There was no doubt in Grom's mind that Alyce was at least an epic grade monster. Secretly, he thought she might be legendary grade and when she ran off screaming, plowing through monsters and rampaging, he hoped that it was true. Because nothing short of a legendary monster could conquer such harsh level differences, especially if you considered the fact that the mobs on the lower floors were mostly rare quality.

He recalled seeing her adventurer's plate back in Weimar. Her int stat was ridiculous for her level. A normal member of a higher race such as the dwarves or the elves would gain 3 stat points per level to distribute. Usually they would start with around 15-20 int at level one. In other words, Alyce with her ridiculous int level was at least capable of surmounting a level difference of 150 if you compared her to a normal race. He, who was a member of an ancient and powerful hero bloodline, received 5 points per level and talented adventurer's received 4... This could sometimes be improved if you got a very rare and powerful class, but this usually happened around level 300 for most people. Such classes were very rare and exceedingly hard to come by.

Constitution was her second highest stat, and it was also ridiculous. Scholars had studied monsters over the years and compared them to talented adventurers. Again, talented individuals would gain 2 or 3 constitution per level and he gained 5 because of his hero's bloodline. But Alyce had to have gained a lot more per level to have close to 500 constitution near level 40... it was unbelievable.

The scholars came to the conclusion that rare monsters most likely gained about 5 constitution per level aswell as 5 stat points per level. This was based upon various trials and tests between adventurers and monsters as well as other HP tests. Grom wasn't certain of their accuracy, but it was commonly known to adventurers, as it was written in the widely distributed adventurers manual and taught in the academies around the world as fact. He had no reason to doubt the scholars findings.

So... there was no way Alyce could be only a rare monster with such a high constitution, and even at epic quality it would be impossible to gain such a high constitution, since most thought they got 8 cons per level as epic quality mobs...

Unless Alyce had been alive for decades under constant torture and healing, there was no way she would've been able to build up so much constitution unless she was at least a legendary grade monster. Grom himself had spent decades hammering away in the forge to temper his strength, and although the payoff of his strenuous efforts paled in comparison to the power his sister had gained through simply leveling up a lot, it was still well worth it.

He smiled bitterly, clenching a fist as he watched the trail of dead monsters which Alyce had left in her wake. The lass was powerful... and so was he. He had worked hard to get his strength stat so high that it was comparable to the lassy's int stat. And that was saying something.

Once he leveled up more, he would become far more powerful than his damned sister, and he would retake his clan and take his rightful place under the mountain. No longer would they laugh at him for being a weak older brother incapable of running the clan with overwhelming strength as was tradition in ages past.

He would show them all the true power of a son of the mountain, a son of the legendary redskull, who after his weapons broke, continued to fight by bashing monsters to mush using his head until it was but a bloody skull with flesh hanging off of it. Grom had steeled his resolve. He would do what he must. By any means necessary.

He led the way for the group, following the lass's trail of destruction and hoping she wasn't too far gone to realize when she was in over her head. This was a corrupt dungeon, and as such, it was far more dangerous than a normal dungeon. But if anyone could handle it, it would be the lass.

Just as Grom had descended the stairs to the last floor of the dungeon, a box entered his vision.

Attention: The B- ranked dungeon of red corruption, Almutramys, has been defeated.

“She did it!” Tie'sha shouted behind him, and the kids joined in. They'd been very quiet on this trip, and he supposed it was only right for the whelplings to be afraid. It was 5 years too early for them to be here. Perhaps 10 years considering their weakness... A small voice in his head whispered that Alyce had been right to want to leave them behind.

“Aye, she did. But...” Grom trailed off. He was worried. After all, Alyce hadn't been herself ever since she entered this dungeon, and even after her mana had returned and driven out the corrupted dungeon's influence, she had remained off somehow. There was a dark glint in her eyes that Grom hadn't seen before.

But then again, Grom wasn't a saint either. He desired to slaughter his sister and any who had aided her coup of his clan. He wanted to destroy his enemies and stand atop their bloody corpses. And so he would.

In time, he would.

Grom made his way through the last floor of the dungeon and the many, many corpses of strong monsters. He doubted he'd be able to take out these guys all by himself, but somehow Alyce had done it. Perhaps it was thanks to her absurd stats in combination with those dangerous sounding classes she had obtained, but she sure was something else... leaving a sea of wrecked, torn apart monster corpses in her wake like this.

