today.”

They even started to insult us now. They probably went too far with that, I wonder how the others will take it.

It doesn’t really bother me to be honest, especially because they’re so arrogant. They’ll have to face their own troubles later. The higher one walks without the strength to back it up, the more painful the fall. They’ll probably be forced to swallow their own teeth by then.

“There’s only four of you, do you really think you can stop us five ‘scrubs’ from entering?” Khalmog was grimacing while holding himself back.

The two, the angry guy and the narcissist, who were quietly talking stopped their conversation. The angry guy, who finally calmed down, started to get red again after hearing what Khalmog said.

I guess I’ll just call them angry guy and narcissist for now.

“Hahahaha,” he boomed, “You want to fight us? Sure go ahead, be my guest, bwahaha,” He slightly paused, and regained his breath after that outburst, “Just know, that when you’ll kill us all, you’ll die without doubt too, furthermore, you’ll be slaughtered every time one of our allies sees you!”

“Whoa, just calm down all of you,” Enza intervened, trying to mediate, “Can’t you guys just tell us why we can’t pass? It’s pretty tough to just walk away after coming all this way.”

The narcissist spoke up, “Shut up pretty boy, just take a step back and turn around.”

Enza had started to smile, but the look in his eyes was clearly showing an opposite intent.

I think this might really turn out to be a fight. At least it’s virtual reality, we can just react on our whims, without having to face real consequences. It might turn out to be pretty exciting!

Khalmog and Enza both smiled, while their hands were slowly moving towards the hilts of their swords.

“Yo, just tell them, I don’t want to die for no reason, even if they’ll die too,” one of them said.

“Alright, alright, you wimp,” the narcissist mumbled, then he raised his chin and smirked at us, “We belong to the mighty guild ‘Total Domination’, this dungeon is theirs,” he said, believing that that explanation was enough.

“Guild my ass, you can’t just claim a dungeon as property! Fuck off and let us through already!” Khalmog couldn’t put up with the smug faces of them any longer and raised his volume.

“What? You wanna have a go you shit? Our guild is the number one guild around here you know, we can easily find and slaughter you every time we see you,” the angry guy arrogantly smiled while exchanging words with Khalmog.

Ah, so they’re part of a guild. Must be a pretty harsh guild, they keep lower leveled users watch the entrance of dungeons, instead of letting them level.

Maybe they’re even provoking people to attack them, giving the guild a reason to hunt them down. Because if you think about it, this dungeon is a dungeon meant for level 15 or higher, but the ones guarding the entrance are around level 5.

That means everyone they’ll sent away will be a higher leveled user than them. They must love seeing the expression on the faces of people being sent away by users lower leveled.

Even I want to beat these smug people up, and I don’t get that soon.

“Are these so called people from your guild already inside?” Helius asked.

“Nah, they’ll be arriving tomorrow evening,” one of them said.

“““““…”””””

All of us were quiet for a second.

“Are you guys fucking retarded? You want to keep the dungeon empty until your guild members arrive? How arrogant can you be? You guys are treated like shit too; your guild wants you to keep watch here for a whole day? Damn you guys are stupid,” Enza lost is completely, starting to rant to them all.

Whoa, I’ve never seen him having a fit of anger like that.

I’ll just quietly wait for now, I’ll just follow them up if something happens.

You can’t argue with people like these, it’s best if I don’t say anything for now.

“Hmph,” one of the more quiet ones snorted, “We just have to do these tedious tasks for now, later we’ll get the full support of our guild. Also, this place is property of our guild. That means that no one can enter it, unless he’s part of our guild of course.”

I could almost see a vein throbbing on Khalmog’s head, looks like he’s about to attack them. I don’t think they would snap so easily normally, but walking to here took us quite a while. Also, being met with smug faces like theirs is something that’s not easy to swallow. Especially when everyone fully knows that the guild intentionally sent lower leveled users to send people away.

