Cleaning felt like shit. It has been a few hours now, and I have had to admit I had underestimated the amount of work.
"You need to use the cleaning solution. Don't just rub at it like an idiot." Richard snapped.
"Oh…"
He walked to me and took the mop from my hand.
"Look here. This is human blood, and that is monster blood. If both are mixed, you can't clean them the same way. Use a mop for one, and fire to burn away the other. Got it?"
"Yes, I understand."
"This sticky stuff here is monster flesh. Using a solution to remove it would waste too much. Scrape it gently with a knife instead. Collect the scraps in one place. And after you use the knife, make sure to wipe it immediately. Monster blood can corrode the blade."
"…Yes."
"What's with that face? You don't want to do this? Well, this kind of work is tough. Maybe you should just quit and go back—"
"No, it's just… Cleaning is more intricate than I thought."
I was serious. Cleaners had an extremely negative reputation. They were called vultures, hyenas, death sniffers, and many other derogatory names. Many saw them as the dregs of society, doing an easy job.
I hadn't been much different. But now, if I could say one thing after barely starting this work, it was that cleaning needed far more knowledge and was more tiring than I had initially expected.
My stats may have been low for an Awakened, but I was still equal to top human athletes. Yet I felt nearly as tired as if I had hunted down a few goblins.
The reputation of cleaners was quite literally in the gutter, but this didn't mean this was something anyone could do.
Richard's constant nagging was a reminder of this fact, and while I would love nothing more than to swing a punch at his tiresome face, I begrudgingly accepted his words—I knew I was out of my depth. I was also slowing the group down, and I hated feeling like dead weight.
What kind of liquids to use to erase the blood of monsters or or blood of humans. How to dissolve the trash that Hunters or trespassers had left behind. How to clean and dispose of the remains we found.
I had seen a few bodies when I was younger—charred ones for the most part. As Hunters, we also had to study anatomy because many creatures had human-ish features; some of the monsters that came out of high-level dungeons were basically humanoid.
But having to search through the half-decomposed body of a young woman barely my age—her innards spilling out, her chest now a nest of slimes—was a whole new level of trauma.
I must have looked a bit green because of the way Richard, Jana, and even Iron Fist snickered, but I couldn't help myself.
Still, I could somehow understand why Cleaners had such a bad reputation. In just two hours of work, we already dealt with three corpses, and the callous way the group handled them was eye-opening.
Even Jana, a cleric, would just nudge away the remains with her foot and use her holy light to cleanse the ground. The others were even worse somehow—they would check the body for objects of value, or even ID. From what they explained, there was a prime for this.
As we paused again, I muttered, "This is strange…"
"What is?" Iron Fist asked while checking his ammunition.
"This is the first time I've cleaned a dungeon, so excuse me if I'm mistaken. Aside from the unnaturally high number of slimes, there are too many bodies. And there is too much blood. Some bodies are clearly missing." The Ranger subclass gave me many interesting advantages beyond skills that were visible on a screen, and my intuition was screaming at me that there were too many inconsistencies in this place.
"They might have gotten dissolved by the slimes?" Jana asked, looking around.
"No. We're lacking the sludge that results from such actions. Some of these Hunters also died from wounds in their backs—they were clearly backstabbed."
I continued to expose all the little things I noticed, including the most damnable thing of all. "I wasn't sure at first. But after coming this far, I can say with certainty that there are traces of people erasing their footsteps, and those traces are still relatively new. Whoever killed these people might still be in the dungeon." I drew my conclusion while making sure to look at all of them.
"Man, is the newbie going crazy from stress already?" Marquez joked around nervously, but I ignored him. I needed to make one thing clear. I didn't want them to think I wanted to skip work; I wanted to save my life.
"I'm pulling out. I need to be alive to enjoy money, after all. What about you?" My actions might seem cowardly, but rushing headlong into a dungeon, with zero information about the number of possible enemies, was just asking for death.
It was one thing to risk my life to protect civilians; it was another to die stupidly in a dungeon because I had ignored obvious warning signs.
Iron Fist was already working on cleaning his gun, and Jana's grip on her staff tightened. Richard gritted his teeth for a few seconds before shaking his head.
