Terrified screams echoed in the bess as the party slipped and tumbled down a long, jagged slope. Loose rocks and debris followed them, a chaotic avanche of earth and stone.

  Daisuke’s instincts kicked in, and he desperately stabbed his Bonepito the hard ground to slow his perilous dest. Osten followed suit, his sword digging into the unfiving surface. Lyanna, usually graceful and posed, frantically attempted to do the same with an arrow, but it snapped uhe immense pressure. She didn’t hesitate to follow-up by usirusty bow as a makeshift anchor.

  Despite their efforts, the pull of gravity was relentless. One by ohey reached the bottom, eading with a thud. The fall had been roughly 80 meters, and the impact was jarring. Groans of pain filled the subterranean chamber, but miraculously, no one seemed to have sustained any life-threatening injuries.

  “Cough! Is everyone all right?” asked Daisuke as he slowly got to his feet.

  “Arf!” Zephyr’s head popped out again.

  “I lost a perfectly good arrow, but I’m okay,” murmured Lyanna.

  “Just a few bruises.”

  “It’s… hard to breathe.”

  “I hardly see anything.”

  As the dust settled and the echoes of their voices faded, everyone realized the dire situation they were in. They had fallen deep into a dungeon, and its vast dimensions were shrouded in darkness.

  As their eyes partially adjusted to the gloom, they could see that they were not alorange, lumi fungi g to the walls, casting an eerie, bluish light.

  Daisuke, always vigint, took stock of their surroundings. After firming there was no way back to the surface from where they fell iuro the group who were still colleg themselves.

  “Are all the healers okay?” He asked.

  “For the most part.”

  “…Yeah.”

  “Dammit! Did anyone mao get any of the Mana Crystals?” Osten demanded, his voice cutting off the third healer before he could respond.

  Thanks to his sturdy armor, he hadn’t sustained any injuries from the fall whatsoever. His only disfort y in the fact that he hadn’t mao increase his wealth at all.

  “Are you injured?” inquired Daisuke as he reached out to the healer who was rudely interrupted.

  “I’m fine,” he reassured, “just a few bruises here and there.”

  Daisuke hen projected his voice just enough for everyoo hear. “If anyone is seriously injured, just raise your hand and a healer will attend to you.”

  Osten’s expression twisted with derision. Not only was he being ignored, but his position was at risk of being taken away from him. “Hey, I’m the one in charge here!” he barked venomously. “Where the hell do you get off giving out orders like that while I’m standing right here!”

  Many in the group gred at Osten, shocked by his ck of sideration. Daisuke had cautiohem about the dangers of the Crystal Field, but his warning had fallen on deaf ears.

  Now, despite the circumstances, he was still looking out for their well-being. However, all Osten could seemingly think about was the insidious Crystal Field that had hem in this predit.

  Beyond his growing annoyance, Daisuke remembered a lecture from Thalia’s css:

  — “The interior yout of dungeons may differ, but they all seem to adhere to the same fual blueprint: they sist of multiple floors, eafested with hordes of monsters, overseen by a more formidable entity known as a Fluardian. Finally, at the very bottom level of the dungeohe chamber hosting the Dungeon Boss.”

  “I don’t think you clearly uand the situation we’re in,” Daisuke calmly began. “We’ve fallen into a dungeon.”

  “No, you don’t uand the situation,” Osteed loudly, aggressively poking his armored finger against Daisuke’s chest. “We didn’t fall that far down; all we have to do is climb back to the surface. You’re making the situation appear more dire than it really is.”

  All of a sudden, a single growl resohrough the darkness. Then another, and another, each followed by a pair of pierg red eyes. Like a domino effect, the stranded adventurers found themselves surrounded by a horde of vionsters.

  WHOOOOOOOSH!

  A bzing ball of fire suddenly hurled from the darkness, its target—Osten, who had failed to trol the volume of his voice. It was su abrupt and ued assault that he couldn’t prather his thoughts. Blitz, the tank from his party, was too far away to protect him, and he knew his sword and armor wouldn’t be enough to fend off the projectile.

