Quote:He went to sleep after reviewing since the next day he would go to a dungeon for the first time.

Vol.2 Chapter 3-The three maggots

The next day he got up earlier than usual, and equipped his new armor and weapons. After eating, he headed to the gates where the quest is starting. As arrived, there were 20 soldiers and about 3 adventurers. After a few minutes the commander stood up and approached the adventurers, Paul included. He checked the stats of each of them and rejected them since they weren’t D rank. The commander then looked at the young man in front of him. After using memo to lower the luck to 50 Paul showed him his stats. The commander then with a low grumpy voice said

-“Good enough…Since you are a higher rank than some of the maggots here you can ask to see if any of them want to be under your command. You can have 2 of them. If none want to be under your command then you will still have the responsibilities of a squad but you will have to do them alone. ”

-“I understand sir”

Then a young man stepped in front of the soldiers. He was ignored by most of them. He didn’t say anything for a minute then for a brief moment to attract their attention he released a powerful killing intent towards the soldiers. The soldiers all took their swords out and looked around. Paul smirked and released a commanding aura, more powerful even than the commanders.

-“Who wants to join my squad?! I need two people!”

His voice carried over like he was talking into the ears of every soldier. No one offered, they all looked around and then from the back appeared two soldiers. They were pushed by the others to the front. The soldiers all started laughing when the commander said.

“Good! You two are now in his squad! Weak maggots should stick together!”

It seems that most of the soldiers were above D rank, and these two were the weakest, E ranked. They introduced themselves and Paul found out that they were called Faj and Naj. They were brothers. Naj was older by a year. Their armor was all beaten up and rusty, the swords were in similar conditions.

Paul went to the commander and asked him

-“Sir! Permission to take a different route to the dungeon”

-“Only if you can get there two days from now.!”

-“Of course”

-“Then permission granted. If you are not there in two days your squad will be punished”

-“Thank you sir”

The commander took the route around the forest since they were many. Trough the forest their mobility would greatly decrease and it would take longer for all of them to arrive at the dungeon.

The commander took the rest of the men and headed to the dungeon following the road. Paul and his squad headed in a straight line to the dungeon. At the edge of the forest Paul repaired their swords and armor and then told them what they needed to do. The plan was simple.

“Follow me through the forest and when a creature attacks you should defend me using all your skills and teamwork. If there are many creatures or I deem that you cannot handle them I will help you. Don’t think that this will be easy…it will be hard! This will be your training to make you stronger so that you won’t die in the dungeon. Do you understand?”

-“Yes sir!”

They headed into the forest. Paul didn’t use all his speed since they wouldn’t be able to keep up but he wasn’t slow either. His speed was just enough for the brothers to keep up. A few minutes in they were attacked by some weak pigs. The brothers killed them with some difficulty. It took them 30 minutes to kill 3 pigs. They had small injuries but Paul used some bandages on them and they were healed now. Paul took then out two bags and gave them to the brothers to carry the loot. Now they had extra weight on them while traveling. When fighting they dropped the bags.

As they headed into deeper and deeper into the forest they kept fighting better and better. Now the two brothers had good teamwork. They knew each other’s weaknesses and strengths. Naj was stronger and Faj was faster. After a few hours of fighting and traveling they were exhausted. Paul looked at them and decided to take a rest.

Paul then cooked some food for them. They were eating like this was the first food they saw in days. Eating and resting took 30 minutes. Then they got up and continued for the rest of the day keeping around the same pace.

Slowly but surely the brothers were getting stronger and faster with every fight. They didn’t know but Paul didn’t take them in a straight line. He took them where there were creatures strong enough to challenge them but not kill them and avoided the more powerful ones. Their stats increased and increased until they were could be considered a D rank warrior. Of course they were still weaker than Paul since he had more experience and his stats were a little abnormal. The brothers stats reached 500 in strength for Naj and in agility for Faj, but the rest of the stats were pretty low.

The next day they reached the dungeon but they still had time. Paul decided that they all needed some more experience. Paul led the brothers into the forest again and told them to survive for the next 12 hours. Paul left them alone and went to hunt stronger creatures to train some himself. He didn’t went too far since he had to keep an eye on the brothers to make sure they don’t get themselves killed.

Paul then went on a killing spree. He killed every creature that he saw, no matter the number of them. He didn’t meet any creatures that challenged him that often. He also killed some creatures that were too strong for the brothers without them knowing. After 10 hours of killing everything that moved he checked his stats.

