Afterlife Dream

The four 90+ players were obviously trained in doing this. It was very regrettable though that they did not think about briefing me about the stage beforehand. They confidently scattered around the map, surrounded the boss, and started throwing ninja stars, shooting arrows, and stabbing with sword at the poor boss. They kept shouting at me to heal. Sigh.

I hated running with bad teammates. I clenched my jaw and teleported across the map to heal all five of them including myself before anyone fell and died.

God damn. It was tough. There was only one good thing. The transformed Witch did not have any buff nullification skill. She merely hurt a lot upon touching, but I could manage just fine with Mana Guard and Divine Guard. The only problem I had was the MP consumption because I had to keep teleporting back and forth and bumping against the boss in my haste.

The fight against the Witch did not take long. It was over in five minutes. After we killed the beast, a beautiful woman in a golden robe and a sparkly golden crown appeared. She crumbled in tears and fell to her knees in front of us.

"Oh, woe me!" she lamented.

"After losing my heart, I have turned into a monster! I have hurt innocent people and caused them agony! Dear adventurers, thank you very much for returning my heart to me. I swear to do good from now on. I shall now release all the captured hearts!"

With one elegant flick of her wand, a lot of pink hearts - no, not the anatomically correct hearts - appeared out of nowhere and flew out from the palace.

The mechanical voice spoke up after that.

"Dear Adventurers, congratulations on completing the dungeon. The next stage is reserved for the heroes and heroines who had returned love to humanity. You have only five minutes to reap your gifts. Please prepare yourself."

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

A finger snap later, we were in the front of the labyrinth. Dazed by the intricate design of the hedges, I did not immediately move. That was a huge mistake, because my five dungeon mates went ahead of me and quickly rushed toward the labyrinth.

In the loot stage, all class advantages were nullified. We all had to depend on our legs to bring us as fast as possible inside the labyrinth, and our luck to discover and open as many treasure boxes as possible.

Owing it to my untrained legs, I fell even more behind in this race and came last into the labyrinth. For some reason, my five Love Dungeon mates believed that the treasures were located deep in the labyrinth. Good for me, because it meant that all the treasure boxes at the outer layer were completely mine. If there really were some. I gulped. Well, it was only my first run. I did not expect to get rich in an instant.

I was happy enough to have found three treasure boxes and opened them. I got a piece of Mammoth Mount Summon Stone, an Unseen Potion, and also an Angel Feather. I knew what the first two were for. 20 Mammoth mount pieces could be combined into a full Mammoth mount. The Unseen Potion could grant me invisibility for five minutes. Invisibility is one of the rogue's first job skills. I did not remember how long they could remain invisible at maximum level, but I believe it was less than five minutes.

The loot stage was only open for five minutes. After the clock hit zero seconds, we were all forcefully teleported off the map. I turned to DragonTalon to ask what he got, but he was screaming at one of our dungeon mates, the bowman PrecisionShot.

"Return my Skill Reset Scroll to me!" he screamed angrily.

My jaw dropped open.

PrecisionShot lifted his chin up and looked at DragonTalon coldly.

"It was mine. Else how was my pet able to pick it up?"

As if on cue, his husky pet barked once and wagged its tail excitedly.

DragonTalon fumed.

"OF COURSE your pet could pick it up! We were in one party!!! The scroll came out of my box and your pet just stole it! Thief!"

Ninja, the Shinobi stepped up to help his guildmate. Shinobi was the third job designation for Assassin.

"In Loot Stage, it is free to grab for everyone. You should have guarded your drop more carefully. Grab the scroll before his pet did. But you did not so it was your loss. PrecisionShot did not do anything wrong."

I cleared my throat. I had to speak up for DragonTalon too.

"Correct, Loot Stage is designed that way so that everyone can grab anything that comes out of anyone's boxes. Exactly this is why players who run together must conscientiously return items that they know belong to other people. The scroll came from DragonTalon's box, and you even acknowledged that. Why can't you be an honorable person and give it back to him?"

Both Ninja and PrecisionShot smirked at me.

"Honestly if not for one of you being a Healer, no one would have taken you into the dungeon. Look at you," Ninja said to DragonTalon. "You have not even completed the second job advancement yet. I mean, look at you. Heh."

DragonTalon's cheeks were burning red from both fury and embarrassment. I had suffered similar demeaning speeches from the pros back when I played the original game too, but these players were truly too much. I recalled how they completely made use of me as a heal slave, and that really infuriated me.

"Enough," a Sword Master who went by the ID HinoKun said. "You already do not plan on giving him back the scroll, why must you trample on them?"

HinoKun pushed his two guildmates aside and sent me a trade request.

"Huh?" I asked with a frown.

"Accept it," HinoKun said, so I did.

The warrior gave me fifty Advanced MP Potions.

"Thank you for your hard work in healing us. You are a good Healer, Antares. I hope you won't take their words to heart."