[CONGRATULATIONS!]
YOU LEVELED UP!!!
...
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
YOU LEVELED UP!
With the zombies he killed, Samuele was able to level up a few levels. In a moment of calm, he looked around and saw how everyone was attacking zombies. Obviously, each having their own classes, there were those who were acting in different ways.
"Gah! A zombie scratched me!"
"Don't worry, I'll heal you!"
For example, healers took care of wounded comrades, as well as killing a few monsters to level up.
Another Adventurer killed his first monster of the day.
"Yes, finally!" He exulted happily, not realizing that a zombie was approaching behind him due to too much confusion. When he accidentally turned toward him, he opened his eyes wide and tried to back away. Unfortunately, it was too late. The zombie grabbed him by the shoulders and prepared to bite his neck.
"Hardening!" The Adventurer heard from a short distance away that scream, just before the zombie bit him. He closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the pain to come with a frightened expression, but it did not come.
The zombie failed to dig its teeth into the man's flesh. As soon as the latter noticed, he kicked the monster hard in front of him and with a swing of his sword cut off its head.
Happy that he was still alive and well but still confused, he looked around to see what had happened, finding a fellow Mage who smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. Realizing that he was the one who had his back, or rather, his neck, he smiled in turn and returned the gesture with his hand.
Being a team, each of them helped each other. Not only because they were comrades, friends or out of an act of benevolence and altruism. They also helped each other to improve their classes, which most of the time served precisely as support for the others.
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
YOU LEVELED UP!
Samuele continued to fight against the monsters in that cave until the whole horde was slaughtered.
Everyone took advantage of those moments of calm to take a few breaths and recover a little from their fatigue.
After about a minute, the group resumed walking along the cave, encountering no monsters.
It took a few minutes before they all reached a point in the cavern where it widened, forming a kind of semicircle, and three more caverns opened up before them. The Adventurers stopped and thought about how to act from this moment.
"Now what do we do?"
"It seems obvious to me, we split up!"
"Wha! Are you crazy?! Absolutely not! It's definitely a trap. It would be better if we all stay together!"
"Just because it might be a trap it's better if we split up, you moron!"
"Who did you call a moron, moron!"
"To you, you moron of a moron!!!"
"Ohh! I'll show you who the moron is, you son of a moron!!!"
"Enough!" Marco stopped the argument, putting himself between them, and continued, pointing to the larger of the two.
"He's right. It's better if we split up. We don't know what we can find inside, but if we form groups of three, then we should be able to get by pretty easily."
"The first rule of horror is: never split up! Why should we do that!" Asked the thinner one with a nervous face.
Without even having time to answer his question, the familiar gruff voice of his colleague Claudio Conti came into view.
"Bah! I go in there and kill all the creatures, you people can go ahead and waste your time!" And without waiting another second, the man launched himself toward one of the caves.
"Wait, Claudio!" Screaming at the void, Marco sighed gravely in annoyance. He turned to two random Adventurers in the group and spoke.
"You two, go with him. Since he is a level 20 upper limit, he will be able to protect you from any danger." The two concerned nodded brightly with a beaming smile and went into the same cave that Claudio Conti had entered moments earlier.
Marco's eyes then went to Samuele and Sofia.
"You two, you will come with me." With the two nodding, he finally turned to the last four.
"You two will go to the last cave on the right." Their faces whitened.
"Why are we alone?! The first two groups are led by two level 20 upper limits, while we are not! What if something happens to us?!"
"You are right, but we cannot do otherwise. Besides, there are four of you. You should be doing pretty well. I've seen you fight before, you are very capable Adventurers." He said with a reassuring smile.
The four Adventurers blushed at the compliment and their hearts were invigorated, looking at each other with determined eyes.
"Well, if our leader says we can do it, then we can't disappoint his confidence in us! Come on, let's go and kick the butts of all the monsters that will stand in our way!"
