Class Struggle (2)

The sun rose once again, and everyone got to packing their tents, along side other stuff.

"Prepare to move in ten minutes!" Eric's calm voice vibrated through the air, and at the sound of his voice everyone felt rushed for some reason.

Max packed everything up and went to Old Man Eric.

As Max made his way towards him, Eric felt someone watching him, so he turned around and spotted Max walking towards him with his bag already placed on his back.

'What would this kid want?..' Eric thought to himself while waiting for Max to come closer.

"Instructor Eric!" Max said, showing some courtesy to the man.

"Drop the formalities Max, what do you want?" Eric instead of liking being named with respect, he wanted to cut through the chase, knowing that Max came to speak with him for a reason. He knew this kid way too well.

"Mister Eric, do you think that this is the right decision?" Max directly said, not needing to keep his little façade anymore, he knew quite a bit about Eric as well, and what Eric said summed up to 'Just get to the point.' so he didn't keep him waiting.

"What do you mean by that? Don't you like the formation?" Eric, not knowing about what Max was talking about, asked.

"No, I just don't think that any good will come from this lesson. It is too dangerous.. and I also have a bad feeling about it." Max showed his worry in response to Eric's oblivious question. The truth was that Max felt that something wrong ever since the special lesson was announced.

"Hahaha! Kid, you don't understand, you guys are monsters in human forms. The talent each of you has is at least over the average of what a normal person should have." Eric then looked at Max, his smile fading away, which brought a freezing cold feeling into Max's bones.

"I want to see just how strong you guys became, and to do that I have to give something more difficult for you all." After that, the suppression Max felt was gone, when he looked back to Eric a kind smile was sewed on his face.

"And of course, I'll look over the whole situation. I also know what you are thinking 'How can we, go into a dungeon, not even being awakened' type of stuff. But that is what makes you guys special. Just please believe in me for now Max." With the fake smile on his lips, Eric tried to gain his trust.

Max felt really uncomfortable seeing this behemoth of a person asking for trust so he nodded and went away, pushing away the awkward situation for him.

'Sharp senses...' Old Man Eric was revealing a true smile, not like the fake one he just showed to Max. It looked quite ugly as he wanted to laugh out loud but had to hold it in.

** A while later **

"Let's go everyone! Time is up!" Eric's voice was heard once more. He was already over the discussion with Max, although a pleasant surprise, he had to focus on the whole group not just Max, he also couldn't afford disruptions.

As they were walking, Ashley approached Max and quietly said.. "Hey, isn't it strange that we haven't stumbled upon any beast so far?" Max turned his head to her, while processing what she said. It was true.

No beast had happened to cross-paths with them at any point. And also he wasn't woken up by footsteps last night, when they camped in the open. "Most probably Old Man Eric did something about them. I have no idea. But we should still be on alert." Max nodded at her after speaking.

Ashley understood what he meant, and got to it, going over to the others in their team and whispering to them that Max was worried about something and that they should be on guard.

"We are getting close, stop for now, I will start giving information about the dungeon so listen carefully. As I said, the dungeon is a Low-Tiered one, but I never told you the type of the dungeon. This one is an undead dungeon, where undead monsters are residing. Normally there is a monster range from zombies and undying-skeletons to liches and other types of stronger undead like undead-ogres, and sometimes Death Dragons." Eric stopped to look at them all before continuing.

"But of course this is just a Low-Tier, you will see lots of zombies and undying-skeletons, there would be just a few more advanced undead creatures, like Ghouls, or some other cursed beings. I will let you guys find out how to fight them all, I will only step in at points where there might be an annihilation of the team. I anyway already helped you enough with giving you all a battle formation and even left time for you guys to get accustomed to it. And don't forget, there are rewards to be won in this, of course, only if you understand how to fight together as a team. Any objections?"

No one objected. There were some some trembling hands but everyone knew that generally speaking, an undead was easier to fight than a Magical Beast. The undead had no will to fight, they craved life-force and death energy. And both could be gathered by killing living things. They knew no strategy and just blindly attacked anything with life-force spewing out of it.

"Alright then, " a smirk could be seen on Eric's face " Good luck to you all! Don't become zombie food, and come back alive to the village so you receive your reward. If you get one.. hahaha! Also don't think of turning back until you all defeat the boss of this place."

With that said, a storm arose in the middle of the crowd. Everyone protected themselves, closing their eyes and placing their hands in front of their faces. The storm slowly subsided, and with it, the disappearance of Eric was acknowledged.

"Old Bastard, he didn't even plan to enter with us in the first place!" Max yelled his lungs off. He knew it! He knew that Eric wasn't up to no good, but never knew what would be happening!

"Everyone! Let's turn around, this is not a good place to be, we shouldn't be forced to enter the dungeon alone." Will added in, he learned his lesson last time. He didn't want to go in recklessly.

"Let's think about it, I am curious of fighting this dungeon." A woman, brandished her halberd into the air, getting the peoples attention. She was a tall, as tall as Max in fact. She had refined muscles all along her body, with heavy iron armor, and thick leather under it, she looked quite menacing.

"I think this is a trial Old Man Eric gave us, as he said he wouldn't want us to be killed, he also picked an undead dungeon, and gave us a fighting formation.. maybe we can do this." She said, her red hair looked like it was burning up from her excitement, or maybe.. the thrill of a fight?

"You really want to die right?" "Yea she does..." Two other spoke one after another. One of the voices sounded feminine while the other masculine. A slender woman with a long katana scabbard stepped out from one side, while from the other side a good looking young man with a spear in his hands made his way towards the center of the commotion as well.

"You guys really want to go back to the village and walk for three days in total for nothing? You guys are so boring." Margaret said, while placing her weapon back down.

"We are not suicidal. If we are going to do this we are going to have to work as a complete team, which means... " Max looked around "... all of us will have to come to an understanding, while the others will acknowledge more than one leader." Max was interested in this too, but didn't want to kill people because of his curiosity.

"Max what the hell?" Will said, looking stunned. "Are the two of you also in this?" Will looked unpleasantly at Jericho and Gwen, if there was one more person who voted towards it, then the majority of the leaders would be towards trying.

"N-no way! I never wanted in the dungeon in the first place!!" Jericho cowardly said. He was one of the leaders but it didn't amount for the leadership skill, or how good his decision making was. He was just good at wielding the spear, which earned him the title of leader in his party. The only down-side was his cowardly attitude.

Gwen looked around, all eyes were on her. She glanced at Margaret "You really want to do this?" She asked her, as she was confident in all of their abilities. The only reason the five strongest people in their class didn't team up wasn't because they just didn't just not like each other, but it was also because they weren't allowed to do, from the beginning Eric said that these five couldn't be in the same team, which inevitably led to five team being formed.

"Damn you guys.." Will said under his breath. "I shall vote towards going in as well then.." Will looked at Max, then Margaret ".. but don't make me regret it!"