The contest that had taken place at the arena was being live-telecasted on one of the channels all around the wolf city. It got millions of views because of the drama it had created.“The battle between fire and electricity was good.”“We were all wanting Buller to lose. When was the last time Ruff stepped onto the arena? He really showed everyone that he’s in a different league, didn’t he?”“It lasted till the last second. It was highly dramatic. I still have no idea how the four humans survived such a powerful lightning blast, though. With no visible injuries at that.”“Yeah. Perhaps, they were applying CG graphics on live-feed just to get high TRP?”“Whether they used graphics or not, we’ll know when we meet those humans in the flesh.”“I can’t wait to test their strength myself, haha.”Meanwhile, Myles and the other five winners of the Trial Quarters were provided a free meal by Ruff who then personally dropped them off at one of the main entrances leading into the city.“Once you
The wolf city, or at least the Saber ward they entered was so far from their expectations. They were hoping to see a decent city, but what they got was something that looked worse than a medieval painting.The houses were small and in a poor state. The streets weren’t clean, and the woke animals were all looking at them as if they were holding themselves back from jumping at them and eating them alive.Casey hugged Myles' arm. “They don’t look friendly. Are they going to attack us.”“I don’t know about that, but…” Myles gently pushed her hand away and forcibly smiled. “Can you please not grab my arm casually like we’re lovers?”“U-Uh, okay,” Casey felt a little embarrassed as well as annoyed. (H-How can he say that to me? To a good-looking woman like me? Trying to play the hard-to-get guy, are you? I’ve seen men like you before, and I know how to play with them!) She brought her body a little closer to him, making his eyebrows twitch.Biskie was also holding Justin’s arm, but Justin d
“You found a way to awaken the animals?” Kong found himself gawking at her.“Yes.” Foxie further explained, “They give the young an injection with some kind of serum in it, and then the young awaken soon afterward. For some it takes days, and for some it takes only minutes. It depends on the person.”“Ohh…” Kong exclaimed in surprise. (The injection must have the power of a star crystal and something else. If I can get my hands on one…) “Ahem, does it work for only animals or humans, too.”“I think it only works for the animal kind.”Kong’s shoulders flailed. (Dammit. I got excited for nothing.)“Since this is your first question, I’ve answered you for free,” Foxie politely replied, “but it will cost from here onward.”“O-Okay,” Justin and Kong together said.“Can you tell me how you survived Buller’s last attack?” Foxie asked in a low voice, looking at both Justin and Biskie. “I really want to know.”“About that…” Justin glanced at Myles who shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t know. It
Hipster was a fat hippo wearing goggles and a formal checkered shirt-pant with a shoulder belt. He had only one weakness. If someone called him handsome, he would give them a 5% discount. Casey called him handsome five times and asked for a 25% discount, but he increased the price by 25% percent.Naturally, Casey didn’t buy a drink.Behind the Hippo’s hut was the Buffalo’s Inn, where Myles and others wanted to stay for the night at a price of 200 dollars per night per head.Foxie, however, told them that they could stay at her house for only half the price. Buffalo’s inn didn’t look very lean, so they went with her to her house which was a decently large burrow in the ground. It had a door and a lock. They had to crawl behind Foxie to get inside.“I never thought I’d sleep like a fox inside a hole,” Justin muttered.“Are we going to sleep on the ground?” Biskie asked, thinking she should have stayed at the inn instead.“Won’t there be bugs here?” Casey expressed her displeasure.“I st
“WHAT?” Justin was slack-jawed after hearing the price of a star-sealed sword. “It’s worth 50,000 dollars? Isn’t that too much when the sword barely spits fire?”“That’s why it’s only 50,000 dollars,” the vendor replied. “If you are not interested, leave. Don’t waste my time.”Justin felt aggravated by the vendor’s rudeness, but he could also understand where that rudeness came from. The market was buzzing with customers. At least one customer would be visiting every shop. Naturally, the vendors had swollen egos.“I was given only 10,000 dollars when I entered the city,” Justin responded. “How can I pay 50,000?”The vendor was an old man with wrinkles. He sized Justin from top to bottom. “You have all the limbs, and you look young. If you work as a porter for any group that enters the dungeon, you can easily earn 50,000 in a month or two. There’s always demand for porters, after all. If you’re lucky, and some group finds valuable goods, they might even give you a bonus.”“Porter, huh…
The dried blood marks on the floor and walls marked the entrance to one of the six paths starting at the sinister Nether Dungeon.Myles and others didn’t go more than 300 meters in, and they already came across puddles of blood, rat droppings and messy cobwebs every few steps.“Even though there’s so much traffic outside, the inside looks like nobody has passed by this way recently,” Justin opined, looking around with the help of his head-torch. “It’s giving off quite the ominous feels.”“We should be ready to face the monsters, but also keep an eye out for any locked chests or abandoned weapons,” Kong said as they kept walking through the twisted path.Myles, who was in the back, was leaving faint marks on the walls with a rusty knife he found soon after entering the dungeon.“Wait, guys, what if we get lost inside,” Biskie asked. “I forgot to buy food.”“We don’t have the luxury to buy food,” Justin replied. “If we hunt well this time, then we’ll maybe have enough money to buy food
