"Look, all I'm saying is that we should probably take on some harder quests." — said the young man with black hair who was wearing leather armor and was walking on the path, while being accompanied by two other people.
"Oh, here we go again." – said the young man with brown hair, who was also wearing glasses and holding a wooden staff.
"What?" – asked the annoyed man with black hair.
"No, no. He is right this time." – said the young girl with a bow.
"Maybe this time we should try and rank up soon…. Hm?" – The girl suddenly stopped as she looked up, noticing something fly above her, which was also noticed by two boys.
The group stared in the sky as some kind of being resembling a giant lizard with wings flew above the group.
"!"
"Wait! Was that a wyvern by any chance?!" – asked the excited boy with black hair.
"Nah, it was far too small and thin-looking, it must have been just a flying lizard. They are often mistaken for wyverns, and they are using their appearance to fool and scare off predators." – said the boy with glasses.
"…"
"And NO! We are not going after it, you idiot. It may be a low-rank monster, but looking for it would take ages, since these bastards are moving a lot AND we also are low rank, so there may be a chance it would kick our buts."
"Tch. Fiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeee." – said an annoyed black-haired boy.
"Let's just get this quest over with, and let's look for a rank-up quest next."
"…"
This is a story of fantasy.
A story where many different things exist.
Elves, dwarves, beastmen, and demons.
As well as many different monsters.
A world where magic and gods exist.
A world of stories and adventure… Some may say.
Such an example of the "fantasy" and "adventure" is this young party that consists of F-rank adventurers.
"Look, Michel. We are already able to take down E-rank monsters on our own and stuff, so it's time to go up." – said the black-haired man.
"Arthur is right; we should really consider taking on the rank on quest, we can't be stuck with our current rank forever." – said the girl with a bow, who was now playing with her knife.
"We shouldn't be really thinking about it at all. Once we are done with this quest, let's do a rank-up quest immediately."
"But Martha, we only recently became adventurers and—"
"And we are good." – said the black-haired boy, cutting off Michel mid-sentence.
"Look, we easily dealt with all the starting quests and cleared the test with ease."
"Not only that, but these weak-ass monsters are no challenge for us at all!"
"Because their danger rank is either G or F! They were never strong to begin with!" – said the worried boy with glasses.
"And we also easily took down E-rank monsters as well, if you don't remember! Hell! Even you took some of them on your own!" – said the black-haired boy.
"Dude… You need to relax."
"I mean, I get the whole talk about 'danger' or 'you may lose your life' talks that the guilds and you warned us about… But if we don't take any steps forward, then we will never grow."
"I'm not talking about being overconfident, but I'm talking about…. Well…. About…."
"…"
"…"
"Really, dude? Really?" – asked the girl with a disappointed look as the boy didn't known how to continue with his speech.
"H-hey! Look! I'm not a speech type of person!" – said the black-haired boy named Arthur.
"Look!"
"My point is that we are strong enough to already become E-rank adventurers and probably even able to reach D rank!"
"…. Well, he isn't wrong." – said the girl.
"We really shouldn't be worrying anymore and stop being scared. We need to go up."
"So stop worrying too much….Got it?"
"…"
"Anyway…. "
"So far… we have hunted not a single horned rabbit." – said the girl as the group stopped.
"Yeah…. So far, no luck at all." – said the boy with glasses.
"The usual hunting ground wasn't good either…. We couldn't find a single one there at all. Did somebody already hunted down every single one of them in that area?"
"…"
"So…. Where do we go?" – asked the black-haired party leader.
"…Honestly… I don't know." – said the boy with glasses as he took out the map.
"We can try here."
"No, no, no. I asked some guy from the guild; he said that this spot has way too many people hunting there right now. We will be pretty much will have people getting in our way and vice versa."- said the girl.
"Damn… Then this really leaves us no other option but to go to other regular hunting- "
"Oh fuck off!" – said the boy with black hair, cutting the boy with glasses.
"That location is way too fucking far away! It would take a whole day with going back and forth! I don't want to waste my entire day on just walking." – said annoyed party leader.
"But dude, we don't have any other options." – said the boy with glasses.
"…"
"We do…. We just go deeper." – said the party leader.
"…. No." – said the boy with glasses with an annoyed look on his face.