Enza moved closer to the angry guy, while he spat upon the ground next to him. The angry guy –the tallest among his party, was so pissed that he immediately punched towards Enza. Enza blocked the blow by raising one arm and supporting it with the other. He quickly took a few steps back, smirking the moment the enemy lashed out at him.

“Hahaha,” Enza laughed while narrowing the distance between him and the narcissist this time, “Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder,” he suddenly sung while walking towards them.

What? Why is he suddenly singing that?

What is he doing?

“What the fuck are you going on about?” the angry guy said, “You better stay back, unless you want to fight us!”

“You better run, you better take cover~

Enza continued singing until he entered their fighting range.

“Can’t you hear, can’t yo–” He suddenly interrupted himself midway his song and smoothly drew his sword. Enza used the time gap created by the confusion to strike at the throat of the guy closest to him, the narcissist.

The standstill situation suddenly exploded into motion. Everyone was surprised for a split second, but then everyone suddenly burst into motion.

“Shit! Enza you could’ve at least warned us!” I yell at Enza, while running towards the guy who was located the most far away from us.

I passed Enza to get close to my target; he had a bow on his shoulder so he should have the lowest HP. I’ll probably be able to defeat him quickly if I manage to get close.

While passing Enza I could see that the narcissist died to Enza’s second strike, the surprise attack must’ve been a critical hit; taking away a large portion of his health.

The archer’s eyes almost popped out of his head because one of his allies died in the first few seconds. They must’ve been extra arrogant towards us because they could see we were almost on the same level as them, instead of the regular higher leveled users who frequent this dungeon. They shouldn’t have underestimated us.

“Combat is all about deception!” Enza laughed, felling his target and moving on to the next.

I used the momentum of my sprint to aim a fist towards his head, trying to badger him before he could draw his bow and attack.

My fist reached his face, but his body lighted up a little and he was suddenly thrown back, escaping my reach.

Damn, how can he dodge like that?!

That moment I suddenly lighted up and received Warrific’s precious buff.

Empowerment was successfully casted!

All allies have temporarily gained:

+12 STR

+12 AGI

+7 Def

The archer narrowed his eyes, probably raising his impression of me because of how fast my fist reached him. He managed to draw his bow in the air and notched the first arrow. He must be suspicious because of the buff now too.

Well, you might have skills I don’t know about, but the same counts for me!

I increased my speed, gaining on the archer who is about to kite me. He smiled; he probably thinks that now that I’m out of his range, he’ll be able to easily kite me. He shoots his first arrow, which is almost like a blur when it explodes into motion. I manage to quickly raise my hand and harden it the moment the arrow is about to hit me, smoothly reducing the damage.

I immediately turn my hand back to normal, because of the weight my sprint would be slowed immensely. I can afford to slow down against close combat specialists, but it would be suicide against an archer.

The archer frowned, he must’ve been surprised by my unorthodox skill.

Good, be surprised, and then let me reach you already!

The archer recovered immediately and notched another arrow, he was walking backwards, towards the fissure –which was possible without falling, because the descent was very even with a low angle.

But because he was paying attention to shooting and notching arrows, my advance was way faster than his retreat. When I reached him, I circled to his right, leaving him no way to use his backwards jumping skill again. At this moment his name turned red, the algorithm for ‘unruly’ user detection must’ve kicked in. I forgot all about that, but now that I think about it, that must’ve been why Enza let that guy punch him first.

The archer showed a look of arrogance mixed with surprise, his body lighted up again and he was blown backwards a second time. But he must’ve forgot that he had descended downwards the fissure in, because I circled to his right, his natural reaction was to jump in the opposite direction –the left. This made him crash directly with the wall; I guess it’s really true that mankind is its own worst enemy.

The moment he blanked out because of the collision, I used the opportunity to use my not yet used skill: Clone!

I turned invisible for a very short moment, leaving a copy of myself in my place, while I moved towards his right in rapid succession.

