A bell rang through the dungeon at the conclusion of the timer, echoing, impossible to ignore, and a notification appeared.

[The dungeon has begun. Good luck.]

Such a passive message with a small positive affirmation. It felt strange, like the system was made to give off a sense of personality but fell squarely in the uncanny valley.

After the bell, that terrible gripping sensation consumed his body again, forcing him to tense so that he didn’t end up lashing out with his magic at everyone around him. It was fine. He was fine. He wasn’t trapped. No one was trying to kill him. But when he could once again see, the entire area around them had been transformed.

There was still the same wide grassy space that spread out beyond the forest toward the enemy, but the hive had changed. Instead of a hollow dome, it was complex. It changed into a huge hive compound with holes dug into the ground and comb acting as protective walls.

Why couldn’t the system just show this at first? Alister scrunched his nose at the changes, “Would’ve been nice to see that before the timer… Well, we’re on the defensive. So I guess we should just stay here?”

Everyone nodded in agreement. They all shuffled into their general positions and took out their weapons. For Wisteria, that was a bow since she hadn’t been able to get a gun yet. For Blas, his focus was on the bees, not a weapon. Alliana had two fans that had a faint yellow aura to them. The knights had a variety of weapons but primarily pikes and axes. Alister decided against a weapon, instead focusing on casting magic.

Perhaps when they made it to the capital he’d pick out a nice new staff appropriate for his level. His pocket space had one that he had used before, but… he preferred his arms and shoulders attached. Alister chuckled under his breath at the thought. He hadn’t thought to mention that space to his parents yet. Whoops.

As they stepped forward out of the front of the hive, there was a massive roar signaling the approach of the enemy. Bees rushed to positions, ready to defend their home. The two Blas had under his control vibrated to life, floating just above the party.

A group of five beasts rushed toward the hive. They were werekin but they looked as feral as the dungeon made them out to be. There was matted fur on every one of them and they looked starved and scraggly. Four of them were wolf based, but one, larger than the others, was bear based. The five of them were a blur of movement as they dashed forward cutting down bees with little effort. The massive round bodies of the bees barely offered any resistance to the bright red, wide-reaching claw attacks of the werewolves, who used a mixture of magic and a mana aura on their claws to create a physical slashing attack. It was something that significantly widened their reach and made the knights' jobs of defending from such close range a little more difficult. But all of them were looking eager, happy for the distraction from all of the traveling that the group had been doing. It was something different to do.

They had five guards with them and all of them tapped their shields to the ground in unison, creating a translucent shield wall that appeared as a half dome in front of them. This would allow spells to go through one direction but not come back toward them. A clever trick to enchant shields with something like that and the more shields that did so at once, the stronger the resultant spell. Alister couldn’t help but let out a small excited laugh as he stuck both of his hands out in front of him to cast a series of spells. First, he cast ice barrier, but thin and small. More like a toe kick right in front of the guards beyond their barrier. Then he cast rain cloud, dousing the enemy in the ground beneath them with a precise deluge of water that caused a puddle to form. With the puddle formed, Alister brought both of his small hands down with a wild grin and called forth a blast of lightning to electrocute the water. The small ice barrier kept their party safe. Alliana meanwhile was just behind the knights, flicking out one needle after another after another. They were coated in a poison meant to slow the enemy, not kill them. Honestly, even if only the knights were to attack, they could handle this with ease.

[Feral Werewolf - Level 6 has been killed.]

Four remaining for the wave, and while Blas was directing the bees away from the combat as best he could - there’d be more rewards if more bees lived instead of tossing themselves as fodder at the enemies - Wisteria asked Blas for a favor. She wanted to use one of her new abilities, to create gunpowder, on the enemies, and she had an exciting idea.

She clambered atop one of the ginormous bees and gripped its fur, black hair whipping in the wind. It took to the skies and flew to the enemy side, hovering twenty feet above their reach, where she would be safe. Just like Alister, Wisteria had a wild grin on her face as she put her magic practice to good use.

First thing first, she focused hard and made a scoop with a Mage Hand spell. She used her class skill to Create Gunpowder in the scoop and augmented it to have a slightly delayed ignition. Then, she muttered a spark spell that Alister also taught her, and dropped the scoop on the enemy. She didn’t have a whole lot of mana, but she kept doing that until the others were killed. In concert with Alister’s electrified puddle working as a death barrier, it didn’t take long.

[Feral Werewolf - Level 7 has been killed.]

[Feral Werewolf - Level 6 has been killed.]

[Feral Werewolf - Level 8 has been killed.]

[Feral Werebear - Level 8 has been killed.]

The bear was the last of the wave killed, the toughest of the bunch, but even then Alister was a little disappointed by the ease in which they went down. Wisteria looked to be having fun, though, and came down looking very proud of herself.

“Alister!” She shouted, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she landed off the bee, “Did you see what I did!?”

“That was pretty good. Creative use of spells there. And it’s very good that you can hold the mage hand spell for that long while doing something else.”

“I know right!” She was a little out of breath, “I need more mana though. We have to work on that! Making gunpowder is hard work.”

Alister chuckled, eyeing the timer that once again appeared, “You’ll regret wanting to work on your mana once we really start doing it. It’s hard work. Could I give you a few pointers?”

“Of course! Please do!”