"This is enough. Let's pull back. We cannot ignore the signs anymore." He was clearly unhappy, but he was rational enough to see that I was making the right decision.
"Richard! Are you fucking kidding?! You're going to leave just because a newbie is scared!? That's not fair! What about me!? We can't leave now!" Marquez shouted, agitated and angry.
"Please, Marquez. There is clearly something wrong here. We need to leave ASAP. Although we didn't clean the entire dungeon, we should still have enough now if we use all our funds."
Marquez's expression twisted at the soft rebuke, and he looked down, his fist clenching. In the end, he sighed and raised his hands in surrender.
"Please, just one more room. We clean one more—no need to even enter the boss's lair. If we clean that room, that would make 80% of the dungeon clean. We won't be hit with a big penalty by the Association then."
His words seemed reasonable, but something was nagging at me, and I was not the only one feeling that way.
"Marquez…" Richard muttered.
Click~!
"Get down!" Iron Fist shouted while I pushed Jana down on pure reflex.
This small, almost imperceptible sound was all the warning we received. Less than a second later.
Bang~! Bang~! Bang~!
Bullets started raining down, and the feeble barrier surrounding us shattered like glass.
***
Bullets screamed past my head.
One of our guys went down hard, screaming as a round shredded his thigh. Blood sprayed across the concrete. Richard dragged him behind cover, shouting orders I barely registered.
I didn't have time to think; I just shoved Jana to the ground and pivoted. Though I have been training for years now, and had even survived a dungeon break when I was a child, this was my first fight against human enemies.
A masked bastard came at me with a machete. I slammed my shovel into his chest and his arm. Something cracked. He seemed unfazed, but his broken arm dropped his blade. I kicked it away and then smashed his head with all my strength. Then, time seemed to work, as he dropped to the ground, unmoving. Was he dead? I didn't have the leisure to consider my first human kill. I could save the existential crisis for later.
Then more shadows moved—fast. Six. No, eight. They emerged from nowhere, fully equipped and synchronized. This wasn't random. This was a hit.
I slid toward the injured Cleaner and dropped to one knee. He was still alive. I immediately found the source of his wound. Blood kept pumping out of it like a damned fountain. But I couldn't afford to give first aid, as I would lose track of the enemies.
I cursed under my breath.
No guns. No range. Just a shovel and a rusty knife. That was a dumb mistake, a rookie-level mistake. I'd been so focused on the cleaning, I'd forgotten to prep for combat. Hot weapons were very complex, and materializing them would be extremely mana-consuming.
Thankfully, there was someone who hadn't made the same mistake.
"Catch!"
I looked up. Iron Fist hurled a weapon through the air. I caught it clean—a compact, matte-black rifle.
Short barrel. Mana-synced. High-end gear. My thoughts moved like lightning.
"Sniper-type. You can move with it. Make it count!"
I nodded and flicked the safety off. My sub-class, Ranger, came in handy in a moment like this.
Passive Skill. [Archery]
Active Skill. [Hawk eyes] and [Focus].
The world around me seemed to slow down as mana gathered into my eyes. Thanks to my focus skills, all useless noises faded, and the stress drained from my body. I couldn't use this rifle to maximum efficiency because of my lack of mana, but I didn't need to.
The enemies looked like they were just a few steps away from me. I couldn't see their faces as they were masked. Their gear showed no affiliation.
It mattered not.
Adjust, aim and… shoot. A simple series of movements followed, but the results were deadly. I hesitated for a fraction of a second when I aimed for the head, but only because I knew that such armor had a reinforced headset.
First shot—clean hit. Took one of them in the thigh. The second shot grazed another. Not enough to drop him, but enough to slow him.
In the distance, I heard the sounds of battle. Someone was engaging Iron Fist in close combat. I nearly froze. Retired or not, Iron Fist had once been a D-ranked hunter. For someone to match him would mean they were near that level as well.
We need to retreat!
I moved, firing between crates and torn-up barriers, trying to give the others some breathing room. But something was wrong behind me.
"Light of life, b-bind the wound, light—"
Jana.
Her spell had fizzled. Hands shaking. Voice barely above a whisper.
