"Arthur?" Jonathan muttered. He nudged my shoulder, bringing me out of my daze, "You alright?"
"Yeah, yeah," I said, the shock from the recent revelation still having an influence on me. My voice felt rough and my knees felt weak. I looked back to the fight and sighed. I turned back just in time to watch a longsword pierce right through the mage, ending the fight.
"Damn," I muttered. I looked at the adventurers, disappointed another one hadn't fallen yet, before turning away from the carnage.
'It looks like magic can ignore AC, but I don't know by how much. I'll have to run through a few tests,' I thought to myself.
"We lost one, but we survived," Stuart said. He turned around and met eyes with me, his eyes full of anger, "I appreciate your help, but couldn't you have intervened sooner? We lost one, and it's your fault."
"Mine?" I muttered, shocked, "Are you really blaming me for your incompetence.?"
"We're in a party," Stuart continued. He stepped forward, his anger deeply woven within the tone of his voice, "You had the chance, yet you didn't save him. As far as I'm concerned, you're the one responsible for his death."
"Oh, really?" I said as I stepped forward. As I looked back at Stuart, I felt my anger flare up again. I clenched my fists, tempted to smack him across the room, but held myself back. I looked to Hazel, but her expression had already blanked. Still, behind her calm eyes, I saw anger that was even stronger than my own.
"You need to learn how to cooperate," Stuart said. I looked back at him, my head snapping away from Hazel as my anger was pushed against its limits, then jumped forward. My body flung through the air as I raised my fist. The ground beneath me cracked as I dashed forward and a small wisp of fire escaped from my ankles. As I flew through the air, I struck my fist forward and slammed it against Stuart.
I hardly saw Stuart's expression before he was flung toward the cave floor, but I didn't care regardless.
『 10 DMG 』
As Stuart's body slammed into the ground, I heard him let out a loud grunt as the ground cracked from the impact. I stood up, relaxed my shoulders, then looked down at him. Stuart laid in a small crater, little rocks of rubble surrounding him as he struggled to breathe. His chestplate was dented from my punch.
﹃
Aidan Stuart
HP: 30/40
﹄
Aidan didn't personally participate in the battle just now, yet his HP was already at 75% from a single, unarmed, attack.
"Ugh," Stuart managed to say. His eyes looked up at me, though his body remained still. I turned my gaze back down to him, then leaned my body toward the ground.
"We're not allies, Stuart," I warned as I met Stuart's gaze, "You're only alive because I tolerate you. That can change. You got that?"
Stuart slowly nodded, his eyes hazy. I turned away from Stuart, satisfied, and looked back to the others. The tanks and warriors stood still, shocked to the core. They didn't appear to hold any sort of grudge, though, based on how they stood.
"You all understand, right?" I asked. The others quickly nodded. After I felt satisfied, I turned back to my party and returned to them. Hazel watched me walk up, her cheeks a pinkish color once again. She smiled, then turned her attention to Stuart. Suddenly, her expression changed and the cold face that I saw before returned.
"Shame you didn't kill him," She whispered. Jonathan sighed, then turned to Hazel.
"Disgusting," Jonathan mumbled. He looked back to me, then let his gaze fall to Stuart as well. By now, the other adventurers were helping Stuart to his feet, though the task was more difficult than they had expected.
I nodded, then turned to face Stuart and his allies.
"We'll rest for ten minutes," I said, "If you disagree, go off and die."
The others didn't have enough time to backtalk me by the time I turned back around to Hazel and the others. They all met my gaze, then nodded in turn.
"Ten minutes isn't too long," Hazel said, "But you don't need it. Why are you the one suggesting for it?"
"I still need to check on the twenty man party," I explained. Hazel nodded, then moved to the side of the cave to sit down. The twins followed her as Evelyn moved up to begin another conversation with Hazel. Out of everybody I had seen, Hazel seemed to be the only one Evelyn actually got along with. I liked to see it, but couldn't help but wonder if there was a bigger cause to her shyness.
Regardless, I had a raid group to go stalk- or maybe slaughter- and I didn't have the time to wait around. I looked to Hazel one last time, wondering if I should invite her, before shaking my head. She was having fun with Eveyln. I didn't want to interrupt that.
"I'll be back in ten minutes," I told her before speeding off through the caves. I quickly opened my dungeon panel, intent on finding the group of twenty, as I ran around the corner. Once I was a decent distance away from the group, I stopped. The dungeon map was quickly opened and the position of the twenty red dots was revealed on the map. Surprisingly, they hadn't managed to get that far through the floor. Of course, they still got farther than the embarrassment of a group that I was with, but their progress was underwhelming.
"Maybe they're not trying that hard?" I wondered aloud. I continued to pay attention to the map as I ran through the caves. I considered using『 Dungeon Visit 』 but decided against it because it was too easy to notice in the dark. I created some distance between myself and the others, just in case I needed to use it, but I didn't think『 Dungeon Visit 』was actually necessary.
When I found them, Anya and Dave's group were sitting down and resting after a long battle. Even though there were twenty of them, most had already gotten injuries or were too exhausted for another battle. Anya and Dave were fine, obviously, though their equipment wasn't looking too good.
It was obvious that the siblings were carrying the entire raid while the other members were practically dead meat. As I saw this, I couldn't help but wince, but then I realized this would probably end up making their slaughter that much easier.
"Let's watch for a few minutes, then decide," I mumbled to myself as I sat down and began to watch.
Dave and Anya were relaxing in the cave. Just recently, they had barely managed to win a fight against twelve Kobolds, despite the fact that they had twenty soldiers with them. Out of all of the twenty soldiers, not a single one had managed to fight well against the Kobolds.
"This is disgusting," Anya sighed as she looked at her troops. Most of them were ranked D or C, while one was even ranked B, but they were all low leveled. Even the strongest soldier was only level eight, "What does father see in these people?"
"We have to train them. They used to be villagers, Anya," Dave complained, "Shut up and do your job."
Anya sighed, then turned to her brother and nodded.
"The job, right," She said. As she spoke, she thought back to Arthur, the mysterious adventurer that had a dragon with him. Even his companion, the black haired girl, held a powerful sort of aura, "Remind me what that was, again? It seems father is becoming senile in his old age."
"Train the recruits," Dave reminded her, "and find the dragon tamer and bring him under our control. Those were his instructions."
"Right," Anya nodded. She looked away, then crossed her arms as she turned to the soldiers resting in front of her, "We would've been able to do that, but that brat from the Phoenix guild got involved."
"He's not involved, his sister is," Dave told her, sighing in disappointment again, "Were you not even listening?"
"His sister, the guild leader of the phoenix guild," Anya nodded, "Honestly, why don't we just ignore that warning? We're both above level twenty and B ranked. What can those kids do against us? Nothing, that's what."
"Don't act rashly," Dave warned her, "that Arthur kid was prepared to fight us. He didn't show any hesitation or fear. Only the strong are allowed that privilege."
"There are still two of us," Anya told him. She stood up, then looked to Dave with a wide grin on her face. A brilliant idea suddenly lit up in her mind, "Arthur and the others would've taken the other path. Why don't we ambush them when they're not expecting it?"
"Ambush them?" Dave muttered. He thought about the suggestion, then slowly began to nod, "It'll be more effective if we find them when they're fighting Kobolds. We'll be able to attack them from both sides. Even if he's strong, he won't be able to survive an attack like that."
"Alright, it's settled then," Anya nodded, "Let's go and kill that brat and his friend."