Chapter 32: A wolf in the park.

 

After they walked a decent distance inside, Ingvar started speaking to the group: “Since you just joined the party and haven’t fought with us before, there are a few things we should put in order. First of all, you should stay in the back with my sister and support me and Echo as we fight in the front whenever possible. If you can’t make sure you’ll hit the enemy, it would be better to conserve your mana rather than attack. Secondly, always keep a distance of between three to six seconds from us so we can help you in case there is any kind of monster ambush. Thirdly, for life force distribution, the person who needs the least life force to reach the next level will have priority. Don’t worry, everyone will receive the share they need to level up, it’s just better to have someone gain a level advantage first than to distribute the life force evenly to all the members. Understood?”

Edward nodded, figuring it actually made more sense than the way his old party did it. After explaining a few more basic stuff, once Ingvar was done, he said: “Since there is no level 1 in our party, we’ll skip straight to the second floor. Be careful.”

As his words ended, he placed his status tablet on the floor and a hole was soon created under everyone’s feet. Edward, having already experienced it before, this time he was ready and after free falling for a few seconds, everyone landed on their feet on the second floor, ready to engage any monster nearby.

Looking around and seeing no enemy, Edward relaxed slightly and Ingvar said: “We’ll probably end up hunting on the third floor on maybe even fourth, but let’s look for a few groups here as well so Edward can get used to out style of fighting.”

They quickly moved into formation, with Ingvar and Echo in the front followed by Edward and Kara in the back, before searching for a monster group to fight. They didn’t have to search for too long before encountering a group of eight monsters in their front.

Ingvar and Echo didn’t waste any time before charging at the lizards.

Ingvar took out his twin-sword and Echo moved her hands in front of her body. Edward was about to cast a spell as well, when he heard Kara from the side: “No need. Conserve your mana and just watch.”

Edward nodded and looked forward. The lizards also felt the party’s presence and charged at them while splitting up slightly. Echo then surprised Edward by saying: “Leave these ones to me. I don’t want the new member to look down on me.”

Ingvar actually nodded and stopped running forward but still kept himself in a reasonable distance in case he needed to help. As half of the eight lizards were about to move past Echo, she let out a shrill shriek while slamming the two shields together.

As her shriek ended, the lizards that were about to run past also turned towards her with bloodshot eyes and she ended up being surrounded by all the eight lizards. Contrary to Edward’s expectations Echo smiled slightly and extended her hands to the sides, parallel to the ground. Once the lizards were close enough, the two shields strapped to her hands extended two transparent blades out of their tips and Echo started spinning at a really fast speed. Since all the lizards were in the middle of jumping on her, they couldn’t stop their charge and ended up cut in pieces in a manner of seconds.

Being done with all eight monsters in an instant, she stretched her body, greatly accentuating her voluminous chest before turning her head over her shoulder towards the stunned Edward and saying: “How about it young blood? Did that give you some confidence?”

Edward nodded absentmindedly, mind repeating the scene he just witnessed while his eyes were fixed on the blood and guts that were flowing down her armor.

“Good, then hurry and absorb their life force before the dungeon takes it back.” When it came to experience, Edward recovered from his stupor and walked up, slowly absorbing the life force by placing his status tablet on the guts and pieces left on the ground.

“You know, kid, this was nothing spectacular. You should see Ingvar here fighting. That’s the real spectacle.” Said Echo as she kept observing Edward combing through the guts and pieces with a relatively calm look in his eyes.

Edward turned to look up at her and asked: “But, what was that attack?”

“I used three of my skills there, taunt to get them to attack me and whirlwind to cut them into pieces at once while using my divine swords to extend the range of the attack. Pretty cool, no?”

Edward nodded with a sigh, his mind going back to the struggle he and his last party had with these level two lizards the last time.

Once Edward finished absorbing the life force from the group of lizards, all traces of the blood and gore on Echo’s armor was also gone. Feeling refreshed to finally be clean, she turned towards Ingvar and asked: “How about it, leader? Shall we go look for more enemies? It’s been a while since I got to see you having fun.”

Ingvar nodded and turned towards Edward who had a hopeless expression on his face: “Edward, I know you lost a party before, but there’s no point in dwelling on the past. Adventurers die by the hundreds every day. That’s just a part of life.”

Edward shook his head and stood up before saying: “That’s not it. I was just thinking that we struggled so much with a group of lizards here and Echo here just killed eight on her own like it was nothing.”

