The skeleton archers that the pair are looking for are located deep at floor 16, the deeper the floor is the larger it gets making it harder to find the stairs heading towards the next floor. The skeletons are also much more powerful the deeper they go, not only are they growing in numbers, their levels also increases. Equipment, class, and skills are some of the changes that gets stronger every floor.
By the time they've reach floor 14 they can no longer find any players, their progress also came to a crawl as skeletons started overwhelming them with numbers.
If not for the fact that Yulis was a mage that kept their dps up to a certain point they would've been drowning in bones.
Yet Yulis doesn't have infinite mana, even though she brought trinkets, potions and scrolls to keep her mana from dipping down below 20% her mana on certain times almost reached 20%.
Eara could easily deal with the melee skeletons, since her equipment alone increased her strength by fifty percent. Yulis even gave her trinkets that boosts her stats, even if it was only a 0.05% boost per item.
Halfway through, a new group of skeletons wielding bows began appearing one after the other. They all have the same armor and equipment that made them look like an elite unit.
They all positioned themselves behind heavy knights, another group of heavy skeletons that is wearing armor specifically designed for tanks. These tanky skeletons may move slow and attack slow but they hit hard.
Even with all the heavy layers of steel and a large tower shield that they barely lift off the ground, the heavy knights would hit like truck. Eara who first encountered them quickly underestimated them when they moved like snails but quickly received her punishment when she received one of their heavy blows.
She thought she could parry them and use their weight against them only for her to get lifted off the ground and launched high into the air, hitting the ceiling and crashing on to the floor.
Those heavy knights only showed up one at a time back on the previous floor, but now there's a group of seven of them, accompanied by archers double their number.
And not only that but they were also escorted by an assorted number of melee skeletons, not just a rabble of them but proper soldier types, these ones all have mini leaders that leads and commands them.
Each of them would form a squad and would act like a party of warriors that can easily use tactics with the other parties.
Yulis saw that and realised that the pair don't have what it takes to take them all down. After talking with Eara who understood their situation, regretfully nodded and retreated with her sister.
These kinds of scenarios all happens around the dungeon, either a party falls to a trap, gets ambushed, or realise their limits. Once they leave, the spots that they have previously occupied opens, allowing other players to try the dungeon out.
Sometimes, players would wait outside the dungeon and either compete for said spot or ask the system to make a random draw.
In order to leave a dungeon a player must return to the way that they came. It wasn't allowed to use any external means like a teleportation item, although there are some skills that are powerful enough to bypass the restrictions of the dungeon depending on how strong the player is and how large a dungeon is.
A grand sorcerer for example who have a sixth tier teleportation skill can easily overpower the restrictions of the current dungeon that they're in.
The pair made a quick retreat smashing through any skeletons that gets near, coming back up at the 10th floor where they encountered a raiding team of 4 parties.
Since a single party can only hold up to 4 players, 1 support, 1 damage dealer, 1 tank and 1 ranged is the usual build of a squad. These parties usually raids local dungeons of up to 8 floors.
A raiding team however forms 4 parties of 4 players plus a commander for the whole team and a lieutenant in case the commander is somehow unable to do his duty. They usually raid dungeons with 16 floors or more, raid bosses or event monsters.
There's also a raiding battalion, formed on subjugating continental dungeons, their numbers are tripped with the addition of one or two more party acting as support.
Finally, a raiding legion, these legions forms up to a hundred players or more and in a world class events, forms subjugation armies numbering up to a thousand. These armies are dedicated on fighting demigods type bosses or any similar ones.
They passed the large raiding team that looked quite out of place. Yulis immediately noticed that the majority of them all looked like kids.
Yulis frowned under her mask when she saw players that is the same age of Eara walk with blank expression as a group of dude boss them around.
Her excessive observation of the group caught the eye of their leader who shouted at her. "what are you looking at?! looking for a fight huh!?."
Yulis simply scoffed and ignored them, Eara who was also watching them looked away with a sad expression hidden behind her mask.
After a while, Eara spoke with a sad voice. "big sis? isn't there something we could do?"
Yulis wasn't suprised at her sister's reaction, after spending time with her for a month and watching every little detail about her little sister, she concluded that her sister, unlike her is quite kind.
She possess compassion to others, especially if they're at her age or younger, even more so if they're on a similar state of living as both of them.