He came to his senses after his crash, and managed to shoot the arrow he, commendably, kept notched during his encounter with the wall. The arrow penetrated my copy, tumbling it towards the ground.

Just when the archer was about to rejoice because of the easy kill, my invisibility was cancelled, letting me face a surprised archer.

The hunter has become the hunted in a split second.

I land a quick blow with my right hand on his jaw, turning my body fully behind my blow, hoping to increase the impact.

Critical Hit!

The archer tried to stumble back, but his retreat was blocked by the wall. Again.

That wall must be his worst enemy by now.

I turn my hips after that hook and use a direct straight punch, planting my left fist in his stomach. He was trying to notch another arrow after his jaw was hit, but after taking that blow to his stomach he dropped his bow completely.

Sorry man, pain conversion is a bitch. Normally when people are hit they are able to move backwards, denying a little bit of the impact. But he was located against a wall, so all the force was directly absorbed by him.

People have died from blows directly against the heart when they were up against a wall, even when the blow wasn’t that hard. So you should be able to imagine why he dropped his bow from the pain.

He buckled over my left arm, leaving his back exposed.

I’m sorry, I truly am, but I can’t let this opportunity pass.

I turn to his right, and slam my knee into his stomach again. When he was curled over my knee, my elbow, which was already raised up high, slammed directly into his spinal cord.

Critical Hit!

That was too much for him, and he disappeared without a trace, leaving only a pair of worn out shoes in his place.

Damn, these drops don’t make any sense; I don’t think I’ve had any luck since I started this game with drops at all!

I start walking up again, to exit the start of the fissure. The sounds of clashing up above had already stopped too, so we should’ve already emerged victorious probably.

“Did you manage to finish him off, Glinc?” Helius said while smiling at me.

“Yeah, it was very close though, he almost got me,” I reply to him.

“You sure you didn’t forget your dignity down there in that fissure, Glinc?”

“You shouldn’t say that to me, Enza! You should say that to Helius, what the hell dude?!”

“Haha,” he laughed, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Good job anyways.”

I assess the situation, and I could see that Helius still had his dagger in his hands, standing next to Warrific. They were the furthest away from the fissure, probably trying to debuff and buff everyone from a distance. Khalmog stood next to Enza, standing while leaning upon his two handed great sword. Enza just casually rested his sword upon his shoulder. They must’ve managed to clean the other three up easily.

“Ehm,” I hum before continuing, “Should we leave here? That guild of them sounded pretty big, they might come for us.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t act without any reason, I never do that, y’know,” Enza smirked.

Suuuuuure you don’t…

“What’s with those looks?! I know that guild of theirs; I came across it when I was researching about the game before we started. They don’t care about lower leveled guild members of theirs at all; they just like to troll their own low leveled users by giving tedious tasks. They can even troll higher leveled users by having the lower leveled users use the influence of the guild’s name. They probably won’t come here until tomorrow’s evening, just like they said. And otherwise we’ll just have to fight them,” Enza finishes, with a carefree laugh.

“Sounds like a bullshit story to me, didn’t you just want to attack them with only that last bit in mind?” Khalmog sharply notices.

“Sounds like Enza, lots of reasoning, low amount of content,” I speak up, adding fuel to the burn.

He’s actually pretty impulsive if you think about it, he probably attacked them without caring what happened after, not caring if he has to fight higher leveled guild members at all.

“So, should we finally head in after all that? It has taken us long enough…”

Solid point, Warrific.

He paused for a second, before directing his attention to Enza, “You really like to use underhanded methods though, don’t you? I heard about the Training Hall instructor accident a while back too… Also, you didn’t even tell us that we were going to fight; do you know how annoying that is?”

