"Not a chance" Pressed Rex, "And it would be better if you shut your trap"
The Bandit women scowled but did not answer back.
Scott tilted his head, folding his hands in front of his chest as he investigated Amalia's facial expression.
"You promised his grandfather to protect him right?" He gradually put his opinion, she silently nodded her head. "Then how about we all help you with it?"
Amalia lowered her hood, confused but as well as curious to learn what he was making an effort to convey.
"He will enter with us, safeguarded. Me, Rex, and Rena we all will do our best to protect him. What more do you need?"
She was hesitant.
"We all came all the way here for this quest and we just cannot let this go, not like this Amalia. It's my goal and I don't want anyone to steal it from me." He added placing his hand on her shoulders. "and I cannot do this without you either. I need all of you and it's better if we have a smart person like Noah with us"
Was he buttering me up?
He turned to me. "What you say, Noah? All you have to do is follow us inside and take your share of the profit"
Dude, he is buttering me up for good.
Well, I guess the option is not bad either. Either way, I don't think Amalia could resist her friends any more than this, for her they came first not me. I am just a random guy who met two days ago after all.
What other options do I have? If they all went inside I have to wait for them outside and who knows how much time they would take to complete the quest. There is a strong possibility that the treasure had already been stolen by someone, so in the end, all we had to do was go in look around be sad, and come out.
Win-win right? They will not blame me for dragging Amalia with me and Amalia will not feel trapped because of me.
It was nothing more than a slight change in my original plan and who knows there might be something that could encourage this robber to take the wrong steps and boom.
"Let's go in," I said.
Scott laughed, Rex nodded his head in appreciation, and Rena that damn girl just showed an ugly expression.
"We are goin in" Rex cracked his knuckles forwarding himself.
Amalia's eyebrow twitched but she did not say anything, I wondered if she disliked my decision.
She gently took out her favorite necklace and passed it to me. "Take this, it will protect you"
"h-how can I take something like this?" I thought twice. It was her beloved item, the one from her master, and the locket that saved her many times. How could I possibly wear it while she had nothing on her? Isn't it too much? Why was she giving this to me?
"Take it or stay outside," She said firmly.
I grabbed it and tossed it in my neck. "Happy?"
After wearing the locket I felt as if my body instantly heated up. I could feel like there was a defense layer around my body just like previously when I added a perk point into the skin refinement stat.
She gave me a nod and without further ado we walked inside the iron door.
[ Name - Locket of Kamalov
Defense - 10+
Cold resistance - 10 +
Fire resistance - 10 + ]
Damn,
Defense 10+ was something I had never hoped for but it was plenty. Now I have something to protect myself. An item that has a higher defensive stat than all of my items combined.
I had to unequip Jamia's necklace which had a total of two defense stats so I could wear this locket.
This locket was special, with ten defenses as well as cold and fire resistance. Maybe this was the reason why that day Amalia wore a yellow dress without getting affected by the cold weather.
I shook all the thoughts aside following her inside the creepy-looking tomb.
I hope nothing goes wrong and even if it did go wrong then next time all I had to do was to stay away from this self-created path of killing the bandits.
I was ready for some walking dead bullshit.
Zombies, no problem! Snakes being it on! I was ready but no ghosts, please. The 'pugging' have unimaginable powers in their houses so they can do anything...
The tomb's entrance wall was unsteady as the huge chunks of rocks lay around. We stepped bypassing them darting our eyes on one cave-like structure at the front.
It was not all shady like I assumed due to the holes in the ceiling of caves providing enough light for us. The snow had also tripped down from those holes and covered most of the rocky floor of the tomb.
We walked further down the cave. The narrow passage of the cave was big enough for three people to walk side by side and twisted enough not to see a few meters ahead. Lots of turns.
When I stepped inside a square-looking chamber which also had a cave exit leading further down the way, I saw Rex spacing out.
Amalia tapped his shoulder.
"Finally you caught up with me" He did not bother to spare his glance at us as he was too busy admiring the slot on the walls, they were long enough to fit any human.
I wondered why those were there, to begin with. I felt cold air leaving my body when I turned to look at the right side of the wall behind where we stood.
Two skeletons were placed in both of the slots with cloths wrapped around them.
Fuck! What did I even expect to see inside the crypt? Butterflies?
I wonder if the power of god works here.
I momentarily shook my whole body as if trying to shake off all the evil energies just when I felt I stepped on something. It was a broken skull.
I bounced just like a basketball when it hit the ground.
"Holy dragon of a god!"
"..."
They both stared at me as if I had said something strange.
I laughed awkwardly.
Rex shook his head as he picked up the broken skull he then showed the edges where it cracked.
"It's a sword mark," He said throwing it away. "I am afraid We are late Amalia"
Amalia sighed as we followed Rex into the cave further down.
The transparent blue screen popped up in front of my vision.
[Checkpoint saved! ]
[ Ding! Random quest triggered.]
[ Quest - Survive the slaughter of the Tomb of Acropash.
Reward - 600 exp! ]
[ Character. Skills. Inventory.
- Character
Name - Noah Stone
Level - 3 ( 130 / 2000)
Age -14
Race - Human
Perk point - 0 ]
Eh! What the heck? On slaughter!
Didn't this tomb already raided by someone else? Then why is this quest triggered now?
I was puzzled. It did not make sense at all. Why did the system give me a quest like this if it was already raided? Or maybe we are all misunderstood about reality.
It was still not raided and the probably adventurers who came before us had already fallen to their demise.
Yes, that makes sense, better than anything else. It means the treasure was not lost and their quest had not failed. All they had to do was to defeat those...
!
The boss monster? How can we defeat it if the previous party had failed? What if he happens to be the strongest and we don't even know about his powers and what he was?
The tingling of panic spread across my heart. I don't wanna die like a dog.
Speaking of dying! Fucking hell it's a checkpoint.
Do I have to spawn here after my death? How's that possible? I believed whenever I slept the random checkpoints triggered and took me back to a certain point where I had rested but it was not that at all. It was random, anywhere and everywhere.
Shit, I do not have any other options. The progress was fucking saved.
My mouth was dried as the only option I saw was Be a man and suck it up.