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“That’s just normal, kid. I’ve been training since the first time I could hold a weapon in my hands, or a shield, hehe. Look.” As her words ended, she summoned her status tablet and threw it towards Edward.

<Name: Echo>
<Class: Enforcer>
<Sub-class: Scout>
<Sub-class: Templar>
<Divine energy: 485/500>
<Stamina: 372/392>
<Strength: 5.6>
<Dexterity: 5.1>
<Level: 3>
<Level Life Force: 1/200>
<Skills: Impale, Cost: 5 stamina;
Taunt, Cost: 10 stamina;
Whirlwind, Cost: 10 stamina;
Lifeline, Cost: 1 energy per second;
Divine sword, Cost: 15 energy;
Fortress, Cost: 25 energy;>

As Edward was looking through her status tablet, she continued: “Most people rely just on their level and learning a lot of skills, but just physical training and a good mastery of just a few simple skills also has it’s advantages. Both my strength and agility are almost double my level’s usual amount and the proficiency I gained in using these skill is almost perfect. That is the result of my training.”

Edward nodded and passed the tablet back to her. While he felt a bit overwhelmed by her strength, Edward had to admit that it gave him some confidence of actually being able to survive inside the dungeon.

With some motivation returning to Edward, the group started looking for more monsters to hunt down. After a few minutes of searching, they stumbled upon their second group. This time, there were 14 lizards who moved to attack them instantly.

Seeing the group of enemies, Echo actually sat down on the white floor and said to Ingvar: “Go and show off a bit as well.”

Ingvar sighed and took out his twin-blades before slowly walking forward towards the charging enemies. Compared to Echo’s display of strength, Ingvar’s was more one of dexterity. Instead of killing the entire group of 14 lizards at once as she did, he kept running through them, swiftly dodging all their attacks to perfection while capitalizing on every chance he got to strike back. It was like watching a skilled doctor performing a delicate operation. From the start until the end, Ingvar didn’t use any skill or flashy move. His perfect balance, flexibility and spatial awareness created a mesmerizing spectacle to watch. The fight was quickly over and, compared to Echo’s fight, there was not a trace of blood or gore on Ingvar’s entire body.

Seeing Edward’s dumbfounded expression, Echo laughed out loud and said: “What did I tell you? A true spectacle. Go and absorb your life force.”

Edward sighed once more and went to absorb the enemy life force: ‘I guess this is what getting carried means…’.

Once he was done absorbing all the dead lizards’ life force, he returned to the group and turned towards Kara with a curious gaze.

Kara scoffed and said: “There is nothing special about hitting enemies with a bow so don’t look at me like that. I’m not like these two muscle-heads and don’t feel like performing a circus act for you.”

Edward only half believed her words, remembering he saw some pretty high cost skills on her status tablet, but didn’t call her on it.

Ingvar ignored the two’s bickering and said: “Hunting here is actually a waste of time so I think it would be faster to head straight to the fourth floor. While it will prove a bit more challenging, we should be able to easily take care of the enemies there as well. What do you guys think?”

“I have no problem with it. Probably even on the third floor I will have nothing to do with the two of you here.” Replied Kara with an indifferent expression. Echo also nodded and they all turned towards Edward. Edward looked reluctant, not really sure if this was the best idea. He knew for a fact that, while definitely strong, none of them had any experience in the dungeon and just skipping the third floor to fight enemies one level higher than them seemed quite dangerous.

Seeing his expression, Ingvar said: “I know you are scared, but we’ve fought against level four beasts before and we would be able to easily take care of them as a group with just the three of us. If you are able to keep up we might even head for the fifth floor.”

Since the others were quite insistent and confident, after a bit more back and forth, Edward eventually relented. Once it was settled, the group used their status tablet and breached two consecutive floors, reaching the fourth floor. Luckily, there were no monsters both times straight under them and they had a small time window to take in their surroundings.

As they fell on the fourth floor, Edward looked around and noticed that there was no difference at all compared to the previous floors. It was still an expansive opening, with white ceiling, floor and pillars in between stretching all the way from the floor to the ceiling.

Once everyone fell on the fourth floor, they got into position with serious looks on their faces. Even the indifferent Kara got serious and picked up her bow from her back.

“Let’s search for some true enemies.” Said Ingvar as he took the lead together with Echo and started heading deeper into the dungeon’s floor.

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