"Yes!!!" Shouted the other three at the exclamation of their fellow Adventurer and headed inside another cave.
Samuele and Sofia looked at the scene slightly surprised at their change of mood.
"Well, you certainly have a way in convincing others, Mr. Terranova." Said Samuele.
"I'd had enough of the complaints so I told them what they wanted to hear." He said, shrugging his shoulders in a disinterested tone.
"That's cruel, Mr. Marco." Said Sofia simply. Samuele, hearing this, was considering whether to reevaluate his opinion of him or not. He decided on the second option.
"Well, it's not like I lied. They will definitely get away with it." He turned toward the remaining cave and continued. "Now let's go, come on!"
Going deeper into the cave, the three Adventurers paid attention to any possible dangers that might be there.
"It looks quieter than expected." Said Samuele.
"Don't jinx it." Sofia shushed him.
"In fact, I thought it would be worse. After all, the Association decided to bring two level 20 upper limits into a level 15 portal."
"Come to think of it, what is the reason?" Sofia asked curiously.
"Have you seen the news lately? There have been some cases around the world where strong creatures were present in portals of a much lower level than required to defeat those types of monsters. As a matter of safety, the National Association has decided that they want to send stronger Adventurers inside the portals than the System requires. So you can understand why in a level 15 portal like this there are two maximum limits of level 20."
Indeed, thought Samuele, remembering the manuals he had read long ago, Adventurers who were around that level were sent into the portals. A level 15 portal rarely had a level 20 Adventurer in it, let alone two in the same portal.
Unlike lower level portals, where Newbies needed expert guidance, in level 15 or higher portals this was not necessary. The Adventurer with the highest level in the group was chosen as the leader, but the level difference with his other companions was low.
Lately, more and more portals were appearing around the world that the System could not properly evaluate. To protect Adventurers, the various Associations in each country decided to take appropriate measures.
In Italy, as well as in many other countries, it was decided to place within the groups some Adventurers with a higher level than that required by the System itself. It was clear how the trust on this power called the System, which had always helped them before, was now decreasing more and more with each passing day.
"Is it known why this is happening? I mean, why can't the System properly evaluate some portals anymore?" It was Samuele's turn to ask the question.
"There is still no certain answer, unfortunately. Only theories can be found around." Marco answered.
Their conversation was, however, interrupted by strange mechanical sounds coming from the cave walls. They stopped in their tracks, looking carefully around with slightly nervous expressions.
"What was that?" Sofia asked in a low voice.
"I haven't the faintest idea." Marco Terranova answered.
"Do you also have the feeling that you have entered the wrongest possible cave?" Samuele asked his two teammates, half-ironically.
As if to give an answer to his question, the cave made more noises. The rocky walls and floor shook, but not enough to throw them off balance. The mechanical noise increased, as if it was closing in on them.
Marco looked scrupulously at the walls, almost as if he were analyzing them inch by inch, and saw something that made his eyes go wide. Tiny holes furnished those walls. He did not need to count them to realize that there were hundreds of them.
"This is not good at all! Guys, get as close to me as you can. I'm standing on the right! Sofia, you stand in the middle! Samuele, you on the left!"
"What's going on?!" Sofia asked, now more nervous than before. Both she and Samuele did as they were told.
"We all have to crouch down on the ground! Samuele, use you to protect the left side with the shield, while I will do the same on the right side, okay?" Marco continued giving orders, deciding it was not the right time to answer the girl's question.
With a nod, Samuele raised the arm in which he had attached the shield. Almost simultaneously, Marco Terranova did the same thing.
The next second, the three Adventurers were flooded with arrows that were shot from the walls at an incredible speed.
Unfortunately, Samuele's shield could not cover him entirely, and some arrows ended up hitting him in non-vital areas. Some even ended up in his hand that was sticking out of the shield's protection, others in his ankle and foot. He restrained himself from screaming, gritting his teeth in pain.