"Dude! We can do it! And even if something stronger does show up, we can deal with it, and even if something beyond us shows up, we can just run away. You have "runaway" tactics stored, don't you?"
"Well, yeah, but—"
"Then it's decided." – said the girl as she started walking towards the forest.
"Common. This way." – said the girl, before moments later, the black-haired party leader followed her, leaving behind the boy with glasses.
"…"
*Sigh*
"You idiots…" – said the boy with glasses as he quickly caught up to the pair that had already entered the forest.
The group had entered the forest filled with trees and started exploring the area.
They moved further and further from the common hunting grounds as well as the main road.
"…"
"Hey, are you sure this… well, "dangerous area"?" – asked the party leader as he swung down his sword, slashing a rock-like object inside of a creature made out of goo, killing the creature.
"So far, we've only encountered slimes and stuff."
"Well, it's not like there is a 100% chance of encountering stronger monsters the deeper you go." – said the boy with glasses.
"Maybe we entered the… "extremely peaceful" area or something like that?"
"…. Well…. If there were any horned rabbits, I would have found their tracks by now." – said the girl as she walked towards the two boys.
"Nothing. I found straight up nothing. This area is a no-go."
"I've even looked around a bit further, but nope. There are only weed slimes here."
"…"
"Well… I guess we will be moving even deeper? I mean, we looked; she didn't find any tracks or anything, and so far the only thing we see are slimes." – said the party leader.
"Yeah, let's go already…." – said the young man with black hair.
"!"
"Wait!" – said the boy with glasses.
Sigh
"What is it this time?" – asked the annoyed duo.
"If we continue going that way, we will be entering a deep forest area."
"This area is way too dangerous for us!"
"…"
"Oh, for crying out loud." – said the party leader as he started walking alongside the girl, completely ignoring the boy's warning.
"!?"
"H-hey! Are you hearing me?!" – said the boy with glasses.
"Yeah, we heard you, but didn't you hear me?" – asked the girl while the boy with glasses started trying to catch up to the pair.
"I looked around, and I mean, like, the whole area around us."
"Results? Nothing. Like, not even tracks at all."
"I looked at the entire area around and some more, but nothing."
"Dude, we really have no option but to go deeper."
"B-but—"
"Dude…. There is no extremely high-rank monster living in this area that we need to watch out for anyway, so why are you panicking?" – said the black-haired boy, cutting off the glass-wearing boy who couldn't even ask his question."
"Let me ask you this instead."
"If there was a SINGLE dangerous monster here that even we low-rank adventurers couldn't handle, then wouldn't there be some adventurers with high rank?"
"Hm?"
"Is there?"
"N-no. Bu- "
"NO! YOU SAID IT!" – said the black-haired boy, cutting off again the boy with glasses.
"Dude."
"They were trying to scare us shitless."
"They were trying to make us think that being an adventure is 'DEATH DRAGON EPIC FIGHT' each time or some bullshit where we can die, and that is true, we can die." – said the girl.
"But right now? HELL! Is ANY of this the way that they depicted it right now? Are we fighting some dragons or some shit? Nope." – said the girl.
"Look, this guy may be reckless and some other crap, but is he really lying or anything? I mean, this is a peaceful location for the "newbie adventurers"."
"I think the last incident was only regarding some "scary monster" that just then turned out to be an extremely fat bunny rabbit that just scared some kid."
"At best, we would encounter some wolves or maybe boar. We may be able to take it down; if not, then we can just run away, and we already have means of "slowing down" the enemy or distracting them."
"We are prepared just in case, so shut up and follow us."
"…"
(This will definitely end badly.) – thought the young boy, before he followed the pair.
"!"
"Stop!" – said the girl as she crouched.
"!"
"En- "
"Shhh!"—the girl silenced the black-haired boy.
"…"
"Tracks…. They are not very fresh, but they are 100% horned rabbit tracks." – said the girl with an excited look as she turned towards the boys.
"!"
(Finally!)—thought an excited party leader.
"Don't make too much noise and look around. Also, watch out for any bushes nearby." – said the girl as she got up, while the two boys nodded their heads.
The group began carefully searching around while trying not to make as much noise as possible, while also trying to stay hidden in order not to get spotted by wild monsters.
The party leader, who was looking around the trees, noticed something moving in the bushes that were in his sight, causing him to arm himself with his sword and buckler shield.
