Chapter 77. Annoying Insects

Chapter 77. Annoying Insects

When they told me we were already inside the dungeon, I didn’t believe it at first.

At first, I thought that if we really were inside a dungeon, then the sky, the sun, and the clouds would have to be fake. An illusion.

But Sherial quickly explained everything.

It turned out this dungeon had simply claimed part of the forest. A huge part.

The fact that I could see the sky, the sun, the clouds—everything was real. Not an illusion at all. But this section was completely cut off from the rest of the world.

If you walked a few hundred meters through the trees in any direction, you’d run into high cliffs. Very high. From here, they looked at least two hundred meters tall. You might think that if you climbed them, you’d get out.

But no.

At the top, there was an invisible barrier. It couldn’t be broken. You couldn’t pass through it. The only entrance and exit was through those stone walls we had entered through.

This claimed stretch of forest was about a hundred kilometers long.

One hundred kilometers.

Damn… that was an enormous area.

The dungeon was narrower in width. Near the beginning, it was about five hundred meters wide—that was exactly where they had built the stone wall with the gate, so the monsters couldn’t get out if something went wrong.

But the deeper you went, the wider it became. If the width at the start was about five hundred meters, then in the deepest part it reached around twelve kilometers.

The entire territory was divided into five sections, twenty kilometers each.

The first twenty kilometers—Rank 1 monsters.

The next twenty—Rank 2.

Then Rank 3, Rank 4, and in the deepest part—Rank 5.

But monsters didn’t run directly on the road. If you wanted to fight, you had to leave the main path and enter the forest. Every few hundred meters there were side trails—that was where adventurers headed.

Once you turned off, monsters began to appear.

But right now we were only at the very beginning. Only Rank 1 monsters lived here.

We had nothing to do here.

Sherial said we would only start hunting in the Rank 3 zone.

Which meant we had to go forty kilometers deeper into the dungeon.

"Maybe we should run, like earlier? If we keep walking at this speed, we’ll reach the right spot only by evening," I said, not wanting to drag myself for eight hours when we could cover the distance in half an hour.

"Don’t rush. We’re not going to walk the whole way this slowly anyway. First we need to deal with some… annoying bugs," Rem said calmly.

"What bugs?" I asked, not understanding what she meant.

Maybe there were insects here? Mosquitoes? If so, it would make more sense to speed up, not slow down.

"You’ll see soon," Sherial said with a slight smile. "Better to get rid of them now. Later they might interfere with our hunt."

Annoying… So not just insects. Something that could follow you for a long time. Even if you moved at high speed.

"Yeah, it’s better to deal with those ahead of time," Sherial added. "Otherwise they’ll show up at the worst possible moment."

—

A little more than half an hour passed. The whole time, I watched carefully—up at the sky, toward the forest, even behind us, trying to figure out where those “bugs” they warned me about would appear from.

But nothing happened.

Well… almost nothing.

A group of adventurers was approaching us from behind fairly quickly. They seemed to be in a hurry. Maybe they didn’t care about any “bugs” and simply wanted to reach their zone faster.

I still didn’t relax.

Where would they come from?

From the sky?

From the forest?

From underground?

I already knew what local insects could be like. Once, in the forest, some huge insect had bitten my shoulder. That was when I realized even “small stuff” here could be dangerous.

I had to stay alert.

The group behind us had almost caught up.

I thought we would just let them pass, but when they got closer, they slowed down and kept walking behind us, about twenty meters back.

"The blonde is mine," one of the adventurers said.

"Yours? After me," another smirked.

"I like the brunette more," a third added.

"Then we’ll take her together, like last time at the brothel," the fourth chuckled.

I heard every word perfectly.

What disgusting crap were they saying?.. Were they talking about Rem and Sherial?

Rage flared inside me.

For a moment, I wanted to just turn around and snap their necks.

Then Rem and Sherial stopped. I stopped too.

I didn’t understand why they had stopped.

"Let’s let them go ahead," Sherial said calmly.

She wanted to let them pass first?

My anger eased a little. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe they weren’t talking about Rem and Sherial at all. Though… unlikely.

For a second, a dark thought flickered through my mind again—break their arms and legs.

No. Maybe rip out their tongues?

Enough.

I didn’t need to cause trouble right now. If I did something unnecessary, it could lead to problems. And not just for me, but for the girls too.

I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles turned white, forcing myself to stand still and not lunge at those… idiots.

The four men walked past us, throwing sticky, filthy looks at Rem and Sherial. One even glanced back over his shoulder, holding his stare longer than he should have.

Alright… they’ll just pass by. I needed to calm down.

But no. These idiots, after overtaking us, stopped right ahead, blocking the path.

"Girls, need some help? We know this place really well. We know where you can hunt and get not only magic stones, but something even better," one of them said with a grin.

"No, thank you. We don’t need help. We can handle it ourselves," Rem replied calmly.

"Hey, no need to be shy. We won’t ask for anything in return. We’ll be a lot more useful than that guy," he added, nodding toward me.

"Go your own way. We don’t need anyone’s help," Sherial said coldly.