Enza seemed to sulk a little before speaking up, “Well, to call it underhanded methods is… Didn’t you think that the look on his face when I attacked was priceless? Also, to deceive one’s allies is to deceive the enemy, and combat is all about deception, that’s what the Sun Tzu says himself! It gave me a free critical strike on my enemy, and I trusted that you would all be able to react faster than those noobs! I even gave you all an opportunity to attack when they were surprised, you should thank me instead actually! I had started planning to attack them from the moment I faked being agitated at them,” Enza said, satisfied with himself.

Warrific had already started walking towards the entrance of the dungeon, and had started to descend.

I followed behind him, with Khalmog and Enza next to me. Helius lagged slightly behind.

“Sounds like another bullshit story to me,” Khalmog softly mumbled in response to Enza, while taking the lead towards the dungeon.

***

"Heh, believe whatever you want, just don’t die to an easy mob later,” I chuckle, waving Khalmog’s remark out of my mind. I’ve always been of a rational kind; the only time I have to actively suppress is when I feel the urge to fight. But well, in virtual reality I can freely fight to my heart’s content. Funny how instinct drives the urge, but intuition takes over when I partake in it.

What a perfect world this is, a world driven by a quest reward system, whereas both the process –mostly fighting, to achieve quests is fun, as well as the receiving of rewards. People can even fuel their desire to improve themselves by working for it and spending stat points. Although desires quickly turn into greed, it doesn’t matter; it’ll just separate the strong from the weak actually.

You’re not happy with yourself and want to attract others? Sure go ahead and dump all stats in the attraction stat, but good luck fighting against some player or NPC who didn’t waste a single stat point.

“Why are you smirking like that, Enza? It looks sort of creepy, like a Joker smile…” I hear Glinc say from beside me.

I raise an eyebrow at him, removing any traces of a smirk that could’ve ever existed, before directing my attention at Glinc, “Just what are you talking about?”

“Remember that time where you thought it was a good idea to smile during a kata? At the championship remember? It sort of looked like that for a second.”

Oh yeah… It might’ve not been the best idea to show the ones judging my kata just how much fun I had while performing. It turned out that if you smile while you simulate a situation where you fight against opponents to the death, that the smile creates an image of a savage madman. Not like I was smiling intentionally like he thinks.

“You know, that wasn’t intention–,” I interrupt myself before finishing my sentence, it’s not like he would believe me anyway.

Glinc just smiled to himself, and we kept walking.

“Don’t make so much noise; I’m trying to listen if I can hear any mobs around. We should’ve entered the dungeon by now, don’t you guys think?” Warrific looked back towards us, probably waiting for our agreement on his assessment.

“I guess, we should receive the notification any tim–,” Khalmog said, before he interrupted himself by laughing out loud.

Note: You are the first people to enter this dungeon

You have now entered the dungeon: Rogues’ Playground

Advantages:

• +100 Fame

• Monsters will drop more items for 12 hours

• Dungeon Boss has a higher chance of dropping a higher quality item the first time

“The first?!”

“S-Seriously?!”

“Excellent!” I yell, joining the other remarks that were made.

“Damn, we’re super lucky! They must’ve kept this dungeon secured until the guild would be able to enter, that’s probably why they kept it secured!” Helius beamed, his eyes shining with the loot in mind.

“Well, I don’t really think so; this game has been out for a while right? Why would no one enter this dungeon? I doubt that they’ve kept it secured from the beginning of the game, that wouldn’t make any sense,” Khalmog said, voicing his thoughts at Helius’s exclamation.

Warrific adjusted his glasses with a familiar movement, and spoke up too, “Well, didn’t Enza once say that there was a lot of content added when the beta phase started? Maybe this dungeon is one of them. As for them securing this place, don’t you think that they simply thought that others had already visited it? They probably heard of the location, but they weren’t sure. So they kept lower leveled users at the entrance of the dungeon.

“This way, if they would enter, the advantages would be wasted upon them, and they would be slaughtered by the mobs. But they still wanted to make it sure, so the higher leveled users will come to the dungeon tomorrow, checking if it was already found by someone else before them,” Warrific said, finishing his explanation.

