“Please find someone else to endanger,” Pras sighed. “These guys need to conserve their remaining deaths considering Lyra’s gang is definitely still hot on our trails.”

“Do not worry, distressed deskmate, it is a level 50 dungeon.”

“Now that makes me worry even more.”

“Chillax, Pras, I only died twice,” Fathan patted Pras’ shoulders. With an interested gleam in his eyes, he quickly approved Mana’s clearly dangerous idea, “I’m in.”

“That is the spirit!”

“Didn’t you hear the dungeon level she mentioned?” Pras protested. “Level 50, I’m the highest around us and even then I am still level 49.”

“Therefore we go together, deskmate, it will be a breeze,” Mana said with a questionable assurance. “The minimum requirement is level 45, everyone is already at the minimum.”

“Let me get this straight,” Pras snorted in annoyance. “The minimum level is 45. But the recommended level is 50, right? And that’s the average level of the group, right? Which means any average lower than that is definitely gonna give us a hard time inside there.”

“My, my, you really are knowledgeable about all this.” Mana nodded acknowledgingly. However, there was a glimpse of enthusiastic fire that was still apparent in her eyes. ”Nevertheless, we will be fine, deskmate.”

Pras didn’t bother to answer. He half gave up trying to explain to Mana and just decided to eat his snacks. On the other hand, it was Pitoy who finally spoke with a definitely not interested tone.

“What’s in it for me?”

Mana raised her index finger and explained, “You can get your first taste of item sets here. It will definitely be helpful for a few levels ahead. Also, clearing dungeons will give us better credits for Clashing Realms.”

“I haven’t died, but if we got wiped even once, I’m out,” Pitoy answered calmly.

“We will not wipe, trust me.”

Mana, knowing she had managed to persuade the other two, now looked confidently at Pras. Her pretty smile was glazed with assurance and the sweet bright lights of the night market. Such beauty was still an amazing sight to behold, yet the dangerous idea she brought with her was enough to make Pras put up layers and layers of concrete walls in his heart as safety precautions.

He shook his head and walked away, “No, I don’t care. You guys could just jump off a cliff straight into a freaking leviathan's gaping maw, and I’ll just sit down eating popcorn while watching you all being horribly munched by….”

Despite all of the facade he put up at front, Pras finally relented with the idea when he reached home and just logged in. It was not that he agreed, but he needed to make sure no one is going to waste their death count due to Mana’s idea.

Tier was instantly greeted by Mana when he logged in.

“I know you will not let us down, dependable deskmate,” she said with a confident smile. She was sitting idly on a cart at Dorakkal Outpost, the place where they decided to call it a day yesterday after resurrection and avoiding Lyra.

“I just don’t have anything else to do,” Tier sighed. “Where are the others?”

“I believe they are still on their way,” Mana answered lightly. She stood up and then pointed at Ril’Dil who was standing near a brewing pot of potion. “Let us clear up the prerequisite quest first.”

“Don’t tell me that we have to escort that mad monk to the dungeon entrance.”

“Oh, my, you sure are a sharp one, deskmate.”

“Damnit.”

Tier begrudgingly accompanied Manna in escorting the monk NPC towards the southeast.

At least, something interesting happened when they were starting the quest and passed an elven male player named Coldur. He was a level 80 player that seemed to have peace ambassador status and was previously opening a portal to Elian for free due to the tension between elves and orcs.

Coldur looked at Manna concerningly and asked, “I’m sorry to disturb your date. But, girl, are you a dwarf? Because the elves and dwarves are currently allied, so you might unexpectedly get caught up in this whole mess. I can open a portal to Hammerthorn for you.”

The question confuses the deskmates. From Tier’s point of view, Manna definitely didn’t look like a dwarf. She was definitely petite, but human nonetheless. Everything looks tinier from his perspective as a rakhs anyway.

“I am a human,” Manna said plainly. “Dwarves are cubes.”

“Oh, yes, you are correct. I’m sorry,” Coldur nodded then shook his head as if blaming himself for the misunderstanding. “Humans should be safe, sorry for the misunderstanding.”

“No problem, good sir.”

After the elf continues to seek other elves to be rescued, Tier and Manna hastily followed Ril’Dil. However, the interaction had made Tier wonder a bit regarding the heights of other races.

While rakhs are clearly the biggest and the tallest among them, elves were also quite tall and might rival the height of orcs. Though, on the other hand, orcish body types are typically wider and more muscular. Humans kept their normal sizes and dwarves are not that short in this game. They are typically around two fifth or 3 quarters the height of a normal human and definitely much bulkier. Thus the ‘cube’ thing Manna said earlier.

And only then Tier realised that he was so accustomed to seeing Manna’s rather short stature of 153 cm or less height, which put her at least 12 to 15 cm taller than most dwarves. It would be a clear difference for a fellow human, dwarf, or something much taller like rakhs.

Elves, however, are about 10 to 20 cm taller than the average human. Tier wondered if the slight height difference made them not realise they are taller than most humans and thus mistook a shorter human as a dwarf.

An interesting theory nonetheless. A theory that definitely entertained his brain while Ril’Dil was blabbering about all sorts of things regarding rakhs history which Tier suspected had something to do with their upcoming dungeon.

At least Ril’Dil said some comments about how a human like Manna had selflessly offered a hand to help such an old rakhs. For Tier, Ril’Dil getting significantly less racist was a good sign of character development.

Though, part of Tier suspected that the attitude might be part of the reputation that Manna had with her previous character. It did seem nice for someone to have their reputation and some other stuff intact when rerolling their character. Tier could imagine how tedious it would be to repeat the grind for reputation whenever someone wants to play a new class. Even in a traditional MMORPG, that would feel annoying, definitely more so in a VRMMORPG setting.

