The dungeon was so basic it looked like it came out of a children's fantasy book. A deep network of fairly simple caves was connected to a gigantic area covered in holes. Enemies could come from everywhere, however the gigantic mass of hunters had quite the number of members capable of sensing life sources around them.
All paths were capable of that at a certain level, but only specialized classes that acted as scouts would be able to do that at such low ranks. The only high-ranking hunter in the dungeon was the healer, and no one except Sen knew of his rank. Perhaps they hadn't heard about his team in the news...Or perhaps the news hadn't even mentioned that incident. Vodka was definitely filling his head with too many theories about how the government and the KHG were hiding information.
And Jeol was certainly not helping, neither was Hojosa who was definitely the shadiest person Sen had ever met. The man was trouble incarnate, he just could feel it.
Back to the topic at hand, the hunters moved in groups, each exploring one cave at a time and returning to the central area every time they reached a dead-end.
There was one group however who hadn't reached a single dead-end since the start of the hunt, or raid as some hunters liked to call those situations. That group was the one with the housewife who seemed to know Sen, and it made the depressed hunter wonder who she was.
She clearly had incredible senses. She had immediately picked on the area where the boss would probably be. Sen was quite happy he had Vodka to analyze the dungeon and come out with the boss room's location in a matter of minutes. During that time, he hadn't been idle though.
The team lead by the housewife had avoided all the creatures in their cave, and so Seneos had to kill them himself.
Of course, that cave had to be filled with the most stereotypical monsters possible. Giants bugs hung from the ceiling and stuck to the walls, watching from the dark with their brilliant blue eyes.
Sen held his dagger in one hand while his other was fiddling with a flashlight given to him by the hunters who had joined his 'group'. Not all hunters were too absorbed by their thoughts to notice how flashy the healer who followed after Sen was.
A man wielding a handgun had joined them as soon as they entered the dungeon. He had been allowed to follow them since he provided the flashlight and clearly had a good level. That much was obvious by the mere fact that he had a gun.
Hunters with paths that utilized ranged weapons never went for guns. For some reason that no one, at least to Sen's knowledge, could explain, most technologically advanced objects just wouldn't work in dungeons. In the case of simple handguns it was a bit different. They worked but weren't all that useful. Some theorized that it was because of the fact that monsters naturally had energy surrounding their bodies and acting as shields, contrarily to humans who were unable to do that due to the volatile nature of magic. A human body couldn't be coated in magic for too long. However, that theory wasn't exactly without flaws. After all, bows and crossbows worked.
The only theory that emerged and seemed right, although it was highly unsatisfactory, was that something was preventing guns from working as well as they should inside dungeons, but without completely blocking them like cameras for example. Certain dungeons did not possess that annoying specificity, however most did and it was enough to make people stop bringing anything advanced with them.
Monsters could actually suffer damages from even the smallest handguns once outside dungeons. Inside of them, even a precision rifle with bullets capable of piercing tanks wouldn't so much as scratch an orc. That was if the weapon was normal, however.
Because, like it was the case for the man who was currently working with Sen, some hunters could use their own magic to strengthen their guns. And then, a handgun would turn as deadly inside as it was outside.
It was oddly satisfying to watch a hunter so easily dispatch monsters, although a small of frustration could still be felt. After all, Sen had to actually work hard to dismember the monsters while the sharpshooter just had to point his gun and not miss bugs that were the size of humans and moved slower than toddlers, except for the spiders.
Sen officially hated spiders.
"For...For fuck's sake!"The Overlord screamed as he squashed the head of a spider under his foot. A sickening crunch could be heard, and it brought no small amount of delight to his heart.
He could only hope to unlock the fire mage's path someday and purge those damn spiders.
His anger at those puny little bugs was slowly starting to amuse the healer who had regained some colors. Focusing on the dungeon allowed him to forget about what made his heart heavy in the first place. There was no doubt in Sen's mind, however, that he would go pale once again after the dungeon was conquered. The man would be mourning for a long time.