The kids fainted.

Grom wanted very much to leave them and chase after the lass to see if she was okay, but gritting his teeth, he bent down and carried two of the fainted kids. Tie'sha managed to carry a third of the kids. The last one, Rivanna, woke up first and began walking on unsteady legs and following them. She cried quietly.

Perhaps Alyce really had been right when she suggested that they leave them behind.

When Grom passed the Cockatrice, entered the throne room and saw the destruction, he was convinced that this had to have been done by Alyce and her summons.

The other kids were starting to wake up, so he set them down in the destroyed throne room and hurriedly walked towards the exit. Tie'sha followed behind him also ignoring the kids in favour of chasing after Alyce.

The lass... she took on a B- ranked dungeon by herself below level 100. She was a monster with classes even though monsters usually couldn't have classes. She had the talent points from her amazing classes as well as monster trait points. But even she could not escape from this encounter unscathed.

There wasnae a way in hell she'd die, right? She was undead. She had always bounced back. Heck, first time he saw her she looked like a corpse and yet she was moving. It was mysterious.

She would probably say something like, 'there's no way I can die because I'm already dead, you know? I'm amazing, right? Don't look at me like that, I'm not weird, okay? Goddamn it!' and then she would stomp her small foot into the ground and pout like a child.

Grom smiled as he imagined it, but then his smile turned into a frown as he searched the throne room. Alyce wasn't here. Could she have made it out of the dungeon then? Wanting to find out, needing to find out, Grom charged towards the safe-room behind the boss room with Tie'sha right behind him.

He easily found the stairs leading back up to the surface and ran up them in one go. Huffing and puffing, he stumbled out of the cave-like exit and into a clearing. There were trees on all sides and a small road leading out, but the first thing Grom spotted was two people. A tall, brown-skinned man with slightly pointy ears and blazing red hair stood near a quietly weeping girl with pale skin that glowed faintly blue and odd sea-weed like hair.

Alyce was nowhere to be found, although there was what appeared to be a bundle of clothes or something lying on the ground behind the two figures.

Suddenly, it felt like someone had sucker-punched him in the gut. She couldn't be dead, and there was no way she would leave him behind, right? The kids maybe, but not him. Surely not him.

So where was she!?

Tie'sha made a lot of noise as she came up behind him, breathing heavily as she fell to the floor in a sweaty heap, sucking in laboured breaths as she tried to regain her feet. She had to get stronger if she wanted to be the lassy's maid.

Those two people up ahead turned as one towards them, a quick look of surprise on their faces before the red-haired man drew a long blade from his hip and stepped in front of the girl.

Feeling on edge, Grom also pointed his glowing blue blade at the man, narrowing his eyes.

“Where is she?” He growled. If these people had done something to her... he would make them pay. A look of confusion came over the tall red-haired man's face and he slowly lowered his sword.

“You... you are that girl's companions?” He said, his voice trembling slightly as he averted his gaze. Looking more closely, Grom realized that this guy was quite young despite the fact that he looked and felt like a capable fighter.

“Aye, so we be.” Grom said just as Tie'sha staggered up to him and nodded. “Yes. Where is she, where is Lady Alyce?” Tie'sha said.

Again, there was that regretful look on the red-haired man's face. “I... I'm sorry.” He said. Next to him, Tie'sha fell to her knees and started to weep. Putting a hand on her back, Grom patted her carefully a few times. “Even if she's dead, there's no way she's dead.” he said, then he put his sword away and walked over.

“I be Gromnir Redskull” He said. The man before him affected a practiced bow and the girl courtsied as though she were a noble.

“I am known as Halidon Whiterock, a swordsman and an adventurer.”

“Áithne.” The sea-weed haired girl said.

Silence hung heavy in the air as they took each others measures. Then the red-haired swordsman stepped forward and lowered his head. “I'm sorry, but there was nothing we could do for her.” He said quietly. Next to him, the sea-weed girl quivered quietly, a pent up bundle of emotions.

“Show me.” Grom said. He knew Alyce wasn't dead. Because... because she had to be alive.

Halidon Whiterock went over to the bundle wrapped in cloth and knelt there. Grom followed him over, staring down. This close, he could clearly see the outline of a young girl in the wrappings.

He fought down the sick feeling in his stomach, choosing to believe. He had to believe. Even if she was dead, there was no way she actually died. He kept repeating this in his head to convince himself, even as the swordsman unwrapped her mutilated body.