  His gaze shot to the side.

  Reflexively, spurred on by a need for self-preservation, he reached for the closest Beastkin and used her as a human shield. Ele disorie the sudden speed at which her body was dragged to the side. Time slowed, her eyes widening in horror as the fmes illumihe walls as it drew nearer. Instinctively, she raised her arms to protect her face.

  PHOOOSHHH!

  “KYAAAAAAAAAA!”

  A blood-curdling scream tore from her lungs as the ball of fire exploded against her body, gruesomely burning her arms and face. Osten was thrown back by the bst. The foul smell of burning skin and hair permeated the air. The adventurers flinched ba terror at the intoxig smell, but the monsters lurking in the darkness were thrown into a frenzy by the appetizing smell of a warm meal.

  At the sound of Elena’s pained scream, Zephyr frantically leaped from Daisuke’s clothes and darted between her and the deluge of ining monsters.

  “ZEPHYR!” Daisuke bellowed, fearing the worst.

  But the e stood his ground, blue eyes fierce, hackles raised, a challenging growl rippling from a maw lined with razor sharp teeth. Elena, the quiet and i demihuman, reminded him of a very dear friend, and he felt obligated to protect her, every fiber and cell of his being did.

  DING!

  [Your panion, Zephyr, has learhe active skill ?Berserk?.]

  Brushing the notification window aside, Daisuke clicked his tongue. In a swift motion, he leaned forward, propelling himself like a bullet. Through the Eye of Verity, the monsters appeared as a mass of surging crimson mana against the cavern’s abyss.

  Just in the nick of time, his arms encircled Elena and Zephyr, snatg them from the brink of being swallowed up by the wave of lupine monsters. But the relentless wave didn’t stop, nor did it slow—the voracious creatures tiheir fierce dest, bearing down upon the hapless bastard still sprawled on the ground.

  “Mages!” Daisuke’s voice rang out. “Lights! We need more lightning!”

  “Ri-Right!” Callista stammered, her staff aglow as she jured a radiant orb of light suspended in mid-air.

  In an instant, the expansive cavern was flooded with illumination, revealing a nightmarish se. A horde of Inferno Wolves encircled Osten, their ravenous hunger evident as they started tearing him apart akin to a pack of Afri wild dogs ripping apart a defenseless antelope on the open savanna.

  “GHHAAAAAA! HELP! HELP ME!”

  Osten’s desperate cry was cut short, his throat crushed by a pair of mighty jaws. The adventurers stood transfixed, witnessing the horrific spectacle as Osten’s armor was torn asunder, his body subjected to the brutal force of powerful fangs and cws.

  Blood flowed from every orifice as he writhed in agony, the wolves rending both flesh and boaking him apart like a stuffed animal. It was a gruesome se, but to most, a fitting end for a heinous human being.

  Callista, however, didn’t think the same.

  “YOUUU!” she hissed with venom, pieg together what had transpired from the survivors cradled in Daisuke’s arms. “You left Osten to die!”

  In the real world, humans weren’t given a sed ce when they died; once your heart stopped beating, everything was over. To maintain the severity of this harsh truth while preserving fairness in the game, the developers imposed a harsh penalty for death. A pyer would lose aire level upon dying in the game, which was a signifit setback.

  It might not seem like that bad of a trade-off, but when you sider the fact that leveling up bees increasingly difficult the higher one’s level, it bees an inescapable nightmare. Losing a level for a ?Ranker? was akin to losing months’ worth of intense grinding on monsters.

  “You heartless bastard!” Blitz’s anger surged, teeth grinding as they watched Osten’s body mass dwindle. “You chose to save a few worthless NPCs over a pyer?”

  All eyes turo Daisuke, anticipating a rational expnation, but his response was—

  “The Locals have only one life,” he expined calmly, his toeady. “Meanwhile, pyers respawn indefinitely. My choice retty clear.”

