Dungeon Raider System

Chapter 149 Playing it safe is no fun

The party advanced following the outskirts of the lake under the merciless cold shower that poured onto them from the skies. Amy was leading the group across the small bushes and trees taking small pauses from time to time to scan her surroundings.

Meanwhile the driver kept his gaze stuck to a device similar to the one Miss Dragonfang used to detect the presence of strong cryptids, it was a tiny faraday cage with an electric bulb inside and the way it worked was simple.

It was just a small electric device with some sort of protection against cryptids FOD making it immune to beast and monster rank cryptids, but it would immediately shut down in the presence of an entity rank or higher.

"We're safe." The driver reported.

"Alright, look alive people!" Amy commanded and everyone scattered all over the place in couples.

Rocky ran wild as though he'd been kept tied all of his life, only to have his leash removed by an invisible hand and Uriel had trouble catching up to him. The hunter moved so fast it didn't take long for them to encounter their first cryptid.

"A scorpion!" Uriel shouted at the sight of an enormous double tailed scorpion.

"Don't worry, these fellows are pretty weak. Check this out." Rocky said as he adopted a stance similar to that of a pitcher on a baseball game, his arm waved in the air and a rock was launched towards the giant scorpion.

The projectile whistled in the air and it hit the scorpion right in between its unsettling eyes.

"Bullseye!" Rocky celebrated. "It's your turn now."

"Why did it have to be a bug." Uriel cried much like Sam whenever he spotted any cryptid. He then crouched in front of the remains, produced his swiss army knife from his trait but pretended to take it out from his pocket and started carving the exposed flux orb from the disgusting carcass. Uriel frowned in disgust as a green viscous substance dripped from his arm.

"I'm sorry you have to do this, as a fellow ascended I can tell you feel offended by performing such a lowly task, but at least you don't have to carry my bags." Rocky laughed.

Only then did Uriel notice that every ascended was being accompanied by an evolved. Amy was being followed by a male evolved, the driver was being followed by a female one and then there were the remaining 2 evolved carrying all the equipment and their backpacks.

"Is that the usual?" Uriel asked.

"Not really, we usually come with one of our friends who's also an ascended and that leaves one evolved per ascended. It's all on the hunting manual." Rocky replied.

"Hunting manual!? How come I've never heard of it." Uriel was flabbergasted. Something like a hunting manual could have made a huge difference in his past encounters.

"Please don't bring it up in front of Amy, she's completely obsessed with it." Rocky sighed. "I know it sounds really useful, but because of it we've lost so much profit."

"I don't know, being careful doesn't sound so bad." Uriel replied, still interested in the manual.

"I know how this sounds, but if things were so easy every hunter would follow the manual and they don't. That's because it simply doesn't work in real life. It's only a waste of time and effort and it usually in ends losing more money than you can get. You may wonder why do we follow Amy, but the answer is easy, because we want to learn. Gotta start somewhere, right?"

Uriel couldn't understand why Rocky was so against Amy's way of doing things. It wasn't like being extra careful was a bad thing, or so he thought, but he soon came to understand his thinking.

After their first encounter against the cryptid they had to report to Amy and hand over the orb to the evolved couple that carried the backpacks, rest fifteen minutes and only then were they allowed to go back to hunt.

That alone wasn't so bad, but Uriel couldn't deny it was a waste of time. Especially after Amy refused to go to the next zone even after a couple hours of not finding anything passed. It was by far the safest incursion he'd been to, but also the most boring one. By sunset the whole group had a grand total of four beast rank flux orbs, something that wasn't enough even to cover their expenses.

They spent their first night in Bloobloo taking cover under the plastic sheet and the evolved were the ones in charge of keeping an eye on an electric device that would alert them whenever a cryptid came near, but since they had already cleared the zone nothing bothered them at night.

"Please Amy, you need to see things from our perspective too. We can't afford to keep losing money on incursions like this."

"You knew how things were going to be like when you joined us, if you don't like it then you can sit out the next one."

Uriel woke up to the noisy argument between Rocky and Amy.

"It's not like that, but you know I won't be able to join any incursions until I reach the heavenly rank and I'm really close, I can feel it!"

"It's not my fault this zone was almost empty, it was just bad luck."

"I'm begging you, let's go to the hunter's lane. It will be a short trip, I swear I'll stop bothering you as soon as I become a heavenly rank."

Soon, the rest of the group joined the argument and it got to the point where Amy had no choice but to give in to their pleads.

"Fine, let's go there, but don't forget that I'm the one in charge. If I say it's too dangerous then we go back immediately."

Uriel was overjoyed in front of the possibility of exploring a new POI, almost as much as the rest of the team, especially Rocky who cheered up loudly. The pickup truck advanced unhindered across the bumpy dirt road and before ten minutes passed, it suddenly stopped itself signalling the presence of a cryptid in the vicinity.

Enjoy exclusive adventures from empire

Everyone readied their weapons and jumped out from the vehicle as soon as it stopped, only to realize the place was overrun by cryptids. Scorpions, spiders, centipedes and even giant hornets scoured the area and Uriel couldn't help but remember the chamber filled with insects in the dungeon he explored before.

"Move, move, move!" Amy voiced out loudly and the group jumped into action as the insect-like cryptids noticed their presence.

The first one to engage in combat was Rocky who started throwing rocks at the distance with incredible accuracy and soon enough both Amy and the driver joined the battle with their melee weapons.