The group of three human mages, with a tall woke-bear standing behind them, together looked anything but friendly.Out of fear, Kong and others moved to the sides of the pathway, giving them room to walk. Well, everyone except Myles.“Mr. Myles, what are you doing!” Biskie hissed and hurriedly pulled him to the side.The four men walked past them, with their hands in their pockets, showing how confident and comfortable they were.“You seem to be new to this dungeon,” the youngest one among the four, who didn’t even have a mustache, spoke, “so let me give a little piece of advice. If you don’t want to die, turn around and leave. However, if you don’t mind dying in this place, then you should be ready to fight anybody—monster and human alike. Even your teammate if necessary. Once you go deep into the dungeon, you will never know for sure who’s on your side. The moment you start trusting others, you will be making yourself vulnerable, babies.”Soon, the four of them left.“Who the hell a
A monster equipped to frighten anyone had met the man fearful of no one. A mighty clash between them was as certain as heaven above and hell beneath.The dark gray wolf reminded Myles of his younger days. It was a big, macabre wolf like this one that had attacked him but the old woman that raised him stepped in and saved him but then got killed right before his eyes. Those were times when every child wanted to be a brave warrior or a powerful mage. He, too, being an abandoned child, wanted to become strong and brave and one day take on an army by himself. However, all those dreams shattered when the wolf took the old lady by the neck and dragged her away into the distance. He couldn’t move. He sat paralyzed like a coward, and to this day, that moment was one of his biggest regrets. He wished he had run after that wolf and fought to death. Then perhaps, he might have saved the woman who saw him starving and suffering in the snow and brought him into her home and fed him and took care o
Aero’s attack was deadly enough to easily kill a group of individuals without them even realizing what happened.The table where Myles and others were sitting was utterly destroyed.However, nobody was harmed because Myles had warped them a few meters away at the last moment. The only being he didn’t warp was Dusty.Dusty took the attack head on and was injured just a little. “This is…” he didn’t take more than a second to understand who it was. “Don’t say anything and just run away!” he shouted in ant language.“What nonsense are you talking about!” Aero attacked him with his spear-like limbs. “Her Majesty trusted you and sent you on a mission, but here you are, eating sugary things!”“You idiot! I didn't have any other choice!” Dusty defended himself. “I was forced to work for these humans!”“Shame on you! How can you work for humans?” Aero grew all the more aggressive. “You surely deserve to die!”“Who is that bastard?” Sercy asked angrily because part of the cafe was destroyed by
General Aero of the Battle Ants leaped toward the two old timers and used his jelly-like body to set himself on fire, causing a nasty explosion that covered almost a hundred feet in every direction.It was so hot the ground cracked and the metal melted.Aero used this opportunity to fly away fast. Some automated machine guns recognized this intruder and shot at it, but Aero was able to easily slip past the bullets and flew away into the distance, covering a mile per second.Wise Servant and Sweet Beggar stepped out of the explosion, and Wise Servant sucked in the explosion and contained it in her single hand and squashed it into nothing. The compressed flames no longer existed as a candle light would turn off.“Are you going to go after that thing, or do you want me to go instead?” she asked him.“You’re the wiser one,” Sweet Beggar picked his teeth. “So you should go, since you decided to let that little ant go.”“I thought he might lead us to the one that escaped last time,” she rep
Outside the forever S-rank dungeon where the Battle Ants were present, Wise Servant and Sweet Beggar stopped playing chess and started drinking a strong tea made out of boiling many potent green herbs.And both of them felt energized and relaxed right now as they sat laid back in their chairs.Wise Servant lost in chess once again. She had been trying to win just one game of chess against him for so long. She grew experienced enough to be easily called a grandmaster of chess, but still, she was not able to win against Sweet Beggar just one more time. All she wanted was for him to forgive her and say ‘I love you’ just once more.Both of them had long crossed 100 years of age. So, they weren’t thinking of sex or anything like that. They were purely thinking about each other’s souls.Wise Servant had already beaten him 999,999 times, but she really wanted to win another game; however, Sweet Beggar didn’t make it any easier for her. He remained ruthless all the time so that she couldn’t e
