"Anyway… I wonder how they ended up so injured." Covering his embarrassment Frost tried to redirect the conversation.
"Who knows, could be any number of things, traps, bandits, monsters or even fellow adventurers but the weird thing is that it seems as though they're purposely heading towards the dungeon even in their injured state." Maya's eyes narrowed as she thought.
"That's…. strange, normally when injured you'd do your best to avoid danger but they're walking right towards it…. do they not know that it's a monster lair but some cave?"
"Guess we'll find out soon young master."
The two young adventurers were now in full view of the dungeon's entrance.
"…. This is your plan?" Luna asked completely shocked, when Leo told her he had a plan of survival never in her wildest dreams did she picture a monster lair.
"Pretty much yeah." Leo kept moving forward towards the entrance despite Luna's protests.
"Have you gone insane Leo? How in the hells is a dangerous untested monster lair going to help us. Or have you forgotten that with our current strength even a couple of goblins could kill us and even if we were at full strength, we'd still die in there. Didn't you hear what the [Artic Warband] said, there's frost wolves in there, frost wolves plural." Luna was smacking the back of Leo's head as she spoke hoping to pound the information into his thick skull. At least if they gave up and fought against their aggressors they wouldn't be eaten. The image of being eaten or even worse by goblins sent a mortifying chill down her spine.
"That's exactly why, it's our only chance to live!" Leo stopped walking and shouted, he didn't have time to explain his full reasoning due to time constraints, but he needed Luna to calm down and trust him.
"If we face them in battle, we'll die 10 times out of 10 without a doubt at least this way we even the playfield slightly. It's an absolute long shot but we've got no other option. As long as we enter the monster lair and survive until the investigative party arrives, we'll live." At this point Leo had turned around and stared straight into Luna's eyes conveying his urgency.
"..." Luna was speechless, she couldn't argue against his logic, it truly was their only option and Leo always had a good instinct for survival. She bit her lip until blood was drawn and stopped crying before nodding in acceptance.
"Good, we need to move fast, they can't be far behind us." Leo smiled and felt warm seeing Luna put her trust in him. They then quickly moved forward crossing the dungeon's threshold in a risky leap of faith.
Roughly 20 minutes later a rough looking group of men barged through the forest following the blood trail left behind by Leo and Luna.
There were close to twenty men all brutish in appearance, dressed in rough leathers and simple clothes adorned with a red hawk symbol. All of them were human, ranging from late twenties to middle aged and equipped with simple weapons such as clubs and axes.
"The fuck? Did the brats run into the monster lair, do they have a death wish?" One of the more buff men shouted as he saw the blood trail lead into the mountain. This group of men had been chasing the two young adventurers for the past hour or so, after they escaped their ambush. Many of the man's allies had been killed and a fair few of the ones here sported minor injuries.
In response to the man's shout an incredibly tall and muscular man walked out of the forest. He easily stood at 2 metres in height and his arms were thicker than some of the other men's legs. His armour, clothes and even his weapons were of a much higher quality, even surpassing the equipment of John the leader of the [Artic Warband].
At his entrance all of the rough looking men turned to face him, their eyes filled with a mixture of respect and fear, with fear being the most prominent. This man was their leader, the bandit boss Redhawk. Even the larger man who shouted acted submissive in Redhawk's presence.
Redhawk scanned over the men he lorded over and smiled as he saw the fear in their eyes. He loved that expression.
As Redhawk was relishing in the gazes an audible sigh came from his side.
"So not only did you allow them to escape from the ambush, you allowed them to flee into an uncharted monster lair…. I'm starting to think that you aren't worth my time Redhawk." The voice was cold and held no trace of fear when confronting Redhawk in fact just the opposite it was full of contempt.
Redhawk was initially filled with extreme rage, he quickly turned around to smash the man who offended his prestige but immediately stopped in his tracks the moment he saw the man's face.
A terrifyingly, cold shiver ran down his spine and his heart almost stopped, if there was one man, he never wished to offend it was this man before him. Unlike the rest of the Redhawk bandits, this man was rather elegant in appearance and was dressed similar to that of a knight.
He had a well-maintained longsword strapped to his side in a sheath and exuded a frosty atmosphere, but the most terrifying thing was his eyes. the moment Redhawk was looked at by his ice blue eyes he could smell the stench of death surrounding him.
The knight like man stared into Redhawk's eyes unwavering, exuding a powerful killing intent he lowered his hand towards his sword.
"W…w…wait" Redhawk panicked, holding his hands up in fear.
'Shit! shit! shit! why did I have to provoke this monster.' Redhawk's back was drenched in cold sweat as he lamented his actions.
Seeing his fearful and pathetic appearance the cold knight smirked before releasing his sword and receding his killing intent.
