The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 251: The Skeleton Dungeon

Victor slowly opened his eyes and surveyed the area around him. It was very dark without any source of light, so he quickly took a flashlight from his ring and activated it, illuminating the ancient room he was in. It was a dusty old empty room, built of gray stone. It looked like the insides of a medieval castle… The room had three slim windows, embrasures they called them. They were filled with dirt though as if this entire place was a castle that sunk into the ground.

“Good,” he said. Constructed dungeons were very dangerous but also very rewarding.

Although they might contain deadly traps, they had big opportunities and treasures. This dungeon was not only part of a different world in the past, it was a part of a developed world!

Victor quickly made sure that the room around him was safe before activating his dungeon Map… He got this thanks to his dungeon explorer title.

“Wah…” he was a little shocked… This place was a big spiraling maze expanding in all directions… It even had 10 levels that grew larger toward the bottom. He was currently on the third floor.

Unfortunately, unlike the map he got for being the first one to enter the dungeon, this map was static. It didn’t show any player locations. Never mind that, he spotted two grand rooms that could be the boss’s room. One of them was close, two floors below him on the fifth floor. The other one was on the 9th.

This might take more time than anticipated, but he could do it if he hurried... The wedding must not be delayed.

Firstly he looked at the wooden door separating him from the corridor next to the room… how old was this door? Very old. Why was the wood still intact? It must be some very precious wood!

He nodded, then carefully unlocked the bolt locking the door from the inside then pushed it open… It was very heavy, and he could only open it after pushing with all of his strength.

There was nothing behind it. So Victor paused a second then took an E-ranked sword and hacked at the door…. It didn’t even leave a mark on it. The sword was chipped instead!

“Good wood!” he said as he began to find a way to take the door apart. Good materials are rare and should not be wasted as this dungeon would not be his after conquering it… He saw the emblems outside the tent, this dungeon should belong to the Free Players Association… That organization should have been formed about 50 years ago and has been slowly gaining momentum ever since... That Naomi outside was surely waiting to scout the best students.

He didn’t care about that for now and focused on disassembling the door by lifting it from its hinges.

Unfortunately for him, this thing was stuck hard. Even after trying for a couple of minutes, it didn’t budge… The hinges were all rusted inside. And it was some kind of super otherworldly rust!

He tried to spread some soul poison on it but it didn’t work as the hinges were metallic after all and the soul poison needed organic matter to work.

After some thinking, Victor took some of the green goo he was accumulating in his ring and spread it on the thing that began to hiss… As expected, he had seen this thing affect the ground after killing some targets. It’s slow but working… Apparently, after coming into contact with living matter, the soul poison turns into some sort of super corrosive substance.

After ten minutes or so, whatever super rust was in there all melted, so Victor could easily unhinge the door which he lifted from its place with great difficulty and then leaned it to the wall as he felt someone approaching.

Seemingly as he was working he caused some noise so a curious skeleton suddenly appeared behind him.

Looking behind in a hurry Victor quickly appraised it.

Strong! Novice players would surely have trouble with it.

It was dressed in a rusting metal chain mail and a metal helmet like an ancient soldier.

As soon as the skeleton saw Victor, its eyes shone with an ominous green light as it lurched at him with its rusty sword which shattered like glass as it hit the wooden door which Victor used as a shield.

Victor was surprised. What kind of garbage weapons were those! What kind of castle was this where the doors were tougher than the weapons? Unless…

Victor quickly put the door in his ring and began to inspect the skeleton who seemed to feel his existence but was not able to locate him…

“Interesting!” Victor said this thing was able to sense life, but not enough to find him because of his disguise.

Victor quickly tried to disguise his life force too, but it didn’t seem to work, the skeleton was actively looking for him. Then after ‘finding him’ it began hitting the walls with its bony hands until they shattered.

“Even the skeleton was fragile….” Victor said as he watched it bash itself to death trying to conquer the imaginary Victor she was attacking…. It was a she, he could tell from her lousy breastplate.

