BAM!


    Akira watched the slimes for several minutes but the large wave of cube slimes was unable to reach them.


    Seeing this, there was no point for everyone to guard the entrance so they continued walking down the tunnel hallway with the constant vibration from the cube slime wave attacks growing fainter the further they walked away from the slime pit.


    Along their path, there were many old glowing green skeletons of humanoids. Most likely all that remained of those who managed to escape the pit in the past and died from their wounds received by the cube slimes. Throughout the tunnel, a glowing green moss was growing lighting the way for those who walked through.


    The cold air of the tunnel was slowly growing warmer and held even more moisture to the point that Akira could now hear the sound of dripping water from the stalactites above them.


    The glowing green light from the moss was soon overpowered by the blue light of a cavernous room ahead of them.


    Akira held up his hand and stopped everyone at the entrance to the cavern and looked inside.


    Hanging from the cavern ceiling high above them was an uncountable number of vines hanging down, each of the vines had hundreds of beautiful glowing blue flowers that were in full bloom. The vines all created a curtain that blocked the view of anything else further inside.


    If this were in a normal cavern it would be a huge tourist destination due to how magical everything looked inside. But this was a dungeon...


    “Fluffball, are you able to sense anything?” asked Akira as he tried to smell the air for himself.


    “Yap!” said Fluffball.


    “Well that''s good to know,” said Akira, heaving a sigh of relief. It would have been a pain if the vines were some sort of living monster.


    “So?” asked Crowbahr.


    “The vines are not going to attack us... but just to be safe, Beater, go out and poke a few of them,” said Sweety.


    “Why me?” asked Beater.


    “Your special power is getting beat up so you should be fine if something happens,” said Akira.


    “That''s not my special power,” grumbled Beater as he walked forward and poked the vines cautiously.


    Nothing happened. Even when Akira focused his gaze on them no information popped up making him feel more assured that they would not be ambushed and strangled by some type of monster vines.


    “The vines should be fine, but Fluffball caught an old scent of something else that passed through this area a while ago... so everyone needs to be ready to fight if something tries to jump out at us,” said Akira as he followed the furiously sniffing Fluffball into the thick curtain of blue flower vines.


    Akira tried to hack through the vines but there was only a thin white line left on the vines as his sword bounced off. If he wanted to chop his way though, it would require him to repeatedly use skills. That was not something he wanted to do as it would exhaust him before he even got to fight any monsters or creatures deeper in the dungeon.


    This led to them pushing through the glowing blue curtain slowly trying to all stay close enough to see each other. Anyone with claustrophobia would be going out of their mind with how close the hanging vines were.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    As the minutes of silent walking passed by, a thin arm popped out of the vines and smacked Akira in the armored chest.


    Without a word uttered Akira launched a [Sword Slash] at the half-hidden attacker.


    Snap!


    His attack easily sliced through the vines and the target in front of him causing the upper portion of the clothed attacker to slump to the ground.


    “Yap?” asked a confused Fluffball.


    “What!? It attacked me!” said an embarrassed Akira.


    “Did the big bad scarecrow scare you?” asked Zundar chuckling as he kicked the twig scarecrow that had been chopped in half. It was indeed not alive and was just a scarecrow made out of sticks with clothes hanging on them.


    “Who put something like that in here?” asked Akira as he pushed forward to try and run away from his embarrassment.


    They continued to walk forward until Akira held up a hand after hearing the sound of something repeatedly clattering against the stone.


    As they slowly crept forward the sound grew louder, they soon reached a point where they could see shadows moving on the other side of the vine curtain.


    Akira motioned the others to attack and as one they charged out and into a small opening in the vine curtain.


    At the center of the opening was a large bowl-like indent in the ground where at least two dozen small red creatures who had two pointy horns on their heads and mini wings on their backs. They were so small that they would only reach the stomachs of an average dwarf. [Imp lvl 60]


    The sound they had been hearing was from these imps constantly playing some sort of game with finger bones.


    “Sqwek!” shouted a young imp as he noticed the intruders.


    The adult imps all looked up from the finger bone game. When they saw Akira and the other intruders they opened their mouths revealing their sharp dagger-like teeth as they let out a fierce war cry... “Sqwek!”


    As one the Imps flapped their wings and shot into the air with their heads and horns aimed at the intruder''s bodies as they picked up speed to ram them.


    Unfortunately for the imps, they were all cut down as numerous skill attacks shot out from the [Full Moon] guild members.


    “Am I the only one thinking this dungeon is kinda too easy?” asked Beater as looked at the dead imps on the ground.


    “Don''t jinx us,” said Sweety.


    “You call those slimes back there easy?” asked Galena.


    “There is always a saying, if there are too many low-level monsters you need to be more cautious as their leaders could be lurking in the shadows ready to attack when you least expect it...” said Akira.


    They continued to march through the cavern encountering only two other small groups of the weak Imps before reaching the exit to the blue flower cavern.


    As they made their way through the connecting tunnels and cavernous rooms none of them were the same, each having different fauna and easily killed monsters inside.


    Akira was starting to feel more and more on edge as everything they had fought so far was way too easy. He had to agree that Beater had a point, something was wrong.


    Other than the slimes, there were no massive numbers of monsters that one would expect of a dungeon that was ready to burst.


    When they entered the next large cavernous room everyone grew extremely alert.


    There was a large flowing river cutting through the center of the cavern. A crude wooden/vine bridge was built over it. On each side of the river were various odd-looking vegetables, herbs, and other unknown plants growing.


    Placed Inside the neat rows of plants were several battered scarecrows that looked to have seen better days. It was obviously some sort of farm.


    But what really caught their eyes was a small log cabin some distance away from the farm.


    Akira cautiously led everyone over the bridge. When he looked into the flowing waters of the river he saw that there was a fish pen underneath the bridge with odd-looking fish holed up inside.


    “Yap...” said Fluffball quietly.


    Akira turned his attention to the log cabin and silently walked up to the door and tried the doorknob but it was locked from the inside.


    Knock! Knock! Knock!


    Akira was not expecting an answer so he raised his sword to try and cut the door down...


    “Who is it?” came an old voice from inside.