The Runesmith

While a certain Runesmith was deliberating if he should make a back-scratcher for his assistant things at the dungeon were starting to move along. Everyone that could have been evacuated was now outside and the guards were keeping others from going in. This of course didn’t go well with the adventurers that depended on the income that this underground monster mine provided for them.

“How long is this going to take? You can’t expect us to just stand here!”

“That’s right, do you know how much it costs to get a meal in this city?”

“Yeah! What will you do about the loss of coin!”

“Please settle down, this was ordered by the City Lord and also the adventure guild master, no one is to go in!”

The adventurers were somewhat disgruntled. The vast majority of them lived from a daily grind in the dungeon. The more adventurers appeared in the city the less they could get for the monster materials they excavated. Unless a person reached a silver grade they would have to be really careful about their expenses and living in inns didn’t come cheap.

Then there was a problem with the addictive nature of this bunch that the thieves guild knew how to exploit. Milking the adventurers by getting them addicted to gambling and the red light district was a big reason the underground guilds survived. It was a gray area with which even the nobles were fine with. As long as they didn’t need to see the debauchery they would look past it as the monetary gains were tremendous.

This left some of the less successful adventurers with some debt or needs that they just needed to satisfy. Even one day of not working could set them back tremendously or be a cause for them to be injured by the loan sharks. Those types weren’t that forgiving and would probably not wait for the dungeon problem to be alleviated.

“This is dumb, just let me sign a paper and go in, we’re not afraid of some stupid skeletons!”

“Yeah, that’s right, let us through!”

A group of angry steel rank adventurers started pushing forward, to them this was not a problem. If they ran into strong monsters they could just retreat. The loss of money was too big of a problem and they were always willing to put their lives in danger to progress. There weren’t that many guards here to block the way down so they didn’t see a problem in pushing their way forward.

“What do you think you are doing!”

“Get out of the way.”

In reality, the guards didn’t really care if the adventurers went down and got themselves killed. The only reason they were here was that they were given a direct order by the new city lord. Even though Arthur Valerian was just a noble in name it was one that could not be ignored.

The guards were still only commoners that had a very small chance of becoming higher-tier soldiers and perhaps knights if they proved themselves to a noble lord that could make that a possibility. Even the man that was in the city could potentially raise them up to this position but no one seriously believed in that. Some would even scoff at the idea of being a knight of such a bastard as it would be a true dead end.

“Rudy, shouldn’t we go? You heard what Mr. Wayland said.”

“Yeah but… It’s hard to believe, we should wait and see first.”

The group of young adventurers that Roland had a run-in with and also sold runic equipment to had remained in place. They were away from the entrance and the group of people that were trying to get it. Their curiosity got to them as they had a hard time believing that the dungeon monsters could go out the exit. To them it was natural for the dungeon creatures to back off whenever they reached a safe location, it was a truth of this world.

“I’m not that great at running…”

“Miron has a point, maybe we should back away further…”

“It shouldn’t be a problem, with those guys in the front even if the monsters come out they will act as a distraction.”

The red-haired youth commented which made everyone shake their heads.

“Do you even have a conscience?”

“Huh? Did I say something that wasn’t right?”

“...Wait… something is coming!”

Before the group could explain to their ‘leader’ that it was wrong to use others as meat shields, they spotted a change in the group of adventurers. Previously they were clawing to get into the dungeon but suddenly they all went quiet.

“What’s happening, I can’t see!”

Rudy and his group were peeking from behind a tree in a safe location. The large group of adventurers and guards were blocking almost everything. Suddenly they all started backing away from the entrance as if to open the path for something. This was followed by a strange sound coming from within the entrance which quickly began to get louder.

“It really is a skeleton!”

“Hey, that thing is running up the stairs!”

“They were actually right?”

The adventurers were met by a lone monster that had sprinted up the stairs and actually broken through the barrier that should not be broken. It was an undead monster with flames coming out of its head and body parts, somewhat similar to the flaming skeletons they met inside of the dungeon. It had some differences which were the thickness of the bones, its height, and the amount of flames coming out from its body.