However, while he was staring at the bushes in front of him, he didn't notice that from the bushes right next to him, there was a movement as well…. And as soon as he noticed it, the rabbit with a horn sticking out from its forehead had rushed in towards the black-haired boy.
The horn of the creature was about to reach the boy, but before it could, an arrow flew, hitting the rabbit creature right in the eye and tossing its body to the side.
"!"
"Thanks!" – said the black-haired boy.
"You idiot! Pay attention! There are more coming!" – said the girl as she took out the next arrow while the boy with glasses started murmuring something to himself.
"!"
The party leader looked around as he realized that the 3 rabbit creatures with horns had emerged from hiding and immediately started charging towards the boy.
"{Blast with Water—Water Strike}!—the boy with glasses used magic to gather up water near his staff and then fired it, hitting one of the rabbits charging at the boy and knocking it away, resulting in the party leader having enough time to do a large swing, forcing one of the rabbits to retreat, while the third rabbit was hit by the attack.
The rabbit that managed to dodge the attack tried attacking the boy again, but it didn't work, as the boy used his shield to block the attack before knocking away the rabbit and giving the archer girl a chance to snipe the creature in the side, but not killing the creature with the shot.
However, the attack itself stunned the creature and gave the party leader a chance to slash the creature, dealing fatal damage and finishing it off.
"!"
The third rabbit that saw the massacre of its kind and started running away, just as the water projectile came its way, only for it to collide with the nearby tree instead.
"Shit! It's running away!" – said the nervous boy with glasses.
"Relax. It's injured." – said the girl as she began picking up her arrows.
"It won't get far."
"…. Still, we shouldn't give it time to get too far away." – said the party leader.
"Pack up the corpse without draining the blood; we can drain it after we catch the last one." – said the party leader as the group began packing up the corpse of the just-slain rabbit monster and then started chasing after the rabbit monster, following its fresh tracks as well as the blood that had been spilled around.
However-
"Where the hell is it!?" – said the annoyed girl.
"Is it hiding somewhere? Maybe it digs underground?" – said the party leader as he stomped the ground around.
"Nah. It ran too far, and it was bleeding a lot based on the tracks." – said the boy with glasses.
"It must be….?"
"Hey!"
"I found something!"
"!"—the two other party members rushed towards their friend and found some traces of blood, leading towards the tree right next to the small cave.
"Ah, shit…. I don't think we can squish through it." – said the girl as she got on her knees.
"…And it's very fresh; it must have just entered it."
"…"
"Wait a moment." – said the party leader as he put his sword into the scabbard and started hitting the hole.
"!"
"I think we can dig enough to get the bastard." – said the party leader as the other two joined in, damaging and destroying the hole, widening it up…. But then, stopping for a moment.
"The hell?" – said the girl as she realized that the hole wasn't only deep but also spacious.
"{Show me the light—Light Source}." –The boy with glasses created a small light in his palm that lit up the area around the hole.
"…"
"Em…. This isn't…. Something is right." – said the girl as she noticed that the area was more spacious and deeper than the group had thought.
"…"
"Dig." – said the party leader as he continued digging alongside the girl while the mage boy used his very weak light to see the area.
"…"
"Say…. How big of a hole do wolves…. Maybe a bear dig?" – asked the girl.
"Em… There are no bears living in this area at all…. And I doubt anything that DOES live here would be able to dig that kind of hole." – said the boy with glasses as he moved his hand towards the hole, revealing more space and even ground.
"…"
The party leader put his head in the hole.
"!"
"H-hey! T- "
The party leader tried saying something, but the ground around the hole came loose, and moments later, the party leader fell in.
"!"
"Arthur!" – said the scared girl.
"…I'm alright." – said Arthur as he got up.
"The fall wasn't long at all, as you can see….. Anyway, you need to come down and see this."
"?"—the duo above looked a bit confused before, moments later, the girl took initiative and jumped down, which made the boy with glasses get annoyed and worried, which made him, in turn, join the others.
"?"
"What is this place?" – asked the girl as she looked around, finding herself in some sort of underground pathway, while also noticing the blood on the ground.
"…"
"This place looks weird…. Did somebody dig it out? Like an abandoned…..Cave? Either way… Why would somebody dig underground and leave that kind of space.... Well, just left it like that?" – asked the confused party leader who tried to understand the situation somewhat.
