[Adventurer POV]
"Are we finally ready to enter the dungeon?"
Silas, a copper-level adventurer, shouted as his team member argued and decided who would enter which dungeon.
'The damn dungeon master has bad taste making one called Nightmare and the other Cuckold... Haha.'
His guild discovered the strange request in the guild a few days ago, but only after first scouting the Blaskan and Variden forests.
During their two days of information gathering, it was revealed that an entire party of five was destroyed in one encounter. Also, four packs of deadly wolves, at least three levels above the average for each forest, attacked adventurers on sight.
So they gathered extra members eager for money and managed to get through the forest without meeting the wolves.
'Good thing we hired that dark elf huntress. Otherwise, we might have lost people by now.'
Silas looked to the corner where a beautiful dark elf with her face covered and black leather armour covering every inch of her skin bar her eyes stood.
He only learned of her beauty when they recruited her at the bar, and she wore a light black dress.
"I just hope that the Nightmare is just for show... It seems this dungeon master isn't like earlier stated..."
"Silas, our healers, equipment and potions are all ready." Adam, a half-elf rogue, whispered before backing off to join his wife, the short dwarf priestess Mary.
"Good, everyone!" Silas shouted, causing the main group to gather.
"We will now enter the Nightmare dungeon! I have sent Simon and Kevin's lot to check out the cuckold cave..."
"Hahaha, because they are actual cucks!" An orc warrior shouted with his large axe raised.
They entered formation with Silas and the orc warrior Ar'thom at the front, slowly entering the dungeon.
Its insides were eerie.
The faint light from distant torches reflected on the dark, jagged walls as even the sound of insects was absent, only the dripping of a distant pool, the very ripples audible from here.
'Creepy...'
"Torches!"
The group was together for more than two years.
Some were hired help, like the orc and dark elf, but they were like a family.
Slowly they managed to enter quite deeply into the second section using their eyes and ears to the limit in the dull torchlight.
"Damn, Silas, it's like a fucking maze. Nothing has shown up for more than 20 minutes!" A cleric complained.
"Listen, Ted; you are disorientated. It's barely been 5 minutes." Silas calmed him with a soft voice.
His skill was called [Pathfinder], which allowed him to know the path he was taking, had taken and the duration he was travelling it.
Ideally a scouts skill, but he got it randomly when he had trained as a shield knight for 5 years in Wynberg, a city north of the small village to the east of this dungeon.
"Oh? A treasure chest, but where are the guardians? Maybe it's a dead dungeon?"
"Let's open it, Adam!" A female's rough voice sounded.
Silas heard the words of Adam and another rogue named Tasha as they began to [Sneak] towards the box.
Both were skilled in detecting and disarming traps, so he relaxed momentarily.
However...
They did not have the [Detect Beast] or [Detect Life] skill.
A portal formed behind the healers and beside the two rouges as they approached.
They could not detect this trap because it was manual and not triggered by a mechanism in the room!
*Crack*
Ten huge wolves with black and red fur appeared from each portal, their fangs sharp and snarling at the group.
"Aldin cast Barrier!" Silas was not phased because these wolves were weak enemies, normally with low physical strength, and could not easily break a priest's holy barrier.
The man he called out raised his staff before the wolves near the healers lunged forward. Their bodies began to glow bright red as a mage in the middle of the formation suddenly sensed the mana building up inside them.
"Ru--"
Before the mage could shout, the wolves, glowing like a furnace, leapt at the formation and exploded with a boom, destroying the healer Aldin's barrier with ten huge pillars of flame, so intense it instantly melted half of his face, making him a monster of a man as he screamed, dropping to the ground.
The only solace was that the wolves and the three dead casters were gone.
"Ted, use your healing water on Aldin! Adam and Tasha escape to the centre and begin preparing to combat the remaining wolves!" Silas shouted, his shield glowing with a dim holy light as he charged forward with Ar'thom towards the ten remaining wolves.
"Mary!?" MARY!!" Adam didn't hear the order, his eyes watching as his beloved dwarf wife's ginger hair was burned to ashes and her lifeless body dropped to the ground.
She had died instantly, not even able to scream.
"Adam, go!" Silas could not help him but ordered him to move.
Adam, his eyes filled with tears, roared as he threw knives at the wolves as Tasha escaped back, her eyes filled with fright and confusion, but they didn't pay attention...
*Crack*
The chest grew sharp teeth, long legs and arms like an eerie monster before grabbing her athletic body, crushing her arms before tossing her into the open chest filled with countless sharp teeth and a sticky tongue.
"Adam!! Help meeee!!!!"
"TASHA!!!! NOOOO!!" He screamed, charging forward as a wolf bit Silas' shield.
"Aldin! You healed, right!? Barrier on Adam!" Silas didn't even care about the rogue girl as he continued to fight, not even knowing if the healer had survived.
Adam rushed forward, dodging a wolf who lunged and killed a wolf with his daggers. The battle was chaos as the orc shot towards the mimicked chest, its mouth crunching as the bones and flesh of Tasha began to bubble and spill from its mouth, her faint cries still sounding before silence.
"GREMLIN FUCKING DUNGEON!!"
The orc raged, his axe rising and swinging down upon the chest, which screeched before it was cleaved in two by the heavy blow, likely a critical strike, but the axe also carved the still-living Tasha in half, killing her instantly.
