He finished with a sad expression as he mentioned the people that would be the first line of contact between us and monsters. I thought about all this and asked how they were doing things currently
"We have 3 teams of 6 rank B Hunters alternating like clockwork to clear the rank B dungeon, [Mangrove Swamp]. The three teams are able to clear the dungeon 3 times a day and have a rest period in between, with other similar teams acting the same manner in nearby cities, but we don't know if it'll be enough." He looked at me as he said the next words
"That's where people like you come in. I haven't met any rank B hunters that have been able to dive alone into a rank C dungeon repeatedly, so your power should be among the highest. I would love your cooperation to hasten this process with one of the teams we have clearing [Mangrove Swamp]" He said these words carefully while watching my face
I thought over everything and the amount of time we possibly had before nodding my head. "When is the next team diving?"
A relieved expression appeared on his face as he told me the next team was going in within an hour.
We then discussed how the resources were split up between the hunter teams diving in [Mangrove Swamp]. The military would pay handsomely for all the [Core]s, [Item]s, and [Skill]s they received while providing for all their needs. If you became a hunter enlisted in the military, you would be given a rank with even more benefits
I thought about everything and decided to go with the plan of seeing the [Mangrove Swamp] while diving with a team. I would decide how to move forward from there. The talk with the Vice Admiral finished on a happy note, with him leading me to personally meet the rank B hunting squad I would be joining today
Half the group had already gotten together and I got the chance to meet the first genuine rank B hunters. Their mannerisms were a notch above other hunters and their bodies seemed packed with power than could explode at any moment. These were rank B Hunters that could bring their attributes all the way to 250. When paired up with corresponding skills, it was a deadly force to behold
The first 3 that I met were 2 Berserkers, one holding a broad sword that was just as tall as him and the other holding long blades on either side of him. The third one was a short woman that was about 4'1 in height, and she was surprisingly the Knight of the team. The power emanating from her in no way matched her stature as a huge tower shield larger than her was strapped to her back
I got acquainted with the three while the rest of the team came in. They were all relatively polite with a mild interest in their eyes when we were talking, with the only one different being the short woman who went by the name Lana Stone. She was staring at me with eyes that blazed with fire as she showed much more interest than the others
The remaining team members were 2 mages, a man and a woman dressed in long purple robes with long staffs sparkling with ice elements. The last one was another Knight, this one with a round golden shield covering half of his body and a flail on his other hand
More introductions followed and the 6 usual rank B hunters that were about to dive into the [Mangrove Swamp] were joined by me.
Chapter 27 - [Mangrove Swamp]
I didn't like the [Mangrove Swamp] the instant we were transferred in. We appeared in the middle of muddy ground where I could feel my feet sink in a couple of inches. All around us were huge mangrove trees that shot to the sky. The smell was horrendous
From the information the hunters gave me before we came, this land where we were transferred to was the innermost small patch of land surrounded by a muddy swamp. Our enemies would be coming all around us from the innermost ring of the swamp
The swamp was special as it had multiple rings. The first wave of enemies we would be facing would all be from the first ring, and the moment all those enemies were killed, a barrier between the innermost ring and the second wider ring would dissipate.
The moment that barrier dissipated, all the monsters from the second ring would rush towards you. There were 5 rings in the entire swamp, with the fifth ring releasing the BOSS. This really was a killer dungeon. I didn't like the sticky and hard to move in environment, but my mind couldn't help but think of the possibilities of this dungeon with my abilities
To prevent the complete wipeout of the hunting squads, the hunters designated one of the monsters they faced with the title of [Princess]. They could kill all other monsters besides this [Princess], she had to be protected at all cost. Otherwise, the moment she dies, the 2nd barrier will break and more enemies will rush in before they could catch their breath
I understood their entire system and soon began to feel the earth trembling beneath my feet. Humongous monsters were coming.
The first one entering my eyes was a 4-meter large alligator, its huge jaws wide open as it lunged at our group. I instantly cast [Flames of Torment] and flung the thick pillar of flames forward as if it were a spearheading directly into the open jaws
SSSS!
Sounds of meat being burnt rang out, with a burnt smell right after as the inside of the alligator was destroyed by the rotating pillar of flames. I was thankful that this rank D skill had reached 100 proficiency and continued to be enhanced by support skills that allowed it to take down rank B monsters
"Haha, good work newbie!" The short tank, Lana Stone, was holding the tower shield twice her size shouted as she and the rest of the group members moved to block and attack the other incoming alligators
"I'll hold on to the [Princess]!" The other tank with a flail and golden shield said as his body glowed blue and withstood the charges of other alligators. The berserker with the broadsword held his sword now enveloped with flames and swiped at the neck of another one, making a clear clean-cut as if there was no resistance from their scaly armor
The other berserker with two swords struck out and unleashed a huge cross-shaped sword light that went forward to butcher another set of alligators. The two mages weren't lagging behind as they had already cast their spells. The area in front of them quickly became icy and froze all the incoming alligators, which is when the berserkers came in and shattered them with a swing of their swords. The mages then pulled back behind Lana before continuing to cast other spells
I liked their teamwork and began moving seriously myself. 10 golden swords appeared in the air and rushed down to each of the remaining alligators besides the [Princess], piercing their hard dry scales and nailing them to the ground
I did this repeatedly a few times, taking down tens of alligators before the hunting squad looked at me in surprise after witnessing the enhanced power of [Smite] and shouted words of encouragement soon after as they went to reinforce the Knight with the golden shield on holding off the [Princess].
