Delayed Transfer

Mark then informed them that since it’s a Friday tomorrow, they would be doing the dungeon dive every Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the rest of the week would be theirs to do their private business.

Sam looked like he wanted to protest, but after a few seconds, he stopped, possibly getting an inkling on how tiring a dungeon dive could be and that Mark limited their dive to avoid burning out.

The truth was, Mark limited the group dungeon dive because he wanted to dive by himself during the rest of the week.  They planned to start at around 10 in the morning the next day.  After their meeting, they went on their way to do their own thing.

The next morning, everybody was ready at around nine in the morning and even Donald and Elizabeth arrived at around eight.  Mark could see everybody’s excitement.  The group went to the basement to start their very first dungeon dive.

They entered the portal to go directly to the second floor.  Mark almost forgot to not cast his personal buffs since it had been an automatic thing that he did when he entered the dungeon.  Everyone took their position and started walking. 

The first enemy they spotted was a lone goblin.  Mark informed the group that they could kill it with one Fireball and one Triple Strafe.  Enleed cast a Fireball and it was followed by Armina’s Triple Strafe.  To everybody’s amazement, both skills missed.  The Fireball went past the goblin’s head and the arrow for Triple Strafe went by the goblin’s side before splitting and became the Triple Strafe arrow.

Armina and Enleed were both embarrassed by what happened.  Enleed went so far as to turn so red it seemed like smoke were coming out from his ears.  Sam then ran to the goblin to intercept it but he made a mistake of possibly underestimating the goblin and didn’t activate his Cleave skill.

Sam was hit in the thighs by the goblin’s knife but he did manage to hit the goblin thrice and the last hit was on the neck when he swung his sword wildly.  The goblin died and Sam fell down shouting “it hurts!” repeatedly.

Donald activated his skill Holy Bolt and hit Sam with it.  Sam stopped shouting when he felt the pain disappeared.  Elizabeth was looking at the goblin with horror and was holding her hands on her mouth as if preventing herself from screaming.  Armina and Enleed were both pale and Mark could tell that they felt guilty for Sam being hurt.

“Okay that was a very bad start.  Let’s have a meeting guys and talked about what we did wrong.” Mark went to Sam to help him up and the group huddled.

“First of, me.  I didn’t summon my golem because honestly I was thinking of not summoning them because well, they’re overpowered on these levels which was wrong of me since I could’ve summon them and then set them in stand by mode for defense.”

“I will need more practice and to learn how to steady myself especially when I see an unfamiliar and grotesque looking monsters for the first time.  To tell you the truth, the reason I missed because I got flustered by how the goblin looked.” Armina said while Enleed said that it’s the same for him as well.

“Actually, it was the same for me.  I was looking at the goblin and I know I could’ve hit it with my skill to stun it but I was frozen.” Donald admitted.

“I was overconfident.  In my mind, I thought that since it was a lone goblin, I wouldn’t need to use a skill.  If I was focused,  I could’ve avoided the hit.”

“Now since everybody understood what went wrong, I know we will do better next time.  Someone go pick up the floating blue bubble where the goblin died.  That’s our first loot.”

Sam ran to it excitedly and picked up the bubble.  The bubble burst and turned into leather shirt.

Mark identified it and told the group that it adds to Vitality with a defense of ten and twenty durability.  Everybody agreed to give it to Sam first.  Sam started to remove his t-shirt but Mark told him he could wear the leather shirt on top of his t-shirt.

The next group they encountered was a couple of goblins.  Enleed started casting his Fireball and took a careful aim at the monsters before releasing the skill.  It hit one of the monsters and exploded, causing both monsters to be hurled back a few feet then they continued to burn.  The monsters kept on screaming until they died prompting Elizabeth and Armina to cover their ears. 

Mark observed Elizabeth pale face concerned that she may not be able to continue. 

“Elizabeth, you don’t need to worry that we were being cruel to them.  As you can see, after a few seconds of them dying, they burst into bubbles and even their blood disappears.  That means, they’re not real.  They are a product created by the dungeon from magic.  To what purpose, I don’t know but I do have a lot of theories.”

Mark saw Elizabeth and Armina calming down.

“I see.  It’s just that, even though they looked horrendous, they’re so little.  Like children.” Elizabeth said while Armina was nodding. 

“Women!” Sam snorted.  Enleed slapped Sam’s head and Donald laughed prompting Elizabeth and Armina to glare at the men.  Donald just kept on laughing and Mark tried to look innocent.

Mark picked up the single blue bubble that came out after the two goblin died.  It was an iron knife and he told everybody that it added plus one to Strength with a damage of five to ten with five durability. 

Donald said that he would like to have it.  Mark gave it to him and Donald said that he would calculate everything once the dungeon dive was done.

Mark asked what he was going to do with it and Donald said that he would do research on it to test if they could replicate the energy that was inside or use the materials to create something new.

Enleed looked interested and so was Armina.  They asked Donald if they could join in on the research.  Donald said that they would talk after the dive.  Donald then asked Mark if he was interested in joining the research team but he declined saying that he would be busy with something else.  Sam said that he was busy too even though Donald didn’t asked him.  Donald just nodded to indicate that he understood.