Deadmeat Saga

Chapter 17 – Rookie Hunters

Gerhart and Hope saw the barrier and four figures emerging inside it.

"Hope, prepare yourself. I'll handle the boss." Gerhart said, drawing the Emerald Flame Sword for the first time on this run.

"Yes," Hope replied, pulling out her steel sword.

After half a minute, the barrier lifted, revealing two goblin minions, one archer minion, and a taller and more muscular goblin with better armor, a sword, and a shield, a goblin warrior.

"Watch out for the arrows," Gerhart said and charged at the warrior.

"Guga!" The goblin warrior angrily shouted and also charged at Gerhart.

Woosh*

An arrow drew an arc toward Gerhart, but he avoided it by tilting his head, his charge not stopping. Meanwhile, Hope ran after Gerhart, wanting to tackle the minions.

Soon, Gerhart and the warrior confronted each other, bashing shield against a shield.

Bam* Thud*

But the strength gap was immediately apparent.

"Gya!?" The goblin warrior flew backward, rolling a few times from the impact.

"Gi?!" The three other minions were horrified. Their leader wasn't even able to hold on for a moment.

If outside the boss's room, the three minions would run away in horror, not even bothering to call reinforcements. It was because they recognized Gerhart as someone overwhelmingly more powerful. However, they were now in a caged death match. The only way to survive was to kill the opponents. Hence, although scared, they turned ferocious, fighting with everything they had.

"Ga!"

"GI!"

The two minions wanted to flank Gerhart from left and right, but Gerhart ignored them and made a beeline toward the goblin archer.

"Gi?!" The archer exclaimed in shock, drawing its dagger to defend itself, but Gerhart slashed its chest, killing it on the spot.

At this time, Hope finally caught up and attacked one of the confused minions.

"Hya!" Hope shouted and slashed at a distracted minion, heavily injuring it.

"Gi!" The other minion switched its attention to Hope.

While Hope was fighting the other minion, the goblin warrior desperately attacked Gerhart, but Gerhart effortlessly parried its attacks before decapitating it.

"Too weak..." Gerhart muttered, feeling disappointed.

The goblin warrior was not even a warmup for him.

Then again, the stats of the goblin warrior were, at most, E, and it was lvl 5. It didn't even have Aura, making it an easy opponent to the lvl 30 Gerhart.

Gerhart looked behind him and saw that Hope would finish off a heavily injured goblin on the floor. However, she seemed to be hesitating.

"What is it, Hope?" Gerhart asked, walking over.

"Gerhart... I feel something dangerous will happen after I kill this goblin, but I don't know what." Hope furrowed her brows.

"Extra boss? No. It doesn't happen with mid-bosses." Gerhart narrowed his eyes, staring at the closed exit door.

"How bad is that feeling?" Gerhart asked.

"Not too bad... It only feels a bit dangerous." Hope replied after some thought. "It feels about three or four times as dangerous as the boss... But I feel like you can handle it with ease."

"Do you feel it is coming from one of those doors?" Gerhart pointed at the exits.

"It is coming from that door," Hope replied, pointing at the door leading to the 6th floor.

"Oh... You bastards messed with the wrong guy..." Gerhart had a dangerous grin.

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.

.

Near the entrance to the 6th floor, just beyond the mid-boss room.

Three men and a woman finished looting three corpses. If Gerhart and Hope were there, they would recognize them as the corpses of the trio from before. The three corpses lay close to the obelisk.

"Easy money." A hammer-wielding warrior grinned as he tested the mace of a female warrior.

"Yeah. These stupid rookies don't know about obelisk camping." A female archer said, picking the arrows from the dead archer.

Obelisk camping was to wait in the safe zone on the other side until someone initiated a boss fight. During the first few minutes, they waited in ambush for unsuspecting explorers to teleport, taking them by surprise.