Yulis replied. "unfortunately, there is nothing we could do, if we were to try and disband their guild then what about the children? they're obviously working for their families, and cutting off their only source of income would definitely harm them instead of helping them. "
" They'll either join another guild that does these kinds of things or simply have to do actual work in the real world. "
"it is also difficult to find and help these childrens who are actually abused because of the game's iron clad identity protection system."
Yulis sighed. "only a single guild could provide actual help without harming them."
Eara stopped walking and asked with great curiosity. "who?"
"The Bloody Justice Guild, or as others calls them the Justice Guild. They're a huge group of players who banded together in the name of justice. They're the most trusted guild because of their reputation of complete fairness and near perfect morality."
Eara smiled when she found out of their existence, knowing that there are also players like them gave her a sense of relief. After repeating their name in her head, she quickly asked her sister an obvious question. " But, why would they call themselves Bloody Justice?"
Yulis thought for a while an replied. "no one really knows why other than themselves, they also never revealed the reason why and most players who tries to join them would always face a test of some kind. Those who passed were accepted and only few left the guild and refused to reveal any details. Those who failed are segregated into two types, those who could try again and those who don't. "
Eara continued her sister's explanation. " And I'm guessing those who couldn't try again are those who doesn't have a true sense of justice or probably spies right! "
" smart little sister of mine! "Yulis complemented her.
Thinking about it, back in her previous life, the secret to their name was actually revealed when an incident about an npc assassination was revealed to the public. A high ranking officer from the Bloody Justice who was revealed to be an assassin was caught while trying to escape after killing a corrupt npc noblemen.
It caused a shock to the players community since the majority of the members of the Bloody Justice were knights, templars, paladins, priests, bishops, saints, and other similar classes that are aligned with the light.
Then the term bloody justice came to mind and the players realised that the bloody justice guild also do vengeance aside from justice.
The pair finally made it out of the dungeon, afterwards they used a return scroll to return to the town.
In an abandoned mine that is now home to goblins, a group of children with age ranging from 10 to 17 are battling a patrol group of small goblins.
Behind them are a group of men who seemed to be watching while talking amongst themselves.
"why am i stuck here at the lower levels babysitting a bunch of kids! I should be grinding my levels up at the middle levels!" A bald man with chain mail armor and two handed sword kicked the ground while staring at the kids with angry eyes.
"want to complain to the vice guild leader?" a man in leather armor and and a pair of daggers spoke with crossed arms.
"Tsk! do you think i want to lose my hard earned guild position?!" He barked back while stomping hard at the ground.
"then stop whining like a child and do your job properly." A man in full plate armors and tower shield spoke.
These men are a part of the players and guilds who decided to get kids to work for them as forced labour. Unbeknownst to them, they were slowly being surrounded by several shadowy figures hiding behind the shadows.
Due to the fact that these men are at their territory, they didn't put their guard up and instead played around, not knowing that they are already surrounded by armored figures.
When the clanking of their armor could be heard, the group of men finally noticed their presence.
However, it was already too late, for all passage ways leading outside was already blocked by several parties of players who all looked like knights.
"who are you people!? this is the Lion Fangs Guild's dungeon!"
"This territory belongs to the lion fangs guild! identify yourselves!"
The group panicked as soon as they noticed the group of armored players, their first thought is to scare them away by mentioning their guild name.
The lead player that was wearing a noticeably higher quality armor spoke." Is that so? then there's no need to ask questions. Forward!"
On his command a splinter of their forces advanced forward while the rest watched the passage ways.
Stricken with fear the surrounded players finally found their wits to call for reinforcements, although it was already too late, they can atleast inform their guild members of the attacks.
[Guild System Notice]
Notice, A member of the Guild, Bloody Justice have attacked one of your guild members!
Notice, A member of the Guild, Bloody Justice have attacked one of your guild members!
Notice, A member of the Guild, Bloody Justice have attacked one of your guild members!
Notice....
Several of the higher ups of the Guild Lion Fangs suddenly received these notifications and at the same time reports from several of their hunting parties being attacked suddenly flooded in their guild mails.
"Damnit!" A large burly man slammed his fist into the table in front of him. "Those damn justice freaks have decided to lay their hands on our guild! why our guild!? there's plenty of other guild out there that does worst jobs than ours why us!?"