He’s probably right, but I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just immediately check the dungeon. Why would they risk the advantages of being the first to enter the dungeon? It isn’t that weird for people to simply slaughter the four lower leveled users in front of the dungeon and take the rewards for themselves. Are they really that arrogant, to think that their guild’s name would be enough to scare all others away?

It’s easy to voice my thoughts, maybe someone would be able to spot a flaw in my logic, but it’s fine. No point in making things any harder to understand.

“Now that we entered the dungeon we should proceed with care. You guys are all lower leveled than me, and this dungeon is even for level 15 and higher, so be careful all of you,” Khalmog warns us, probably judging our respective strengths by our levels.

“I agree, being cautious and careful can never hurt,” Glinc says, while carefully looking up ahead.

We were still descending while we were talking all this time, but now the descent had finally stopped, and we were quite some distance below the surface level. When you looked up, the fissure would appear to be a lot narrower than the entrance above ground, because we kept moving forward too. But below the ground the opposite happened, the space in front of us was starting to get wider, starting to resemble a cave, instead of a simple break in the ground.

“Being careful and cautious won’t hurt, but it can sure suck the fun out of things…” I say to no one in particular.

There were multiple entrances, some small, some big enough for us all to fit through. There were also some holes above our heads in the walls. They were around one meter wide and long, but I doubt any one of us would fit through there.

Suddenly we heard some rustling from somewhere right, and the next moment we registered an indistinctive blur shooting from one of the holes in the distance, right into Helius’s chest. I immediately drew my sword and prepared for battle.

Silence.

After –what appeared to be an arrow, hit Helius’s chest, everyone vigilantly prepared himself for a sudden ambush, but nothing happened. The only thing that could be heard was Warrific faintly mumbling his heal chant again, healing Helius, who narrowly escaped death.

I forgot one thing before entering the dungeon; our strength may be able to rival higher leveled monsters around level 15 to 20, but the health stats aren’t boosted at all. A few simple attacks from monsters at our backline and they would fall after only a few hits. Only Khalmog might be able to shrug off a few blows, while I may be able to tank a few hits.

It seemed like whoever shot the arrow was intentionally waiting for us to become aware of their existence, because that was the only attack. For now.

Suddenly we heard a rustling sound once more, but this time it wasn’t an arrow. It was a small, black bundle of clothing that seemed to fall down from a hole in front of us. I wasn’t able to see which hole the arrow came from, but judging from the angle it entered Helius’s chest, it must be the same as that bundle fell from.

The unknown object softly hit the floor, and the bundle turned out to be a robe. Because of the air friction the hood of the robes was blown up. The indistinctive thing, turned out to be a small creature, about one meter high. The now revealed face showed ugly features and a mix between a brown and green colored face.

So that’s what it is! It’s a goblin!

Just when I thought that the goblin would attack once more, he flashed something that must’ve resembled a smile, before quickly turning around and fleeing.

You’re not getting away; I’m going to have you repay the damage you did to Helius in blood!

I sped off into the direction the goblin fled to, leaving the others behind me. Glinc and Khalmog were quick to follow, while Warrific was still busy chanting his heal. Helius was impatiently waiting for Warrific to heal him, so that he could follow us.

Following the goblin he showed just enough every turn for me to keep following him. The dungeon had started to turn into a maze at this point; the ground above us had fully closed and there were a lot of intersections. The only light present was coming from torches on the walls. After a few turns I managed to almost reach the goblin. It must’ve waited for me a little bit, because the distance between us was closed more rapidly than I had initially thought.

Khalmog and Glinc had an easy time following me because of the sound my steps produced, and the map showing my dot.

The map would automatically update when you would reach new passages, even when party members reach new parts in a dungeon, it would be visible to everyone in the party.

Turning around the, what I expected to be, last corner, we met an unfortunate surprise.

