Splurt–!
Blood splattered and painted my face red, it was fresh blood, and for some reason, it was so hot that I felt my skin was burning.
"Heh?" I spoke impromptu when a monstrous creature stood before me.
The red-crimson color covered its hand like gloves. The woman's body hung lifelessly in the hands of the creature with her head crushed. It was one of Jin's companions.
With a gulp of dry saliva stuck in my throat, a chill rushed through the back of my bone like a rocket. Electrified; I felt like I just got electrified by a hundred thousand lightning volts. Petrified; I couldn't move an inch of my body because of how nervous and scared I was.
"Wake up!"
Someone shouted and brought me back to reality. The one slight touch to my shoulder became heavier and pushed me away from my position.
I flung toward the faraway trees out of the central open area where we settled up a camp to survive through this dungeon.
Bam–!
It was weird. Even though I hit the tree so hard that I heard the bone of my back make a crunchy sound, I didn't feel any pain. Instead, when I opened my eyes, I was standing in the center of the camp.
Looking around, most of the civilians were lying on the ground as if they were possessed. Some of them were screaming hysterically.
'An illusion? There is no other explanation for this situation than an illusion. But, it's weird. As far as I know, only the demon can use an illusion spell as strong as this…'
"Hey! Are you okay?!"
Calling to me was a young handsome man with blonde hair, it was Jin.
Now that I saw him this close. His feature matched Jin's description that I remember. A dependable guy with an extraordinary appearance and charisma. His blonde hair looked like golden threads and those blue eyes were clear as the sky. But for me, he was a dangerous person.
I didn't exactly remember or it was just because I didn't write how and why but, in the future, he was going to betray humanity for the greater power.
Big hands gently rested on my shoulders. He shook me as if I was some object that needed to be activated in some way.
I raised my hand, gesturing for him to stop and he did so.
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's okay…"
He examined me with curious eyes. I knew what he was thinking, he probably wondered how I could break free from the illusion while some of his companions couldn't. After a while, he shook his head.
"How can you…" he hesitated. "No, never mind. I'm glad you're okay. But…"
He looked around the camp. Eighty percent of us had collapsed and were under the illusion spell. Only 15 people including me and the other stronger Enhanceds were free from the spell.
Jin gathered them all in one place. And as a person who resisted the spell, I was to be brought along with them.
"We need to do something about this…" Jin said after we were gathered.
"But. How do we do it? This illusion spell is so strong to be just an ordinary spell. There must be a high-ranking monster in this dungeon," someone replied.
"No, wait. In the first place, which monster could use an illusion spell?! Isn't this only the wizard can do?"
"We don't have a wizard among us though…?"
Everyone was eyeing each other, looking for the culprit hidden among us. But, no matter how much they looked, we all were Enhanceds, not wizards.
Jin sighed and looked at me. The moment his eyes locked onto me, I got a goosebump. Not because I was terrified or anything, but because I just felt like he would ask me something troublesome.
"What do you think, kid?"
When he said that, everyone was raising their eyebrows at him.
"Come on, Jin. What does he know? He is not even a full-fledged hero like us," said a bald guy with a mocking tone directed at me.
This baldie…
I felt like I wanted to hit him in the face and grind that bald head of his like cheese. But, instead of getting provoked by those words, I just exhaled a short breath.
"I know that. But, look at him. The fact that he is standing right now means that he is as strong as us. Or probably, his blessing has to do with anomaly resistance?"
My ears twitched as soon as I heard the word 'blessing'.
In this world, when someone awakened their power as a superhuman or Enhanced. They would be blessed with numerous gifts.
Blessing, talent, and trait; these three were the power gifted by the higher beings in this world or so they called a God.
Blessing has something to do with one soul; internal power. Even if one never uses much of their blessing, it would still exist in their soul and never disappear until they died or their soul was destroyed.
Meanwhile, talent and traits were the sources of external power. It could disappear if a certain condition had been met. Talent was someone's innate skill, it was mostly related to combat skills or anything that uses one body to perform things such as swordsmanship. Then, the trait was someone's mind and physical capabilities, something like passive skill, for example was Steel Body; a trait that made someone's body harder than usual.
Just like in the real world, if one never used or honed their skill. At one time, there would be lost touch with it and forget how to use them. But, when they tried to get it back, it would be easy because that power had once been there.
Though there were three types of gifts. Not everyone was born with all of them. The most common power people would have of all three was talents and the rarest were those with blessings. Even though someone has a talent and a trait in their possession, the one with only the blessing was still the rarest one.
Of course, our most precious protagonist needed to be special, right? So, I gave him all three types of gifts. Blessing, talent, and trait, he possessed all of them. To be more detailed, he had three blessings, one exclusive talent, and two traits. One of his blessings was that of the exclusive system that helped him to become the strongest throughout the story.
Fuh. How unfair… Even though I was the author. Not only I had only one talent–it was two now, but even my stats were also a piece of shit.
But, anyway, I didn't have any blessings as Jin said. But, he was right, how could I stand firmly when some higher-rank heroes were trapped by the illusion spell? It could be the cause of my hidden power or something but meh, I doubted it. Because there should be at least an indication in my status screen that served as a little proof if I have a hidden power. Something like a '???' description.
