Ten hours later.
Currently, Niles was trembling from anger beside the 'arrow' with his clenched fists and nearly shattered teeth.
Two days had passed since they had started playing with wooden sticks and dry leaves. In the end, they couldn't even manage to make an insignificant fire with their hard-earned technique, 'obtaining fire through friction.'
Niles even sent a small group of newcomers to The Sunfell Town in order to 'steal' fire, but all of them returned with swollen faces and broken arms.
What was wrong with the town's people? Broken arms? Swollen faces? They didn't come to r*pe their sisters! They just wanted a wispy fire!
Niles was getting irritated whenever he looked at the pile of rocks. Somehow they reminded him of Dante's smug grin. He was longing for the moment that he would rip off that self-righteous expression from Dante's face.
However, a while later, he won against his irritation and started playing with the rocks in hopes to learn their secrets. He didn't even know which rocks were marcasite and what was flint. Thus, his attempts were futile.
In these two days, whenever his patience hit a bottleneck, Niles was beating up Dante's four former party members until he felt good again. Right now, their faces were filled with small cuts and purple bruises.
Not long ago, in a similar occasion, Niles started to throw those rocks everywhere in a fit of anger!
He threw the rocks randomly one after another! He hit them to his party members who were trying hard to make a fire, to Dante's four former party members, and back to the pile of rocks!
Luckily, some of the rocks that he threw were marcasites with flint on them, and one of those marcasites ignited upon bumping on another marcasite! No, actually, it wasn't luck, because Niles had thrown so many rocks that he cleared almost the whole pile! It was inevitable to ignite a random blemish on a random marcasite rock!
Still, just making the fire cost them more than two days of time! What a pathetic joke was this!
Until reaching the treasure chest room, Niles was calm as if he was someone else. He was walking at the front of his hundred people party. He even warned his comrades upon seeing the untouched treasure chests, but some of his party members didn't listen to him.
As soon as Niles turned his back to them, those idiots made their moves on treasure chests. In the end, some of them disappeared just like that, and some of them died on the spot.
Thirteen newcomers died! Fortunately, there weren't many untouched treasure chests in the room, or else, the number of deaths would be even more.
However, against all the odds, Niles didn't get angry over the deaths of his comrades. He had around ninety more of them. He also had not associated the torches to Dante's party at that time.
But... when he saw the 'arrow,' his face started to twist and distort. Controlling his face muscles became increasingly harder. He felt a weight on his face as if something was pressuring him!
After seeing the arrow, Niles had perfectly understood that all of this was Dante's doing.
Dante had once said before 'it will be equal to sitting on Niles' face.' The bastard was experiencing 'that' feeling now! Niles didn't know, but that pressure had come from an illusory butt!
If he had known what Dante said while placing this arrow here, how much rage would he feel right now? He would have probably exploded from extreme anger!
However, strangely enough, Niles managed to calm himself down in a short time despite still feeling intense anger.
"Jo!" He bellowed without looking back.
A short and chunky man in his twenties immediately left the party's ranks and came beside Niles. His expression had traces of panic.
Actually, most of the newcomers here had fear on their faces. They were afraid of Niles. Was the cause of this fear Niles' unstable character? Or was it something else?
"I-I'm here Boss!" Jo said, trying hard to look like a loyal henchman.
"Choose the most beneficial path for us!" Niles commanded. He guessed that Dante's party went from the rightmost cave-path, but he didn't tell Jo anything about it.
Jo was an unusual newcomer. At level 1, his luck stat was 11! It was even higher than Dante's luck stat at level 6!
However, he suffered at other areas heavily, except for the luck stat, his other stats weren't even 1. Furthermore, he was fat and short.
"Y-yes, Boss!" Jo stood in front of the four cave-paths.
He looked at them intently for a while before choosing a random cave-path.
Honestly, with his 0.6 points intelligence stat, he could be considered as an idiot. As for why he waited before picking a cave-path, even he didn't have the slightest idea.
"I-I feel like we should go down from this path," Jo said while pointing the leftmost cave-path.
Niles didn't spare Jo another glance and looked at Dante's four former party members.
"You'll go from the front, but one by one. I don't want to waste you all at once." He said. Apparently, he intended to use them as cannon-fodders.
The four trembled upon hearing Niles' words, but they didn't say anything. They were already in a sorry state. Another beating session would be unbearable for them.
The cannon-fodders went from the front. Niles was just behind them. Before long, all of the ninety newcomers disappeared into the leftmost cave-path.
If there hadn't been someone like Jo in the party, Niles would have definitely chosen the rightmost cave-path.
Dante analyzed Niles' character correctly. He really had anger management problems. However, there were also some things he left out of account.
He was getting angry too quickly, but at the same time, he could get calmer at the same speed. Niles was such a person.
Dante had predicted that Niles wouldn't split his group. He had a couple of reasons in mind for why Niles will choose to do so, but the actual reason was something Dante would have never guessed even in his dreams.
...
Two hours later. In one of the cave-paths close to the skeleton-filled hall.
Dante's party was making additional plans. Their goal was to reach the other end of the hall, but doing so wasn't enough.
There were two unfavorable possibilities for them.
The first one was if they don't kill the dungeon boss, the dungeon quest probably wouldn't be completed.
The second one was if the dungeon boss gets killed by another party, they would have to wait for the next month's arrival in order to complete the dungeon quest.
No matter what, they had to kill the dungeon boss!
However, trying to do so in an open field would be hard. The actions of Niles' party was the key here.
"We will try to reach daylight first. However, if we find the chance of killing the dungeon boss before reaching the daylight, we must seize the chance. Otherwise, we might not have another chance."
After saying that, Dante turned to the blonde, "Iona, your only goal will be to reach the daylight. I don't expect anything from you, just do not become a burden for us. If you..."
In the middle of his speech, Dante heard the sounds of footsteps coming from the cave's darkness! Everyone stopped breathing and listened!
'Did we miss a skeleton?' Dante and the rest had the same thoughts.
Before long, a swollen-faced youth slowly walked toward them with a torch in hand! Fear and fatigue were evident on his expresion!
This youth was one of the four cannon-fodders! He was alone! The other three were not at present!
Upon seeing Dante, he frantically tried to go back. While doing so, he stumbled on rocks a few times before disappearing from the party's field of view! His breath was also frantic and loud like his movements! However, he didn't shout or scream! He seemed like he had learned his lesson on the way here!
Dante was startled at first. Then he knitted his brows, and his expression turned ugly.
A few moments later, a familiar and smiling face showed itself before the party's eyes!
"Dante! What a surprise! We met again!"
"Niles!"