ABNORMALITY

"Thank you for taking the hunter's test" The cheerful receptionist spoke out, sliding a card on the counter.

One look at it would be enough to have anyone breaking out in a burst of laughter. First evaluation and I had already hit the very bottom of the barrel--E rank.

The test itself wasn't something anyone would sweat on. Theory, combat test and a magic test. Take a guess on which one tanked my score by a lot; what was that? Magic? Fucking A grade student over here.

Thanks to my superb knowledge, I took down the theory test without breaking a sweat--so much so that I ended up placing myself on levels of B ranked hunters without even hitting the combat test. The combat test was nothing more than a test to figure out what kind of hunter you were; swordsman, mage, archer, assassin, brute...and so on and so forth. A blade had always been Aeron's third hand.

Don't take words out of my mouth, I for sure tanked a lot from my score with it; graded at the lower-half of C grade. Who knew keeping your hands off the handle could leave you rustier than the blade itself.

Magic was defaulted to an E because none of their equipment could measure my 'soul-well'--or whatever they called it. At first they had these massive smiles on their faces: their top-graded equipment couldn't gauge my magic levels, traits of a fabled top tier A grade hunter. They types given their own scale--'S-tier'. Their smiles really rubbed off quick when I couldn't even conjure up a fireball.

'E-rank dud sword-apprentice'

With such a title burned onto my card, I was for sure not going to get access to dungeons solo. E ranked hunters normally had to leech off of higher ranked individuals to get their levels close enough to C rank for them to get access to solo raids.

Socializing while completing a bore of a quest--now that was one hell of a pain in the ass. That being said, the chances of me getting recruited were slim to none. No serious party wanted an E ranked 'dud' sword-apprentice tainting their names.

"D and below, we're looking for a hunter to fill a spot!" A voice shouted out, the person themselves armed to the teeth in quality armor. 

A gift from the heavens that had been on a cursing streak, the only thing I could possibly thank the Architects for planning out.

Without hesitation, I took the offer. Thirty bronze coins for a chance to raid a C ranked dungeon--as a load runner. Fancy way of calling someone a porter, but I wasn't complaining. Watching others in combat would be more than enough for me, I was still in my own planning phase.

As such, we shook hands and took up the raid.

They called themselves the dungeon marauders. A six member team decked out for any situation. One tank at the front whos' body was well cased by sturdy armor whilst he held a shield large enough to shield five people from anything above. Following him were two swordsmen, each extremely seasoned. I could tell from how they moved and swung their blade. A taurus was taken down before it had the chance to launch a second attack.

The rear had an assassin who's main focus seemed to be supporting the swordsmen whilst also keeping the mages guarded. I could barely see their movements; one minute he was conversing with the two ladies at the back, the next he was at the front--stabbing mobs with his poison-coated blade. This was most definitely not their first rodeo.

Little could be said about the mages themselves; one healed while the other focused on chanting spells and refueling others' magic.

"Impressive" I let out under my breath, watching the team function like the internals of a clock, each cog performing its function with little to no error.

"Master, allow me to interrupt for a moment...kindly leave the dungeon." The messenger's voice randomly echoed in my head.

Leave the dungeon? We were nearly three-quarters done with it, the final stretch being the boss itself, now I'm being told to leave?

"No can do, Messenger. Unless there's a solid reason as to why I should, I'm not backing out now."

"The dungeon has run its occasional evaluation and activated a fail-safe protocol. You've triggered it."

Fail-safe protocols. I'd read about the dungeon's self-evaluations; it occasionally checks on the levels of hunters within it and later adjusts according to the medium rank--to keep the battles on its usual 50-50 rates. The fail-safe only triggers when a person too high of a level slips by before an evaluation and ends up getting evaluated mid-way. Dungeons that activated the protocol were dubbed 'abnormalities'. Which is why I took those words as absolute bullshit.

An E ranked dud sword-apprentice triggered a rare fail-safe protocol? Even a senile old man would have a laugh at that set of news.

"As much as I appreciate your rich sense of humor, lets get real."

"I'm serious master, in nothing more than a minute, the dungeon will shift drastically."

"And how exactly am I the cause of this?"