"…"
"This isn't some bandit hideout… right?"
"I mean… There are no rumors about bandits or anything in this area…. So… maybe not?"
"Hey. You two." – said the girl while pointing at the fresh blood.
"…"
"I really don't—OH, WHY ARE YOU WALKING ALREADY?!" – snapped the boy with glasses as the duo once again started walking.
"Could we STOP for a moment and think?! I mean, don't you find this bit weird!?"
"I mean… I do…. But like you said, it's definitely not a bear or wolf, and there is nothing else that would dig a hole." – said the girl.
"Nor are there any bandits in the area, so…. Just screw it." – said the party leader.
"Maybe this is really just some sort of abandoned hole somebody just dug out, or maybe some old bandit base."
"Anyway, come already, mate, and give us the light."
"…"
"One day, this kind of behavior will get us all killed." – said the boy with the glasses as he caught up to his friends while also making his light a bit stronger, to the point that the group noticed the tracks of blood more.
"… Yeah, it's probably bled out to death or something, considering the amount of blood it had lost." – said the girl.
"…"
"!"
"There! I see it!" – said the girl as she saw the horned rabbit corpse on the ground.
"!?"
"Wait! Stop! I heard something!" – said the girl, alarming her friends as they got ready to fight.
The boy with the glasses used his light like a flashlight on the path ahead of the group, and the very next thing they saw was something they weren't prepared to see.
"W-what the? Wooden doll?" – said the confused party leader as he saw a humanoid wooden mannequin that was as tall as a human.
The doll stood right next to the corpse of the rabbit, and then it started moving upon being spotted by the group.
"?!"
"W-what the hell is that?! A monster?!" – said the girl as she was completely caught off guard by the doll creature.
"It may be one of those so-called golems?!" – said the nervous boy with glasses.
"…Tch!"
"Get yourself together!" – said the party leader.
"This is just some wooden…. "THING". Just calm down and focus!"
The wooden puppet began walking towards the party before then swinging down its arm, forcing the party leader to use his shield to block the attack with his shield.
"?"
"Eh?"
(It's way weaker than I had thought?) – thought the party leader as he then charged at the creature, repelling its arm before then swinging his sword, slashing the creature, and digging into its wooden body, before moments later the archer fired her arrow at it, resulting in the creature losing its balance, which allowed the party leader to charge in and slash the creature, damaging its chest.
"Get away from him!" – said the glass-wearing boy, who alarmed the party leader, who instantly rushed away as a ball of light came and hit the creature, creating a small explosion where it had been slashed before.
"!?"
"Shit! Why isn't it dying!?" – said the party leader.
"Because it's not a living creature!" – said the girl as she shot her arrow again at the puppet, as it was in the middle of the swing, stopping the creature and giving the party leader a chance once again.
"[Sword Strike]!" – The party leader hit the damaged chest by empowering his strike, resulting in the creature's chest destruction.
The creature's body split apart, making its remains fall down on the ground.
The party leader stared at the creature, readying his weapon... But after a bit of waiting, the creature did not move at all.
"…"
"I think it's dead?" – said the party leader while staring at the creature's corpse.
"Still, what the hell was that?!"
"M-maybe golem?" – said the boy with glasses as he approached the wooden puppet remains.
"Golem…. Golem…. Aren't those like the huge monster made out of rocks and dirt?" – asked the girl.
"H-honestly, I don't know…. But from what I do know, they are something like machines that are turned into creatures."
"They apparently can…. Well… Some use something, I believe it is called a "core," as an artificial main organ or something, but that is all. I never did any sort of studies regarding golem craft or anything like that, so I don't bloody know anything!"
"…"
"Still…. Look at its body…. Isn't it…? Well, too new?"
"?"
"What do you mean by new?" – asked the girl.
"I mean, look at this. Its body is not too dirty, right, but we are…?" – The boy with glasses noticed that the wooden puppet corpse started acting strangely, creating a small, very transparent fog from its body that disappeared almost instantly after moving a few centimeters from the body, while the parts of the creature's body started becoming transparent.
"!?"
"What the fuck?!" – said the party leader as he got ready to swing his weapon while the archer prepared to fire another arrow.
"Stop!" – said the boy with glasses.