“I be sorry, young friends, this be as far as my old feet be allowing me,” said Ril’Dil when they finally reached a cave among the trees of Dorrakal Forest. The cave entrance had some big stalactite protruding from its ceiling, creating the image of a menacing set of fangs.

“Those demon worshippers be down here, calling their master, be trying to defile the nature like what they had done at….”

Ril’Dil stopped. The old rakhs held his staff tightly. With a shaky voice he continued, “... Wicked Spirit Forest be my fault… my own disciple be dealing with dark magics. I be powerless in stopping him.”

Tier was left speechless, this was the first time he could see Ril’Dil in a very different perspective. He never thought the old maniacal monk had so much burden.

“Sniff… we will stop them for you, old man,” Manna answered with a shaky voice. It seems the old rakhs story had somehow touched her. “I’ve done this before, but I will do it again and again. This time I brought a team, a good team, with me.”

“The ancestors be thanking you, little friend.”

Tier was shaken to his core. He never thought that Manna could be such a softie towards NPCs like Ril’Dil. And that had just multiplied her cuteness in his eyes by ten thousandfold.

Tier quickly broke free from his infatuation as soon as a message came from Nubram. Both Manna and him used a stone statue teleporter to summon Nubram. As far as Tier knew, those kinds of statues were only available around the entrance to a dungeon.

They took their time to kill off some mobs while waiting for Flick and Renma to appear. Gladly the two came quick enough before Nubram had the audacity to leave with all sorts of reasons.

They delved into the dungeon soon after without much preparation because Manna said they wouldn't need any. Nevertheless, Tier kept himself on highest alert considering their healer has severe case of tunnel vision, their melee DPS has suicidal tendencies, and their dungeon guide has questionable information. Nubram might be more reliable, but no one would ever know if he suddenly decides to bail out and leave them all to die.

The dungeon, named The Forsaken Caverns, started out with some damp cave environment where they fought some slime creatures that seemed to have devoured a lot of unfortunate living flesh that were stranded in the cavern.

Those slimes were not cute blobs like in typical anime-esque RPGs, but more toward a grotesque slimy thing with a skull shaped head, but with no arms nor legs. There were also remains of undigested bones or flesh sprouting here and there.

Whoever animated those slimes deserve a high respect for their dedication in making such an unsightly creature.

And whoever designed the slimes’ abilities deserve a special place in the depths of hell. The creature seemed to exert some poisonous acid stuff that makes it more resistant to weapon attacks and cut down a lot of Manna’s armour protection. Nubram is the only one they could rely on when facing those slimes.

This caused Tier to bark commands every now and then to warn Flick or Manna from doing something reckless. Not to mention he was also spamming [Misdirection] which is not good for his instinct bar.

The first boss was a giant slime creature that protected the entrance towards the more lush part of the cavern. Fortunately, it had a rather simple tank and spank mechanic other than occasional AoE attack with a swipe from its hand - which almost murdered Renma who didn’t heed his own HP.

A tragedy finally struck when they beat the boss.

Behind the boss, there was a path that crosses a deep gorge. Which, everyone assumed, they needed to pass to go deeper into the cave. Flick, being himself, just ran excitedly across the path right after the boss hit 0 HP. Unfortunately, the boss’ death rattle had caused a massive quake that destroyed the path.

“Oh my,” Manna commented as she saw Flick tumble across the crumbling path. “We accidentally left Fathan forward.”

“Aren’t you supposed to know this is gonna happen?” Tier protested while taking some equipment from the creature. He happened to get a rare bracer from it.

“None of you asked.” Manna shrugged lightly. She pointed towards a small path on their right side that circled around the gorge. There were a lot of creepy creatures along the way. “We can take a roundabout route that way and fetch Fathan.”

“No need,” Nubram grumbled. He threw a rock at Flick. “Use your [Sleek Strike], you lazy ass.”

“Chillax, mate, it’s on cooldown.”

“Fine, Mana… lead the way, he will catch up in no time,” Nubram groaned.

“Right away.”

Their next journey was a walk towards the lower part of the caven, towards the bottom of the gorge to be exact, through a small path to their left. Knowing they were supposed to go down, Flick didn’t use his [Sleek Strike] to return to the group, but he instead just jumped down the gorge and almost killed himself due to the massive fall damage he received.

There was a bit of water at the bottom, but unfortunately it was too shallow for the rakhs to land safely. The most infuriating thing was that Flick apparently landed himself among some demon-infested crocodile creatures. He would have died if it was not for Manna’s and Tier’s intervention, which in turn put them at a severe disadvantage being surrounded by several of those demon-infested crocodiles.

They miraculously survived thanks to Nubram and Renma. The latter thankfully could still do his job right despite all of his issues. On the other hand, Nubram unleashed a brand new custom ability named [Magma Core] that released fiery explosions around him and knocked back opponents. That ability was unsurprisingly useful in this kind of situation.

However, the sudden fight took its toll on Renma. Right when the fight was finished, he screamed at the top of his lungs, “Nobody move! I need to restore my MP.”

“Lighten up, Ega, I will not do something that reckless,” Mana assured calmly.

“I was specifically talking about him!” Renma roared while pointing at Flick.

Despite the clear protest, Flick just grinned and shrugged with a despicable all-knowing expression. Fortunately he also decided to take a bit of a break.

Few minutes after the first boss, they were already so close to a tragic demise. Tier could only predict things would go worse from now on.