"Newbie, I knew I felt something special from you. Don't hold back!" Lana said as she went to help hold off the one remaining alligator, her small body powerfully moving the large tower shield as if it was weightless
The two Knights rotated on holding off the [Princess] until 10 minutes passed when everybody had regained most of their energy, a sword bathed in flames ended its life. A sound was heard as if a bubble had popped, before even more tremors could be heard as more alligators rushed in
The squad members always stayed in a tight-knit formation throughout, with the mages and I in the middle, the Knights and Berserkers on the outside. Even while being swarmed by tens of alligators, they held them off successfully
I was casting [Smite] after about every minute thereafter, cleaning off a majority of the alligators without completely overpowering everything and making the short tank throw me even more fiery gazes
The chosen [Princess] of this round was kept alive for 20 minutes before everyone was good to go once more. We repeated this process until the third and fourth barrier was released, the thrill getting to me as I watched these powerful rank B hunters throw out skills in similar power to mine
The release of the fourth barrier was only done after a [Princess] had been held down for half an hour, the hunter squad regaining their stren
gth at their peak before all of their gazes focused on the male mage. They seemed to come to an understanding as they nodded their heads and told me to not go away from them under any circ.u.mstances while we began clearing this next wave
I nodded curiously as I waited to see what surprise they were going to pull off as I watched more than a hundred huge alligators desperately clawing their way towards us. The mage held his staff forward as he was protected in a circle and aimed it toward the incoming monsters. Thirty seconds passed with nothing happening, and then the heat began to rapidly rise all around us
I was shocked as I looked up and saw balls of thick magma raining from the sky and barreling down to the large groups of alligators making their way here.
BOOOM!!!
Sounds like bombs were constantly going off could be heard whenever the large balls of magma fell down and burned everything around it, turning any that were near into mincemeat. More than half of the alligators were wiped out with this one attack
My eyes shined as I looked at the heavily panting mage that had fallen to the ground. That type of skill...I wanted one!
My heart was pounding as I replayed the scene of the raining magma balls from before. This skill, I really did want one badly. If I could grab a skill like this, with my abilities...I was imagining how I could easily clear out large groups of monsters in seconds
I was daydreaming too much as someone had to scream to get my attention back to the monsters. "Come on newbie, don't lay there gaping and let's take care of the remaining beasts!"
The miniature tank was laughing crazily as she went forward to block the remaining wave that had reached us. I clicked my tongue while bringing back my focus and cast [Smite] once more. I shaved off a majority of the remaining crocodiles by casting the 10 golden blades every 30 seconds. With the 2 berserkers butchering with their swords, only a [Princess] soon remained. The moment this remaining alligator was killed, An unimaginably large TITAN would be coming for us
I was curious to see how they usually handled this BOSS if their mage chose to cast such a powerful skill just before to avoid being surrounded by hundreds of alligators. Which hunter would come out with another surprise now?
Chapter 28 - [Mangrove Swamp II]
I was expectantly waiting for another surprise from these genuine rank B hunters. One showed an extremely powerful skill that took out tens of rank B monsters in a blink, although it seemed to be at the cost of her entire mana reserves
The Knights continued to solidly defend even when they had tens of monsters surrounding them, never letting a single one pass through to their squad members.
I wouldn't be waiting long to see the BOSS as half an hour quickly passed and the last [Princess] was killed. I waited to hear the furious tremors of a huge TITAN rushing through the swamp but instead just felt the entire swamp shake once with everything going silent after. It then shook once more a few seconds after
These were...just its steps? I was shocked while feeling the tremors that traveled through the murky waters. The TITAN was slowly making its way towards us in unhurried steps. This was something that would instill fear into the hearts of hunters, but looking at these veterans that had dived into this dungeon multiple times before, they had determined expressions while waiting for the boss
The berserker holding the huge broadsword spoke to me. "Continue casting your golden blades to disrupt it's attention when the fight starts. If you can aim them at its eyes, it'll reduce its combat power even if it can still sense us"
I nodded and prepared to face off against the huge beast on the horizon. It felt like a big mountain was gradually coming closer as the beast neared, its scales shining a dark green color, with its eyes shining a terrifying light. It looked at us a distance away as it's humongous jaws opened and an unnatural sound came out
OOOOOO!!!
The sound was grating to the ears as the huge alligator's mouth now showed rows and rows of glistening sharp teeth. Its upper jaw was much wider than the lower one, causing its teeth to be completely hidden when its jaws were snapped shut. But now that it was open...the sight was horrible to behold.