More than a minute passed when they no longer heard the sound of arrows being shot. Marco, sticking his head out slightly to check the situation, spoke.
"It seems to be over. We can get up." He turned to look at the other two, noticing the arrows lodged in Samuele's body.
"Hey, are you okay? Are you badly hurt??" She approached him, checking the various wounds.
"No, fortunately. They still hurt like hell." Whispered Samuele.
"I'll fix you!" Sofia exclaimed.
They had to remove all the arrows before the girl could use her Healer skill. That done, Samuele's wounds closed completely, as if they had never existed and he no longer felt any pain.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, taking care of the wounded is what my Class requires, after all." Sofia replied with a happy smile.
"Now that you are fully recovered, we can move on, hoping there are no more traps." Marco spoke, with the other two agreeing along with him.
It did not take them long to reach the end of that cave, finding themselves in front of a huge doorway, causing the two young men to exclaim in wonder.
"Wow...behind this oversized door is the boss?" Sofia asked with wide eyes.
"In theory, yes. So see that you don't open it now. Since there are only three of us, we don't know what monster is back there."
"By the way, the others?" Samuele asked, looking around. "Should we go and call them?"
Away from them, voices were heard.
"No, man. That episode was no big deal. Poor animation that didn't even take into account the space surrounding the characters. An episode that doesn't even reach sufficiency, for me."
"Bad animation? Have you actually seen it? Where do you find such animations in a weekly serialization? It totally killed it. It deserves a ten out of ten, that episode."
The group of four boys walked out of the cave, chatting as if nothing had happened. Only later did they notice the other three who had arrived before them.
"Oh, there's the leader! "
"Guys, everything okay?" Marco asked them.
"Yes, there was no monster in that cave."
'And we almost risked our lives...' Samuele thought.
"Well, it seems your way was the safest. Better for you."
Sofia turned toward the other cave from which Claudio Conti was supposed to have emerged with the other two Adventurers.
"It seems that we were not the unluckiest of the group, though." She said in a serious tone, making Marco turn toward that cave as well.
"Hmm? Weird, they should be out by now. Claudio, despite how he looks, is a perceptive guy. He can't have fallen into a trap."
"Should we go check?" Sofia asked, slightly worried about the three of them.
Marco thought about it for a few seconds. After that, he headed toward the entrance of that cave.
"Samuele, Sofia, come with me. You four, on the other hand, stay here and wait for us."
The four boys nodded, while Samuele and Sofia followed him.
Looking around, skeletons and other zombie corpses filled the path. They noticed how a certain spot on the ceiling allowed a full glimpse of the moon, illuminating part of the cavern with its reflected light.
Marco froze all of a sudden, causing the other two behind to instinctively stop as well. Confused, Samuele asked what was wrong, but he needed no answer, as what he saw in front of him made him blanch.
The light reflected from the moon illuminated Claudio very well, who was kneeling in front of two bodies lying on the ground with blood staining the rocky ground on which they stood.
It did not take long to realize that those two bodies were of the two Adventurers who had entered together with Claudio.
The latter let out a small laugh, which gradually became louder and more disturbing.
He turned to look at Samuele, Sofia, and Marco, and his smile enlarged into a disgustingly homicidal form.
"I will tear you apart."
END OF CHAPTER.
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And here at last is another chapter (which no one was looking forward to xD). I think I made it obvious from the start that Claudio would be a villain.... Oh whatever! Either way, never mind. This """novel""" is my test case. I've never written anything like it, let alone anything that's gone this far (I know, it's only ten chapters, but that's a lot for me!!!) and so I'm practising a bit of everything. I want to see what I can do now and what I can't. That's why the next chapter that comes out will be something new. I want to see how it goes, if you can like it and especially if I can like it.
That said, if you enjoyed the chapter comment, review, give me your exquisite power stones (my Precious!!! Muahahah!!) and I'll see you at the next chapter! Bye!