Chương 1: The Forsaken Warrior
In a dark and humid cave, the sounds of metal clanging can be heard reverberating.
"Ein, watch where you're swinging your sword!"
A bulky man holding a large white heater shield shouted. He then swung his shield and sent several shadows flying.
"Get out of the way!" the bulky man exclaimed as he pushed a black-haired boy to the side.
The black-haired boy, Ein, tumbled a few steps from the push. After recovering his stance, he found that he was pushed to the middle of the enemy's formation. He lost his sword somewhere without noticing it too.
"Since you're just a deadweight anyway, just lure the monsters!" the bulky man claimed with a slight grin.
Ein, who was quite agile originally, managed to avoid the attacks of the Shadow Warriors by twisting and turning his body. He even dove and rolled on the rocky ground without hesitation just to dodge attacks that were aimed at his blind spot.
While Ein was drawing the attention of several dozen Shadow Warriors, the rest of his team wiped out the remaining monsters one at a time. Suddenly, Ein heard the sound of air getting cut through, prompting him to duck down in panic. Just as he did, a large arrow flew just a few inches above his head and hit the Shadow Warrior in the front.
"Tsk!" A lanky man holding a crossbow clicked his tongue, seeing how Ein dodged his arrow. "Do your job, you wastrel!" he shouted.
Hearing this, a glint appeared in Ein's dead gray eyes for a moment. However, it was really just for an instant, as his eyes returned to how they usually looked, dead and without any drive.
"Andre, Sherry, pour your attacks; we'll clean all those up quickly!" The bulky man commanded. Andre quickly loaded a new bolt on his crossbow while Sherry rushed to the flank of the monsters while thrusting her long spear.
A few minutes later, the monsters were all dead, turning into particles of light before vanishing. After seeing this, Ein couldn't help but fall on his rear as his legs were shaking uncontrollably from fatigue.
"Damn!" The bulky man cursed as he slammed a fist on the wall. "If only Gene didn't die to save this garbage, we would have finished the battle easily!"
His eyes were full of disgust as he stared at Ein, who was busy catching his breath.
"Dean, stop." The tall woman, Sherry, called while placing her hand on the bulky man's shoulders. "You shouldn't compare that trash to Gene; that's an insult to him."
She too was looking at Ein as if she wanted to strangle the living hell out of him.
"We should just leave him here; I can't work with him anymore," the crossbowman, Andre, claimed while walking around the corpses of their dead comrades. He ransacked their belongings and kept things that could still be used for their exploration.
"Gah, it's only the boss room left after this. He'll be good as a meat shield at least," Dean roared.
The boss room of the final and hardest dungeon, "Hades' Hold." Nobody would have thought that they would make it up to here. Out of the 100 members that entered the dungeon, only these four were left alive.
'As long as we can clear this dungeon, I don't even care if I die', Ein thought pessimistically. 'Since Gene, the only one who backs me up is already gone anyway.'
Ein and Gene were both orphans from the same facility. They grew up like true brothers to each other. However, on that fateful day in 2025, when the dungeons started appearing around the world, their orphanage was quickly destroyed by monsters, leaving only the two of them alive. Since then, they both vowed to one day eliminate all monsters from the face of the earth. However, modern weaponry was useless against the monsters. They did not have a single way to fight back.
When the two of them heard of the government's recruitment of volunteers for the "Warrior" project, a project aimed at "creating" humans able to fight monsters, they both agreed instantly. The two passed all the tests and were safely turned into "Warriors" after consuming the medicinal "Elixir". Since then, they have been at the forefront of the battle, slaying more monsters than anyone else.
And now, when the completion of their dream was just an arm's length away, Gene died while saving Ein from a monster's attack.
'Gene... I'll make sure to fulfill our dreams!' A flash of life once more appeared briefly within his dead-fish-like eyes.
...
The Warrior team of four started traveling the long path as they continued ahead. However, before reaching the boss's room, they halted their steps.
"What the—?" Dean gasped in surprise.
About a hundred meters in front of them, they could see the gaudy-looking double doors of the boss's room. If they manage to enter the room and defeat the boss inside, then Earth will finally be free from the threat of monsters.
However, a deep chasm blocked their path. It was so deep that they would believe it if someone told them that it was bottomless. A wrong step, and they would probably fall to their deaths.
"I found a bridge!" Andre shouted after looking around. It was a large stone drawbridge being held by chains with iron links as large as a man.
"There should be a lever somewhere to lower the bridge," Sherry guessed.
"No need to look for it; I already found it," Dean said, pointing down the chasm.
The other three drew closer to the edge and saw a lever poking out of the wall about 50 meters down the edge. "Someone needs to pull that lever..." Dean said.
Dean, Andre, and Sherry stared at Ein at the same time.
"Deadweight, it's finally your time to shine," Andre scoffed.
Ein nodded without as much as a peep and crawled down the wall, using a dagger in each hand as a hold. As the wall of the chasm was smooth, it was hard to find anywhere to hold on to. He could only chip the wall slowly before inserting the dagger. Hence, it took him more than 15 minutes just to reach the lever's side.
After trying to pull the lever down, however, he found that he couldn't push it down no matter how hard he tried. He lacked a foothold to leverage himself, causing him to be unable to exert much force when pulling the lever.
"Use your weight, dumbass!" Dean shouted from the top of the chasm, noticing how Ein was struggling to pull the lever down.
Hearing this, without much hesitation, Ein let go of both daggers he was using to cling to the wall and switched to holding onto the handle of the lever. The lever quickly followed his pull, and a loud boom was heard.
The drawbridge was completely lowered, making it possible to cross the chasm now. Seeing the three begin to cross the bridge, Ein sighed in relief and tried climbing up once more. However, before he managed to reach the dagger he used, a fleshy sound followed by a crunching sound was heard.
"!!!"
Ein was surprised to see a bolt nailing his right palm to the wall. The pain was excruciating enough that he let out a voiceless scream. The bones on his right hand were probably crushed by the bolt.
"Hehe, just stay there forever, idiot." Andre's voice floated down from somewhere above the stone bridge. Soon after, laughter could be heard.
"We three are enough to kill the boss," Dean supplemented. "You are not fit to receive the honor of clearing the last dungeon." The grin on his face widened.
Then, another arrow flew through the air and pierced through the back of Ein. It punctured his left lung but luckily missed his heart. However, the hit rendered his left hand numb, and he ended up letting go of the lever. Ein fell.
'I said that I don't mind dying, but to think I'd die by the hands of my comrades...' Ein lamented.
He stared at the three by the edge of the bridge; the smiles on their faces were as clear as day to him, even though they were far away.
'I won't accept this!' Ein's bottled feelings started bursting out of his chest. Anger, despair, disgust, and a variety of negative emotions flooded his mind. The sudden rush of negative emotions destroyed something inside Ein's mind with a crack.
After that, his mind suddenly turned clear. He remembered everything that actually happened to the 100-man dungeon-clearing team.
'The three of them planned this from the start!' He realized. 'We all were fed poison to dull our mind right from the start!'
The members of the punitive force were sacrificed one at a time by the three, killing them slowly. Gene, too, didn't die accidentally! He was killed by Andre's crossbow!
However, by then, no matter what he did, it was useless. Falling down the bottomless chasm, he'd definitely die.
However, even then, he shouted full of anger.
"I'll definitely take my revenge on you three!"
He cursed them. 'No matter what it takes—even if I were to sell my soul to the devil—I'll definitely take my revenge!'
Then, with the laughter of the three echoing throughout the whole space, Ein's consciousness slowly faded.
Then...
He woke up.
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