I turned just for a second. Her healing spell sparked once, then died in her palms. She stared at her hands like they belonged to someone else.
"Focus, Jana."
"I—I'm trying!"
I saw it—panic was sinking in. The kind that doesn't just make your hands shake; it shuts your brain off. Unlike me, she did not seem to have a focus skill.
She didn't even flinch when a bullet shattered the wall a foot from her.
"I stopped being a Hunter because of this," she whispered. "He bled out in front of me, and I—I froze."
This isn't the time for a sob story!
I didn't have time to be gentle, throwing my ointment at her with a flick of my hand.
"You don't save everyone. Just save this one!"
She blinked. Her hands clenched around the ointment vial. Light flickered again.
I turned back and unloaded the last few shots in the mag, covering Richard as he lobbed a shock grenade into the center of the pack. It cracked with a flash and scattered the closest enemies.
What a crazy bastard! But in a situation like this, we didn't really have a choice.
"Move! Down the tunnel!" Iron Fist barked after punching away his opponent, taking some distance.
We didn't wait.
Dragging the injured, we retreated fast. Iron Fist stayed behind us and kept the attackers at bay with his Gatling gun.
Death and destruction rained down from that weapon as it seemed to shred everything apart. But the enemy seemed unfazed, not even looking at their dead comrades. And more were coming.
The enemy pursued us, but we forced them back, fighting tooth and nail down cramped halls.
"Those guys are strange. It's like they don't fear death." Iron Fist said from behind us, and I shared his thoughts. It was true well-trained groups could stay calm, even in the face of death. But such a group had no place in a dungeon like this.
Whatever conspiracy we had stepped into, this was something way above our pay grade.
Just my luck!
This was supposed to be an easy job. Get in, clean, get out. Why the hell was I getting chased by a group of assassins?
After running for a while, we finally reached the last room. In front of us stood a tall, heavy door.
This was the boss's room. It should have been open, as other Cleaners had come through not long ago. But since it was closed…
"The boss is alive," I muttered, and everyone's expressions darkened.
"What do we do?" Jana whispered, but Iron Fist didn't hesitate.
"Let's enter. This is still only a slime dungeon. Once we start the boss battle, no one else can enter. We just need to stay in the dungeon for a few days. Rescue will come."
We all exchanged glances. This was a risky plan, but it was our only plan. There was no way for us to win if we fought those intruders head-on.
The one saving grace was that I had some rations. Also, I knew that the Association would search for me tomorrow to get my testimony, and if they didn't find me, they would track me down.
Realizing things weren't all bad, I nodded.
"Let's do this," Richard said, looking determined and confident. Even in this situation, he was showing strong leadership and nerves of steel.
The others had no choice but to follow us, but they looked more hopeful.
We quickly filed through the open door into the boss's room. The door slammed shut behind us. Light flickered on the wall as torches lit, one after another, allowing us to see what stood in this room.
The boss emerged—bones, weapons, broken armor, a black cape, and a spectral light dancing in its eyes.
"This can't be real…" Richard muttered.
"Fuck." Iron Fist cursed, while Jana fell on the ground as if she were a marionette with its strings cut.
I let out a laugh of disbelief. How could I not? The situation was absurd.
This was a slime dungeon, which had been abandoned long ago because of its low productivity and poisonous slimes.
Even when we had first entered it, I thought of every scenario. With how strange everything was, it was likely that the boss might have undergone a mutation. Still, I judged that even a mutant slime king would have been acceptable.
Now, I realized that my imagination had not been rich enough. What I thought would be the worst situation did not even come close to the absurd joke that was in front of us.
A laugh cut off my train of thought, as if refusing to allow me escapism.
The laugh was cold, mocking.
From the shadows near the back of the room, a figure emerged.
"What a pleasant surprise. To think that the bait I had cast would draw in such a good catch."
Black cloak. Bone mask. Staff clutched in a skeletal hand. Despite his lack of muscles or vocal cords, his voice sounded strangely pleasant and well-mannered.
The ground around him twitched. Corpses, both old and new, were rising. I immediately understood why the people we faced earlier did not fear death.
After all, the one we were facing was none other than —
"A Necromancer."
Our chances of survival just took a nosedive.