“Shit, it's a tier 2!”

“Quick, kill it!”

Most of the adventurers that were in the front were of steel rank and had not gotten their own tier 2 class. Battling a tier 2 monster of this grade was possible if they combined their numbers and this one was not very coordinated. It just started swinging a bladed bone around and charged at the first person it could. With so many people around it quickly found itself being turned into a pin cushion to spears.

“It's still alive, don’t use spears, use blunt weapons instead!”

The panicked adventures forgot that stabbing attacks weren’t all that great against skeletal creatures. Only after maces and hammers were utilized was the creature finally dispatched. How it squirmed on the ground until its head was shattered was quite concerning. However, it was not as concerning as the fact that it actually made it out of the dungeon.

“Shit… t-there is another one coming, watch out!”

This was not the end as after the lone undead appeared another two started crawling out from within the entrance. Some of the less brave adventurers started shuffling behind the city guards that were somewhat forced to keep the monsters at bay. Some others saw this as a chance of getting free resources as the bones of tier 2 monsters did fetch a good price on the market.

“Calm down, are there any silver ranks here? Go to the front, they are only mindless undead!”

One of the few silver ranked adventures that remained shouted. It was an older man with a shield and sword combo that could potentially be used in this situation. While blunt damage was best to shatter the bones a longsword could still cut down this type of monster to disable it.

“Hey, Rudy… I think we should leave this to the true silver ranks… those things are all tier 2 monsters…”

“Yeah…”

The group of four was in an in-between stage, half of them were fresh tier 2 class holders while the other half were close to getting to level fifty. Their speed of progression wasn’t too fast or too slow as they took their time. After almost dying in the middle levels they had taken a step back and decided to take a slower safe approach. Even now this strategy allowed them to make the decision of removing themselves from danger just as Roland had instructed everyone.

“What’s with this shit experience, are these really tier 2 monsters?”

Thus they started retreating toward the city while also gathering some late intel. It seemed that the monsters weren’t giving that much experience for being killed. This lowered the worth of this incident even further.

“Let’s just wait, we can take an escort mission if it becomes troublesome.”

“Good idea.”

Rudy and Sansa nodded at each other before removing themselves from this situation. On their way to the city, they bumped into some adventurer parties heading out along with a small unit of guards in flashy armor. It seemed that things were indeed dire if the city guard was involved.

There weren’t that many people living outside of the city on this side. Most of the farmland was on the other side with just a few buildings here and there. Even then they saw some of the city guards going to these houses probably to inform the people living there about the potential threat. This was only made more apparent after they all arrived in the city. It was very loud and some people were even screaming.

“If they are forcing people into the city then it must be worse than we thought…”

Sansa commented while having to shuffle through the crowded streets that were filled with various individuals. Merchants weren’t allowed to even leave anymore which kind of put a wrench in their previous plan. At first, they wanted to go to the guild for more information but had to go to a nearby tavern due to the swarm of angry adventurers.

As time passed things didn’t really change but instead, the problem became even worse. More people were forced into the city and had to remain there while the city gates were closed. It was clear that this dungeon break wasn’t that simple if they chose to barricade the citizens behind the freshly built-up walls. Only when the city bell resounded through the entire city did everyone realize just how much trouble they were in.

…

“So… these red dots are the skeletons?”

“Yes.”

“And this here is the dungeon and that oval thing is where we are?”

“Yes.”

“But that means that they are coming this way.”

“Yeah, they are and they will be here in a few minutes so you should get ready.”

“Aye…”

Roland replied to Bernir that was looking at a little map interface that was inside the workshop. It was created from a crystal ball that had been slightly stretched out on the sides to produce something similar to a small screen. On it, anyone could see the places that Roland had mapped and if there were any devices to forward the signal nearby they could see movement.

Some time ago the dungeon break had finally started and the first skeleton soldiers had started pushing through. At first, it seemed that the guards and adventurers that were gathered there were keeping up but with time the number of skeletons skyrocketed. It was like a never-ending wave of tier 2 monsters that didn’t tire or fear anything. They just pushed on towards the nearest living being to slay.