"I hired you on behalf of my master to carry out a simple job, kill a measly two E-rank adventurers yet not only did you fail to kill them in an ambush that I helped prepare you allowed them to flee to this monster lair. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you for your incompetence Redhawk?" The cold knight stared directly into Redhawk's eyes viewing him as nothing but a bug.
The knight had spent a large sum of money to hire this group of bandits which were supposed to be the strongest group within the area. But so far, they've been nothing but a disappointment.
"N….no… please give us another chance, I promise that we'll kill those two brats and present their heads to you." To be honest although Redhawk was afraid of this man's overbearing strength, he was confident that he could successfully flee with his life however the man the knight worked for was a different story, he couldn't offend him under any circumstances.
During this heated discussion, the group of red hawk bandits watched in amazement and confusion. Why was their boss so afraid of this man, even if he was strong there were 20 of them, could he really beat them all?
"Very well you have one more chance, do not fail me again otherwise you know what will happen." The cold knight walked past Redhawk whispering into his ear before moving on, ignoring the fearful and enraged look on the bandit's face.
As the cold knight left one of the red hawk's deputies edged closer.
"Boss are you sure you don't want to just kill him and be done with it?" The deputy looked over the cold knight as he prepared to draw his weapon
Bang! Suddenly he was smacked across the face sending him hurtling to the ground.
"Idiot, moron do you think if that was an option, I wouldn't have done it already?" Redhawk angrily spoke towards his floored deputy making sure he wasn't speaking loud enough for the cold knight to hear.
"We'll simply do the job as requested, get our money and then leave understand." Redhawk's eyes were full of rage and if looks could kill his deputy would be dead many times over. Deep down he already regretted taking this assignment, but the money was incredible and the man behind the cold knight wasn't someone he could refuse.
"The chances of the brats surviving the monster lair is impossible anyway so haven't we already completed our job, in fact doesn't this make it even less likely to be linked to us if they die in the monster lair?" Redhawk's other deputy stepped forward to give his analysis.
Redhawk's anger instantly deflated when he heard this deputy. Out of all his subordinates he appreciated this one the most. Although he wasn't the strongest, he was intelligent.
The reason the red hawk bandits were known to be the strongest in the area had a lot to do with the strategies and planning done by this man. Along with Redhawk's high strength they made the perfect team.
"If this was any normal job then yes but that man wants to be 100% sure. If we don't present their heads then there's no deal." This was one of the main reasons why he was so angry. Successfully finding the two brats within the monster lair was incredibly risky. Not only would they have to work within unknown territory, but they'd also have to compete against monsters and other than Redhawk and his two deputies the rest of the bandits were at best equal to F-rank adventurers.
Unlike before they would be the ones outnumbered in this situation, who knows how many monsters were currently living within this lair. Their situation was not very prosperous, this played a large part in why Leo aimed for the monster lair, he knew that they would have no choice but to enter.
The smart deputy let out a sigh before shaking his head.
Redhawk closed his eyes and took a deep breath before quickly returning to his intimidating and powerful form.
"Listen up you bastards! You failed to kill those brats earlier so now you can make up for your failure. We know where they are, and they can't escape…. Go hunt!" With his last words Redhawk released a powerful roar filling his subordinates with strength.
"Woaaahhhh!" The twenty or so bandits roared in response before quickly rushing into the monster lair without fear.
The smart deputy sighed again when he saw this.
"What a bunch of fools, looks like we'll have to recruit a lot of new blood." The group's strength was rather pitiful, but they ran into the monster lair without even the slightest hint of wariness. 'We'll be lucky if even one of them survives.'
Redhawk and his other deputy was unperturbed by this, finding men such as them was easy. If they died then it meant nothing, as long as they can be useful any number of them can die.
Redhawk, his deputies as well as the cold knight remained outside to guard the exit, unless absolutely necessary they wouldn't step in.
Meanwhile back in the private space, thanks to the loud ramblings of the bandits Frost and Maya now understood how this whole situation came to be. Of course, the underlying reason was still a mystery but what does that matter.
"So, two kids obviously from rather well-off families were targeted by this Redhawk at the behest of that knight like person hmmm… I'm quite curious as to why however, since they have nothing to do with the adventurers guild and can in fact be considered criminals nobody will miss them if they disappear right?" Frost chuckled under his breath as he eyed the prey entering his domain.
Even if each of the bandits were weak individually, killing 20 of them would surely produce a large input of DP.
"What of the two kids?" asked Maya.
"Bait" Frost answered without hesitation. He had checked earlier and both of them were about E-rank giving a daily dose of 40DP. Not much in the grand scheme so whether they died or not didn't matter much. They were too weak to cause any harm to the dungeon's monsters, so he pretty much ignored them and ordered his monsters to do the same. The real prize was the group of bandits as well as their leader Redhawk.
Maya widely smiled at his response, she grew excited, finally they can truly hunt.