Without looking at the interior, I saw the goblin standing in the middle of a room. The room was bigger than all the hallways I had ran through before. Seeing the goblin stand still there in the middle of the room, I rush forward, readying my sword to quickly cleave him in half.

“Enza, careful!”

I heard someone yell behind me, stopping me dead in my tracks, which managed to have me save some health, because the next moment an arrow pierced the ground. The arrow managed to pierce the exact location I would’ve been standing if I had continued running. I took this moment to raise my sword horizontally in front of my chest, taking a defensive posture.

I retreated a few steps; stopping halfway the distance I had ran towards the goblin at first. Khalmog and Glinc stood slightly behind me, because I retreated in front of them.

“Shit,” I heard Khalmog say left from me, “They baited us.”

In response to his remark, I quickly assessed the room. I had been solely paying attention to the goblin, before he could strike out or flee again. But this wasn’t the right choice it seems.

The scene that greeted my eyes was one where a lot of evilly looking pairs of lights beamed at me. They were pairs of goblin eyes; there were at least 5 of them, standing on different raised wooden structures. They all had bows in hand, arrows notched, ready to shoot at any time.

“Fight or run?” Glinc asked from my right side.

“It’s best if we run, Helius and Warrific haven’t reached us yet.” I told him.

“Hm,” Khalmog hummed, “Don’t you think we can take them?” He asked.

At that moment there turned out to be another goblin we hadn’t spotted yet. He ran towards a weird construction from the cave he must’ve emerged from, where there was a rope under tight friction. Following the direction of the rope, my face must’ve changed color for a split moment as I realized what was about to happen.

The rope was holding up a big wooden gate above the entrance of the hall we just entered. If he cut the rope, the gate would come crushing down, blocking our way back.

Damn, I can’t let them lock us in! Especially not when they all have their bows ready!

I sprinted at the stone that held the rope in desperation; I forsook all my safety for a short moment because we’d probably get slaughtered the moment that gate falls down. I zigzagged towards the stone at full speed, even though I will be a little later in arriving there, if I get punctured by all the arrows at once, I’ll probably die before reaching it anyway.

I hear Khalmog shout something at one of the archers while he directed Glinc to stand behind him. I hope knights have a taunt skill or something, which would direct a bit of the aggro on him, leaving me a small chance to live through this.

I heard a few ‘thump’ sounds, sounding like the bow strings’ desire for blood. A few ‘thud’-like sounds could be heard next to me, or slightly behind me.

I must say, I severely underestimated their intelligence. I never would’ve thought that the goblin would be able to bait us. I didn’t expect that it would be working with a team instead of being a single solo mob. I should’ve known though, goblins are known for their evil intelligence and rogue-like behavior.

I bit on my lip, trying to force out that little bit of extra energy I needed to reach the stone before the goblin. I shouted trying to force myself to reach it faster. I have the reach advantage over the goblin, so maybe I’ll be able to kill him before he’ll touch the rope.

The goblin had almost managed to touch the rope, but it seems like I’ll be faster. The goblin started his slash at the rope with his rusty short sword, while I had initiated my own killing blow only a split second before, trying to kill him.

The moment my sword was about to reach his throat, my vision went hazy for a moment. My sword’s arc was diverted and only slashed across his shoulder, leaving a superficial wound. An arrow hit my back the moment that I tried to kill him, resulting in him cutting the rope. It almost felt like that rope represented the thread the three sisters, fates, would cut, ending someone’s life. I heard the rope snap and the gate crashing down.

Damn that archer, he must’ve waited for the last moment, until he was sure I wouldn’t move anymore to aim that arrow.

Out of irritation of my failure, I used the momentum of my slash at his shoulder to spin and hit the goblin again. The goblin shrieked while it got hit. Goblins may be intelligent, but they’re still not on a human level. It must’ve tunneled on cutting rope, thinking that we would automatically die the moment the gate would crash down or something. I impaled the goblin through his chest, resulting in a critical blow by hitting its heart. The level 10 goblin faded, granting me some XP as a parting gift, along with some coins lying in its place.