“Oh no... this is terrible.” Tie'sha said, falling to her knees next to Alyce's body.

Truth be told, it didn't look good. Alyce was missing an arm and a large part of her chest was just a big hole with splintered chunks of rib in a bloody red soup of internal organs.

Tie'sha began weeping quietly next to where the lass lay, and the two strangers took a distance to let the two of them grieve.

“This is ridiculous.” Grom muttered, going over to Alyce. “Stop crying Tie'sha, she's just resting.”

The maid looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “How can you say that! Can't you see her? There's no way anyone would be alive like that. She's got no pulse, no heartbeat, nothing! She's dead... no... oh no... lady Alyce... dead...”

The maid broke down, weeping uncontrollably.

Meanwhile, he was considering what he knew of ghouls and the undead. First of all, she would be weaker in sunlight. An ordinary undead would burn and eventually die, but Alyce hadn't seemed to mind the sunlight. Despite that, she no doubt carried the curse as all undead did. To what extend it affected her, he knew not, but it was certainly a factor. So first of all he should move her out of the sun.

Secondly, an undead ghoul was a creature of hunger. It consumed the flesh of the fallen. Where ever there was a battlefield, you'd find ghouls eating away at the corpses of the slain. When he had first seen Alyce, she had looked even worse than she did right now, and yet she'd been able to move around.

She told him that she had fixed up her body. And ghouls needed to eat.

The conclusion was obvious. Alyce would be hungry when she woke up.

She'd tried her best to cook for him once before. He had to return the favor. The question was how? What would she eat? Would monsters be okay or should he try to hunt deer? He was afraid of leaving her alone here with these people because they would think she was dead and bury her in the earth, or worse yet, try to burn her on a funeral pyre. Yeah... there wasnae a way he'd let that happen.

The dungeon it was then.

Gently, Grom reached down and picked her up. Tie'sha stood quietly, sniffling and looking at him. Pressing Alyce to his chest in a princess carry, he began the walk back towards the dungeon. The two strangers, Halidon whiterock and Áithne, stood and watched him solemnly, regret showing on their faces.

He reached the dungeon just as Rivanna made it out as the first of the kid-squad. They looked at him in horror, or rather, at Alyce. Stupid useless runts. He briefly considered simply slaughtering them and giving them to Alyce, but he had to maintain some semblance of morals lest he end up like his sister. Slaughter and murder was alright, but indiscriminate slaughter? That was no good. You had to be able to discriminate between friend and foe, ally and enemy. Unlike his damned sister... fucking psychopathic bitch. You just did not betray your own flesh and blood, your own tribe. It was the lowest of low actions, the most disgusting shameful act ever.

“Grom, wait.” Tie'sha called. The girl was a total mess despite the fact that she'd only known Alyce a short time. The lass had a strange effect on people, he had to admit.

“What?” He grunted, not even looking back at her.

“Where... where are you taking her?” Tie'sha asked.

“Back to the dungeon. There be more food fer' her there.” Grom said, starting forward again. Behind him, Tie'sha cried out. “But she's dead!”

“She's an undead ghoul. Do you really think a measly B ranked dungeon is enough to take her out? Come on Tie'sha, you should respect your master more. She is definitely just resting.” Grom said, but he wasn't going to stop any longer, so he continued back down the stairs and through the rubble of the throne room until he came upon the mass murdered monsters.

Tie'sha didn't follow. That was probably for the best. Perhaps the shock of learning that Alyce was a monster in the most literal sense of the world had gotten to her?

He put the lass down near the huge cockatrice and then went over and dragged some of the more whole monsters near it, creating a veritable pile of monster corpses around her. It was almost like a fortress of meat, a shell of flesh. He squeezed through a gap in the mountain of monster corpses and closed it by throwing an ogre's torso at the hole. It stuck there with a wet mushy thump.

She was now totally enclosed by a huge all you could eat monster feast.

The rest would be up to the lass.

Because, she was definitely alive. She was fine. She was just resting. There wasnae a way in all hael that she'd been done in by the dungeon boss and actually died. He just had to wait for her like usual and she would revive and look at him and Tie'sha with that cute puzzled expression as she asked what was wrong with them.

Gritting his teeth, Grom distanced himself from the pile of monster corpses, drew his sword and restlessly thumbed the sharp edge as he waited.