A Buzz II

'Probably some damn advertisement or something.'

But then, the phone rang three more times, still, these were all messages. It caused Ezra to get a little suspicious of the messages, because it was no longer normal, so he decided to check it out. The was no harm in doing so anyway.

"Private number." Ezra looked at his phone, and immediately a little devious smile bloomed on his face. A very knowing one.

'To think they'd move this fast. I expected anything from a week and within two months, but this is also good.'

Ezra opened the messages, and read through them with the same smile on his face.

= Hey, this is Von, your team leader. An emergency just came up and you are needed at once. A C rank gate has appeared and we are task with clearing it. =

…

The remaining messages gave the location and some other information, but that was all.

'So stupid. They can't even make it seem more believable.' Ezra thought to himself.

Maybe it was because he was expecting something like this to happen soon and that was why it wasn't surprising. He carried out his normal morning routine, just a bit faster, and then left for the location specified in the message he received.

There was no need for Ezra to use public transport, after all, he could out run a car at this level, easy. His figure gradually disappeared as he went leaping from building to building.

On arrival, Ezra couldn't help but think to himself.

'I really don't know what to think. Are they this stupid, or do they think I'm this stupid?' He asked himself rhetorically. After all, the location was in the middle of nowhere, in the midst of some abandoned construction site.

Soon enough, Ezra came to where everyone was, the place he felt the presence of people.

'Sure enough, they are stupid.' Ezra thought to himself after seeing the scene before him.

There were no association people, as one would normally see in such gates. Even though it had appeared some hours ago, at least two association people would be present.

'They probably got this off a broker.'

Though it was known that such brokers existed, it was another thing if one tried to find any link to them or even evidence of them existing. They were pretty well hidden. However, for gang members like these people before Ezra, it was a different case.

"Ezra! Here!" Ron called out Ezra, who proceeded to walk towards them.

"Where's everybody? And, who are these people?" Ezra asked, looking at all the unfamiliar faces."

There were only about four who were his actual teammates, the rest he had never seen.

'They really are going all out.' Ezra thought to himself, seeing the scene.

"The others live too far and are unable to be here on time, so we called for help from another team." Von answered, as he came behind Ron.

He had his full gear on and had somewhat of a scowl on his face. He adjusted the fingerless gloves he was wearing and then turned to everyone to give some small talk. Some moment later, they entered the dungeon.

While in there, everything seemed to be going well and they cleared the dungeon quite smoothly, it was clear what rank the extras that joined them were in. Even the healer of their original team had to do nothing but cast simple spells that recover fatigue.

"Hey, you're the new guy, huh? I'm Austin." The young man said, as he extended a hand slightly for a hand shake. Ezra obliged and shook his hand firmly while introducing himself.

They chatted lightly for a bit before the next attack began. From then on both Ezra and Austin spent their free time together, as Austin would always approach Ezra while they moved forward.

Luckily, this raid seemed like it would be a straight forward one. Though, based off the energy Ezra was picking up, they were still far off from the boss monster. Since boss monsters were stronger than the rest of the monsters in a gate, their presence was clear, especially if one was a sensory type.

"Those guys are strong huh?" Austin said to Ezra.

"Sure, they seem so." Ezra responded.

"Right? They cleanly one shotted those monsters from earlier, and those are high level D rank monsters. They have to be C rank at the very least, and strong ones at that." Austin said.

"Probably."

"Get ready everyone! Another wave is coming!"

This time a swarm of monsters came forward, more than they had faced since they entered the dungeon.

The monsters walked on all fours like dogs but they had scales and were slightly bigger too, then there were the ones that looked like some kind of lizard man, but were clearly not. These two legged monsters had scales covering everywhere, even their underbelly, perhaps the only uncovered parts were their eyes.

Though Ezra was an attacker, he maintained the rare position, following the formation. No one had even made an attempt to put him in front where he would tire himself, so he could only think how arrogant and confident the others were in their strength. Or maybe since the healer would just heal him they saw it useless.

He had seen how tough the scales were and even with C rank weapons, it was a bit difficult to break the monsters' defenses, Ezra could only wonder what kind of boss they would be facing.

When the monsters would get to him by either jumping and pouncing off the walls, he would simply just catch them before they reach him fully and break their necks or something similar. He didn't exactly have a good weapon anyway, so that was the most effective way.

He could buy a weapon of course, but there was no reason to have ten low grade weapons while you can have one high grade one.

When all the monsters had been dealt with, which took some time as this happened to be the strongest wave so far, everyone started taking out monster cores. When they were done and the healer had restored everyone to the best of her ability, they proceeded, gradually drawing close to the boss monster.