Storming through the shriveled oaks while descending the mountain with steep steps, Brandon was furious. Keeping up with him was Ryan, who had a grimace on his face, and further behind him was Zhang, who was equally as livid. Not far behind, Zhang’s party of B-ranks followed them down the mountain without much difficulty.

The problem was with the D-ranks. They were struggling, a lot, and as the one who brought them all together, Brandon held responsibility for them. Unfortunately for them, he didn’t care about them at all this time, not even when they shouted his praises did he slow down for them.

“Hey! Brandon! Slow down a bit! Don’t just rush headfirst into everything!” Ryan reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Knowing that thief, as well as that archer with the good eyes, the chance of them having set some traps up for us is a hundred percent!”

Brandon shrugged off the clawed hand and continued running, clearly not giving a damn about what he just said. He turned around and gave him a cocky grin.

“What are you worried about? We’ve made some preparations of our own! With the full force of Zhang’s party and his resources, there’s no chance in hell we’ll lose!”

By now, they had already reached the base of the mountain, and Ryan had long given up on trying to convince him.

‘It’ll be fine.’ he told himself, ‘No matter what they throw at him, Brandon won’t fall easily.’

A series of small thumps could be heard as Zhang and his party members landed gracefully onto flat ground. Ryan scrutinized them from where he stood, trying to recall each person’s name and abilities.

From left to right, we had Ronald, who played a role that was similar to Brandon, which is the tank. Unlike Brandon who could create weapons with mana, Ronald’s abilities only allowed him to strengthen himself considerably at the cost of self-control. He truly was a berserker in every sense of the word. This was the muscular, bald man that Ryan had seen arguing with another party when he had first arrived at the dungeon.

He wore no shirt, showing off his well-built muscles and the various scars on his body. Ryan doesn’t approve of this dress code, since Ronald wasn’t particularly fast, and it would do him more good to be wearing more protection, especially against slippery targets like Kayden.

Next, we had Xue Hai, who was from the eastern continent like Zhang. He wore dark clothing and had bloodied bandages all over his body, including his face, which obscured his features. The reason for this was due to his ability, which was blood manipulation. He could only use the blood that he himself created, however, so it really wasn’t as scary as it sounded.

The third member was Madison, the only girl on Zhang’s party. Her hair was a light brown and fashioned into a short bob cut, and her outfit looked more like a uniform than anything an adventurer would wear, with black and orange as her primary colors. Her abilities include X-ray vision, a perfect memory, and the strange ability to make a person lose focus or temporarily forget things. These abilities weren’t very useful in combat; thus she held the role of party manager, responsible for organizing information, maps, and all that jazz.

Lastly, we had Oda, who was completely useless. So useless, in fact, that he had arrived at the base of the mountain at the same time as Erene, who was a C rank. His abilities included converting reflective surfaces into portals for him to teleport through, which sounded incredible… until you got to its restrictions. His abilities can only be used during the day! Or in a brightly lit room! Ryan shook his head with sheer disappointment.

Apparently, since Zhang’s ability was only effective when the moon was out, they needed someone who was powerful in the day to balance it out. Ryan heard that he was practically invincible during the day, but as a man who could teleport, he never really trained his physical abilities, making him poor in physical combat as well.

Seeing Ryan shake his head at him, Oda turned beet red from embarrassment. This only caused Ryan to sigh and shake his head even more. Turning away from the extremely ashamed Oda, Ryan focused his attention on Maddison, who had just stepped up.

She spoke with a bored voice.

“I will now proceed to scan the path ahead for traps before we move forward. Just give me a minute to chant the spell and- H-hey! What are you doing!”

Without warning, Brandon completely disregarded everything she said and charged headfirst into the forest. Just as the group was wondering why on Eden would he do that, Brandon yelled at the top of his lungs,

“I saw him! That damned thief! He’s taunting me!”

His voice disappeared alongside him into the thicket, leaving everyone behind scratching their heads in confusion.

“Did you see anything? Cause I didn’t.” Ryan turned to Zhang.

“No… I didn’t either,” he replied.

He then turned to Erene.

“Did you see anything?”

“Um… Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

It turns out that nobody else saw whatever Brandon was referring to. Immediately, a thought popped up in the back of Ryan’s head. It’s a trap!

It seems that he was not the only one to arrive at this conclusion. As if they had practiced, the group immediately had their weapons drawn and moved into position, backs facing each other in a circle, allowing them a clear line of sight in all directions.

Suddenly, off in the direction where Brandon had gone, a pillar of fire rose up and towered over the barren trees, setting fire to the encompassing area and lighting it up into a sea of flames. Black, billowing smoke began to waft into the sky, contrasting heavily with the crimson glow of the full, red moon.

The group widened their eyes in surprise, but only for a split second, and Ryan resisted the urge to curse at his partner. All of them instinctively knew that this couldn’t be the end of the enemy’s assault and became more vigilant than ever. None of them had any intention of chasing after Brandon, because they all thought that he deserved it.

A few seconds passed, and the sounds of roaring flames only got louder and louder. However, there was no follow-up to the attack, even after more time had passed.

They were safe!

And just as that thought crossed everybody’s minds, the ground disappeared beneath them, and they fell into the depths of a dark pit, screaming.

***

Right at the edge of the newly-made hole, Kayden shimmered into existence and grinned. The plan had worked flawlessly! Well, almost. He had hoped to get everyone, including the D-ranked adventurers, into the pit, but it seemed that they hadn’t arrived yet. The plan was to weed out the weaklings and weaken the stronger ones, but the final result was still acceptable.