A woman in cloth equipment spoke while reading a report. "It turned out that its not just us, we received several reports from our spies from the other guilds that the justice guild have attacked their own too. Scorned Souls, Blazing Muscles, Speedos Weirdos, Felatio Lovers, Cococonutz, and several other 4th and 3rd rate guilds have been under attacked by the justice guilds. "
" Those damned lunatics! and what's their intention? " The baldy spoke while pounding on the table.
The woman adjusted her eyeglasses and looked down as if reading something in front of her" we don't know yet, but there is a similarity on our guilds that has been attcked"
"what is it?" Baldy suddenly looked intrigued and stopped his tantrums and listening carefully to the woman.
"well, all the hunting parties that were attacked had children on their team members and not only that but those children have left their respective guilds. Also almost all of our hired labourers are now gone."
Boom!
The baldy once again smashed his table causing it to break from all the smashing that he's been doing.
" It also looked like they chose their targets well and attacked 3rd rate guilds and below. "
Before he could say another word, the woman spoke first." Sir, i just received an invitation to form an alliance against the justice guild. "
Baldy looked at the woman as if she was an angel delivering the message of the gods and looked as if he was a dog staring at his owner who was holding a food.
Glasses looked disturbed for a moment before continuing her report.
Unlike the smaller fourth and third rate guilds that was attacked, Bloody Justice was a second rate guild, their numbers reached that of the thousands compared to third rate guilds that have about a thousand or so members.
Not only that but the Bloody Justice have an unusually large size that numbered around 6 thousand making them a force to be reckoned with based on their numbers alone, regular second rate guilds would usually have around 4 to 5 thousand members at most.
Their numbers alone caused despair to the third and fourth raters, normally second rate guilds avoids bullying smaller guilds in order to protect their reputation, avoid unnecessary hostilities, avoid offending multiple parties and finally to avoid the formation of an alliance that would bite them back.
The Bloody Justice however have a reputation of upholding justice and good morals, they have always shown righteousness and fairness in conduct that whenever they moved it is always assumed by many that they are acting on the behalf of justice.
Right now no sane third party guild would interfere on the fight when they heard the involvement of the bloody justice guild. Some even sneered at the guilds who actually managed to earn the ire of the justice guild.
When old baldy heard the proposal and invitation to form an alliance, he quickly regained hope. As long as they could match the numbers of the justice guild, they could easily start an attrition warfare with the justice guild, hopefully tiring them out and saving their asses at the same time.
And since the numbers of the attacked guilds was around 8 or so he was quite hopeful that at least half of them would join their alliance. He didn't want to disband his guild just because of a single incident.
"quickly accept their proposals!.... oh by the way, who sent it?
" scorned souls sir. "
While a war is currently brewing in the neighbouring kingdom, Yulis and Eara on the other hand were busy making money and leveling up.
Yulis already got her novice alchemist subclass, in order for a player to get the alchemist subclass however they must learn some other subclasses first, brewing, herbalism, and in the future mineralogy and botany.
Once again the players at Contesia Kingdom were at an uproar as player made potions began circulating at the auction house, and another suprise when they noticed the black lotus emblem on their potions vial.
"holy sheet! does this flower look familiar to you guys!?"
"isn't this the black lotus emblem? the same player who made the very first player made weapon in the game?"
"check it out! these small lesser potion of healing is better than the npc sold ones!"
"what?! how!? aren't they basically the same?!"
"there's mana potions too! speed buffs, strength buffs and intelligence buffs here aswell!
" oh no! the strength buff potions are gone! "
" hehehe, i just brought me some speed buffs potions! the early bird gets the worm!"
News spread towards the surrounding kingdoms aswell, each town's respective auction house was suddenly swamped by waved of players, one could see a sea of heads bopping up and down, the usually inactive body sensor systems suddenly came fully online in order to prevent people's with bright ideas from fully enacting their plans of having a quick grope here and there.
Small mobs of players are waiting just outside the waves of players, waiting to find a perverted player marked by the system. Even if violence is prohibited by npcs inside of the town premises, they have more than enough time to bonk and run.
At the same time, the first rate guilds finally took the player black lotus seriously, a player that can potentially buff up entire armies in just a short amount of time is not a joke. They all began to seriously discuss on how to find said player, some even went as far as placing bounties and rewards to whoever could give out information regarding black lotus.
Yulis and Eara who are both unaware of the current head hunting that spawned just because of them are busy counting moneys, the only thing that is in their head is money and how to make more money.