Chapter 37 : Dungeon Rush!

Oz leaned against the wall, no obvious weapons on her person. It was only then he quieted down.

"...y…You won't let them hurt me will you?" He gasped, eyes wide with terror as more and more started filling the hallway. Oz shrugged.

"Perhaps I will, perhaps I won't. But you should learn to keep your mouth shut. Because right now, you're my little bitch."

She threw a simple leather backpack at his feet and smiled as he stared at it with hate. His dark eyes wet with enraged tears, hands tight on the torch and short sword. 

"Don't think of using that against me, or you'll be trapped in here forever." She said with a laugh. Watching his hateful expression turn hopeless.

"I mean it is guild property isn't it? The armor, the sword, even your suit? Any scratch and it will be deducted from your paycheck."

"You…petty…I did what I had to to keep production going!"

"Tch, no. You're a sadist and you like seeing people stronger than you suffer." Oz said bluntly, knocking the wind from his sails. "I could just kill you. We are in a dungeon.

She took a step towards him, enough to make him stumble on his feet backwards. He stared up at her, body quaking, arms up over his head. 

"They'll know you killed me!" He cried. 

"I could always say it was a little skeleton, you didn't move in time." She chuckled. "It would only take a small bit of my power. Remember what I did to my aunt?" 

The look of terror on his face warmed her cold heart. 

"But I like to think I'm a good person despite what my aunt and you have done to me. So be thankful. Instead you will simply suffer as I did." 

A shriek ran through the hallway as the monsters saw them, now outside the protective barrier. A massive hoard of skeletons and undead running full force towards them. Smith screamed, dropping the borrowed short sword and torch. Cowering into a small ball in the shadows. Unable to rip his eyes away from the blurring sight before him.

HACK SLASH HACK SLASH

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Skill Increase : Knuckle Fighting Lv 1] 

[Skill Increase : Hidden Blade Strike Lv 1]

Oz was a blur of light as she ran the monsters through, the undead summons crumbled into bone dust at her feet. A slash of the small butterfly knife or a solid punch was all it took to break the magic that held the bones together. Such low dungeons used hoards to try and take down hunters instead of actually dangerous monsters. She stared at the piles of dust around her, nearly a hundred mobs little more than chips now.

Mr Smith sniffled and whimpered as he gathered up fallen armor, fallen materials and any magical cores. His hands chapped and raw from the last twenty minutes of picking up sharp drops. 

'I've leveled up twice now. So that makes me level twelve.' She hummed, stretching out her arms. They were now at the boss room. Checking her watch she had to smile, 40 minutes. She wiped over 130 skeletons in that short amount of time. 

The boss would be something simple, a skeleton knight. She felt a surge of excitement. As a pack mule, the boss rooms were left to the strongest of all the raid group. Only they had the right to fight and gather the rewards of the boss. In her last fifteen, or was it sixteen now, years of hunting, her first boss was with Nahern days ago.

Once she defeated the skeleton the dungeon would release and go back into daily rotation. Instead of being harvested and milked out for every last drop of materials, she was going to clear it and move on.

"Come on Smith. Pick up the pace." Oz couldn't stop smiling, unseen behind her cowl. She threw open the boss door, Smith all but whimpering as he held the overloaded bag of low tier goods. Bone Chips, gold, jewelry, low tier armors, all only good for her to sell at the shop. It was an odd feeling to know every drop was hers. Mr Smith was just her packmule.

"Don't drag me into this!" he cried as the musky air reached his face. He coughed and wheezed, cowering as Oz calmly walked in.

[Skeleton Guardian | Lv 10]

In the center of the space was an eight foot tall skeleton, carrying a great sword and a shimmering necklace within its ribcage. Source's magic glowed around the monster's frame. Empty eye sockets stared back at her. The moment her foot stepped within the center arena it whirled to 'life'.

Smith screamed as he ran to hide behind a pillar, holding the massive bag as if it would shield him from the whirling blade.

Oz rushed in, white cloak spread wide around her like the snowy wings of death. One solid push off the floor and she was airborne. She pulled back her fist, a tempest of wind empowered her as she slammed her full fist through the skeleton's skull. She landed with a slight wobble, surrounded by a foot tall pile of bone dust and the sparkling necklace. One strike and the boss was defeated. Smith's eyes nearly bugged at his head, unable to form words as he babbled.

"Well that answers that." Oz said with a sneeze from all the dust. She walked over to the pile and kicked through it. The sparkling necklace at the bottom of the pile. Holding it to the sparkling torch light she watched prismed danced off the surface. She would inspect it later, for now, she tucked the treasure safely into her pack.

With the dungeon defeated, the world wobbled and shifted. Within seconds they were 'spat' out, now back outside the door they walked through barely 60 minutes ago. Smith collapsed on the filthy concrete, wheezing and unable to stop his racing heart. Oz looked crisp and cool as a cucumber. She hummed, "One dungeon down. Four to go. Come on, doggy."