"And we can get more from those rookies inside that room. That wimpy mage said two warriors were inside, and one was a beastkin slave. What a moron master!" Another warrior, wielding an axe, said while kicking the head of the mage, whose head was cleaved in half. 

"He also said he had an expensive sword and was tall. He is likely a gentry or noble." A level-headed mage commented. "We should expect him to be somewhat skilled, perhaps wielding Aura."

"Who cares! All the more reason to kill him." The hammer-wielding warrior said. "That sword is likely worth a few thousand Silver Coins!" 

"We would need to fence it for a third, though. Don't want anyone tracking us." The female archer commented.

"We should wait a bit. If those two finish early, we leave. If it takes longer, it means that those rookies are struggling and are easy pickings." The mage said.

The four rookie hunters then patiently waited. Around five minutes later, the door finally opened.

"Okay, they are weaklings. Get them." The mage ordered in a quiet voice.

The three others nodded and rushed into the boss's room.

However, to their surprise, the boss arena was empty except for the drop items and an unopened treasure chest.

"What the... Mmph* Stab* Stab* Stab* Stab*" Before the mage could react, his mouth was covered as a knife repeatedly plunged into his kneck.

"Behind us—" Slash* Plop*

The female archer tried warning them, but her head got lopped off by a green flash.

"Shit!" The two warriors quickly realized they were counter-ambushed, their prey hiding behind the gates. But it was too late. Their two ranged members got taken down, including the mage.

"You fucker! You will pay for this!" The axe warrior gritted his teeth and dashed at Gerhart.

"Die, you bitch!" The hammer user charged at Hope.

"Idiots..." Gerhart muttered and attacked the axe user.

On the other side, Hope focused on evading and dodging the hammer user, using speed to her advantage, and looking for an opening.

After a few brief exchanges, Gerhart was in a deadlock with the axe-wielder, clashing sword against axe. But Gerhart effortlessly overpowered him before giving him a hard kick in the stomach.

"Cough* Cough*... You're not a rookie! You overpowered my Aura with brute force!" The axe wielder coughed, recovering his stance.

"You picked the wrong target," Gerhart calmly replied before pressing the attack.

While fighting, he even had the leisure to check on Hope, but he soon ignored it.

"She can handle it..." Gerhart thought as he continued attacking the axe-wielder.

"D-Dammit! Hold still!" The warrior shouted in anger, flailing his hammer left and right.

Hope didn't reply and kept dodging until she found an opportunity. Her tail moved, drawing a dagger before flashing across the man's eyes. The man lost his left eye.

"Ah!!! You bitch!" The warrior turned frantic, his vision half-red and blinded, swinging his hammer without direction.

Using her sword, Hope made a low swing, cutting a gash in the man's leg, causing him to fall.

"Ah! Fuck!" The warrior shouted, falling to the ground.

Before he could recover, a dagger plunged into his neck repeatedly. Just like that, the hammer warrior died.

Stab*

The axe-wielder's stomach got pierced by Gerhart's sword. Even at his last breath, the man couldn't understand it.

"Why... Why?! Why did it take so long for you to complete this boss? Why did you wait behind the doors?! How did you know?!" The man's head was full of questions, his heart full of indignance as Gerhart pulled his sword out before lopping off his head.

What happened was that Gerhart dragged the heavily injured goblin behind the door before absorbing all the magic stones they accumulated and then using them all on Hope, considerably improving Hope's strength. Once done, he had her wait in ambush on the other side of the door before ambushing their would-be-killers from behind, telling her to focus on a mage or archer if present.

The rest is history.

"Good job, Hope." Gerhart walked to Hope and said. "Are you holding up alright?"

"Yes, I am surprisingly okay. I thought it would make me feel sick, but I guess not." Hope replied and shrugged. "Either way, good thinking, master," Hope said, praising Gerhart.

"It is just a low-level trick. Do you feel like anyone else will come?" Gerhart asked.

"No. It should be fine for a while." Hope replied.

