[ Welcome to the Mountainous Marshes Dungeon ]
[ Dungeon Type: Hunt ]
[ Objective: Defeat the Lizardman King ]
[ Dungeon Rank: Blue ]
[ The Mother System wishes you success ]
Daniel looked around. He was standing in a kind of marsh that smelled like absolute filth. Slowly, he tried to get out of it.
However, suddenly from the other side of the marsh, a creature lunged at him. Daniel swung the spear he had gotten from Joe and with one motion, decapitated the creature that had charged at him.
"So this is a corrupted Lizardman, huh?" Daniel looked at the creature that had attacked him—it was a Lizardman.
It looked just like a lizard, except it had the build of an orc. Plus, due to being corrupted by the aura of corruption and turned into a corrupted beast, its eyes were completely black.
"Just a D-rank corrupted beast," he muttered and stored its corpse in his inventory.
Unfortunately, killing inside dungeons doesn't give any EXP, and this creature was too weak to turn into a Fallen.
The best option was to recycle their bodies and sell them to the Awakened Association once he got out to earn a bit of income.
After exiting the marsh, he summoned all of his Fallen.
"Glory to the Lord," they all knelt on one knee and bowed their heads.
Daniel waved his hand, signaling them to rise.
"Vorak, can you find my sister or any other human here?" he looked at Vorak and asked.
"I don't think it'll be easy, my lord. The stench of the marsh is strong and severely weakens my sense of smell."
Daniel sighed. He expected this—the smell was so bad it even completely disrupted his own sense of smell.
"Spread out and search the entire area. Let me know if you find anything," he then looked at the rest of his Fallen and added,
"Also, if you come across an opponent far stronger than yourself, run."
This was a blue-rank dungeon, and his strongest Fallen were at best C-rank. Even his strongest, Azrak, couldn't match or fight a B-rank awakened.
Everyone except Vorak nodded and vanished with a step. Daniel took another look at the marsh he'd just exited and, after making sure there was nothing else there, mounted Vorak.
"Let's go check out the rest of the area," he patted Vorak's head, and Vorak took off running.
The path was completely mountainous—not a simple mountain, but an overwhelmingly large one. Even stranger, they passed many marshes along the way.
Clearly, each marsh was home to different groups of Lizardmen, which surprised Daniel. He had thought Lizardmen lived more in grasslands.
There were also dead, strange trees along the way, and the air and environment were heavily polluted and dangerous.
That only made him more worried about his sister. This place was way too dangerous for an F-rank.
"Careful," he muttered as they crossed a particularly large marsh, when suddenly several corrupted Lizardmen appeared and blocked their path.
Vorak stopped abruptly and stared at them coldly. Daniel assessed their strength.
There were about seven of them. Four were C-rank. Fortunately, none were strong enough to be a threat to him.
"Oh? Another human?" said the Lizardman at the front, lazily but hungrily, holding a mace.
"So you can talk," Daniel raised an eyebrow but frowned at the Lizardman's words.
Another human?
"Have you seen any other humans besides me?"
"Why should I tell you, human? Anyway, you came at the perfect time. I was hungry," the Lizardman licked his lips with that weird tongue and said mockingly.
He glanced at the other Lizardmen beside him, who were clearly eyeing Daniel as prey. He said something to them in a strange language.
Daniel didn't understand what he said, but it clearly made the others upset. If he had to guess, he probably told the others that "this one's mine" and to not even think about eating him.
"Let's make a deal. If you tell me where the other humans are, I'll give you a peaceful death."
"Haha, are you blind, human? You're surrounded by us Lizardmen, and you're the one making threats?" The Lizardman leader laughed, then grew cold.
He raised his mace and prepared to attack. The other Lizardmen didn't hesitate and charged at Daniel.
Daniel sighed, raised his spear, and ordered Vorak to charge. A battle broke out instantly, and Daniel effortlessly killed three D-rank Lizardmen.
[ Slash of Destruction ]
His spear immediately glowed, radiating a destructive light, and with one strike, Daniel killed two of the C-rank Lizardmen—and of course, didn't forget to destroy their corruption cores.
Unlike regular Lizardmen, these corrupted ones could revive as long as their corruption core wasn't destroyed.
Normally, even a D or C-rank awakened would have a hard time destroying a corrupted beast's core of equal rank so easily.
But he's not just anyone, right?
"Haa… haah…" The last C-rank Lizardman panicked and tried to run toward his leader, but Daniel decapitated him in one strike and destroyed his core too.
The Lizardman leader frowned as he watched his underlings get massacred so easily. This human was stronger than expected.
"You know, I asked twice, and you didn't answer—so now I'll make you tell me what I want to know," Daniel said coldly, then dashed toward the leader.
"For killing Lizardmen, you shall be punished!" the leader shouted, but instead of fighting, he turned and ran at full speed.
"....."
For a moment, Daniel thought he was seeing things. All that talk and now this? Such a coward?
"Vorak, don't let him escape," Daniel sighed and ordered.
Vorak nodded and activated his skill [ Light of Destruction ]. A devastating beam of light shot from his eyes and chased down the fleeing Lizardman.
The Lizardman leader panicked upon seeing the beam and threw his mace backward to lighten himself and run faster—but it was useless.
The beam completely destroyed his lower torso, leaving him paralyzed.
Vorak was only D-rank, but as Daniel grew stronger, so did the stats of his Fallen. With Daniel's stat increase, Vorak and the rest naturally got stronger too.
That's why Vorak's [ Light of Destruction ] had become strong enough to even defeat a C-rank. But unfortunately, Vorak still couldn't kill a C-rank entirely.
"Aaaghhh haaahhh you cruel human aaghhh!" the Lizardman leader collapsed on the ground, screaming in pain.
"Are you a child or something? Why are you screaming so much?" Daniel calmly dismounted Vorak and walked toward him.
He was seriously starting to think something was wrong with this Lizardman's brain—this guy was supposed to be a corrupted beast.
Daniel looked at his lower half, which had been destroyed. It was already regenerating rapidly. Probably only a few minutes before he'd be fully healed.
Daniel grabbed him by the head and lifted his entire body off the ground.
"What do you want, human? I'll have you know I'm someone very important! If you kill me, the Lizardman King won't let you live!" Despite the fear in his eyes, he tried his best to hide it and speak with arrogance and pride.
Daniel raised an eyebrow. This idiot's stupidity knew no bounds. Without a word, he ripped off the Lizardman's arms on the spot.
"AAGHHH!! YOU MONSTER!" his screams of pain echoed again.
"I'm asking one last time. Have you seen any other humans in the past few hours or not?" Daniel said with murder in his tone, making the Lizardman tremble.
"I have! I have! There were several humans! I don't know how many! But it was more than one! A lot of them! But they were all weak and useless!"
"Where are they?"
"We captured them and sent them to the lair of King Zargurt the Crawling-Hand!"
"It's been a long time since we had humans to eat! The King hasn't had a good meal in ages! He plans to roast them and eat them!"