At the same time Verdell was silently feeling relived having guessed that the crypt guardian rank necromancer from the Eternal Life Sanctum that he and Scaly would find themselves dealing with in the near future was someone inexperienced who had just recently reached the rank and was looking for quick success, back at the necromancer intelligence gathering outpost in charge of managing the bone birds keeping an eye on the situation across other battlefronts within the eighth floor of the dungeon, the younger necromancers had gathered together around one specific magical artifact connected to the bone bird in charge of keeping an eye on the approaching group of adventurers.
"Hehe, they are about to reach our trap."
"Indeed, I’m looking forward to seeing the looks on their faces afterwards. Even if we can’t kill them with our strength and the few undead and skeletons available to us, we can at least disgust them enough, so they never dare taunt us like that again!"
"True! How dare they eat something delicious looking like that in front of us! They clearly know we haven’t eaten any but those barely edible dry rations over the past few weeks, as the flesh of those monsters we’ve killed since entering the dungeon have a more important purpose... Yeah, right! I’ve seen those senior bone carvers eating grilled monster meat that was supposed to be used for undead creation!"
One glance was enough to tell just how excited these young necromancers were, as they chatted amongst each other filled with anticipation and anger. All of them looking forward to watching the group of adventurers walk directly into their trap.
The anger these younger necromancers felt towards their superiors for forcing them to eat dry rations while they themselves ate the monster meat that they couldn’t because it was important for growing the number of undead in the undead army, had been entirely directed towards these adventurers.
Shifting the view to what these younger necromancers saw through the magical artifact connected to the bone bird in charge of keeping an eye on the adventurers from the guild, one could see the group of SS Rank Adventurers moving through poisonous miasma in a fast yet steady manner. Killing any monster that got too close with ease and without the slightest problem. Having learnt from what had happened earlier, they made sure to keep pace with the slowest among them to avoid another potentially deadly situation.
The delicious crocodilian grilled meat had already been consumed by the group. Filling their stomachs as they could focus their full attention on making progress towards the main battlefield where the necromancers of the Eternal Life Sanctum and their undead armies were clashing with the monsters under the dungeon core.
Still, knowing that they might be running out of time with how the necromancers who should already know about their presence had seemingly decided to completely ignore them, they were far from being as relaxed as their outward demeanor might suggest.
However, it was also because of this that none of them noticed the skeletons that had been absent before starting to appear alongside their path in increasingly large numbers- or rather, it wasn’t that they failed to notice these skeletons. Instead, it was because they viewed their appearance as normal with them getting closer to the main battlefield. Viewing them as weak skeletons that had been left behind when the larger army had swept through, something that was far from odd and could even be considered a normal occurrence taking place whenever a large army of undead swept through an area.
In fact, part of the work that the adventurers took on in the places where the Eternal Life Sanctum was normally active, was taking care of the countless skeletons and undead that had been left behind by the vast undead legions under the Eternal Life Sanctum.
"Wait! Something is off about the skeletons-"
Rumble~!
By the time the slowest amongst them that had been injured earlier, the female mage Sylvia, noticed something strange about the skeletons that had begun appearing along their path, it was already too late, as a loud rumbling sound suddenly echoed out from everywhere around them. "Everyone, get ready!" Forcing the leader of the group to stop in place before signaling everyone else to follow and prepare themselves for what was about to come.
Having originally believed that the Eternal Life Sanctum necromancers had ignored them to focus their full attention on the dungeon core, the group of adventurers now found themselves realizing that this might not be the case. In fact, the lack of movement from the necromancers of the Eternal Life Sanctum so far might have been a tactic to make them lower their guard and make use of the skeletons and undead normally left behind when a large enough undead army passed through to lay down a deadly trap.
In fact, the adventurers could all see how the seemingly mindless skeletons that had been moving around without any clear goal in mind a few seconds earlier had suddenly sprang into action and activated some kind of hidden mechanism hidden beneath the ground. A clear indication that these seemingly mindless skeletons had already fallen under the direct control of a powerful necromancer.
After all, in the eyes of these adventurers, they would never have believed that their earlier action of filling their stomachs had ended up drawing the hostility of dozens of young necromancers, who each joined in to help controlling the close to hundred skeletons moving around carefully activating the final part of the trap they had created for these adventurers.
The reason why the adventurers believed this was a trap laid down by a powerful necromancer was simply because only a powerful necromancer had the ability to control so many skeletons at once into doing so many different things at the same time with a clear level of precision and skill beyond what could be archived with a simple mental command involved in the movements of those seemingly weak skeletons. Giving them an illusion that the one behind this trap wasn’t just a powerful necromancer but was in fact the leading necromancer in charge of the attack on the dungeon core personally acting.
Because of this, though they could have easily dealt with those weak skeletons, they didn’t dare to do so out of fear that this might push them into an even more dangerous and deadly situation.
For this reason, they decided to remain in place where they could best deal with any changes and attacks as a single unit.
In a sense, this was exactly what the group of younger necromancers hoped would happen, as this was essentially the only way that they would be able to successfully activate the trap they had worked hard on for these adventures.
RUUUUMBLE-!
In the end, together with another far louder rumbling sound this time around, the trap finally activated in full after all the preparations were in place and the location of the adventurers calculated-
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
"Huh? What is that...?" And with the exclamation of the mage Sylvia, the group of powerful adventures watched with a growing sense of dread as countless large and small projectiles alike came raining down towards them from every direction.
Even if they couldn’t fully comprehend what these projectiles were as they gave off no mana fluctuations and didn’t seem like a serious attack on the surface, the smell of these projectiles raining down towards them from above was more than enough to make the faces of every single one of these adventurers go pale.
"Quick! Raise a magic barrier! Don’t let those things get anywhere near us!" Unsurprisingly, the leader of the group jumped in and took the lead in shouting orders to raise a magical barrier to block those projectiles raining down towards them from above and Sylvia and the other mages did their best to jump forward to block those projectiles from reaching them-
Thud~
Thud!
Plop~!
Splash~
Unfortunately, it was too late, as Sylvia only barely managed to protect herself with a simple wind barrier, while the other mages hadn’t even managed to protect themselves before the first few of those disgusting projectiles managed to get through and land on top of the group.
Some tried to cut them, but nothing could be done as the projectiles either plopped down on the ground in two or directly burst forth with an even fouler smelling liquid that drenched the unfortunate adventurer cutting into it.
It wasn’t long before the group realized this attack wasn’t an attempt to kill them, but instead one specifically designed to disgust them...
"Cursed necromancers! I swear I will tear apart every single one of you!"
"I won’t rest until all of those necromancers are dead!"
"Curse them, curse their bloody methods! Too disgusting! At least face us normally!"
And from the loud shouts that soon came from the adventurers, it was clear that the necromancers had succeed in what they had set out to do...