"Get to safety master, I shall explain it to you once you've done so. Even I hadn't noticed something this obvious at first."

 My doubt was about to waver, but instead, it shattered. Her words were still fresh when the entire ground below us rumbled with an incredible intensity. Even the team's tank had to dig his shield into the ground to use as support. What followed after was a rise in temperature before an ear piercing roar sent a blast of air our way.

The D ranked taurus they'd just destroyed quickly regenerated; its body growing in size. Thicker muscles, bigger weapon and an even more blood thirsty look in its eyes.

Without hesitating, the two swordsmen darted towards it with the tank pulling the beast's attention away from them.

Two strikes...three...ten...twenty. Not a scratch was made until it took fifty hits, its body nearly instantly regenerated after that, only stopping once the assassin and the tank took a slice out of the swordsmen's pie.

"Everyone, move back--we're abandoning the raid." One of the swordsmen let out, holstering his blade as he faced us.

"No, keep moving. There's another mob spawning area before the boss, we can take it down." The other butted in, his command seemingly negating that of his comrade.

"Darius think, something's off here. We need to prioritize our own safety before..."

"I said, we push forwards. You're free to leave if you so wish Lance, but count your cut out if you do." Darius interrupted, his tone cold as he continued his walk, the rest quietly following behind him.

Angered, Lance threw a fist to the wall--his jaw tightened to its limits before he turned back, his gaze falling onto me.

"You there, Aeron was it? Pass me the bag and make a run for the exit. If we don't close the dungeon in the next half an hour, tell the guild we died in an abnormality." He let out, his tone defeated as he stretched his armored arm out.

Trust me, if I could I would. My actual battle experience both in and out of my current body was nothing more than online gaming and social media arguments, I was all in on his plan but the bigger issue was the rising hoard behind us. See, as the two knights in shining armor were busy having a power struggle, the monsters they'd killed across the stretch we'd burnt through wanted a second round. I for one, thought it was clear once the Taurus before us came forming itself back up.

Luckily for me, Lance himself noticed this; his widening gaze wasn't the type that would fill you with confidence.

"Darius! Behind us!" Lance shouted out, swiftly separating me from the incoming army that looked thirsty for blood.

The man he'd called didn't get a chance to respond before his head was sent bouncing around the room once a battle axe came flying his way. Its speed was indescribable, I only saw it happen in a blink; almost doubted myself before noticing the headless knight who'd also taken a second himself to notice the lack of both a body and a head.

Another came flying, its target was the mages. Unluckily for it, the tank was now on guard, it was sent flying towards a wall once it collided with the shield; the collision leaving the shield itself vibrating for some time.

"Unbelievable...C rank? No, these must be nearly entering B. We're not cut for this." The tank let out, breathing heavily through his steel chassis as he readied himself for another attack.

"We'll think about that once we're out of here. Charge through, I'll take down anyone you stun." Lance responded, tightening his grip on his blade.

Admirable, their leader had just been brutally beheaded right before their own eyes yet Lance still had it in him to take the wheel without breaking a sweat. The only complain I'd have about him being the fact that I still had to carry the deceased body under his command. Again, admirable, but I'd rather spend an hour digging up a grave in the dungeon than spending that time running around with a body in my hands.

With that being said, leadership and a solid plan can only go so far, abnormalities had always proven to go against all preparations. Rumors have it, a fully geared 20-man A rank team was wiped out when raiding a B ranked dungeon that randomly turned into an abnormality. For a 5 person C rank team, including one E rank load runner and excluding a dead swordsman, an abnormality was more than a handful. The tank was the next unfortunate one to find out.

Our charging tank collided with their charging half-bull half-man. An equal matching between man and beast, creating a stalemate long enough to leave him open for a rear attack. It was like watching a well organized team make a planned move. The taurus held back the biggest threat while two others swiftly made an attack to his back, one of which was blocked by Lance while the other managed to unfortunately land; rendering his shield wielding hand unusable.

With one pillar collapsing, the other quickly followed. In a matter of seconds, he was ruthlessly destroyed by the towering beasts that wasted no second shifting their targets. Lance was sent flying back after luckily blocking yet another attack, leaving the rear vulnerable. An assassin could only do so much, even whilst being showered by heals and magic boosts.

