As soon as Jace entered the blue portal, he was immediately greeted by the sight of a dark and eerie forest illuminated under the night sky. There, a faint fog could be seen seeping out into the open air, spreading around the area.
"..." Whilst being cautious of his surroundings, Jace's expression was conflicted. "Seriously now... The more I investigate this, the more that dream of mine seems to be turning out true..."
The scene before him was eerily similar to that of his 'nightmare'. As such, the 'coincidence' that Jace had tried to reason himself with was slowly falling apart. After all, the environment and atmosphere were the exact same as that of his dream.
Although Jace had gone through many sorts of dungeons and was used to a variety of different environments, they were always unique per gate, never identical or one-to-one with another dungeon of the same archetype. This was especially true for the higher-ranked gates where they were vastly different from one another.
In the case of a B-ranked gate, they were in between that of a unique setting and that of a generic sort of environment much like its lower-ranked predecessors. These gates would always have unique structures, but at the same time, the environment would always be on the general side.
With that said, though the current gate was B-rank, to have absolutely no differences from the one in his nightmare was alarming. To Jace, everything regarding this predicament was concerning.
"Hmm... I can't put off the possibility that my head might just be messing with me..." He frowned, squinting his eyes at the area around him. "But... Let's ignore that for now. The most pressing matter is to find the group and see how it goes from there."
Whatever the situation may be, Jace wasn't here to offer a helping hand in clearing the dungeon nor was he here to steal anything from it. All he was here to do was to get a confirmation. A confirmation that his nightmare was just a nightmare, and nothing more than that.
"Let's see..." After looking around the area for a few seconds, Jace took notice of a few faint footsteps on the dirt path up ahead of him. "It hasn't been that long since I entered the dungeon after them, so I should still be able to catch up without issue."
Nodding his head, the young black-haired man began taking a step forward into the forest. However, right at that moment, a rough groan from nearby rang in his ears.
"...?!" Turning his head towards the direction of the sound, Jace noted the sight of a random pale and rotten arm stuck in the dirt. "Ugh... I stayed here for too long..." With a frown, Jace pointed his pistol at the empty space next to the arm.
At that moment, a bullet was shot out from his muzzle, flying through the air as it randomly pierced through the head of a zombie that had popped out of nowhere, completely destroying it.
"That's settled," he stated. "I should probably hurry before more of them show up."
Despite merely being a Synergist and still in a weak state to take on higher-ranked dungeons, the enemies in this gate were relatively simple. After all, they were all the undead, known to be easy targets to kill.
However, despite the strengths of the undead being only at a D-rank level, there was a catch.
"Grr..."
"Tok..."
"...grr..."
From behind Jace, a constant stream of undead monsters began to appear out of the ground. One, two, three — ten and counting.
"...sigh." As Jace was greeted by the approaching horde of zombies, he sighed. "I said it too soon..."
In this dungeon, the spawn rates of these undead creatures were at an all-time high, so much so that an insane amount of monsters could spawn all at once.
...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Deep into the dark forest, the sounds of gunfire could be heard reverberating through the air as a blonde-haired man could be seen fervently shooting out a constant stream of bullets over towards the horde of zombies in front of him.
"Grr...!" With each bullet successfully shot out, a zombie fell. However, no matter the amount of zombies that Landon took down, a new one would come to replace it.
"Damn... Why are there so many of these things...?!" Landon cried out, activating [ Fire Volley ] in the next moment. "They're endlessly coming!"
"Duh! Didn't you hear the party leader's briefing?" Soon after responding to the blonde-haired man, a man wielding an axe swooped to the side of Landon, crushing a zombie that was approaching him. "Weren't you listening properly?!"
"I mean, I expected a large wave of them, but I didn't expect this many!" Landon frowned, turning his attention towards a different side of the battlefield. There, it could be noted that a Magician-class hunter was busily casting spells over and over towards a group of monsters, blasting them away.
"A lot of them is a lot of them! Just focus on the battle at hand!" The man wielding an axe stated. "Don't get distracted!" In the next second, he flickered his weapon, crushing another zombie that had appeared from the ground.
"Fine, fine!" Landon sighed. "I guess we're going to fight and fight... But how does this prove anything to Dad? Haven't I already been doing this..."
Whilst the blonde-haired man was deep in thought, a loud voice echoed through the field. "Hey! Someone attract the aggro already!" As Landon turned towards the direction of the voice, he noted a swordsman in the distance who was struggling to fend off against a bunch of zombies crowding around him. "There's a lot on this side! Sentinel, do your job!"
"Jee, I'm on it!" A burly man replied, rushing into the undead horde as he attempted to grab their attention. "I'll gather them all up and you guys burst them down ASAP!"
"Got it!" A party member nearby replied.
"..." Landon kept quiet, only helplessly sighing. "Why am I even here..."
With the aggro now on the Sentinel-class hunter, the remaining 9 hunters of the group immediately began to mow down the horde, throwing out skills that could wipe out a huge portion of them at once. Whenever a new undead monster would appear, they would instantly be killed.
And so, the party gradually progressed deeper into the dungeon, until they found themselves in a quiet and peaceful graveyard. There, countless graves and tombstones could be seen scattered in the area.
"...oh?" Stopping in his footsteps at the sight, the burly man at the forefront of the group was stunned. "There's a graveyard here?"
"Hah? You're asking that?" The man wielding the axe scowled. "It's an undead dungeon, obviously there'd be a graveyard!"
"Hmm... So we've already reached the middle of the dungeon... That's fast," a Synergist-class hunter scratched her head. "What are we going to do now?"
"Woah. We're already halfway done?" A Striker-class hunter raised his brow. "Cool!"
"But hey... Doesn't something feel off?" The Magician-class hunter tilted his head. "Why's it so quiet here?"
As the group made their way further into the graveyard, they found themselves already in the middle of the area. However, despite having fought a bunch of zombies earlier, the graveyard was barren and silent, voided of any kind of noise.
"...?" Landon raised his brow, confused. "Shouldn't there be some zombies popping up right about now?"
"Don't let your guard down," the leader of the party frowned. "Something's... Off."
"Do we keep moving?" The man wielding the axe asked.
"I guess so...?" The Magician-class hunter shrugged.
As the group slowly strolled through the dirt path of the graveyard, a sudden voice echoed through the area.
"H-Help... Please help..." Turning towards the direction of the voice, the party was greeted by the sight of a giant tombstone randomly out of place in the graveyard.
"...?" The burly man raised his brow in confusion. "What the... Who's that?"