“One down, six to go guys!” I yell at the others. If we have to fight, then we should just fight.

We’ll manage somehow!

I encourage myself before rushing at the only other goblin that was on the ground.

Khalmog had stepped before Glinc and was covered by a silvery aura. Must be some sort of shield. Glinc was trying to use his rock limbs aided by gravity to destroy the wooden door, while Khalmog was shielding him from the front. The wooden platforms were too high for us to jump and try to attack them.

Rushing at the other goblin, I had an easy kill in mind; it was actually focusing on Khalmog and Glinc. It was probably desperate to keep us confined in here, and didn’t want Glinc to break the only way out.

The goblins seemed to have a simultaneous agreement, because there were three of them shooting constantly at Khalmog and Glinc, while the other two were barraging me with arrows. Losing around three quarters of my health I managed to impale the goblin from behind, before he could reach Khalmog. I tore out my sword through the goblin’s side and sprinted towards the wall on my left.

Khalmog had taken out his shield and short sword, trying to block the arrows more effectively, because we probably wouldn’t have any chance to reach them without ranged weapons.

Well, that’s what he thinks.

I rushed at the wall and tried a wall up. Meaning that I managed to run up the wall for three steps, while setting of dynamically after; trying to reach the platform. Seeing the wooden platform come into vision, I raised both my hands to grab the edge.

Gotcha!

I managed to grab the edge of the wood, and immediately tried to pull myself up. What came into vision wasn’t the greeting of a surprised face, but rather a leather shoe kicking me in my own surprised face.

The next moment I blinked and fell down, tasting some blood.

DAMN! That fucking hurt!

“I’m gonna slaughter you all,” I beam towards no particular goblin, “But I’ll do so later!”

I heard some cracking noises from the gate the moment I fell the ground. At least, the cracking noises shouldn’t be from my bones.

I had only a fifth left of my health at this moment, and it was still quite some distance towards the gate. But if I was going to climb up again, I would leave another big opening. I didn’t want to meet the other shoe either, so I tactically retreated for now.

I zigzagged toward the gate, eating one more arrow before almost arriving in front of the gate. I could see another blur coming at me from the corner of my eye, but just before it reached me, I lighted up. The glow faded while the arrow hit me, leaving me with enough health to tank another arrow.

Thanks Warrific.

There was only a meter or three between me and the gate at this moment.

“Fucking gate,” I yelled, “I refuse to die these shits!”

I watched for another of Glinc’s attempts at breaching the gate, and timed my own jumping front kick at the same as Glinc’s regular front kick. Glinc must’ve heard me rushing from behind too, because he shouted at the same time as I did. We hit the gate at the same time, and managed to blast through it!

I stumbled through the gate with a pale face, while Warrific had already finished another chant and healed me. Khalmog used his shoulder to bash through a weakened part of the door too, bringing himself to safety.

Glinc took the moment we breached the door to step back into the interior of the big room.

“Glinc, what the fu–,” Helius was about to question Glinc’s sanity, but Glinc’s image disappeared for the time it would take a small spark from a campfire to die out. Glinc immediately reappeared, but that moment he was shot through by five arrows at the same time.

“RIP,” I heard Warrific say.

He’s right though, it will be tough for him to live through five arrows with his meager level 6.

One second after Glinc’s initial disappearance a second Glinc appeared right in front of us. He dived through the gate, landing face first next to us.

A second later the other Glinc –the one full of arrows, disappeared, leaving nothing in its trace.

We took that moment of confusion to turn and run back the way we came. “What the hell just happened,” Helius asked, demanding an answer from us.

“Heh,” Glinc smirked, “I just directed their attention towards a dummy, leaving you all room to escape.”

