“Okay… and is that all you want?” asked Akira with gritted teeth as he tried to hold back his anger while his muscles tensed up ready to fight.
Dolph and Vilkas also shook their heads to clear them and placed their hands on their weapons once again ready to draw them.
“Tut tut, you’re no fun. I’ll see you guys later,” said Sue Duza, with only a sly wink at Akira before she walked out of the inn’s door.
“I would appreciate it if you stopped drawing lighting down near my building. Sooner or later that lightning will hit and destroy this building,” grumbled a moody ReekRull behind the counter as he cooked food over an open fire.
“I was just sitting here minding my own business!” said Akira in protest.
“It would be more interesting if it hit,” said RuceReee quietly.
After such an odd experience Akira and co decided to return to the main camp and see what was going on and how much longer the traders and everyone else needed to sell their wares and restock the needed resources.
“…so if everything goes as planned you should all be finished by the end of the day?” asked Akira while standing in a large tent near the center of the encampment of the Kodria warriors and the random merchants.
“That’s correct!” said Oib.
“Then what should we do while we wait for Raibread?” asked Klyn.
“Didn’t you mention that there was a report from the scouts about a possible dungeon nearby? We could go and clear it as a sign of goodwill to the Ramia,” said Akira, letting the other officers think over the suggestion for a second.
“Will that even work? They aren’t the easiest of demon races to get along with,” said Zundar.
“Who knows? We can probably still get some nice materials from it even if the Ramia ignore us clearing the dungeon for them.”
The debate on what to do only lasted for a few more minutes.
With the day’s activity decided, Akira started gathering a force that was strong enough to take on the dungeon. He had to manage a balancing act of also keeping a large and strong enough force at the camp to protect their belongings and the merchants from any thieves or sneaky people that may want to enter the camp and cause trouble, mainly the demigods.
Tanner was one of the people who was chosen to stay behind as he was in charge of watching over Kodria’s flag which was now placed at the center of the camp.
When all the preparations were finished, Akira and the selected warriors moved out of the temporary encampment and headed toward the dungeon.
“Sqwak!” “Sqwak!” “Sqwak!”
On their way to the dungeon, a flock of angry [Two-headed Prickly Turkey] monsters attacked them.
This flock of wild monsters attacking them was an odd breed of bird. They did not fly, nor did they live in trees or have normal feathers.
“Damn monsters. They are all getting more numerous than before now that the Molten Onyx Plague is gone,” growled Akira as he raised his shield to block the sharp needle feathers that flew toward him.
“Their natural enemies were nearly wiped out from it, so many of these low-tier monsters have had a major boom in population,” said Klyn.
Akira was not too worried about the hail of needle feathers from the [Two-headed Prickly Turkey], since they were not sharp enough to pierce his armor. The problem was the poison that coated the needle feathers. If it got on your skin then that area would be numbed and parallelized.
Akira sliced his way through the small flock of [Two-headed Prickly Turkeys] along with the other warriors who used swords and crossbows to take down the pesky monsters.
There was not much they could gather or use from their dead bodies as it was all contaminated with poison. Asking Klyn to clean all the low-tier material was not worth the effort.
“A bunch of bird-brain monsters that don’t know how to judge their own strength,” said Akira, shaking his head.
As they continued on their way toward the dungeon they continued to encounter several small and medium-sized groups of monsters that were all fairly easy to handle but they all had some sort of paralyzing attack. To name a few: [Bonehead Snake] [100-eyed Spider Moth] [Giant razor Centipede].
The [100-eyed Spider Moths] were the most troublesome as they were small and agile enough to make it hard to accurately hit. They also liked launching sneak attacks by jumping at their targets from dark places.
If their sneak attack failed or they needed to move while in mid-air, they just used their small wings to help them dodge attacks before latching onto their target and trying to bite them sending a venom into the targets system to paralyze them and slowly soften up the fleshy area to allow them an easier time to eat.
“Bo, are we on the right path to the dungeon? What’s with all these small fries attacking us?”
“It should be. I made sure to scout the path to the dungeon and the area around it yesterday. I didn’t see any groups of monsters hiding along this path…” said Bo.
“Check and see if there is some disturbance up ahead of us that would cause these guys to flee this way.”
“All right,” said Bo as he re-positioned himself on the special saddle atop a Garg. The saddle was made to hold two people Bo and the warrior who was in charge of protecting him.
Bo’s familiar, which was flying in the air high above them, stopped its circling and flew out ahead of them at a high speed quickly disappearing into the distance.
Several minutes passed as the group continued forward at a slower pace while they waited for Bo to scout the area ahead of them.
Bo jerked out of his trance as if stung as he held his head.
“What is it?” asked Akira.
“There are no other monsters that I could see causing a ruckus, but in front of the dungeon, there is a small group of demigods camping. One of them tried to shoot me down with a long-range skill but failed, only grazing my leg and wing with a few attacks,” said Bo through pained gasps as he held his head.
