Defending A Dungeon For A Selfish Reason

As the crack in the dimension widened with every second, the grin on Albrecht's face grew as he thought of all the possibilities he'd have once the dungeon was rightfully his. He was counting the chickens before they were hatched, not noticing the watchful eyes that stared at him from afar.

"Albre— master," Yukina called out, feeling Albrecht back to reality as the Zecian Portal completely manifested.

"What?" Albrecht let out as he hastily jumped into the Zecian Portal. Before his body was completely swallowed by the portal, he noticed the horde of adventurers who hurriedly made their way towards him.

Albrecht's lips curved upward before activating one of his favorite skills— Blessing of the Divine Paladin.

[Blessing of the Divine Paladin (Unique, S-Rank) — active skill, negates status effects, and boosts 30% of all the user's stats. Passive and active skills are also boosted by 30%. Grants a buff of 30% in party members' defense stat. If the user has less than 50% health points, boost 60% of the user's stats. If the user has less than 30%, boost the user's stats by 90%. Grants a shield at 1% hp that mitigates a fatal blow.]

It was a normal skill, but he decided to use one of his weapons which he hadn't used before.

[Zombie Overlord Scepter equipped]

[Item: Zombie Overlord Scepter (S-Rank)—The scepter of the zombie overlord, capable of handling dark energy and accumulated Zecian Aura. Increases the affinity to an element by 50% bestows an additional 100% effectivity. Grants slight regeneration to Zecian Aura, and fills up one's Zecian Aura by 80% should it fall below 20%.]

For a moment, Albrecht wasn't sure whether he'd be able to equip the Zombie Overlord Scepter or not. After all, it was closer to the dark element than the holy element.

However, Albrecht had a passive skill that allowed him to equip any weapons. So although his activated skill and his equipped weapon didn't match, somehow it still worked as if Albrecht just illegally bypassed an unwritten rule.

Pretty soon, the horde of adventurers finally arrived inside the dungeon, surrounding Albrecht while they contemplated whether they should step forward or not.

"Geh, it's Albrecht." One of the adventurers let out as his face contorted into a somewhat disgusted expression.

The last thing all of them wanted was to engage Albrecht in combat. If it weren't for their contract with their respective guilds, they would have tucked their tails and fled on the spot.

However, it's not like they had any choice. For now, they had to deal with Albrecht and hope that they wouldn't be gravely injured.

As for Albrecht, he was more than prepared for this match. As for Yukina, she wasn't the least bit worried for Albrecht. After all, Albrecht single-handedly survived through the last waves of the Seventh Outerlayer. If any, it should be the adventurers who should be genuinely afraid of him.

And she was right in the money. The adadventurers wanted nothing to do with Albrecht. However, they were assigned to take over this dungeon so its exclusive rights would belong to their respective guild.

Without further ado, Albrecht raised his Zombie Overlord Scepter and a huge debuff affected the entire grounds. No one was safe from the debuff as it was a fixed one. With their stats slightly lowered, it decreased their chances of an even fight against Albrecht—

— well, not like they were on even ground against him in the first place.

"If we... if we want this, we have to work together. Let's set aside the names of our guilds for now and get this." One of the adventurers proposed a pretty good idea, to which everyone else responded by nodding their heads in agreement.

Albrecht somehow expected this to happen, that's why he wasn't at all surprised when all of them raised their weapons against him.

Fortunately for him, there were no notable adventurers in the crowd. If there was an acquaintance or another adventurer who's relatively strong, then Albrecht might've found himself in a pickle.

It seemed as if luck was on Albrecht's side since all of the adventurers were either Silver Rank or Gold Rank Adventurers. If there were a couple of Diamond-Rank Adventurers, then it would've been a different topic.

As the only Platinum Rank Adventurer in the crowd, there was no way he'd lose, right?

— — —

A couple of hours ago,

"We're not going." With a biting remark, Sun Wu responded to the question that Azura Xalthor (the guildmaster of their guild) asked him.

It was more of a personal favor, but it seemed as if Sun Wu didn't take it that way.

"All of you don't have to go, all right? I just need someone to survey the area since there's a huge possibility that a dungeon would appear. We're running out of funds, and the exclusive rights to a dungeon would be very beneficial for our guild as a whole." Azura explained. Although he wanted to scream at Sun Wu for not seeing the greater part of the picture.

"Then... we'll have... sigh~" As the leader of the Heroes of Relics, Sun Wu was well aware that they shouldn't be wasting their time on this. After all, they only have three or so weeks before the deadline of conquering the Eighth Outerlayer.

Right now, they have to level up, gather more skills, and train as much as possible to have a fighting chance against the inhabitants of the Eighth Outerlayer.

Time was crucial, and they needed to use it to get stronger. However, they couldn't just say no to their guildmaster since they were directly affiliated with the guild. As much as they hated to admit it, they had responsibilities within the guild.

"Just send one over there, and have him or her scout the outerlayer. Then after that, he or she could head back here and rejoin you on whatever it is you're about to do." Azura suggested. He's already cutting them too much slack, so he was hoping that they would at least agree to this proposition.

"All right. Let's decide this with a quick round of rock paper scissors." Sun Wu heaved a sigh as he brought his right hand up, urging his party members to do the same.

"..."

"..."

"Ready... !"