Chương 62: (B2 Chapter 13)

It was a messy job, but I had finally done it. I had taken the time to pry off its claws and the four larger fangs the monster had. It had taken me much more time than I had planned for, about an hour or so, but I now had a stack of claws and fangs in my inventory. I had no idea if what I harvested could even be useful, but I wouldn't know unless I tried. Moreover, I had not done much harvesting during the tutorial, and I needed to fix my mindset.

Done with the work, I entered the apartment with the destroyed door, went to the bathroom, and washed myself clean using a water bottle from my inventory. Once I was feeling relatively cleaner, I went under concealed presence and made my way back to our new base. I crossed an intersection and paused. A sense of wrongness spread through me. It was like my subconsciousness had noticed something that wasn't right, and it was pointing at me to notice it right away.

I looked around trying to see what had my mind so spooked. The moonlight was illuminating the intersection much brighter than the roads between tall buildings; however, the intersection was empty, save for the abandoned cars and new flora. The shadows stretched in different directions before merging with the larger shadows of the buildings. I looked at the buildings, trying to see if there was something odd that I wasn't seeing.

I couldn't spot anything weird or out of place though; the moonlight was glinting off the windows as always, and there were vines and destroyed infrastructure all over… Wait… Realizing something, I looked straight up, and saw an absolutely frightening sight. I froze right away, frantically hoping that concealed presence was working as intended. My heart betrayed me by beating louder than a bass drum as I continued staring at the top of the building just in front of me.

Sitting on its roof was a massive creature, that was in fact so big it looked like a part of the building itself. It was pitch black even with the full moon shining on it, and it was absolutely still. I couldn't even see any features apart from it being darker than the sky behind it, and it being so large that it took up almost an entire side of the roof by itself. Its height was difficult to judge from this far away, but it was at the very least five stories tall. I had no clue what to do.

If concealed presence was working, I should get out of here as fast as possible. If it wasn't, any movement from my end would bring its attention to me. I wasn't even sure if its face was towards me or not, or if it even had a face. Wait… is it even a monster, or is it something else…? All I could really see was a large mass of pure darkness. Could it be another dungeon portal, just on a far larger scale…? My question was immediately answered.

The monster, as it turned out it really was a monster, moved for the first time since I saw it. Two gigantic wings unfurled from its body, spreading over both adjoining buildings with ease and blocking out the moonlight completely from reaching me. The wings flapped once, and the moonlight was suddenly shining on me once again. It was gone, just like that. It made no sound, and it didn't disturb anything. Beating such massive wings surely should have generated some serious wind, but nothing happened.

It was there one second, and simply gone the next. There was absolutely no sign of it ever having existed. Assassins are supposed to love the night, but I don't think I'll be doing much night-time exploring alone now…

I finally crossed the final building and could see our new base up ahead. My heart was constantly hammering in my chest, and I still kept looking up in the sky or on the rooftops of the buildings in case that monstrosity was still following me, but thankfully I didn't catch another glimpse of it. Either that or it was somehow evading my sight, which wouldn't be too difficult despite its size as the speed with which it had taken off beggared belief. I told myself that it just wasn't in the vicinity.

Besides, if that thing attacked, at least it would be an instant death… Taking a few careful glances all around and above me just in case I was leading a huge monster straight to our base despite being under concealed presence, I started taking the steps towards the wide, administrative building. Despite the late night, I could see moving figures inside through the dimly lit windows. It looked like there were a few small light sources inside, probably fire with the way the light flickered.

I stepped inside, noting the two guards stationed at the entrance, and saw that there were a number of candles placed at different places, bathing the insides with a dim yet inviting glow. Apart from the two guards outside, I saw two different pairs that looked like they were patrolling the ground floor. However, there was no one else besides them here. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

The entrance was much cleaner than it had been before, but it was also completely silent. I knew I had stayed out for long, but I didn't realize that it had been so long that everyone had gone off to sleep. Or perhaps they are upstairs… I was still under concealed presence, so I silently made my way to the stairs. I took the time to stop and listen for someone, but the first three floors were absolutely silent. It wasn't until the fourth floor that I heard whispered conversations from behind a few doors.