"…"
"Holy shit… I recognize this pattern." – said the boy with glasses.
"This thing isn't a common monster! It's a dungeon monster!"
"?"
"Wait, dungeon monster…. But aren't those in…. Dungeons?!" – said the girl.
"Yes! The dungeon monster can only be found in the dungeon! And this apparently happens when the dungeon monsters die! Their bodies just disappear, leaving behind an "loot"." – said the boy as the bodies of the monsters started shrinking, collapsing, and then disappearing in front of the group, leaving behind a small shard-like crystal.
"!"
"W-what the hell happened to its body?!" – asked the confused girl.
"A dungeon monster death." – said the boy with the glasses as he picked up the small gem shard.
"Dungeon monsters, unlike real monsters, don't have 'proper bodies,' or you could say that they have 'fake bodies'."
"So when they die, they leave a concentrated remains of themselves, a part of their body, for example, a tooth, nail, or stuff."
"…"
"So wait… Are we… Are we in the dungeon right now?!" – asked the excited party leader.
"Well… Y-yea… We are definitely in the dungeon… But something isn't right." – said the boy as he took out his map.
"Look. Here. We are currently somewhere in here."
"And here is the closest dungeon, and as you can see, this cannot be "this" specific dungeon! It's located here! While we are here!" – said the boy while pointing at the map and circling different areas with his finger.
"It's a beast-type dungeon where there are wolf monsters and stuff…. But this? There is not a single mention or talk about some dolls wandering around….. Guys… Hear me out."
"I think we may or may not have found a brand-new dungeon, a dungeon that wasn't even reported or that people even know about."
"…"
"Wait…. So it's like a good thing… or a bad thing?" – asked the girl.
"Well, it depends, but we can report it to the guild and—"
"What would happen if we beat this dungeon?" – said the party leader before the boy with glasses could finish his explanation.
"…W-what?" – The boy with the glasses turned towards the party leader.
"What if we beat this dungeon? Will this get us a rank up instantly?" – said the party leader.
"…"
"No! No! No! Stop fucking thinking about this bullshit!" – said the boy with glasses as he snapped.
"I get the fucking entering the deep forest."
"I'm getting into the hole."
"BUT THIS IS A GODDAMN DUNGEON, YOU DUMBASS!"
"We don't know what the hell is inside of this place!"
"We know. This puppet thing," - said the party leader confidently.
"True, we panicked a little, since it completely took us off guard, but we beat it without suffering even a single injury."
"Not only that, but when I blocked its attack, I realized it wasn't that scary."
"They are not strong."
"We don't know them, but they are not strong at all."
"Even if that is the case, then what about the ruler of this place?! The "Dungeon Master"?!"
"Those beings are not something we can look lightly on! They are dangerous like hell!"
"Hell! We don't even know what we would be dealing with."
"Dude. There is no need to, and I mean NOT A SINGLE GOOD REASON WHY WE SHOULD TRY TO CONQUER THIS DUNGEON!"
"All we have to do is to report the rabbits and report the dungeon; with that, we should have enough points to rank up our licenses."
"You want to take a risk WITHOUT A GOOD REASON!"
"I have a good reason." – said the party leader.
"Proving ourselves."
"We can easily prove ourselves by taking down this dungeon."
"Horned rabbit, reporting dungeon and conquering it, how many points do you think we would earn!? Hell! We could even possibly easily rank up twice and not bother with it all and, and- "
"Stop it." – said the girl.
"Look, I get where you are coming from, but isn't this way too risky?"
"I know I also want to make it easy, but I think we should just come prepared or something."
"Hell, I hit that thing in the head with my arrow, and it was still alive….."
"…"
"But again… I think I will agree with him."
"?!"
"Martha!?"—said the boy with glasses.
"Hey, hear me out. He isn't wrong." – said the girl.
"If those are the base monsters here, then I don't think the boss monster would be scary."
"Hell, you saw how it even moved, extremely predictable like slime! Even if it were strong, it wouldn't hit us."
"Think using facts, mate."
"We can do this…. Let's go." – said the girl before then starting to walk away alongside the party leader.
"!?"
"A-Arthur?! Martha?!" – said the boy with glasses as he began chasing after the pair, before then stopping.
"And look. Another one coming." – said the party leader as he spotted another wooden mannequin coming.