"Ah...!?" Ar'thom was sleeping with Tasha and saw the look in her eyes as his axe cut through her face... A sense of guilt swallowed him for an instant before he recovered. It was just sex!
Two wolves managed to bite the distracted orc, tearing into his arm, but they exploded shortly after.
"RETREAT!" Silas had finished the last wolf, his entire body charred and bloody, his left arm limp, the holy light around his shield faded, the enchantment broken.
'Adam...'
Silas believed Adam to have perished, but the rogue was fighting desperately, his right arm charred with bubbling flesh, chest filled with bite marks and wounds, tears oozing down his face as he killed the fourth wolf.
"Ar'thom! Get Adam!" Silas ignored the pain of his arm, his skills as a shield knight keeping him alive, as he raised his shield and prepared to block the next wolf explosion.
"Report! All retreat to the centre of the room, healers; keep yourself alive!"
'Where the fuck is that dark elf woman!?'
She was gone...
No matter how much he looked around, that elf was long gone.
Silas managed to reach the centre, the orc's large body carrying Adam reaching soon after him.
The orc fell to the ground exhausted with Adam on his body, alive but barely...
Silas rushed over.
*Bang* *Pu!* *Crunch*
Explosions rang out as wolves approached and were crushed by his shield.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
These were his friends... of the fourteen that entered, only seven remained.
Two warriors, Ar'thom and a human named Brad, with two longswords, his face looking tired but with no major damage.
One mage with her right arm bloody and burned.
One Rogue Adam who was heartbroken and exhausted...
Finally, of the healers, only Aldin and Two mercenaries were alive, but their state was horrible...
"We need to flee... Only two wolves remain! We can escape!"
"We cannot heal Adam and ourselves!" Silas heard the mage, Kathy, argue with a healer who claimed she had used all her mana.
"Fine!!" He shouted as he stood, blocking the next wave of flames and dodging to the right as Brad, Ar'thom, and a male healer carried the two semi-conscious warriors.
"The chest Tasha died to has respawned!! Don't go near it!" Kathy said, raising her mage staff as she retreated with the healers.
Adam, now recovering in his heartbroken and hopeless state, shouted towards the chest filled with Tasha's fresh gore and blood as the black slime seeped to the ground.
*Crash* *Pu! Pu! Crunu!*
Wolves lunged, their bodies exploding when Kathy blocked with her magic barrier, the huge flaming pillars causing it to crack before she was sent flying into the hard chest of the orc warrior.
"Phew... careful little lady." His gruff voice sounded, copping a feel before she was let down, now slightly dazed from the impact.
Finally, the combat was over...
The chest opened to reveal gold, a few items and trinkets.
"Shit..." Silas, with his snotty nose and tears oozing down his face, the bodies of his friends of so many years were now charred like overcooked bacon... his hands trembling as he looked towards the exit and the goal.
"That damn elf fled..." Kathy looked around, remembering the sudden escape of that woman before they reached the chest room.
"Collect what you can." Silas sounded as his party followed.
They left after five minutes, their bodies all damaged. Two of his closest friends, Brad and Aldin, were forced to leave their loved ones behind...
"Goddam dungeon..." Adam muttered as they finally walked through the portal and returned towards the exit...
At that moment, a loud, handsome voice with a charming magnetism sounded.
[Forgive me, but there is no escape on Nightmare Mode]
The next moment, Silas looked on in despair as twenty black and red wolves emerged from portals where the exit was just a few dozen metres away.
Crimson eyes shone in the darkness as all the torches that led to the escape vanished along with the exit.
"FUCK!" Ar'thom roared, holding his axe.
All hope was lost at this moment; Silas was mentally broke. All his years training to become a paladin at the church, ten long years only to fail in his devout belief, then five years from scratch to become a Shield Knight, almost losing his life countless times.... and now, after two years of adventuring, he became complacent and overconfident...
'If I were a paladin... I would be level twenty... we could have lived...'
He blamed himself, his mana running out as Kathy blocked explosions while he guarded her until they all died, and Silas...
Now he was covered in wolf bite marks, his armour charred and in tatters, broken shield lying beside him with the enchantment no longer holding his meagre holy mana...
His shield arm was broken beyond recognition as Aldin healed him enough to stand and block some of their flames.
Brad charged forward and died, blocking an explosive wolf, Ar'thom following to take vengeance...
Adam used a skill of his rogue class to become fast, a quick knife and his items like smoke pellets which exploded with a boom blocking the wolf explosions until finally, he stood beside the last healer, whose spell failed as ten wolves ambushed together.
They all died so close to the entrance...
Silas, whose mental willpower and spirit had faded, stood with no more tears flowing as his hope vanished...
"Why..."
[Becaue you were weak] The charming voice sounded as five wolves jumped and bit his throat before exploding in a Hellfire...
Silence.
Then...
Nothing.
The light returned, and the bloody mess and corpses seemed to be sucked into the ground before light returned to the dungeon.
***
Meanwhile, outside the dungeon.
"Hey... Silas is taking so long; we already got some good loot and gained a level after those wolves blew up from our arrows! Haha."
A young man with the same Shield Knight class, Simon, a simple village boy, was happy with their gains, despite the boss being a pair of beautiful women... They nearly died from the first hit and fled the room in terror.
Now the six of them were waiting for Silas and his group to return... unaware of the forty hungry red eyes staring at them from the forest...