The leader of the kobold habitat near the periphery of the inner level is an awakened Beast.
He was doing his work by managing his territory. Then, suddenly his soldiers informed him that one of his soldiers was killed by someone, near that strange place.
This caused him to get angry at how someone could kill his people in his territory. So he decided to send his people all over his Territory to find the killer.
When Hutiya and his party entered the underground dungeon, they killed all the kobolds near that area.
Which caused the information delay, but when the leader got to know some of his men near that place were killed. He understood that it was done by those same people.
He with all of his soldiers marched toward that place.
....
"Kaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
The sudden cry caused both Setanta and Hutiya's party to turn around and they didn't like what they saw.
An army of kobolds and in front of that army was a kobold bigger than the rest, but that's not the only difference. He had a darker skin tone, larger claws, a pair of horns, and a pair of horns.
'Run'.
This is the only thought they all have, Setanta and Hutiya look into each other's eyes. They both decided to stop their mutual hate for each other aside and nodded to each other.
Then they faced their respective party members and said.
"Run!!"
The place they were in, was a big round chamber, connecting to many tunnels and they used one of such tunnels to arrive here.
After the order from their party leader, they started running in the opposite direction then they arrived.
Noticing its enemy running, the kobold king ordered his soldiers to follow after them and brought them here, then he went towards the portal.
The kobolds following their king's order started chasing after them.
While running Setanta looked back and noticed that the Kobold king was not following them. He told it to others, which caused them to release the breath they were holding subconsciously.
They entered the tunnel that was a little behind the dungeon. They didn't know where it leads to but in the current situation, this is the best way.
Though kobolds were fast, so were the parties.
To create the gap between them and the kobolds. The archers, as both the parties were working together, increased to seven Setanta, Muniya, and five from Hutiya's party.
These seven archers fired many arrows on the kobolds to slow them down.
They were able to create a large distance between there and the Kobold army.
As more time passed, they ran for more than twenty kilometers. Though they get tired of running for so long. But so do the kobolds. Due to the arrow shots, they were not able to catch up to the parties.
After running a few more kilometres they finally noticed a light. Which surely will be the exit
"Yeeeeee, it's the end of the tunnel."
"We are saved."
"Haha, I didn't die."
Everyone including Arya, Munda, Anaya, Virala, members of Hutiya's party, and even the silent Muniya were celebrating.
But both Setanta and Hutiya had a complicated face.
Noticing this Arya asked Setanta.
"What's the problem, Setanta? Why are you so tense?"
This question caused others to look at Setanta and Hutiya who had a serious look
The Hutiya's party members ask him about the reason for his expression.
*Hufffff*
Setanta took a deep breath and replied.
"Though we are saved from the kobolds. But the direction we ran was towards the inner level of the forest."
The other people understand the reason behind their solemn faces.
The inner level is very dangerous, even those in the last year of trial like Setanta and Hutiya had a very high chance of dying here.
"And from my estimate, we ran for more than twenty kilometers and the chamber was around two-three kilometers away from the middle level. So we are more than or around twenty-five kilometers away from the middle level." Hutiya said.
Now all of their faces turned Ashen as they knew that, they were very deep inside the inner level. If not the core level these twenty-five kilometres are the minimum exception.
The length of the inner level is around thirty kilometers. So, there is a chance that they already entered the core level.
Hutiya turned towards Setanta and said.
" I know we had many differences, but if we want to survive we have to work together."
"Well, I agree that we will have to work together, but first you have to return our rewards from the dungeon," Setanta said to Hutiya.
"You!!??" This statement caused Hutiya to get angry. But he calmed himself down and said.
"I will return everything other than the Mantra book. And this is the final deal, as we are twelve and had more chances to survive than you five." Hutiya said while smiling as this was his way to get back at Setanta.
Setanta thought about it, he hated to agree but Hutiya was right about that. If he and his Party worked alone their Chance to survive would be negligible.
"Ok, I agree." Setanta agreed and shook hands with Hutiya.
Hutiya doing his part of the deal, signalled his party members to return those Yantra.
Though unwillingly, one look from Hutiya was enough to subdue them. They returned the reward that Munda, Anaya, and Muniya received from the dungeon.
After that, they decided to think about how they should act.
Arya who was present there the whole time finally said something for the first time.
"We went towards the east when we entered the forest and it was Dawn, now looking at the sun it's already around three or four in the noon. I think we should head west as much as possible because the farther we from the core level the better."
Hutiya and Setanta who were the leaders of the parties agreed with Arya that they should start heading towards the west and get away from the core level.
They talked about the formation, their approximate position, and a few other things that were important and made a plan on how to deal with the situation.
Then they decide to stay in a hexagon formation while running with the three tanks at the front, one was Munda while two from Hutiya's party supporting them were Arya and another spear user from the other party. The last part has the dagger and sword user to protect from the rear while the middle has the archers.
Using this formation they started running in the west direction, they ran at a neither fast nor slow pace, as they didn't want to attract unwanted attention. As there are all strong predators in the inner level who can easily kill many if not all of them.
They covered a distance of around ten kilometers before the sunset. And this is also the estimate Setanta and Hutiya made to cover. In this way, they will be able to cover the rest of the inner level tomorrow.
After the sunset, they decided to make a small camp to use till dawn, and the members decided to do a regular night watch around the camp.
...
"I want you to act like you are right now. As of Right now the situation is not good, So you remain acting as you are" During the night watch Hutiya said to a person.
The other person was sitting in front of him was nodding.
What they didn't know was that someone was listening to their conversation.
'I knew there was something fishy with all this, How can they know of our location? And from the timely attack. To them knowing we were in the dungeon, their reaction was all points that there is a traitor among us.'
Arya who was listening to the conversation between Hutiya and the traitor thought about the last events.
'I think Setanta had his doubts too. But is waiting for the right time to act. As the situation right now is not good.'
Arya after listening to all this went back to his camp and started resting till his time for night watch arrived.
As Such the night passed and At Dawn, everyone got ready to move, They entered the same formation and started running.