NamePaul SilverTitleLone WolfGuild LevelDGuild Points3250Strength361Agility405Endurance228Stamina510Wisdom439Intelligence456Charisma185Leadership20Luck338Fighting Spirit411Fame1305

Feeling satisfied he went to the young brothers. They were exhausted but alive and well.

-“How are you feeling now that you are under my command for this short period?”

-“Sir! We are tired, hungry and hurt but we are happy.”

-“Good. Now let’s go eat and rest a bit near the dungeon entrance until the rest arrive”

Now they were moving way faster than before. They arrived at the dungeon entrance in half the time it took to travel the same distance. Paul took out some bandages, healed them then he started cooking. After eating they cleaned themselves up and rested until the commander with the soldiers arrived. While waiting they talked for a bit then they just fallen asleep.

2 hours later Paul woke up hearing the soldiers arrive. He woke up the brothers as well. They were now standing near the entrance to the dungeon. The commander saw them from a distance and let out a small “Tch..” When the commander was close he spit in front of him to the legs of the young man and the two weaklings.

-“So…you are on time eh? Since you arrived faster than us you must have rested. Go and scout the dungeon since we need to rest.”

-“I understand.”

Paul didn’t like the commander at all. He was a lazy man that expected everything without working for it. He told the brothers to wait outside since he could move faster alone. They agreed knowing they are still weak. Paul looked at the dungeon entrance. It looked like a cave entrance with a cold and smelly air coming from inside of it.

He entered carefully since he didn’t know anything about this dungeon or dungeons in general. After a few minutes of walking in the dark, thanks to his night vision eyesight he noticed 2 goblins. He didn’t know how powerful they were so he stabbed one in the back of the neck with a dagger. The dagger didn’t penetrate the neck so Paul jumped back and put the dagger away and took out his swords. The goblins attacked him but they were clumsy. Paul put all his strength behind a blow and cut a goblins head off. The other one seeing this tried to ran away. Paul jumped in front of him and with two hits the goblin died.

Now that he had time to relax he noticed that the goblins were ugly. They had a greenish thick skin that was like armor. They only wore some simple linen clothing and swords they found. Paul absorbed guild points and then absorbed the bodies. Only puddles of green blood remained. He then headed further in the dungeon after half an hour of nothing he reached an opening. He looked from the shadows and saw that there were many goblins in the next room. They were all small, ugly and similar to the ones he killed previously.

He ran back as fast as possible and reported this to the commander. The commander confident in his abilities lead all the soldiers inside and when they arrived at the entrance to the room where all the goblins were commanded everyone to attack. The soldiers were all disorganized and didn’t progress much. The commander tried to issue some commands but his voice was not heard from all the screams and swords clashing.

After an hour of fighting about 5 soldiers died and 10 were injured pretty bad. Paul and the two brothers under him didn’t have a scratch on them. Suddenly the soldiers started to retreat. Paul looked around to see what happened and noticed that the captain was gone. Probably dead.

Paul took out the daggers and helped the soldiers escape. He kept the goblins back enough so that all the soldiers escaped. He was surrounded by goblins but he didn’t give up. He jumped over them and ran to the exit. The goblins didn’t follow since they had suffered casualties and needed to protect their home.

When he got out of the dungeon, outside the soldiers were all hurt. Some more badly than others. He hurried to heal all of them. After healing them he cooked some food to warm them up and made a some camp fires since it was dark. The soldiers rested since they suffered a massive defeat. Out of 20 of them, the commander was dead and so were 6 others. Four were in no condition to fight. There were 10 of them left that could fight. Paul let them sleep while he and the two brothers kept watch so that no creature ambushes them.

Paul took this opportunity to check his stats. He ignored the updates and looked directly at the final stats.

NamePaul SilverTitleLone WolfGuild LevelDGuild Points3950Strength371Agility415Endurance228Stamina520Wisdom442Intelligence456Charisma215Leadership50Luck338Fighting Spirit431Fame1405

He gained more stats than he thought. He started to think about the next day, about what to do then started to review what happened. After a few hours another soldier came and took his place and Paul went to sleep.

The next day he got up and was approached by a soldier.

-“We saw that the brothers got much stronger under your command, so we decided to place our trust in you, to lead us. We must avenge our fallen comrades. Will you take this responsibility?”

Paul didn’t hesitate and nodded.

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I already have some ideas about my next FF so when i have some extra free time i will try to start writing.

Edenawe will continue at least for a few more chapters. After i have around two chapters of my new FF, i will probably alternate one week this another the new FF. [th_084_.gif]