"A dungeon is a dangerous place," another continued with a lazy smirk. "Girls like you walking around with a weakling like that is a bad idea. Yeah, his armor is expensive, but when real danger comes, guys like him run first. You should stick with men like us. We won’t leave you behind. We’ll protect you."

He smiled wider, and there was nothing in his eyes but a filthy implication.

"They said we don’t need anyone’s help. We’ll handle it ourselves," I said, no longer hiding my irritation.

"And we didn’t ask you, you rich bastard," one of them sneered.

I stepped forward.

"You should leave now. While you’re still in one piece. Otherwise you might… accidentally end up crushed here."

"Oh wow," another drawled, moving closer to me. "So the boy’s got a bit of courage. Not enough, though. This isn’t your daddy’s mansion. This is a dungeon. People die here every day."

He stopped a few steps away from me and slowly drew his sword.

"Alright then. Since you’re so rude, we’ll have to teach you a lesson. Though…" he looked me over. "If you just take off that armor, leave your weapon, and walk away quietly, we’ll be generous and spare your life. Go back to daddy, ask him to buy you a new set. And maybe some new escorts."

He glanced at Rem and Sherial, and his smile became even more disgusting.

"And we’ll take care of your companions ourselves."

"Last time I’m saying it: just leave. Otherwise you won’t have that option anymore," I said, barely holding my anger back.

"You bastard… Are you threatening us?!" the man who drew his sword first barked.

And in the next moment, he swung.

I didn’t even feel danger. Just a step to the side. His movement seemed slow. Too slow.

I intercepted his sword arm.

And squeezed.

With all the rage I had been holding back.

There was a crunch.

"A-A-A-A!!!"

Something warm and red splashed across my face.

I looked down.

My hand had fully closed around his palm. Not just bones—I had crushed the sword’s hilt too. Metal cracked along with flesh.

In my hands, I was holding his sword.

Or rather—not just the sword. Along with the hilt, I was still gripping what was left of his hand.

I opened my fingers and threw the sword to the ground.

The hilt was mangled and twisted, like I had squeezed not steel, but clay.

"You fucking bastard!" one of the adventurers screamed.

They drew their swords, but didn’t attack.

Damn. If they attacked, I’d just break their arms.

"If you don’t want to die, just leave," I said.

"You think we’re just going to walk away after what you did?!" one of them snarled viciously.

The one whose hand I crushed was still howling in pain. Damn, it was irritating.

"We won’t let you leave alive!" another spat.

"Surround him! When we attack all at once—"

His words were cut off.

His head separated from his body and fell to the ground.

Blood sprayed from his neck like a fountain. A second later, the headless body collapsed beside it.

It was Rem.

She simply walked past and, in one motion, cut his head off.

"Enough. We’re only wasting time," she said coldly.

I froze for a moment. I hadn’t expected that.

The remaining ones went rigid too. Even the injured man stopped screaming.

In the eyes of two of them, I saw real fear.

Finally.

The guy with the crushed hand turned and ran.

The two remaining men, instead of retreating, charged at Rem with a scream.

Idiots.

Two short swings.

Two heads fell to the ground.

Silence.

"Don’t waste too much time negotiating with people like that," Rem said.

"Yeah, Rem is right. It’s better to just kill them," Sherial added calmly.

For a moment, I was stunned.

Yes, I had killed people before. But I hadn’t expected them to do it so… easily. Like they were swatting insects.

That was what they meant by “annoying bugs.”

Or was I wrong?

"We shouldn’t leave the last one," Rem said.

Sherial silently drew an arrow and pulled the string back.

A whistle.

The man who was running collapsed face-first. The arrow pierced his head. Death was instant.

I grimaced.

"You know… we could have left that last one. He was just running."

"If you leave even one, he’ll cause problems later," Rem replied evenly.

Magic circles flared around her. Golems appeared. Stone figures lifted the bodies and carried them away from the road.

Yeah. Corpses in the middle of the trail were a bad idea.

"You know, if you knew they were following us, we could have just sped up and left. They wouldn’t have caught us," I said. "That would have spared us potential problems in the future."

Rem looked at me calmly.

"You’re still thinking too narrowly. If it weren’t us here, but weak beginners—what would have happened to them?"

I fell silent.

Yeah… if instead of us they had met weaker adventurers…

I imagined what might have happened.

No. Even imagining it was disgusting.

"Sometimes it’s better to remove people like that right away, when you have the chance," Sherial said, letting out a quiet breath. "Otherwise they’ll just find other victims."

Oh. Only now did I realize it. It seemed they had planned everything from the start. When we entered the city, I hadn’t paid attention, but it looked like they had hidden their adventurer badges back then.

There was no way those bastards would have dared to start something with us if they had seen the C-rank badges on Rem’s and Sherial’s necks.

So they had deliberately made themselves bait.

With that, Rem and Sherial might have saved many future victims of those bastards.

Got it—then we keep the line exactly with Rem, without extra additions:

"Alright, we’re done here. We need to reach the Rank 3 zone as quickly as possible. Let’s not waste time," Rem said, and sped up.

Sherial immediately followed her.

I sprinted forward too.