"Let's go!" – said the excited party leader as he rushed in.
The party leader's stamina.
The archer girl's precision.
And the mage boy supports magic.
They argued with each other, but their cooperation showed results as they were able to take down each of the creatures that came their way while also making their way into the deeper parts of the dungeon.
"…"
"Huh…. So…. Only the same kind of monster and not that many?" – asked the girl.
"What the hell is going on? I mean, I knew it would be easy for us, but it was straight up WAY too easy."
"I told you, this is a new dungeon…. It honestly may be even a newborn dungeon? Maybe the monsters only started getting born?" – said the boy with glasses as he collected loot that was dropped by the wooden creature.
"And there is also the fact that we entered this place through the random hole very easily and not some proper entrance that the dungeon usually creates."
"From what I know, the dungeon structure is… 'living' or something? So….. I don't know, I could look it up, but from what I get, this dungeon may have only been born just sometime ago, which explains the lack of monsters."
"But we should worry about something else…. If this place is really a newborn dungeon, then the dungeon size shouldn't be big at all… If anything, we should be running into- "
"Boss room? Yeah, I think it's right in front of us." – said the girl as she noticed the path in front of them changing.
"…"
"Get ready." – said the party leader as he began slowly walking.
"{Light, oh light. Please let us guide us and see with the gift of the brightest—the glass-wearing boy began chanting while the group entered an unknown space.
"[Light Lantern]." – the boy manifested a small sphere of light that flew upwards, trying to reach the ceiling that was noticeably much higher than usual, before then activating and creating a light source that brightened the room somewhat.
The light brightened up the room, and the group realized that the space they found themselves in wasn't a corridor of dirt anymore, but instead, they found themselves in a somewhat spacious room.
And right in the middle of the room, they saw a creature.
A wooden mannequin…. But this one was way more different.
It was very tall.
Each of its limbs was very long and much longer.
Unlike the other mannequins, this creature possesses fingers, which are both long and sharp-looking.
The creature's head also looked somewhat humanoid, but it didn't possess anything like a face, mouth, nose, or anything like that. Only two holes where the eyes should be.
"…"
"Is this the thing?" – said the party leader as he took a stance, while the wooden creature noticed the party, tilting its head to the side upon noticing them.
"Y-yea. It's definitely the boss monster…. It looks very similar….. Wait! Hands! Its hands! He has weapon!" – said the boy with glasses as he noticed the creature having both fingers and also noticed their current sharp state.
"…"
The wooden creature tilted its head left and right while the group watched.
And finally, the creature took a step forward, alarming the group as the archer fired her arrow and the mage shot out water at the creature, which resulted in both attacks landing, with the arrow sticking into the monster's body.
"!"
"It didn't dig through deep enough! Its body is way harder than the other ones!" – said the girl as she took out the next arrow.
However, the two hits did not stop the creature as it took another step and then swung its arm from the side it's arm, sending the claws flying towards the party leader, who used his shield and sword to block the creature's attack.
"!?"
(Shit! These attacks are heavy, unlike the ones from before!) – thought the party leader after blocking the hit.
(But! Not enough!)—the party leader stood his ground while the mage fired a sphere of light that hit the creature in the head and then causing a small explosion.
"!?" – but that didn't cause any big or noticeable damage to the creature as it swung from the other side with its claws at the party leader.
The party leader used all of his strength to push back the claws that were still grinding at him from the side before then stepping backwards and dodging the second claw attack.
"Hey. Can't you two do something about one of those claws? I can stop one in place, but if a second comes my way, I'm screwed!" – said the party leader, before moments later the creature swung down its arm, forcing the party leader to dodge the attack by rolling to the side.
While the party leader was distracting the boss monster, an arrow flew and hit the creature in the side of the head, but once again the arrow did not dig deep into the creature's head, while also resulting in the creature turning its head and spotting the girl running around while she was taking out the next arrow.
"Hit it from different directions! It's stupid!" – shouted the boy with glasses as he blasted the creature with a water attack, only to not bother the creature.
However, this attack resulted in the creature getting confused, as it was getting attacked from multiple directions, giving an opening for the party leader to rush in and slash the creature with his sword, only for the sword to not sink deep at all.
"!"
The party leader quickly leaped backwards, dodging the creature's claws.
