Meanwhile, in an elevated cave a hundred meters away, all four members of a certain group were unconscious.
At the same time, the rats that had been mobbing at the bottom of the cliff had also already cannibalized the corpses of their brethren and had begun to redirect the target of their bloodlust once more.
It so happened that, while they managed to protect themselves through various tools, Satio’s attack still injured them, and a lot of blood had been spilled.
The blood of toughened-level humanoid creatures was really very attractive. Even when they were at an elevation, and even if the wind was strong, the monsters could still smell them after a while.
The monsters manically tried to hunt for their prey, who were unfortunately now unconscious and unable to defend themselves, once more.
Smoke continued to emerge from the elevated cave, trapped by the wind. Then, as it cleared, some of the people inside started to shift.
The first person to sit up was the half-elf with green colored hair. Her hair was quite messy compared to its neatly braided hair from before. "Is everyone alright?" she asked, going to check on each of them.
Fortunately, they were all breathing, though they were injured. She frowned. If she had been more alert, she could’ve activated her rune faster—
"Leiah...what’s with that face? We’re not dead."
It was the raven-haired assassin who forced herself to sit up, groans escaping her mouth as she did so. "Ugh, my body..."
Meanwhile, Leiah looked at the other two companions and rushed to them. Because the two blocked most of the attacks that went through to them, they were much worse off than the two women.
"They’re in bad shape," Leiah said, taking note of their wounds and which ones needed to be fixed first (at least in her opinion, but she wasn’t wholly confident since she was not a healer).
In contrast, Nona’s tone was flat, though the way she checked on them was gentle. "Well, they did cover for us..."
The worst of them was Marcus, who was literally battered with wounds all over his body. He definitely had a lot of internal injuries as well. They hurriedly tied it to stop the bleeding, and it was fortunate their ranks were high enough that they wouldn’t die from injuries like this.
At least for now. At least if it was treated properly on time, though that was not possible in a cave in the middle of nowhere.
Next, they handled Durgan, who seemed to finally be gaining consciousness.
A couple of minutes later, everyone opened their eyes. Seeing as everyone was alive, Leiah heaved a sigh of relief.
She looked down at the wooden stone in her hand, which had now cracked. She couldn’t help but feel a bit sad.
Marcus, who happened to be next to her, saw this and immediately felt emotional. "Darn. That rune must have been expensive..."
Leiah shook her head. "It’s alright..." she said, voice soft. "It’s good that no one else died."
Marcus’s eyes heated up immediately, lining up with tears. The big, muscular man quickly wiped his eyes with his arm. "...none among us, but..."
A moment of silence passed as they remembered the colleagues and friends they lost from other teams. They were not that close with most of them, but some were friends.
Especially to the gregarious Marcus, who was friends with everyone , which was also why he was the most emotional one.
In their team, because of their positioning as the ’weakest’, they were at the back of the line when heading to Level 2. Luckily, no one died among them, but even then, they were all very injured.
At this, they couldn’t help but curse, remembering the sequence of events that led to this in the first place. They didn’t know what that bastard did, but somehow they knew it was his fault one way or another.
Not to mention, he tried to kill them! Wasn’t that proof enough?
If Leiah didn’t block that attack with her expensive protection rune, then they would’ve died for sure!
"That bastard!" the blonde cursed. "How dare he—"
"How can we deal with him? Isn’t he a noble?"
"Let the Adventurer’s guild deal with him!"
"The adventurer’s guild dislikes politics, unlike those greedy mercenaries. I’m not sure they’d be involved," Durgan said.
"But—"
Leiah cut them off. "Not necessarily. It is part of the guild’s policies to protect our interests to some degree. We are the victims here."
"But...it wouldn’t be an easy fight."
"Yeah...our guild...isn’t exactly the strongest," Durgan sighed. "Not to mention...we lost so many in this expedition."
"Damn... why are we so unlucky..."
"Those bastards should’ve hired those mercenaries. They just work together. We... we are friends."
Adventurers and Mercenaries had different systems and different priorities, not to mention there had always been a subtle rivalry between the two groups since their inception.
They also covered a lot of similar grounds, so they butted heads a lot, and so did their members.
Both groups were skilled in survival, fighting, and handling danger. Both accepted tasks in exchange for money, resources, or reputation.
They were well-travelled, they often operated in groups or parties, and lived a dangerous lifestyle.
The differences were generally in motivation and some preferences. Adventurers focused more on exploration, discovery, fame, loot, or personal growth, while mercenaries were motivated by contracts, money, and political or military goals.
Adventurer groups were usually groups of friends, families, or other closely-knit groups. Mercenaries formed companies or factions and generally had command structures with varying strictness.
They could sometimes be comparable to knights and soldiers under nobles...except they just hoped to line their own pockets.
Anyway, one could see why they would hate each other’s guts. Mercenaries think adventurers were poor, uneducated, and had no ambition, while Adventurers think mercenaries were greedy bastards who only think of themselves.
It was also adventurers who knew more about dungeons due to the exploratory nature of their work, but in terms of organized forces, it was usually better to hire mercenaries, which was what this mission should’ve been since the employer didn’t need to head too deep into the portals.
They put those questions aside for now. First, they had to figure out what to do next.
They looked at their status gems and saw their HPs and staminas were already dangerously low—less than 20% for the most part—and that was simply not enough to survive a few more days of travel.
"What could we do now?"
"We need to get moving," Nona said, looking at Marcus, whose wounds had opened up a lot due to the force. "Otherwise, Marcus will bleed to death. With his size, we might drown."
"..."
Marcus looked bitterly at his childhood friend. "Why do you keep joking about my blood?"
Nona looked at him and did not bother to answer decently. "You always did like to bleed. Since we were kids. You practically run your head into the corners of tables."
"..." to be fair, most young brats were so energetic and tended to bump their heads on tables a lot. Marcus was just a bit more intense than the other kids.
This conversation could not continue when they heard the scurrying below them, and their stomachs dropped.
Scurry, scurry
Scurry, scurry
They felt goosebumps rise in their skin as they heard the all-too-familiar sound of rats climbing up.
Marcus immediately cursed, forgetting all about his wounds. "Fuck! They’re here!"