Even though it was difficult to say for sure, none of the whispers sounded like anyone I knew, so I continued to the fifth floor. There was one room from which the low sound of conversation was coming from. I paused and listened to the conversation, trying to determine if someone familiar was inside.

"… still no sign of anyone else. You really think we are the only ones here?"

"It's possible, as our tutorial ended early, so it really could be that no one else is here yet!"

"Really wish everyone was here. I miss my husband and my kids" Having determined that it wasn't anyone I knew, I started making my way down the hall in search of an empty room. Once I had found a room that had no sound of snoring or movement from inside, I opened the door slowly and made my way inside, careful not to make noise. Once I was in and the door had been shut behind me, I undid concealed presence and gave a sigh of relief at the tension draining out of me. Yet another exhausting day…

still, beats being an accountant…

The next morning, I found the group and we had breakfast together. Sharing a few laughs and bantering with them felt good, and I enjoyed the lighthearted conversation. But after breakfast ended, I knew it was time to get down to business.

"I need to talk to you guys," I spoke up. Immediately, exaggerated reactions started coming my way.

"Here he goes again, can't let us relax for even half a day," Marcus said with a slow roll of his eyes.

"Just what I was waiting for! What are we fighting now?" asked Omar, ever-ready to launch an attack spell at something.

"Alex my friend, even I'm not as driven as you, and that's saying something," chuckled Mason.

"Noooooo! I want to just have a day in bed! I want to sleep all day!" moaned Madelline in a loud voice as she drooped over the table, silencing everyone else. We all stared at the always silent and shy Madelline in surprise. She probably realized that no one had responded for a few seconds, as she looked up with a start. Her face turned bright red at being the subject of the silent stares of everyone else. Lucas thankfully came to her rescue.

"Well, now that we have all told Alex how we feel, let's hear him out," he said, pointedly staring at me. The others also turned to look at me, although I could see quite a few eyes constantly flickering over at Madelline from time to time.

"Yes… well…. I wanted to talk about our plans going forward…" I explained all I had learned about the system so far, and my assumption of us being under-levelled when compared to others who would be completing their tutorials in three days from now. I spoke about the dangers that may cause, and also the fact that this merged planet had plenty of dangers that we were not prepared for at all.

I told them about the scorpions, and the huge monster that I had seen just last night to hammer in on how severe the threats were. I also told them about wanting to bring more people into the fold and start contributing. We couldn't have people just laying about doing nothing all day like we did in the tutorial. As soon as I spoke about wanting to get the production classes more involved, Mason shared some encouraging news.

Since there was a lot of metal all around in the buildings and in the cars, the smiths had already identified that they could start working on armour. The tailors had also spoken about how they could use the leather from car seats to make light armour, and they were confident they would be able to find other kinds of fabrics now that we were all here. That was honestly great news, and I was still hopeful that the system would expand the choices in the store when the tutorials concluded for everyone.

We spent a few hours planning out the nitty gritty stuff, with Sam and Hannah also joining us during the meeting. Plans made, we prepared ourselves for the journey ahead. I also transferred all the claws, fangs, and a few other things I thought were useless to Mason, who assured me he would pass it on to the production classes to see if something could come up. Lucas also introduced me to Diane, an alchemist, to whom I showed the potion I had on me.

It took her some time, but she was able to conclude that it really was a mana potion. This was an extreme relief, and I immediately sought out Marcus, Omar, and Madelline. I had been able to gather 29 potions from the goblin mages, so I gave each of them five potions each, leaving me with a comfortable 14. We had no idea on how much mana they actually generated, but it was bound to come in handy. The four of us also took some time to speak about mana and magic.

I saw each of their spells multiple times, and each time arcane comprehension helped me understand their spells in greater detail. I explained all I learned to the group, and combined with my new skill and Omar's resonance ability, we made some serious progress with magic. I even started trying to form my own mana bolt spell, but the process was somewhat slowed down due to the fact that Mana Sense was still unusable. Still, being able to bounce ideas about magic felt amazing.

We then had lunch, and finally set off, having prepared as much as we could. About forty minutes later, seven of us were standing in front of a familiar, swirling portal. Would you like to enter the Dungeon: The Hollowed Maw (E-Grade)? I looked behind me at the determined gazes of everyone, and turned back around to the portal. Yes!