"I do have a similar blessing like that…"
I lied. But, it's not like I could do anything about it, didn't I? They would find it weirder if I had said I didn't have that resistance blessing. Although I liked to be recognized, I hate if I got interrogated.
Also, looking at their shocked expression meant that none of them had the 'Lie Detection' skill which put me at ease for lying in front of this strong human.
"Oh! T-that is obvious! Of course, you have it. Or else, there is no way you could break free from the illusion, right? Haha!" said the baldie.
"Haha…" I reluctantly laughed.
Jin nodded in acknowledgment of my bullshit. But, he didn't know it anyway, so he also thought that I really have the resistance blessing.
"Anyway, kid. Do you know something about this situation? Anything is fine, just tell me what's on your mind."
Should I tell them that this was the work of a demon-kind? But, I doubted that they would believe me if I told them that. There was no record of a demon appearing in this world, even if there was one, the higher-ups would definitely keep it a secret to avoid unnecessary trouble. But, that was where they were wrong! That was the last thing they wanted to do!
"Hmm… I don't think any monsters are capable of doing this. The monsters we fought and found in this dungeon seem to be low-rank monsters. So, the possibility of it being caused by them is almost zero…"
"We also know that. But, we can't ignore the possibility that there might be abnormalities happening in this dungeon."
"That's true. But, it rarely happens that abnormalities would occur in a mere week time flash dungeon," I said.
Although I said that, I couldn't help but be nervous. As far as I knew, I stated that an abnormality wouldn't occur in a flash dungeon that had less than 10 days' time. Such abnormality was like a unique trait of the dungeon; a meaningful event whether it was a good thing or a bad thing such as this illusion.
But, what I know was that this was not caused by the dungeon itself. But, by an external force such as the demon or anything that wanted to harm us.
I gasped. I remembered that we were once a hundred people. But, some of them went on their way, leaving the group. There was a chance that the demon was among them, or maybe they were the ones who did it.
"Where did that goblin butcher man and his group go? Did any of you see them?"
"Goblin butcher?"
Everyone seemed confused for a moment, but then instantly recognized what my words meant.
"Ah. Herman's group? No, I didn't see them again after we parted."
"I didn't see them either…"
"Me too!"
"Me neither..!"
All of them never saw that goblin butcher's group. Wasn't this sound suspicious? There must be something going on right now.
I peeked at Jin. He seemed to be deep in thought. Then, after that, his eyes widened as if he found the answer to all of this. As expected of him, the great commander of humanity yet the betrayer when the demon invaded the world in the future.
There was no doubt anymore. This Jin guy before me was the same Jin that would be an important character in the future's catastrophe. Not only he was strong in the physical aspect, but he was also smart.
He clapped his hand to get everyone's attention. He observed each of us before he started talking.
"I think you all already know who our target is."
They all nodded in unison.
"Good. Let's split the group. I need 7 people to search for Herman's group, and the rest will protect this camp."
Seven people were volunteering to become the search group, while the rest including me stayed in the camp.
"Okay. You all can do basic flare magic, right?"
The seven of the search group nodded. But one of them was showing off instead.
"Like this, Jin?"
"Yeah, that is it. I want you guys to shoot the flare to the sky once you found Herman's group… Or worse, at least, the corpse of a human…"
"Okay. That's easy," said the baldie.
Jin nodded. "Now, scatter!"
Looking at the eight of them disappear into the darkness of the woods. I walked toward the campfire, there was nothing I could do to help the victim anyway. The fact was that it was they who told me to just sit and don't do anything.
They were so kind to give me that much privilege so I couldn't refuse the offer, hehe.
"Hah… This will be a long night for them."
Yeah, this would be a long night for them but not for me, why? Because I will just sleep and hope that everything will be solved when I wake up!
Just when I thought of that. A small piece of memory was being played in my head.
The city was burning, the sky was dark, and screams filled the entire city. Someone was standing in front of masses consisting of a hundred heroes more or less, that was a big charismatic guy with eccentric full-plate armor. Before them, was a three meters giant creature with red skin and a pair of wings, and horns.
The demon.
The big guy suddenly kneeled in front of the demon which made people behind him gasp in surprise as well as confusion about why did their leader kneel to the demon.
The demon's smirk widened as he extended his hand to bless the big guy acting as a leader to the heroes. For some reason, no heroes dare to interrupt the demon's rite as he turned their leader into their kind.
When the rite finished. The leader grabbed his face and tore it apart, it was not flesh that was being torn apart but suddenly there was a white blank mask without an eye socket on his face and his feature slowly changed. From the big charismatic, veteran-looking guy to a tall handsome guy with an athletic body, his black hair changed to blonde.
It was Jin.
I instantly opened my eyes as soon as the memory ended there, where Jin betrayed his comrades over power. And all of that was because of one particular artifact he got.
Still dazy, I shook my head and then ran into the woods.
"Hey, kid! Where are you going?!"
"I need to take care of the worldly matters, I can't hold it anymore!"
With that, I disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
What I remembered when I closed my eyes was the backstory of Jin the great commander (betrayer). He got a really amazing artifact in the flash dungeon in his early year as a Hero. And that flash dungeon was probably this current flash dungeon because this was the only flash dungeon he got himself trapped into according to my memory.
That artifact was one of the great artifacts in his possession that helped him soar through the sky like an eagle and became the top 300 heroes in 3 years.
"Now, shall we start the treasure hunting?