It was a little bit cruel to think this way, but Sen had no time to spare to the sad little healer. While the sharpshooter was busy shooting at anything that tried to pull a sneaky attack on them, Sen was slashing left and right to commit a spider genocide.
He aimed at a little spot between their eyes that was softer than any other part of their skull. He only stabbed them deep enough to kill them, having no time to waste on making his dagger go through the entire thing's crunchy little head. He was lucky his teammates were so effective, or else he had no doubts he would have been overwhelmed and devoured by now.
"Healer! Can you boost me a little bit? I need to go faster" He asked Kang Tae-Yoon who nodded shyly. The man was such a shadow of his old goofy self it was a bit scary. And Seneos had only known him for an hour or two mind you.
A yellow aura washed over Sen's body and he felt lighter. Smirking in the darkness of the cave, he looked down at the spiders with something akin to hatred in his eyes and sped up his slaughter.
The spiders were not all that smart, each taking their turn to attack him simply because of their fear of the sharpshooter that made it impossible to form a group around Sen. Had they attacked in group, they would've killed him easily, yet fear always played an important part in a fight.
He slashed the legs of a spider that jumped on him and kicked it in mid-air. Turning to his left, he saw two spiders ready to pounce at him and crouched as soon as they tried. Before they could turn around, he crushed the head of one and stabbed the eye of the other with all of his might. He was starting to tire ever so slightly, but he was too motivated to stop. He had wanted to unlock the sharpshooter path as soon as he had seen the younger man fight, however, he had finally settled on pursuing his attempt at unlocking the basic path....The path of the valorous, the knight.
That one shouldn't be that difficult since Seneos had always somewhat fought like one. The only difference was something Vodka put a lot of emphasis on, the will to reach that path.
As he hacked his way through the dozen of spiders that were left, he filled his mind with images of famous knight hunters he had admired over the years. He focused all of his thoughts on that single idea, to unlock the path.
He could hear a voice in the back of his mind, but it was so tiny, so fragile, he barely registered it. It screamed at him, but he wouldn't listen. Instead, he mindlessly slaughtered the creatures, drenching himself in blue, gooey, blood.
"Yes, continue like that!" It roared with reckless abandon. The child-like voice yelled with such conviction as if murdering those spiders was the only thing that mattered in that single instant. Nothing else mattered, the whole world was closed to Seneos. Without him knowing, the color of his eyes started to fade. His hands began to tremble, moving on their own, as veins popped on his forehead.
So busy the other members of his group were, that none of the two truly noticed anything until the spiders were all killed. The group found itself at the entrance of another cave, one that shone due to various precious stones covering up dark walls and the ceiling, like a starry night.
"H-Hey, we are nearing the boss' room..I-I think. I can hear fighting in the distance. It should be that group." The healer somehow got through a full sentence before smacking his lips and closing his mouth definitively.
That took Seneos' away from his slowly decaying mind, the child in his mind still somehow discreet even with it screaming its lungs out.
Seneos braced himself and stepped inside the room. Only a few meters from the big arch-like entrance made with blue rocks, he saw the housewife kicking a gigantic dark red beetle in its horn, making it recoil a bit.
He looked at his 'teammates' and smiled. He didn't know from where his newfound confidence came, but he was quite happy with it.
"Alright...Let's help them with the boss." He told them, getting only a snort from the sharpshooter in response.
"They don't look like they need any help." He said, pointing at the housewife who was expertly dodging the strikes of the beetle. She was in a slightly bad shape, one of her legs being insanely swollen around her ankle while her mouth sported a bleeding busted lip. She wasn't giving the boss any respite though.
Seneos snickered as the voice whispered in his ears, nothing it told him was new, however. The voice was simply agreeing with whatever he had already planned, knowing his habits as well as he did. Of course, it knew.
He whispered something to himself, as he usually did when he was slightly hesitating.
"That housewife seems to know me...Perhaps she is from my forgotten past, perhaps she was once close to me...But for now....." He turned around and gave the sharpshooter a toothy grin that was instantly met with one from the man himself.
"We can't let her get injured any further, that would be quite a repulsive conduct...Plus we can't get a share of the reward if we don't fight, now can we?"
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