The man with the flaming sword continued with his directions "Spread out! Knights, keep it busy, and don't get eaten!"
The two Knights nodded as this wasn't the first time, and they took their positions to the left and right of the alligator. The flames on the sword the berserker was holding began to dance wildly before they exploded and went to...cover the entire body of the hunter
I was startled at this type of skill as the man in front of me had his body wreathed in flames. A howl escaped from him as he rushed forward to meet the TITAN head-on. There was a blinding expanse of light as the berserker was flung back right away, looking like a huge fireball.
10 golden blades had quickly appeared and half of them went towards each eye in a straight line. A pained sound rang out as the eyes of the humongous alligator were ruptured with puss leaking out
The berserker with dual blades took this chance to release two large sword lights that smacked onto the right side of the alligator, heavily injuring it. It didn't sit still as it turned to the side and the next thing we knew, a scaly tail twice our size was shining in green light as it whizzed its way towards us
The two Knights shouted as their bodies glowed and transparent shields of light appeared in front both of them when the tail struck
BOOM!
The land shook from the impact, but Knights stood their ground and the strike was stopped. Continuing with the momentum, a flaming berserker rushed in once more, spinning in the air as he constantly released fire blades that struck down on the head of the alligator
I cast [Smite] once again and had the 10 blades aim towards its open jaws when it was howling in pain, rupturing the softer skin inside. The remaining mage that was silent all this time finally acted, her glimmering staff pointed forward as an icicle the size of a car came down and pierced the already mangled head of the TITAN, cutting short its screams as blood and brain matter splattered all around
My blood was boiling as I watched all of these fantastical skills and couldn't wait to start amassing higher ranked skills of my own. I looked at the corpse of the disfigured TITAN and promised myself to run this dungeon at least tens of times in the coming days to see what rank B skills would pop out, and of course, the rare chance of a rank A skill dropping
The hunting squad members were cheering at the finished raid as a green crystal appeared. Lana came towards me and said "Not bad newbie! Those blades of yours allowed us to finish our raid in record time, our profits are about to increase!"
The rest of the members laughed as they gathered together and checked to see if anybody was injured. The mage that had cast the amazing looking skill where magma balls fell from the sky was up on his feet again as they collected the loot and prepared to leave the dungeon
I looked around me at the multitude of alligator corpses, and the even larger one by the side. I knew I could clear this dungeon if I came in alone, but it would take me a lot of time to take down hundreds of alligators and this huge beast, and I loved clearing dungeons as quickly as possible
My highest ranking offensive skill was C, and I felt like I needed a high damage rank B skill similar to these hunters for an even smoother BOSS run. The face of a chiseled man popped in my head as I thought about what to do next
After the [Core]s and an [Item] that dropped were collected, we placed our hands on the green crystal and were transferred to the outside world once more. Officers that were standing guard near the monolith were surprised and checked their watches when we came out. The dungeon was completed in under 3 hours this time around because of my addition
I took down the contact information of the rank B hunters as they invited me to go with them to celebrate. I thought about it as I recalled I hadn't really associated myself in any social settings for a quite a while, maybe this would be something good to do. The dungeon wasn't going anywhere, and a few hours of new pla
ces wouldn't hurt. I told them I'd catch up with them as I already planned to do something else at the moment and went towards the office of the Vice Admiral
Bypassing the many security points, I came back to the office filled with stacks of paper once again. Magnar looked at an antique clock on the wall before smiling at me and saying "Everything went well I presume?"
"Very, and I would love to continue to help, but I'm going to need a favor from you first"
The man's eyes perked up as he listened to my words. This time around, I wanted to look through the offensive rank B skills in the hands of the military that I could learn to make my run of the dungeon even smoother. Even if I was good enough to beat it now, being even more prepared was not an issue
I could've jumped into the dungeon and spent some time clearing it for rank B skills, but the drops were random so I would never know how long I'd be diving before a skill that I actually wanted to use drops
The lower-ranking skills were also quickly losing their effectiveness, as the rank F [Fireball] would not dent the scales of rank B monsters and wasn't used even once the entire dungeon dive.
"Just a single rank B skill? I can make something like that happen, let me call someone in"
I nodded at him and waited by the side. A minute later, a woman dressed in business wear came into the room and greeted the Vice Admiral
"Boss, here's the doc.u.ment you wanted."
Magnar nodded at her as he grabbed the thick book and handed it to me.
"This is the inventory of all rank B skills that haven't been distributed yet. Let us know which one fits your taste and we'll take it out of storage for you"
Magnar looked at the hunter in front of him that was intently looking through the inventory of skill books and smiled at the achievement of recruiting another excellent hunter.
Seeing how he almost halved the dungeon run, his help would continue to bring in even more resources in the weeks to come. He just hoped this hunter's addition along with everything else they were trying to do would bolster their strength enough to stand against what was coming. What they really needed were more of the peak rank A hunters, but they couldn't be cultivated as quickly
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