With a swing of an axe, his dagger was sent darting out of his hands; and making use of the moment, his body was split in half.

This had gone from a walk in the park to a hellish one-sided battle in no less than a second, the fact that I'd somehow caused it made it worse on my end.

Instinctively, the mage quickly begun chanting a spell, the air around her turning into a raging whirlwind as a ball of flames surrounded by sparks of lightning formed at the end of her staff. The size was enough to block us from the incoming hoard, but blocking was far from stopping.

Just as her chant was coming to an end, numerous axes and arrows pierced through the flame. The majority hit their targets while some of the strays spread everywhere. An arrow for me and a face split in half for the healer. The sharp sting on my shoulder was bearable compared to what was left of our mage, her body had been riddled with arrows with an extra axe to the chest. A one hit kill.

"Master, step away from the incomplete spell. make a run towards the boss area." The messenger barked out, her voice louder than usual.

At this point, my body was frozen still. I never took any medical course back in my old world, so seeing blood and guts all over was a new thing for me. My legs and arms refused to move, even with an arrow to my shoulder. The fear I felt was almost indescribable.

Before me was a spell going haywire, if it were to miss its target, I'm doomed. The mobs would tear me up like a hot knife slicing through butter, worst of all, I wouldn't be able to defend myself with how under leveled I was. I was screwed if it hit its target too.

A ball of flame engulfed in random sparks of lightning capable of rivaling a cart in size, that's not only wrecking every beast in its way, it's literally demolishing anything in front of it. Were the walls to take one hit from this, the debris would have taken me out instantly. That couple of lovely facts paired with my frozen legs had me at a certain death moment.

"Blink" A slightly deepened voice echoed within the halls, sending a slight wave flowing through my body.

In a blink of an eye, the haywire spell that once seemed massive was now like a light bulb illuminating a certain space further away. The air around me was moving quick at the opposite direction, causing my hair to nearly blind me whilst the rest of my body dangled in mid-air struggling to keep up until the sudden movement came to a sharp stop.

What followed after was a deafening blast that blew a heavy gust of wind my direction, forcing me to shield my eyes against both the blinding light and the heated winds. Another blast followed...and another...and another; almost like a chained reaction. By the time it was done, only a large cloud of dust could be seen for a short while before thinning out to reveal a blocked passage.

"Cassandra...your death shall be honored." Lance let out, my gaze finally falling back to him since I was currently and unknowingly in his arms.

Dripping in sweat and lost for breath, a fitting look for the man who'd just went out of his way to rescue a dying load runner. How he'd done so was beyond me, in the blink of an eye I was off the ground and several meters away from the blast radius; all whilst still not being aware of what was going on.

"Aeron, are you still fit to move?" He questioned as he set me back on the ground.

"I'm good to go, thanks for that."

"Don't mention it, It's too early to be thanking me anyways" He responded calmly, sheathing his blade as he turned to look at the dark hall before us, "we lost the hoard but what we're left with isn't any easier."

As grim as it was, what he said was nothing far from the truth. We'd lost the threat of instant death at the hands of multiple mobs but lost our easy way out in exchange for a closer yet harder route. The boss room.

Normally, we'd have to engage in combat again against one more hoard before making it to the aforementioned being, but the blast just happened to have wiped everything out--meaning we were simply delaying our death by escaping the blast.

The thought of it alone was enough to send a chill running up my spine. An abnormality amps up the difficulty of mobs in the dungeon, meaning despite being in a different category, a boss is nothing more than a mob. A boss from a C ranked dungeon being raided by one swordsman and one E ranked load runner...

"I might be meeting those damned Architects a lot sooner than you had anticipated, isn't that right Messenger." I inwardly questioned.

"If everything plays out as I've predicted, perhaps you'll be the one being proven wrong." She casually responded, her initial panic seemingly having died down.

A slight bit of hope lighting up a darkened room, perhaps my death date wasn't near. That being said, keeping my hopes up from mere words wasn't in my character. As such, I could only take in a deep breath as I turned to the only hope I had, Lance--who let out a sigh before beginning his walk.

"Lets get going, Aeron."