After making sure that the skeleton was dead, Victor started dissecting it… It had nothing of value. But he could easily notice that the sigils on its armor were different from those engraved on the wall.

“Sh*t!” He cursed. He felt that something was wrong when he read that this dungeon was F-ranked despite the strength of its monsters.

He had heard of those before, dungeons that existed for so long that even in its previous world it was also a dungeon… These kinds would have been S or SS ranked before, but after eons of existence in isolation, their level dropped and the world could only assign an F rank to it by measuring the level of the strongest sentient creature… that thing might be weak but its subordinates would definitely be very strong… Victor had no idea if the weak one was the Lich king or the skeleton queen though…

This poor skeleton must have been also a dead dungeon raider from another world! She must have lost her life here and turned into a skeleton monster. He could tell from the sword stab in her breastplate that was cut like paper.

This dungeon was more dangerous than he anticipated. The hardness of the doors and walls indicated that it was a part of a higher world and that he had no way of digging tunnels to reach the boss room… The pickaxes he brought were useless…

Taking a deep breath, Victor decided to continue his exploration heading to the closest boss room as in his original plan.

On the way, he encountered no less than 30 skeletons, but they were also the weak kind that had lousy weapons and no artifacts or treasures at all. Only one lousy Gem would drop every time he shattered one of their skulls with his mace. He tried using the soul poison on a couple of them, but it only made them a little confused. They had no souls. The green goo on the other hand was super effective at melting bones like acid!

Unfortunately, the skeletons could casually discard any bone that got on it… So it was not usable in battle… And this stuff was very precious, he was not going to squander it on lousy skeletons.

He could only console himself by getting the empty rooms doors one by one. Unlike the room he started in, All of the others had their doors wide open or even broken… It was as if this place was ransacked once before ages ago.

Strangely enough, he didn’t encounter any living beings inside after walking for more than two hours….

“DIE!” A scream startled him!

Victor frowned and quickly hurried toward the voice that he recognized. It was none other than teacher Isabella who had seemingly attracted more than 10 skeletons that kept hacking at her with all kinds of lousy swords and hatchets.

She was using a bright sword to hack at the skeleton while holding a great shield with her other hand, protecting two terrified girls behind her. They were his classmates. And they were holding some kind of blue-colored torches in their hands, illuminating the room’s surroundings.

Not bad!

After some thinking, Victor decided to help. So he took a great mace from his ring and began hacking at the skeletons.

Yesterday, when he realized that this was a skeleton dungeon, he made sure to get suitable blunt weapons and teach the girls some skeleton and undead killing methods.

Although he didn’t have any S-ranked maces. He had a couple of A-ranked ones that he got from his ancestor’s vault.

Teacher Isabella was startled at first when one of the skeletons shattered, but she quickly noticed Victor who was moving in a strange way between the skeletons. He was shattering their skulls one by one.

“Victor! When did you get here?” she shouted in shock as she decapitated a skeleton who ignored Victor as they attacked her.

“An hour ago… What’s wrong with this place?” he asked casually as he killed the last skeleton, that until the last moment didn’t notice him. Seemingly his disguise was working somehow, but it was not strong…. NO! He realized something. Someone else must be the one who was feeling life and guiding the skeletons here. Something far away who could not precisely read life signs. Like maybe a Lich king! That’s why those skeletons didn’t notice him when he was near the three girls!

“I don’t know…” she said awkwardly, she was not used to speaking politely with Victor, he was the last person on earth she expected to save her.

“Thank you for helping us…” one of the girls said just as came out from her hiding place and bowed politely. Victor remembers her, her name was Andrea she sat in front of the twins and was very polite.

“It’s my duty…” he said with a charming smile, “Did you locate the boss’s dungeon?” he asked as he watched the other girl searching the skeleton corpses. She found only a few gems… Only one skeleton had a silver ring on his finger, which Victor had already confiscated.