In the dungeon swarming with ants of all kinds numbered in trillions, with more of them joining the ranks as seconds passed by, this dungeon was becoming more and more of a threat to the very existence of not just the Venture city but the very existence of humanity.The queen of all ants, Queen Wiggles, was currently crunching on wafers and looked to be in bliss.“Mm… these are the best things I’ve eaten in a while,” Wiggles looked at the captain ant that brought her a single packet of wafers. “What are these things called?”“Wafter, Your Majesty,” the captain ant kept his head and antennae lowered.“Water… it’s crispy, sweet, and easily melts in your mouth,” Wiggles was drooling. “I think I can eat a mountain of these. Why did you bring only one of these?”“The guy that entered the dungeon had only one of these in his bag,” the captain ant replied.“Oh, I thought you managed to leave the dungeon and then come back inside,” Wiggles said. “But some fool entered the dungeon, huh. Did you
Sercy found an A-rank healer, but he asked for a lot of gold in order to heal Judas and Glint because it wouldn’t be an easy task.“Instead of money, I’ll give you the spoils of an A-rank dungeon we’ll clear,” Sercy told him.“That’s even better,” the healer happily agreed to it.After forming a contract, he came to the Dawn guild to heal Judas and Glint. However, when he approached Judas, Judas attacked him by grabbing his throat and lifting him up.“Who do you think you are…” Judas coldly said. “Did I give you the permission to heal me?”“Judas!” Sercy unleashed a flaming punch and struck his face, sending him flying into the wall right next to him. His head went halfway through the wall. “How drunk are you to attack a guest who came to help you!”Judas pulled his head out of the wall and spat a few pieces of bricks out. “I’m not drunk, Sercy. And I don’t want to get healed because I’m perfectly fine.”“No, you’re not fine. You are mentally disturbed,” Sercy blurted.“Hmph, you thi
In Basil District.Sercy and Ria were heading toward a certain address.“Why did we have to travel so far?” Ria expressed discomfort without hesitation. “Couldn’t you find any healer near our district?”“I could, but I doubt they can fully heal Judas and Master Glint,” Sercy replied. “Judas has been drinking a lot. I’m sure his liver and other organs are not healthy. We need a proper health potion that can improve his health significantly. And Master Glint also needs to drink a health potion because he’s not eating properly.”“His daughter died long ago, so why is he still depressed?” Ria asked.Sercy glanced at her with a bit of a surprised look. “You lack emotional depth. Were you not raised by your parents?”Ria frowned. “Do I have to be raised by my parents to know a father’s love?”“...Not really,” Sercy said. “Some lives can be explained by pen, but some… only by pain. By emotion. If we haven’t experienced the same emotions ourselves, it’ll be hard for us to put ourselves in oth
The glass cube was torn open like it was jelly, which genuinely dropped Sercy’s jaw for a second.Dusty was also not expecting that at all, but he grinned as he unsheathed his sword, ready to attack Myles. However, just when his eyes looked up and his gaze was set on Myles, he suddenly felt invisible pressure crushing him down from every direction.Myles was not even moving his eyelids, but Dusty couldn’t move. In fact, his body was trembling slightly. (What’s this feeling?) He looked very anxious. (This regal aura he’s giving… It’s as if I’m looking at Her Majesty. No, perhaps, dare I say… he’s even greater than Her Majesty Wiggles?)“Myles!” Sercy yelled. “How did you do that? I mean, how could you do that!” She quickly caught Dusty with her hand. “What if this little monster is more dangerous than we think?”“Then why are you holding it in your hand?” Ria asked.“B-Because he’s like a little doll,” Sercy said. “I feel like squeezing him to death.”“Eeek!” Dusty was terrified by her
Myles and Ria came to the canteen while Biskie and Casey were so tired and beaten they had to take rest in the basement training grounds. Myles wasn’t the one who fought them, but they fought each other to the extreme just to test them and so wounded themselves a bit too much.“Our guild has good core fighters now,” Sercy told them while they were eating crunchy leaf burgers. “We only lack a good healer. If we can get someone who can not just heal the wounds but also boost our skills, it’d be wonderful.”“Someone who can do those things will be in high demand,” Ria opined. “Do we have enough money to recruit such a person?”“Money? Screw that,” Sercy snorted. “I want someone who will willingly work with us and share our burdens and not expect too much in return. I don’t want those types that go after money and fame as they cannot fit into anything. They are only going to abandon you when a better opportunity knocks on their door.” She then looked at Myles. “You explored some districts
Dusty stealthily entered the guild building, expecting there to be tight security. However, all he found was an old man mumbling something in his sleep.“What’s this? They have the dragon king’s item, and they’re this relaxed?” Dusty frowned. “Are they that confident in their abilities, or are they just that stupid?”Nevertheless, he kept his guard on and traveled in the hall while using the objects as his cover.He saw Sercy who was loudly talking at her reception desk.“I’m telling you that I will buy those lands!” Sercy was shouting. “Sell me those infested lands, you bastards! If you do that, We’ll become ghost-venerers for you and clear three dungeons of your choice in the next year. How does that sound?”“Five dungeons for three years is okay for me.”“Three years is too long, and five dungeons is too much,” Sercy said. “Three dungeons and one year is final.”When a dungeon breaks, the nearby lands and environment get corrupted. This would cause the value of that land to drop, e