(Okay. This isn't good. We are doing damage, but barely anything.) – thought the party leader, who was on the defense and distracting the creature, was giving the mage and the archer time to attack again.
(Should we do the thing we did before? With stacking up the damage in a single spot?)
(This thing is dumb, just like other puppets were!) – thought the party leader before then, using his shield to block a stab attack made with the monster's claws.
"Aim for its stomach! We are going to pile up the damage and destroy it!" – said the party leader before hitting the creature's stomach, leaving a small mark that served as the location of the attack for the party members.
The archer fired her arrow and hit the creature, where it was struck by the party leader; before then, the mage fired another blast of water at the creature's wound, stacking up damage and making it visible that the creature was taking damage.
"!"
(Now!)
"[Sword Pierce]!" – The party leader thrusted his sword forward, trying to stack even more damage towards the damaged stomach.
However… a problem occurred, something that the party leader wasn't expecting.
The puppet grabbed the sword with its hands, stopping it in its tracks before it made contact.
"!?"
(What?!)
The party leader was completely shocked, and before he realized it, the creature's claws were already heading towards his face.
The party leader let go of the sword and tried dodging the attack…. But it was too late, as the creature's claws pierced through the party leader's face.
The party leader managed to move his face in time to somewhat avoid the claws piercing through his entire head, but still, he was hit, and the attack dealt critical damage to the boy's face, as part of it was completely ripped off, causing the boy to shoot blood straight from his face at an alarming rate while the boy himself screamed in agony.
"!"
"ARHUR!" – shouted the girl in panic as she instantly fired an arrow in panic.
The arrow hit the creature…. But it didn't care as it grabbed the party leader, who tried to run away, before then stabbing him in the throat.
The boy's entire neck was destroyed, and moments later the boy fell on the ground while the blood was splattering from his wounds everywhere, while the creature itself just observed while tilting its head around.
The creature raised its arm with the intent of finishing off the corpse-like boy, but before it could—
"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" – shouted the girl in fury as she rushed at the monster while carrying a knife.
The girl's action didn't make sense.
She was an archer, and she had far better chances at stopping the creature with her arrows.
But she didn't thought about it.
Reason?
She wanted to rescue the boy named Arthur and wanted to create a distraction for the mage to rescue their leader.
However, she rushed too soon and didn't realize two things.
First was the mage, who was completely taken over by fear when he saw the party leader's face and throat getting destroyed, paralyzing the mage with fear.
And the second problem was that the monster hadn't forgotten about her.
"…"
"Eh?" – the girl stared down with a confused expression and saw the monster's claws stuck in her stomach.
The monster removed its claws from the girl's stomach, causing an extremely nasty wound that made the girl get on her knees and somewhat try holding her stomach, while the creature just tilted its head left and right.
"!"
"B-BASTARD!" – shouted the mage boy as he snapped out of it after witnessing the girl's current state.
"…"
The creature turned around after noticing the scream of the boy, which filled the boy with dread.
"{F-f-fly Ca-Cut- "– The boy tried chanting a spell, but his fear was getting the better of him as he saw the creature approaching him.
The boy tried to step away in panic, but that caused the creature to react as it took a step and launched its arm forward, grabbing the boy by his face and then accidentally slamming him against the wall.
"?"—the creature stared confused after hitting the boy against the wall, before then repeating it again and again, making the blood splatter more while the mage boy stopped struggling a long time ago.
"…"
The monster let go of the boy's body, causing it to hit the ground as a lifeless corpse.
The mage was dead.
The party leader had succumbed to his wounds and died.
And the last one standing was the girl…. But not for long, as the creature realized that she was still alive.
The girl tried standing up, only to slip on her own blood.
She then tried crawling while bleeding from her stomach, but then her leg was grabbed by the monster, holding the girl in place.
"No! Stay away! I BEG YOU! STAY- "– the girl begged the monster for mercy, but it didn't care as it grabbed the girl's head and started bashing it against the ground, over and over.
And before long, the girl's body was lifeless as well.
…
A total wipe out.
The three promising adventurers have all met their end of their lives and their story.
…
However, the story that was happening right now wasn't exactly about them.
No.
This is the story about the monster.
The very same monster that just brutally killed the party of young adventurers.
The tale of the puppet monster.