The social circumstances were far worse for Earthlings in this world than Arun first imagined. After So-Young and Calux had left, Barnabass started barking orders at everyone, and it was then did he saw how badly Eartlings were treated. Before the raid could start, Barnabas gave everyone food to eat. Bron and he enjoyed a crunchy bird of some sort, and workers were given bread and some sort of soup. But the main fighting force, the Earthlings was given a horrendous-looking brown bread that he had ever seen.
If that was not enough, he saw that the Earthlings used a very leather pouch for their water, even though they as workers had better leather pouches than Earthlings.
But he didnt care about what kind of treatment the Earthlings were getting, for him the first and foremost priority was the Dungeon shop, which is why he was helping these Earthlings in the first place.
His idea was pretty simple, to understand what a dungeon shop is, or how to get access to it, he needed a good distraction and access to a dungeon. He now has access. And freeing the Earthlings and letting them create havoc would be a pretty damn good distraction. Also, considering that these Earthlings would kill all the monsters inside before he let them free would ascertain success in his quest…
When everything was ready, everyone got in positions. At the front were the Earthlings who were going to clear the dungeon. Behind them was Bron, who kept an eye on them. And then came Arun, the other new guy, and Barnabas, ready their machetes and big jute baskets in which they will sort out the meat. While the veteran and Barnabas's close confidant would work as a courier, taking baskets in and out of the dungeon.
The leader of the Earthling, the brown-skinned named Sanjay, when put his hands on the giant rock doors, the door swung open with ease. Then he and the caucasian man, whose name was Igor took the lead. The female Earthling, the Asian woman named Suzie was behind them, armed with a bow and quiver full of arrows, acting as as a backup for the front fighters.
And then they were off.
When Arun followed them inside, he found himself in a very long cave. The cave's roof was covered with glowing algae which made the whole place bask in a green color. Arun felt that they might have problems identifying Kongs in the mess, considering their natural fur color was also green.
Barnabas was whispering the whole way in, just focus on your job, you will be safe as long as you stay behind.
The cave eventually led them to a big chamber, as big as a two-story house. It is there that their group spotted Kongs. With Archry and the combined efforts of the Earthlings, they were able to subdue those Kongs with ease. While the fighting group went ahead, Barnabas, the other new guy, and Arun stayed behind to collect corpses…
"Do not fuck with the head. Kong's brain is a delicacy!" Barnabas yelled at them at the other new guy, when he almost improperly chopped the head.
Farming meat was simple. They had to cut off the head from the middle of the nand eck, thro the head in the basket. Then they would have had to dismember the limbs and throw hands and feet away. As far as the torso is concerned, the intestines of the Kongs were harvested along with most of the torso, and the rest of the vital organs were thrown away.
You have to give to these people, they surely know how to kill, Arun thought. From what he could see, those Earthlings were killing these beasts with precision, making sure that their meat did not get ruined by their assault, while making sure that the delicacies like the brain were secured during the assasult. He realized that they were trained well. Because this kind of precision cannot be learned from back at home…
And with the in the blink of an eye, Arun found himself in the last chamber of the cave. He was covered in blood from head to toe, and had been through five big chambers before the last one.
To his surprise, the last chamber didnt have a Kong's carcass. Instead, it had a carcass of what looked giant ape. This thing looked like it was as tall as him when it would have stood on its two feet. It shared all of its features with the Kongs that he had seen so far, yet its size and muscle made him realize it was far stronger than what they had encountered till then.
"What the fuck is that?" he said it out loud.
"Ah!" Barnbass who was behind him exhaled, "The Kong Pugilist. Those are rare… But still better them those Kong Butchers.."
Arun turned around and seeing his confused face Barnabas started laughing, "You kids crack me up.. Haven't you heard of evolution? This is the next step in Kong's Evolution."
The bald man stated it as if were common knowledge. To not gather any suspicion, he nodded his head, "I have heard of evolution.. But it is just that.. I am seeing this for the first time."
Barnabas chuckled, "Dont fret about it kid. Most people behave like you when they first see an Evolved Monster."
Alright, new task. Find out what the fuck is Evolved Monsters are. Arun then looked at the Earthlings, they were all seated on the side of the room. Sanjay looked injured, Igor had his face swollen, while Suzie looked fine. Bron on the other hand was sitting on a rock nearby, munching on some jerky. Based on his clean attire, Arun figured that the mhadhas had not moved from their place.
"How do we handle the boss?" His Scavenging buddy asked Barnabas. "Same thing that you did with the other ones. But this time, dont throw away the heart. Carve it out gently and bring it to me," the man nodded.