“No… Something is wrong here.” Isabella said as she sat near a wall catching her breath. “There might have been a mutation in the dungeon.”

“Ahh… what… Did anyone get hurt?” he asked as if he was really concerned.

“... Mark and Lucinda are dead…” Andrea answered him this time with a sad tone. There were tears in her eyes. Lucinda was her friend.

“Oh…” he sighed as if he cared, he couldn't even remember who those two were.

“So what’s the plan? Where are the other students? Are there any good proficient players other than teacher Isabella here?” Victor asked as he checked the hallways. Seemingly every skeleton around had already been drawn to the noise here and was killed.

“We haven't decided yet, the group originally had 30 students, three teachers, and two FPA mercenaries… most are missing now!” Isabella said, “We are regrouping on the upper floor, it’s safe there as we killed all the skeletons and barricaded the only stairway reaching it. We will wait for a week, by that time the academy should have realized that we are in trouble and they would surely send help!” she added as she stood up again, she couldn’t afford to rest. Tom had not been found yet.

“Oh… how many floors does this dungeon have?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. I have been going around saving your classmates… I have only reached the fourth floor.” she said,

“Did you meet Mina or Mana?” he asked worriedly.

“Not yet… I only found / students until now…” she said… “you are the ninth… Now come, we must hurry back to the first floor with the girls. It is safe there… Hopefully Mr.Gold has found some other students…. “

“No… I plan to go down, I came here with Lily and Margret so if you meet them tell them that I will be heading to the boss’s room,” he said as he turned around

“Wait!” Isabella suddenly said, “Be careful, we are not the only ones here…”

“What?” he asked.

“Seemingly this dungeon is not new as we had been assuming. It might have been open for a few years. Presumably, some profiteering player found it and had been selling its info in secret. There was more than one group of rogue players who had been trying to conquer it.” she explained.

“What? How long have they been here?” he asked. He heard of those before. Players can only level up once they leave a dungeon, so if a weak player enters a high-ranking one, he can only hide around and survive waiting for help… Some of those players might not be good!

“I have no idea… We only met one guy, he said his group had 5 players left. They came here three months ago, just before the Free Player’s Association found this place. They were hiding on the fifth floor which is a little safer and has some edible things… he told us that there were others though, some were not that friendly… so be careful, and tell any students that you find, to find me on the upper floor….” she said.

“Teacher, aren’t you going to tell him to come with us? It’s dangerous!” Andrea was shocked by her teacher's irresponsible behavior.

“He is a member of a noble family, they had their ways….” Isabella said. In truth, she didn’t want Victor anywhere near her or her students. Sure, he was strong, but he was also a big bad wolf. He should go fight with the other bad wolves leaving them alone.

“Don’t worry about me,” Victor said with a smile as he patted Andrea’s head. This girl was not bad. Her class was a ‘Scout’ which was very good for surviving such dungeons, but she was still too immature.

“Ahhh…” the girl blushed then felt Victor stuff something into her hand. It was a storage ring… was he proposing? Even her father, the patriarch of her family, didn't have any of those rings!

“Keep it…” he said, “It only has a few cubic feet of volume, but it is filled with my new family energy bars,” he explained.

“The new super energy bars?” Isabella asked as she looked at the ring… it’s not like she was jealous, she had a ring, a better one….. But the energy bars were a treasure. They had just been released a week ago, and she didn’t have a chance to try them. According to the rumors you can fight for an entire day without feeling hungry after eating one of them!

“Yes… They taste like shit, so I don't want them anymore…” he said, making Isabella curse at him for being a spoiled brat.

“They will help you survive for the next few days,” Victor added in a soft voice, ignoring his teacher's glares.

“Thank you…” Andrea said as she held the ring tightly in her fingers and watched him walk away. “I will definitely pay you back!” she yelled behind him with a blush.