“Either someone is waiting for us or they decided to clear the dungeon themselves,” said Akira.
“Should we really be going there if the demigods are already camping there?” Asked Klyn.
“Let’s take a different route. We’ll curve in from the side and see what they are doing.”
The others all looked at Akira, not too happy about this decision.
“Didn’t the bandits say they get weaker every time they die? If this is true and If they are waiting for us and those petty traps made out of monsters were set up by them, then it is best to take care of them now before they cause us any trouble later when we might be too busy to deal with them. ”
As they curved away to the right, Bo’s familiar swooped down and landed on his shoulder letting out a pained chirp while holding out its bleeding wing and leg.
Bo took out a red candy and fed it to the black raven before he soaked a cloth in a red herbal mixture and wrapped it around the wounds.
The dungeon which looked to be a large burrow that went underground, appeared in front of them as they slowly made their way toward it from the side.
There was little to nothing to hide behind so Akira and co tried to approach as quietly as possible.
It was just as Bo had said, a small group of demigods was camped outside the entrance of the dungeon. Upon closer inspection, they did not look like they were preparing to enter the dungeon.
Surprisingly there were no men in the group. It was only made up of women.
As Akira and the rest of the soldiers slowly crept forward they listened intently trying to hear the conversation that the demigods were having.
But all their attempts at being stealthy were in vain as Akira watched a female demigod excitedly point in Akira’s direction shouting something that he could not hear.
Seeing as their cover was blown, there was no point in trying to hide and so they cautiously moved forward.
“What a coincidence! We are meeting again so soon!”
“What are you doing here Sue Duza?” asked Akira.
Sue Duza stayed silent as several of the female demigods near her squealed with girlish delight upon seeing Akira.
“It’s him!” “WOW!” “So cool I can’t believe it!” “I’m your biggest fan!” “I love you!”
“What’s with these disturbing women?” asked Zundar.
“Something’s wrong with their brains,” said Bo.
Akira ignored all the chatter and asked Sue Duza, “Are you here to clear the dungeon?”
“Nope, we the ‘Akira fan club’ just came here hoping to see you.”
“Well, you saw me. Now can you leave?”
“We can’t do that!” said all the girls at once.
Ding!
-
Sue Duza has used the skill [Seduction] on you!
The skill has failed!
Without warning each of the Female demigods launched attacks all directed at Akira.
“What are you guys doing? If you are my biggest fans aren’t you supposed to protect me?” shouted Akira as he hid behind his shield.
“No! It means only we are allowed to kill you! That is the main purpose of your fan club!”
As Akira transformed and his body was covered in a black mist, he activated [Darkness domain] covering the area and the allied warriors near him.
“ROAR!” shouted an angry Fluffball as he transformed and jumped forward to swat down several attacks aimed at Akira.
A fierce fight started as dozens of colorful skills flew through the darkness all aiming at the last spot they had seen Akira.
Akira could hear several grunts from his guards as they blocked several of the skills allowing Akira to safely move to a different position.
The demigods, after failing their first attack, started to randomly bombard any area that launched an attack toward them causing several warriors to be wounded.
Akira was hesitant to order everyone forward as Sue Duza was casting several skills that were visibly changing a large area around her into a pink haze. Judging by her previous attacks it had to be some type of mind-altering attack.
As he watched the pink fog spread out, he noticed that it stopped when reaching the darkness domain and did not enter the dark fog. The soldiers near the edge also showed no signs of being affected by the pink fog after several long seconds of it hovering around only a short distance away.
Seeing this Akira did not hesitate anymore and roared, “Cut them down!”
“Awooo!” Several howls rang out as the soldiers acknowledged the command.
The darkness domain moved forward along with Akira and pushed back the pink mist and engulfed the demigods in a half-blinded and deafened state.
Even half blinded several of the demigods were able to put up a fight against them for a few seconds before they were torn to shreds.
Nox 1 and 2 hid in the darkness and only revealed themselves by launching surprise attacks on the sneaky demigods that were trying to launch their own sneak attacks toward Akira. The hunters became the hunted and were torn apart.
The fanatic female demigods as well as Sue Duza did not show any fear on their faces as they were torn apart. Nor did they try to escape.
Instead, they seemed to take a perverted liking to it as they went all out trying to find and kill Akira with creepy smiles on their faces as they laughed maniacally.
“Huff… is that all of them?” asked Akira.
“I think so,” said Klyn who was also breathing heavily from using several buffs and holy skills trying to keep everyone alive. Without his help, the dozen or so people that had been heavily wounded by the bombardments of skills would have perished.
“What did I tell you they definitely have a screw loose in their heads,” said Zundar.
“That’s just normal for demigods, they are all crazy,” said Akira.
Looking at their state they were in no shape to clear the dungeon.
“We’re heading back to the camp. I don’t think it’s safe to stay around here for another day.”
“What about your meeting with chief Raibread?” asked Klyn.
“Write a letter explaining everything to him while we head back. If he wants to play with fire then so be it.”
