CHAPTER 50: CHAPTER 50 – HYENAING

While Vanessa walked ahead searching for traps with Paula right behind her using Lumi to scout for monsters forward, Michael and Matthew walked a bit further behind keeping an eye behind them.

"You’re also at level 10?" Michael asked Matthew.

"Yeah."

"You leveled up really fast!" Michael exclaimed. "Show me your stats later." He said hitting Matthew on the shoulder with a light slap.

Suddenly, Paula raised her hand calling attention to herself making everyone stop. Then Lumi came flying back and landed on her shoulder.

"The party in front of us..." She said reluctantly "They’re dead."

Pressing forward slowly, they found their bodies that Lumi warned them about. All of them disfigured, pierced with hundreds of holes. Their blood all over the floor seeping through the cracks on the stone floor.

"A trap." Vanessa said looking around.

Paula averted her eyes away from the bodies. Matthew and Michael kept their gazes on them. Specially a young girl who was probably as old as Matthew, but they couldn’t say for sure given the state of her body.

"What do we do now?" Matthew said unsure of what the proper proceeding was for finding adventurer bodies in a dungeon.

"Usually we call body retrievers to take the remains. Their belongings are given to the family. However, in this dungeon, and on dungeons where the bodies can’t be properly retrieved... We take some form of identification and bring those back." Michael explained still looking at the bodies.

"Some people loot what’s valuable from the bodies. But we shouldn’t do that." Paula commented still not looking at the dead.

It took some time for Vanessa to find the trap mechanism, a thousand of spikes that closed from the walls into people walking through the corridor. She skillfully disarmed the trap with a sigh. It was a grim sight up ahead.

"This one was rough." Vanessa said wiping her hands. "I’m not sure if I would’ve find it myself if it weren’t for them."

"How long have we been walking?" Matthew asked looking at his watch.

"Two hours." Paula said looking at hers. "We faced a couple of dust devils that were a bit tricky to kill. Other than that we found nothing."

"Hyenaing is not the most profitable strategy, but it’s safer." Michael referenced the practice to walk behind more powerful parties when exploring dungeons, similar to hyenas on the wild going after scraps from lions.

"That’s not what I meant." Matthew said. "We could bring their bodies outside ourselves."

The other three looked at him confused at first, but then understanding from where he was coming from. If their own bodies were lost in a dungeon, they themselves would prefer to have them retrieved and delivered to their families.

"Are you sure Matty?" Paula asked tenderly. "We’ll lost a lot of time going back and back in. We have no obligation of doing it."

"I am." Matthew said with his gaze fixed on the dead girl. "Can’t leave them like this."

The other three looked at each other and shrugged. They would only feel bad now leaving the bodies there to be lost forever after what Matthew said.

Matthew carried two bodies himself, Michael and Vanessa, one each and Lumi carried the last. Paula took the role of guiding them through the maze using the map they drew.

The dungeon staff was so puzzled seeing the party retrieving bodies that they took some time to understand what was going on. No other party did anything like this. As Paula said earlier, there was no obligation in doing so.

The staff called the police and the coroners to take the bodies. After the police did a brief interview with Matthew and his party, the bodies and their belongings were taken away to be returned to their families.

"At least the dust devils mana crystals will pay for gas." Vanessa laughed looking at the dungeon’s countdown timer that was showing 4 hours left for the new cycle.

"Sorry." Matthew said sighing.

"Not a problem, kid. You did the right thing." Vanessa consoled him patting his head.

"We didn’t make a profit today, but it felt good doing something nice." Michael said straightening his back with a groan.

"Should we come back tomorrow?" Paula asked looking at her nails and checking if they were properly maintained.

"I think we can." Vanessa said getting up from the bench she was sitting.

However, the moment they turned to leave, a commotion drew their attention to the dungeon gate. A group of adventurers came running out. Matthew recognized them, they were also a low level party that was hyenaing in the dungeon and entered almost at the same time as them. They were missing a member.

They breathed heavily when staff came to them to ask what was the problem.

