Upon hearing the voice of someone unknown Akira’s guards moved to surround him in order to protect him from any harm. They were ready to transform and attack if needed.
The rest of his companions stood guard behind him ready to support the guards.
“Wait, let’s see what they want,” said Akira in a quiet voice.
A group of six humans exited the woods from the east and walked towards them.
Looking at their facial expressions and body language they did not seem to have any hostile intentions.
They were all wearing different armors and weapons. One person looked to be a heavily armored knight while the rest of the party were wearing leather armor or thick robes. Each of them was wearing the same mask of a creepy gray smiling face.
“They’re hardly wearing anything, aren’t they a bit cold?” asked one of the guards.
“There that… so maybe they don’t feel the cold like the Kamen tribe,” said Dolph.
“Quiet,” said Vilkas as the other party walked up to them.
“Hello, friends! Allow us to introduce ourselves!” said a man wearing gray leather armor with six daggers sheathed on each side of his chest.
With that, the six humans all formed up into a line.
“I am Ben!” said the gray leather armored man who was at the center of the six. He used his right hand and pointed straight up into the sky.
“I am Dover!” said a muscular man next to Ben. He had a large two-handed sword that was about two hand widths wide and was as tall as him. He used his left hand and also pointed up towards the sky.
“I am Boot!” said a man with a bow on his back and two smaller crossbows on his hips along with a short sword. He raised his arm pointed diagonally to the right.
“I’m Shaker!” said a girl in a cutesy voice as she held onto a coiled thorn whip and pointed diagonally to the left.
“I’m Ivana!” said a shy girl at the back. She was wearing dark gray robes and held onto a large staff that had some sort of large gem on top of it. Akira wondered if it was some type of new tool that the Magic guild had created. She also raised her arm and pointed to the left.
“I am Sir Bumpalot!” said the male knight. Pointing to the right.
“We are [TEAM ULTIMATE BEN DOVER]!” shouted the six people all at once.
The six of them continued to hold the pose in silence and continued to glance at Akira and the others to see if they were looking at them.
“Lord… are they really who I think they are? I thought that they were all supposed to be some super blood-hungry fighters. But these guys… they are just a bunch of idiots…” said Dolph, in a whisper to Akira.
“I have a feeling they are who they say they are… I would not doubt that they really are part of a team with that name,” said Akira as he watched the idiots in front of him.
He checked each of their names which also showed they were indeed part of a group called [Team Ultimate Ben Dover].
After another awkward minute of silence, Ben coughed and the rest of the group returned to normal.
“Good work everyone. That was our first time actually being able to show off our hard work at practicing our introduction,” said Ben as he praised the other members of his party.
“Good work,” said the other five congratulating each other on the successful introduction.
“Can I ask who is the leader of your party? Well, I assume it’s you in the dark full suit of armor,” said Ben pointing at Akira who still had his helmet visor down covering his face and Identity.
Before either Dolph or Vilkas could say anything Akira held up a hand.
“I am the leader,” said Akira.
“We introduced ourselves, so the least you can do is tell us who you are and your party’s name.”
“I am Rodger, the leader of The Iron meatheads,” said Akira.
“That name suits you guys well since I only see heavily armored meatheads,” said Shaker.
“What is it that you want from us?” asked Akira, still on guard for any sign of trouble.
“Oh well, we have died a… a few times trying to clear this dungeon. Normally we have four others with us but they died too many times,” said Ben, looking away from Akira in embarrassment.
“We want to team up with you to help clear the dungeon. We will be of some help to you since we have more medium and long-range attackers than you,” said Dover.
“Isn’t this dungeon a little too hard for you?” asked Akira.
“We…,” Ben looked to Dover who nodded his head. “We got a really nice mission to clear the dungeon so we have been trying to clear it. So will you join us?”
“Can you give us a second to discuss this,” asked Akira.
“Sure.”
Akira brought everyone out of earshot of the other group before he began talking.
“Chack, hurry up and tuck your tail under your coat, and wear this over your face,” said Akira as he made sure to block the other group’s view of Chack.
“But I can’t fight with my tail like that!” said Chack.
“Hurry up and do it. I need you and Varbu to go and find Zundar and tell him not to come out of the woods. You both should stay with him as we can’t hide that you’re not human if we fight in the dungeon,” said Akira.
Chack silently accepted his task and stumbled away from the group and into the woods with Varbu following behind him hunched over to hide his large body.
“Are you really thinking we should help them?” asked Mileena.
“I don’t plan on trusting them or becoming friends with them, but if we can watch them fight and listen to them we might be able to learn more about the demigods’ powers and their motives for coming to this continent,” said Akira.
“It’s true that we only have a little knowledge of them that was gathered from the past wars and battles our clans fought. It would be best if we could gain more current and updated knowledge on them,” said Klyn.
“Then I guess we should see what they want us to do. If it is reasonable we can join them,” said Akira.
“Lord I don’t like this one bit. Helping Demigods after what they did to your grandfather,” said Vilkas.
“I don’t like it either but we need more information to better understand our enemy. I will do whatever it takes so that we can find a way to kill them easier. For now, everyone will fight without transforming to hide our identity. Treat it as extra training,” said Akira.
“If they show any sign of hostility I will not hesitate to kill them,” said Dolph.
“If they bare their fangs at us… kill them all,” said Akira quietly.
“Who were those two that ran into the woods?” asked Ben as Akira and the others returned from their quiet group discussion.
“No one special, I just sent them to inform our camp of cooks and baggage carriers of our changed plans. They will stay there to help protect them while we are away. What exactly is it that you need us to do?” asked Akira.
“Just help us clear the dungeon. If anything drops that you can use you can take it and we will take what you don’t want. Really, the only thing we want is the loot from the boss so we can complete our mission,” said Ben.