“We already made it through the gate before that…” Khalmog just had to say, crushing Glinc’s sense of accomplishment.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Helius interjected, “I meant why the hell you three chased the lion into its den.”

“Haha,” I shrugged, before casually shifting the blame, “Khalmog was blind for blood. He just had to kill that poor, despicable fellow.”

We came to a halt and stopped moving when we reached the room where the goblin first appeared. We managed to smoothly follow our map’s directions to go where we initially rushed from.

“Don’t you fucking dare Enza, if it wasn’t for me, you would’ve ended like Glinc’s twin in that room.”

I only shrugged at Khalmog’s response, before facing Glinc.

“Talking about twins, what were those stealth plays you were partaking in? How did you suddenly teleport and stuff?”

“Yeah, how were you able to move so fast?!” Helius chimed in, wanting an answer too.

Glinc scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed, “Actually, I really sucked there, I didn’t achieve anything there.” He spoke up dejectedly.

I just sighed and shook my head at this remark, while Khalmog spoke up, “What are you talking about? If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t have been able to break that gate. Nor would we have managed to gain some extra time running away, having them shoot those 5 arrows at the wrong target.”

“Ehehe,” Glinc happily beamed, but before he managed to speak up I interrupted him, speaking to Khalmog.

“Dude, don’t fall for this… He knows fully well that he accomplished something good, he just wants to catch some easy compliments.”

“What, Enza, are you jealous or something? Don’t worry, no one saw you fall down or anything,” Warrific said.

I grimaced, while I could feel my ears starting to get hot. Time to smoothly change the subject.

“Anyways, I do wonder what skill you used though Glinc,” I say, trying to direct the conversation to the previous subject, “Oh wait! I can just use the party leader’s functions. Here guys, look at this.”

I wave my hand, using the party commander’s option to display the skill to the entire party.

–At that moment, Glinc yelled, “Wait! Enza, that’s for me to show them!”

• Clone (Lv. 1 – 5%) (Beginner) (Active)

Disappear for a moment, while a clone appears. The clone can’t move or attack and will simply stand still. The clone will react to its surroundings like a ragdoll, but will disappear shortly after.

Effect: Invisible for 1 second, creates clone after 0.25 second that disappears after 2 seconds.

Mana consumption: 50

“Woops, sorry, Glinc, there goes your spotlight,” I happily chuckle at him, “That’s one hell of an epic skill though! Just why haven’t you used this way more often?!”

“Hmph,” Glinc snorted, “I wanted to surprise you all at a critical moment, appearing like some kind of hero. Also, look at the mana cost, I can only use it twice at the moment, then all my mana will be gone, I won’t even be able to use the Rock Skin skill by then,” Glinc said with discontent.

“That’s so like Glinc,” Helius simply said.

“That skill can actually be used in so many situations, no wonder the mana cost is high,” Warrific said, starting his explanation, “Just imagine how versatile it is! You can simply stealth when someone is about to blow your brains out, then he will simply hit the clone and think he has gotten you. But then you reappear out of nowhere and badger him when he’s showing a super big opening.”

That’s actually a really good tactic to use. I didn’t think he would think like someone who’s used to close combat!

“You can also use it to sneak up to people.”

“Or you can use it to steal stuff from shops!”

“Instead of thinking about how you can use that skill, you should think of a plan to slaughter those goblins we left behind…” Khalmog said, shattering everyone’s hyped mood created by that skill.

Everyone went quiet, and was seemingly lost in thoughts. They must all be thinking hard to break through that situation.

We can actually skip that room, because it was a dead end anyway, but it’s against my morals to leave a job like that undone. I won’t even mention that option.

“You know what they say right; if you want to defeat the bandits, kill their leader first. That’s because the leader supports all the other bandits, if they lose their support… then they’re simply cannon fodder,” I explain to them, “So, what we have to do, is to just take away their support.”