  The NPCs gazed upon Daisuke with warmth and gratitude, their appreciation evident in their eyes. However, a stark trast emerged among the pyers, their expressions now tainted with disdain.

  Even those who had once held him in high regard now bore looks of aheir simmeriment palpable as they rose to their feet, united in a singur io eradicate both him and the ravenous monsters.

  “Let’s go.”

  “R-Right.”

  As the heart-wreng sight of Elena’s unmoving form cradled in Daisuke’s arms pyed out before them, Rexar and Milo, the two steadfast members from her circle, reacted swiftly. They sprio Daisuke’s side, their expressions a blend of grief aermination. The remaining trio of NPCs—Lyanna, a tank, and a warrior—followed suit, united in purpose.

  Blitz sneered, sharing the se of the pyers. “This works out perfectly.”

  “Now we crush you all at once,” said Callista, her words ced with malice as she raised her staff.

  The es hoisted their staffs in unison, and the warriors brandished their ons. The NPCs huddled close to Daisuke, and Zephyr took a protective sta the forefront, growling menagly.

  “So, what’s the pn?” Rexar murmured, adopting a martial arts stance.

  Lyanna expertly nocked an arrow and drew her b taut. The tank readied a rge shield, the warrior a lengthy sword, and Milo clutched his staff, trembling in the back.

  A glow denoting the Eye of Verity bzed inside of Daisuke’s pupils like a tenacious fme in the wind. “When I give the signal,” he whispered in an uone, “quickly run to the left.”

  Everyone covertly aowledged the pn, their gnces shifting subtly in the designated dire. An unspoken uanding passed among them, marked by discreet nods. Milo’s grip on his staff tightened, and he swallowed nervously.

  While the mages initiated their spell with an intation, Blitz signaled discreetly to the others. “Healers, stay back,” he ordered. “The rest of you, ready your ons; we’ll cut down any who mao escape the spells’ bombardment.”

  Daisuke’s gaze pierced through Blitz and the warriors who were arming themselves for a devastating strike. He briefly gnced into the inky abyss beyond them, sensing a lurking mehen his attention shifted to the mages, who were nearing the culmination of their intation.

  They raised their staffs high, their voices synized in an are t that resohrough the cavern. Power danced in their eyes as they uttered the a words of power, eling their collective mana into a fiery cresdo.

  “Inferno, fe thy fury, from the embers of the earth, rise!” At the united and, a seething torrent of fmes burst forth, surging with uing fury. It ied the Inferno Wolves in an instant. The remnants of Osten’s glowing body were reduced to ash, scattered by the inferno’s relentless advahen the ing fmes barreled toward the argets.

  Milo peed a little.

  Daisuke smirked, seizing this opportune moment to enact his pn while the attag mages were incapable of moving. Without hesitation, he unleashed his Intimidate skill, fog his will on the menag beast lurking in the shadows behind the assaints.

  DING!

  [The target monster’s Stats far exceed your own; Intimidation has failed.]

  An unfortunate prompt. However, Daisuke harbored s; his objective was not to intimidate but to ihe creature’s wrath, and in this, he succeeded.

  The colossal figure emerged from the obscurity, bathed in an ominous glow, its monstrous presence filling the chamber.

  DING!

  [The Fluardian’s fiery gaze falls uporespassers.]

  [Giant Inferno Wolf | Lvl 25 | Fluardian]

  With a deafening roar, the colossal wolf unleashed a searing cascade of fmes. Blitz, the healers, the warriors, the mages, and Callista, stood frozen in stunned horror, their eyes widening as the fiery onsught bore down upon them—a cataclysmic wall of bzih.

  In a blinding fsh, they were engulfed, their pained screams eg off the cavern walls as they melted like pstic to a fme, their very beings disiing into ns of radiant light.

  “NOW! GO! GO! GO!”

  Simultaneously, Daisuke signaled his group to move, a symphony of swift footsteps eg as they narrowly escaped the fiery cataclysm. They dashed into a narrow passage that led to a small chamber, where the inferno’s deadly embrace could not follow.

  Vaughn_RR_Seider