As for what was inside the pit, it was the combined effort of everyone at the party. It was first filled with water from Louis’ magic, then heated to boiling point with the help of Alice, and then electrified by Lizza. The end result was a pit full of boiling, charged water that was sure to severely injure anyone who fell in.

As for why they had specifically chosen Brandon to be led away and spared from this treatment, it was because of his passive ability. The more damage he takes, the stronger he becomes. As such, after a round of discussion, the group opted for a way to incapacitate the barbarian rather than trying to beat him into submission. Right now, San, Aisha, and Alice were keeping Brandon busy, and it shouldn’t be too long now before they complete their task.

Kayden decided to take a sit. It was tiring work, digging that hole for nearly an hour straight. Across the pit, he made eye contact with Conner, who was just climbing out of the pit, and gave him a thumbs up. Incidentally, it was thanks to Conner that this trap had been pulled off so successfully, for he had transformed into a sturdy, thin piece of metal to serve as a false ground over the hole.

After covering him with some loose dirt, it was pretty much impossible to distinguish Conner from the actual ground, and once the enemy was standing directly on top of him, he turned into something else, causing them to all fall at once. It was thanks to this that the timing of the trap was so precise, and Kayden couldn’t be more grateful.

‘Now that Conner has made it out, it’s time to regroup with the rest of the party…'

Kayden observed the glowing, blue projection that hovered just by his side. It was a three-dimensional reconstruction of the surrounding area, including the interior of the pitfall trap as well. This meant that he was able to observe the people inside the pit via small, blinking red dots that appeared on the map. If anyone attempted to come out, they would just kick them back down.

“Kayden!” Ezekiel called out to him as he hopped down from a nearby tree, “Brandon has already been subdued.”

“That quickly?” Kayden wondered aloud in surprise. It took him so much effort to barely defend himself against Brandon, yet those three people just disabled him so quickly that it made him feel so cheated.

Ezekiel, noticing his slight frown, gave Kayden a pat on the back.

“It’s all right. We did our best.”

Kayden didn’t know how to feel Ezekiel comforting him about this, so he just chose to respond with his own gesture… which was to pat Ezekiel on the back too. They stood there awkwardly patting each other on the back until Kayden couldn’t take it anymore and turned away.

“[… If you’re done with that, there’s something important you should know. There’s some suspicious activity below, and none of the adventurers below are taking damage anymore.]” Hel warned.

It seems Ezekiel had quickly picked up on this too thanks to his ability. He tilted his head in confusion and blinked his eyes as if double-checking. Soon, his eyes widened, and he turned to look at Kayden with tremendous urgency.

“Blood magic! One of them uses blood magic! They turned all the water inside into—”

Slam!

Out from the hole came a large, green blur that slammed into Kayden with colossal force. Immediately, Kayden spat out a fistful of blood before he was sent flying over the treetops.

His ears were ringing, and he could just barely make out Ezekiel calling his name before he flew far beyond what his voice could reach. Miraculously, Kayden was still able to retain consciousness, and could even slightly open his eyes.

With his blurry vision, he saw first the withered branches on the treetops that sprawled beneath him, then the crimson moon hanging lonely in the dark sky. The scenery kept changing each time he made a full rotation in the air. Tree, Sky, Tree, Sky… Somehow, he felt a strong feeling of déjà vu.

Instinctively, once he got himself together, he turned into a bird once more and flapped his wings as hard as he could, reorienting himself in the air.

What in the world just hit me?!

Then, he saw it.

Leaping from tree to tree and heading straight toward his direction was what could only be described as a wingless dragon that stood over two meters tall. It had green scales covering it from head to toe, and underneath them hid obscenely big muscles that did not fit the aesthetic of one. Razor-sharp teeth lined the interior of its mouth and a long, forked tongue lolled out of the side of its snout, drooling a viscous, green saliva that singed the trees as it dripped onto them.

Each time the reptile landed upon a tree, it bent and cracked as it struggled to support the heavy load. However, using the bent tree as a springboard, the reptile then shot forth with frightening speed and power, bringing him tens of meters closer with each leap.

‘No way… is that… Ryan?’

Kayden couldn’t believe his eyes. No. He simply didn’t want to, for if he was right, it would mean that he had drawn the ire of such a creature. He was going to have to fight that?!

Before he could wrap his head around it, the hulking lizard stopped and tilted his head upwards. It stared straight his way and Kayden could see its creepy, yellow eyes and black pupils blink at him.

“[Kayden! Incoming!]”

With what felt like a sonic boom, the tree snapped in half as the lizard catapulted himself into the air, appearing right in front of Kayden in a matter of seconds. A muscular claw strikes the position where Kayden was just a second ago, missing him just barely as he swerved out of the way. The force of the wind that followed made him wobble a bit in the air, but otherwise, he was fine.

Kayden had gotten very lucky, and without the System’s timely warning, Kayden doubt that he had any chance of avoiding that.

“[Another one! Incoming!]”

‘What?!’

As the giant lizard plummeted towards the ground, it did a full somersault mid-air and slammed its tail down onto the pitiful bird. The attack just came too suddenly, and the momentum it carried was more than enough to deal a devastating blow to Kayden, forcing his body to return to its original form.

His eyes rolled back, revealing only the whites as he was sent hurtling into the ground below.

[Critical hit!]

[User has taken 84 damage!!!]