"A fucking Shedu!" The older member of the party screamed. "It got Will!"

Matthew and Vanessa quickly got ready for trouble after listening to the name of the monster. Of course they still remembered their own battle with a Shedu. But what were the odds that another real Shedu would appear in the dungeon?

Pretty high it seemed as the Shedu slowly walked out of the portal that lead inside the dungeon.

"It’s not possible!" That same adventurer screamed.

He was right. Dungeon monsters were made of mana, they could not leave the dungeon. Unless during a dungeon fluctuation that spilled mana into the primal realm, similar to what happened with the goblin dungeon all those months ago.

The fact that that Shedu was there could only mean two things. Or the Labyrinth was suffering a fluctuation or that Shedu was as real as the one Matthew and Vanessa killed the other day.

The Shedu breathed fire while the adventurers and the staff ran away. There wasn’t anyone around powerful enough to fight that monster.

"Lumi." Paula called her spirit friend that came out of her ring in a flash of light.

"Wait!" Matthew said drawing one sword.

"What?" Paula asked him confused while Lumi was flying over her in circles waiting for orders.

"We can take it." Matthew said looking at Vanessa.

"We almost died the last time, Matthew." She said taking some throwing knives on her hands.

"We’re stronger now. And there are four of us." He said taking off his eye patch. "If Lumi kills it, we’ll get no experience."

"The mana knows." Michael said putting an arrow on his bow in agreement.

Vanessa looked at Paula that shrugged.

"If things get dangerous, Lumi will interfere." The blonde woman said casting the Agility Up spell on the four of them.

Matthew darted forward shooting the Shedu with his new gun and with his new sword on the other hand. The bullets doing only enough damage to barely draw blood.

The Shedu immediately focused its attention on Matthew and, with a flap of its wings, it sent two air blades against him that he barely managed to doge thanks to the Agility Up spell. He was having trouble bringing out his demonic mana since he was not under the influence of any extreme emotion.

Michael tried a couple of arrows that were as useful as Matthew’s bullets. Only drawing the attention of the Shedu to himself.

When the monster turned to attack Michael with another air blade, Vanessa drew its attention to herself throwing some daggers on its wings.

Matthew, Vanessa and Michael were keeping their distance from the Shedu each drawing its attention at a time making the monster confused on who to attack and walking in circles in front of the gate. The dungeon complex was large enough for them to keep their distances and slowly sap the creature’s Vital Shield.

Matthew felt himself getting stronger and looked at Paula that had just cast a Strength Up spell on him from afar and was turning to cast it on Vanessa.

The Shedu finally decided on a target and stopped running around chasing the three of them. It flapped its wings and flew towards Paula breathing fire over her.

Paula’s stats were not good for combat as she focused in being a supporter. Her Agility was only 6 and her Vitality was only 9. If she was hit by that breath of fire, she was as good as dead. However, she countered the fire breath with a curtain of ice magic drawing the power to cast it from Lumi through the Spirit Magic skill. That weakened the fire breath enough to only singe her clothes slightly.

But on the same flight, the Shedu dropped on top of her with its hooves and barely hit her if not for an arrow Michael shot with more mana imbued in it than he normally used. Not enough to harm the monster, but enough to move it mid air centimeters away from his sister.

That gave Matthew the opportunity to get close and try to cut off one of its wings off, but he still lacked the power to do so. His blade only hit its wing with a thud and bounced back. They weren’t doing enough damage to the Shedu. He would need to use his demonic mana.

The Shedu almost hit his face with a kick, which Matthew dodged, but managed to slap him with a wing making him take a few steps back. And turned to him while Paula sneaked away from the battle. On the same movement, it tried to bite Matthew, but instead found one of Vanessa’s knives. Its bite hard enough to bend the metal and spit it away.

It was then, at close combat, that Matthew finally felt it. The smile creeping on his face. The demonic mana surging inside of him increasing his power. His eye shinning bright red while his vision returned on his left eye. The thrill of battle taking over him.

"Come again you ugly bastard."