Arv Dungeon (4)

Leon put out his arms to stop his party just a couple of steps short of the bottom of the stairs.

"Alright guys, according to reports there is a large snake-infested room we have to cross. What's our plan of action?"

Expecting a response, Leon waited for his party mates to say something. But all of them just exchanged glances with each other and looked back at Leon. Although he wasn't the leader officially, the party had been essentially been operating with his moves and suggestions, so they placed the choices on Leon.

Leon saw the reactions and knew they were waiting for his plan.

"Alright well, I think if they are clumped up as the report says, we have Tecia smash the ground so we can create a distraction and disperse the crowd. Then we pick them off one by one, with Tomoe using her thunder as an area of effect spell."

They prepared themselves for the battle up ahead for them and charged down the steps. When they got to the bottom they instantly rushed out, but an interesting sight met them. Their footsteps could be heard slowing down through the room, occasional hisses could be heard but not often?

Looking at the room splattered with blood and bodies, Leon asked with his eyes full on confusion.

"What the hell happened here?"

That was the question they were all wondering, eventually, they put together a theory or hypothesis on what happened. They first noticed that there was another set of stairs next to the stairs they came from, after some thinking they decided this must be where the right path and left path connect. They could also tell that the blood had recently dried and the bodies had not started to decompose, since monsters in the dungeons would not decompose instantly to leave a monster core unless it was in the boss room.

Leon looked around the room analyzing every inch of it.

'Hey Ensis, any thoughts on the situation?'

「I have most of the same information you have, however, I can most likely make an educated guess.」

'Go right ahead.'

「Well, I am pretty sure the group that did this is ahead of us by about five to fifteen minutes. With the bodies of the snakes combined with my aura sense, I can predict that the snakes were jungle snakes from E Tier to a few low D Tier monsters. In any case, you most likely could have won this battle, but it would have most likely taken a long time and exhausted the group. You would most likely only obtain a few scratches though. I also must say whoever came through here is quite experienced and powerful as they only bothered to take only D Tier monster cores by digging them out.」

While whoever came before them only took the D Tier monster cores, Leon was a penny pincher at heart, which was a habit since he previously could afford anything. The party started to dig out the cores of all the dead snakes and killed the remaining snakes, which were all E Tier and babies.

+96 Exp.

As Leon dug the last monster core out of a newly killed snake, he turned to his party.

"It seems someone has beat us to the lower tiers. Do you guys want to continue and see if we can pick up any scraps or hopefully catch up to them?"

The group would have said yes anyway, but they could clearly see the sparkling, pleading eyes Leon had and all agreed.

They all jogged to the end of the room, where a large stone door had been pushed open. The door was almost half a meter thick and appeared as if no one had ever opened it until recently, since it was covered with a green moss that lived everywhere on the door. As they walked past the door into another chamber, Leon's eyes went wide but then he could only sigh.

The room was full of the dead and bloodied bodies of many Orcs. Orcs were generally considered an average powered monster with the smaller ones in the upper echelon of D Tier, while the adults would be limited to C Tier. They had a monstrous strength that could match any barbarian or tanker in the C Tier easily. That attribute went well with small tusks protruding from the bottom of their mouths, giving them an intimidating look. Most Orcs either had some sort of shade of green as their skin color and came with little magic. Only a few shaman or warlocks would have any magic power, but those were few and rare among the Orc race. While they seemed quite strong to Leon and his party, C Tier was considered the average in the eyes of most top guilds, since most were populated by veterans who had been Adventuring for years or even decades. Leon's group members and himself were all a part of well-known, popular guilds in Verin, however, each one of them was the lowest-ranked member of their respective guilds.

Still, Leon was surprised to see their green blood splattered everywhere, there were dozens of mangled dead Orc bodies scattered throughout the large chamber which had some stairs leading down to the next floor.

While his party examined the scene, Leon knew a couple of things.

'Whoever else was in here with them was no joke, to take on a large number of Orcs they would be a high-ranked force for small Tiers and a decent one at big guilds.'

Leon thought about this considering the number of Orc's in the room. Orcs as said previously were relatively weak on a broad spectrum, however a group of them could pose a threat and stand up to most C Tier parties. Of course, this didn't account for the personal strength, teamwork, and ability compatibility of the group. While tiers were a definitive guideline for power and combat capability, the gaps that occurred inside a tier could be like heaven and earth.

After looking around for a bit more, the group, much to its sadness, realized that the group ahead of them had taken all the monster cores and killed all the remaining Orcs. They all sighed and decided to proceed to the next floor, which they reached through the stairs descending down.

The floor below them held the same scene, with the only difference being the numbers of the dead Orc's increasing. Leon's party continued in this pattern for a handful more floors until they reached the end of the second to final floor of the dungeon. They all speculated that the next floor would be the final floor with more mobs and the boss room. As they walked down the stairs, the sight they expected by now had greeted them. Piles of dead orcs lied on the floor, their various weapons from axes to hammers lay everywhere in puddles of green blood. However as they examined the scene, they noticed something shocking. A bone-chilling scream echoed throughout the dungeon and had been so loud Leon's eardrums became slightly tender. They all looked to where the scream came from and saw that a door standing at a height of ten meters opened completely. The door itself had a bunch of intricate and detailed carvings on it. However the group was more interested in the room itself, lights from dozens of torches could be seen from the room where the scream came from, the boss room.