"And you!" the bald man called Arun out, "Go outside and bring the wine bottle in my cart. Do not break it. And see whether your friend and the barbarian have returned yet or not," He simply nodded and started heading outside.
Where the fuck is even this Dungeon Store? Arun asked himself, till now he had not seen any clues about the shop. And it was making him question whether killing everyone here would be a good idea, considering he couldnt even find the damn thing.
But as the trigger had already been pulled, he could not just back out now. So he got to work.
He took out the small bowl that he brought from the tavern from his pocket. He then took out the quiver of arrows, that he had neatly stacked in his Quick Access Inventory. He had 8 arrows left in the quiver. He took out four arrows and sent the rest back to the inventory. Then he took his survival knife, which was cleanly tied around his thigh with a string. He then used the knife to scrape the green gooey stuff off the arrowheads, and safely put it inside the bowl.
He then threw away the arrows and got outside. The confidant of Barnabas was outside, sorting out meat, and salting it. Arun didnt try to hide the cup in his hands, because he knew that the other person would not notice it. And he was right.
Calmly Arun took the bowl and put it on one of the carts, and then asked the man, "Hey!" he yelled, "Barnabas had asked to bring the bottle of wine. Do you know where is it?"
The man kept working and without turning around yelled back, "It is the cart from which we came here!" Arun nodded and went to search for it. And soon he found it.
Then he took one leather pouch which was full of water, and poured some water from it into the bowl of green goo. He mixed the water and goo in the bowl and then poured some of the resultant mixture into back into the pouch. But he put the majority of the mixture in the wine bottle because he knew for whom this fancy bottle was. Then he put the bowl back in his pocket, took the leather pouch, and approached the man working outside.
"Hey," he said, "Do you want some water?"
The man finally turned around and looked at him, while waving his hand he said, "Nah! I am good…" then the man sighed and asked, "Also, where the hell is your friend? They should have been here by now,"
"I dont know."
"Well, I need salt. Otherwise, the meat would go bad, real soon."
Carefully, Arun then put the glass wine bottle aside, along with the leather pouch. "What are you doing?" the man asked.
Arun didnt say a word, just pulled out the knife from his back and shoved it into the man's stomach. The man gasped, his hands clutching Arun's hand, trying to understand what had happened there. But Arun was not done yet, instantly he pulled the knife out and shoved it inside again.
The man opened his mouth to shout, but Arun anticipated the move. He grasped the man's mouth and started repeatedly taking the knife in and out of the man's stomach. Within a few seconds, Arun had punctured most of the internal organs of the man, resulting in the man's death.
Although Arun was covered in blood after the murder, no one bat would eye to his attire considering he was already covered in blood when he came out. He then tucked the knife inside his pants again and went inside.
By the time he arrived in the last chamber, he saw that his colleague had sorted out most of the big carcass. While Barnabas was eargly waiting for him, "What the fuck took you so long?"
"I couldnt find the bottle," he said innocently. Barnabas then took the bottle off of him, mumbling profanities under his breath.
He then went to the man handling the giant Kong carcass and gave him the water. While a part of him followed Barnabas's movement. And just like he had suspected, the baldy gave the bottle of wine to Bron.
"Hey, can you carve out the heart," the man said, he looked down and saw that most of the work was done. His colleague had opened up the torso, the only thing left was to carve the heart out. Not to attract any attention, he took the machete and got to work.
This Pugilist's heart was big, as big as his hand. But as he didnt have to pay attention to nearby vital organs, he started chopping without any precision. Soon its heart was in his hand, but for some reason, the heart's weight felt weird. He looked at his colleague by his side, the effect of poison had taken over him and he looked disoriented.
With a slight cut, Arun then made a small incision in the Kong's heart. And it is then did he realized that there was some sort of stone inside.
Is this valuable? Barnabas had instructed them they should not harm the heart in any way, thus, he was curious whether the bald man was after this stone. Because the heart on its own, didnt seem valuable.
The sound of glass shattering echoed throughout the chamber. He looked towards the group, the earthlings were on their feet away from Bron. Barnabass's neck was in the hands of Bron who looked angry at the bald man.
Fuck.. I didnt see how much that man drank. The thing was, he knew that people with high dexterity could have some sort of resistance to poison, that is why he added a large portion of poison in the wine. But he failed to see how much Bron drank. Arun turned around to see that his colleague was on the floor with his eyes closed, he was dead.
Alright. Things could get a little messy here. Brace yourself, Arun. Then he took the heart and went to Bron and Barnabas…