"Good. Keep watch for a bit while I absorb these fuckers." Gerhart said and started absorbing the corpses.

"Yes." Hope nodded and vigilantly looked at both entrances.

Luckily, no one came over, so Gerhart finished absorbing all the corpses, including the three outside.

"Sorry, but I'm taking your talent..." Gerhart mentally apologized as he tossed their equipment inside the boss's room.

He didn't touch anything except the Magic Stones, letting the boss room eventually swallow it all, erasing the evidence once the boss respawns in an hour.

Besides that, he also received 6 Magic Stones from the boss room (Three from minions and three more from the boss) and two dungeon teleportation stones from the chest.

"Master, what should we do now? Do we continue?" Hope curiously asked.

"No." Gerhart shook his head. "We return to the first floor with the teleportation stones and go down the dungeon again."

"To avoid suspicion?" Hope asked.

"Yes," Gerhart replied.

"Okay!" Hope nodded.

After handing over the teleportation stone to Hope, Gerhart crushed his stone. Ten seconds later, he teleported to the dungeon entrance, finding himself on the first obelisk. Moments later, Hope also arrived.

"Whoa... So this is teleportation..." Hope muttered.

"Don't get dazed. Follow, quickly." Gerhart said, walking into the dungeon again.

"Ah! Wait for me!" Hope ran after Gerhart.

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.

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The disappearance of seven explorers at once didn't raise much of a commotion. Although tragic, the death rate of explorers was high in the dungeon, and there was no proper investigation into what happened. Almost every day, someone dies in the dungeon, so two party wipes were nothing to be alarmed about. Only when there are eyewitnesses does anything happen, which is why robbers in the dungeon make sure to go for the kill. 

Of course, if it happened too frequently, it would alarm the guild and likely cause a thorough investigation, possibly banning entrance to the dungeon until the investigation was over.

Meanwhile, Gerhart and Hope escaped detection completely because they pretended to only go down to the 4th floor, with Gerhart absorbing all the 5th-floor Magic Stones.

He handed over six 1st-floor stones, eight 2nd-floor stones, ten 3rd-floor stones, and twelve 4th-floor stones, earning 46 Silver Coins. Of course, he had more, but he absorbed it all. He had 57 energy stored, but he didn't give it to Hope yet, storing it for emergencies. Once he had 100 energy, he would continue investing in Hope.

However, something else occupied his mind at the moment.

"I absorbed two magicians... So I should be able to use magic, right?" Gerhart said once they were back at home, after having a hot bath.

"Probably. I am unsure if it is comparable to what it should be on lvl 30." Hope replied. "Although you absorbed their base stat, you must level it up."

Even if Gerhart absorbs a D-rank magic stat, it could be at lvl 1, not lvl 30. In other words, his magic could be less than a quarter of what it should be at lvl 30. However—

"So basic magic should still be a breeze, right?" Gerhart asked.

"I think so," Hope said while rubbing her chin. "I don't see any reason you can't cast a few first-circle spells. Perhaps you should visit the mage's guild or go to the public library and read a few basic spells. It would be convenient to use Clean, Petite Fire, and Create Water."

Those three spells were some of a housewife's ideal spells. It could save hours every week with a few signs and words.

"Maybe also get the contraception spell..." Hope thought, a light blush on her cheeks.

"Hope? Are you okay?" Gerhart asked, noticing her blush.

"A-Ah... I am fine..." She awkwardly replied and changed the subject. "So about dinner..."

"I think we'll eat outside this time. We went through a lot for one day." Gerhart said.

"Okay. Let's lock up first and go." Hope agreed.

After locking up the house, they ate a sumptuous meal in a pub before returning home to sleep.

Of course, there was one tiny thing Gerhart had to confirm before sleeping.

"Check status," Gerhart said.

And—

Nothing.

"Oh well... Worth the try..." Gerhart shrugged before sleeping.