“Sorry, but we can’t share this mission with you so we can only offer the dropped items,” said Dover.
“Deal?” asked Ben as he held out a hand for Akira to shake.
Akira took the hand forcing himself to stay calm and not crush it as he shook Ben’s hand.
Ding!
-
Would you like to form a raid party with [Team Ultimate Ben Dover]?
…The other party has declined.
“We rather stay in our own groups,” said Ben before Akira could even respond to the message.
“It’s fine with us. If you don’t mind, we would like to clear the dungeon quickly,” said Akira.
“Then let’s go!” said Dover.
Akira led the group to the dungeon and entered the Ice entrance first.
Ding!
-
You are entering the [Brown polar bear’s Poiyoing hunting ground]!
“Oh? Looks like someone else unnamed entered the dungeon while we were gone,” said Ben not knowing that it was Akira who was the unnamed person.
The rest of the werewolves all formed up on Akira’s right and left in their proper positions.
“Wow, you guys look really sharp,” said Shaker.
“What type of monsters can we expect further in?” Akira asked Ben and Dover who were walking next to the shield wall.
“We have only been able to clear the first two floors, but we keep dying due to some really strong monsters blocking the way after that.
On the first two floors, there are just random rooms full of the mini mobs called Poiyoings they are somewhat easy to kill due to their nature. But on the third floor, there are brown polar bears that stand on two feet. They are quite hard to fight,” said Ben as they walked down the slippery ice slope towards the first room of the dungeon.
“With your shields and armor you should be able to take care of the Poiyoing’s with no problem,” said Dover.
“We’ll hold the monsters off and push forward while you attack from the sides,” ordered Akira.
He did not care if they followed his orders as long as they stayed out of his way and were not standing behind them since he did not trust them enough to allow that.
Dolph and Vilkas flanked Akira as they entered the cold ice room with glistening wet ice walls.
On the opposite side of the room, Akira could see several small black fluffy round creatures eating rocks and ice from the ground.
Klyn began to quietly give buffs to each of the werewolves as well as the two nyaan sisters. There was no way he was going to buff the demigods so he ignored them.
One of the small black monsters turned around to look at the intruders and… hopped towards them with a “Poi!”
When it landed on the ground it let out a “bleh~” its red tongue stuck out all the way only returning inside its mouth when it let out another “Poi!” as it again hopped towards Akira.
It repeated the same thing each time it hopped and landed on the ground.
“It’s so cute!” said Mileena.
“Don’t be fooled by their cute looks. They are deadly if you let down your guard,” said Shaker as her whip snapped out into the air intercepting the hopping [Poiyoing] as it was falling back to the ground.
Boom! A small explosion erupted leaving nothing but a frozen mist in the air where the cute monster had been.
“What skill is that?” asked Akira.
“I didn’t use any skill. The [Poiyoing] exploded sending frost out over whatever attacked them,” said Shaker as she shook her whip making it crack a few times to remove the frost that had formed on it.
“Here they come!” said Boot as he started shooting arrows.
“Poi! Poi! Poi! Poi!” as if they all had one mind the small [Poiyoings] stopped what they were doing and started hopping towards the shield wall to attack the intruders who had killed a [Poiyoing].
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With Boot and Maya shooting arrows, and Ivana using a skill that shot out ice shards the charging [Poiyoings] were being popped one after the other.
But the wave of [Poiyoing] was like a swarm of rats that kept coming towards them.
Akira and his guards that were a part of the shield wall held their shields firm as the [Poiyoings] reached them and slammed against the shields.
The impact of the small black creatures created several small explosions and covered the air around them in a frosty mist.
In just a few minutes the entire swarm had either been shot or exploded against their shield wall.
“What a weird type of monster,” said Akira as he hacked at the ice on his shield removing what had formed during the [Poiyoing’s] attacks.
“It seems like they freeze their enemy and then eat them,” said Klyn as he was writing stuff down in a notepad that he had pulled out of one of his pockets.
“As I said before, the first two floors should be easy with your help,” said Dover.
“Let’s hurry and make our way to the third floor,” said Akira.
***
The group had completely cleared the first three floors and were taking a short food break in the last ice room before they went to the third floor.
During their fighting on the first three floors, they had learned quite a bit about the demigods that were with them.
They said many things that only Akira could understand which confused everyone else. Klyn was constantly writing down everything he heard or saw in his notepad whenever he was not busy buffing and watching over Akira.
“Has anyone ever told you that you guys smell like dogs?” asked Shaker.
“Hey, don’t go insulting them like that,” said Boot.
“With the cold weather we haven’t been able to wash in a while,” said Akira.
He sniffed himself to see if he really did smell like a dog but he couldn’t smell anything wrong.
“So you chose to be a shaman?” Ivan asked Klyn.
“Uh… yeah,” said Klyn, not sure what he was talking about.
“You’re the first person I’ve met who has that type of job,” said Ivana.
“That’s an ice wolf pet, right? You must have had a really hard time getting it. I heard that Tizzs McWiggle died at least ten times before getting a pet of his own,” said Ben as he looked at Fluffball with envy.
“I wouldn’t say it was all that hard for me,” said Akira.
“With the completion of this mission we will reach one hundred completed missions!” said Ben as he looked at something that was not visible to others.
“I hope you won’t be stopping at every rock or ore you find on the third floor,” said and annoyed Dover.
Through the last three floors, any and all drops along with the rare ore they found was picked clean by Akira and his group.
The demigods could not complain as they had agreed to allow them to have the stuff but they did not expect Akira would be so thorough in picking up everything.
“Alright let’s head to the next floor!” said Akira as he stood up after finishing eating and drinking.