They had made it up the stairs a lot sooner than he or probably anyone else had expected. There was just not enough manpower at the time or willing participants to block their ascension. Perhaps if so many adventurers didn’t retreat so soon it would have been possible to block the monsters inside. Collapsing the entrance or barricading it with something was also an option but shoving a wagon in the way of tier 2 monsters wouldn’t block them for long.

‘No one expected this to happen and a closed dungeon entrance would open itself up again even if we blew down the ceiling.’

From the literature he read about dungeon breaks, creating a cave-in could be counterproductive. Dungeons were strange things and creating an entrance was something it would just do. If the entrance was forcefully closed a dungeon would create another one. While this could produce some time the next entrance could pop up anywhere. This could complicate things if it spawned inside the city or too close to it. The monsters on the inside would still be there and sometimes just multiplied to no end which made things a lot harder to contain.

“Do you think that those monsters will come here?”

“I don’t know, they might find Albrook more interesting.”

Bernir nodded while looking out towards the forest area. The two had gone outside and gone up to a higher vantage point. They had a lot of things going for them, having the high ground and magical weapons were quite a promising defensive measure. The monsters were practically immune to arrows and would require blunt weapons and a lot of force to shatter.

These enemies were even somewhat problematic for magic users. Undead creatures weren’t that affected by cold and frost spells. Thus it would make it harder to kill them by freezing as it would not halt their advances as much. Instead, something more neutral like an earth bolt or regular mana bolt would have been more effective.

Exposure to mana would interfere with this undead monster's peculiar core. Just like golems skeletal undead came equipped with a similar feature. This core wasn’t quite as round or big but it worked in a similar fashion. Only when it was destroyed would the monster truly die and magical attacks could directly affect its integrity with divine-based ones being able to completely shatter it with little to no effort.

‘Burying all those sensors in the forest doesn’t sound like such a paranoid idea now.’

Roland had been unreasonably distrustful from the day he arrived here. Already then he was making plans of defending this location from cultists or thieves. After developing his mapping technology he made sure to plant it all around the forest and his home. The entire space within a half-kilometer radius of his house was now on his map. It took some digging and a lot of money but thanks to this he could see the first skeleton soldier appearing.

Bernir was not aware of this as he just stood there while squinting his eyes to potentially discover a monster between the bushes. Roland on the other hand was tracing the walking path of the monster that was moving fast but without any sense of direction. It even ran around in a circle before deciding to go in a straight line.

‘These creatures seem to only charge forward, it seems to be evading the trees and then just charging forward in a straight line…’

It was not the only one there as more dots started to appear and finally one of them bumped into the road leading towards his compound. It was just a regular dirt path a bit wider than usual with most of the branches taken to the side to make it easier for his customers to arrive. This apparently was enough to make the monster that found it follow it and finally one of them arrived at his doorstep.

“B-boss!”

“I see it, calm down, there is only one now, let the turrets handle it.”

The flames within the monster’s eye socket made it stand out instantly. Even Bernir finally noticed that it was there as it jolted forward. It did slow down for a moment after arriving at the open area but the moment it discovered his home and the people that were looking at it, the monster charged.

Its angry rush was quickly halted by a blue bolt of energy that collided with its chest. The whole place was surrounded by turrets which were now on high alert and would instantly shoot whenever they identified a monster. Their power was at around the second tier of a lower level magician and quite enough to take out a skeletal minion.

“Hah, that’s it?”

"Awoo?"

Bernir gave out a sigh of relief as he saw the charging monster be blown back by the energy bolt. Then as it tried to stand up it was just pelted two more times until it was fully dead. It seemed that around two or three shots were all it took to get this undead to stop but this didn’t mean they were in the clear.

The turret's cannon shut down the firing mechanism but was now smoking. There was a short cooling period that this weapon needed to go through so depending on how many unwanted guests they got, it could get spicy.

“Get ready, more of them are coming.”

"Woof!"

"But not you Agni, stay behind the wall for now."

"Woo?"

It seemed that the path paved by his customers and somewhat by Bernir had become a gathering point for the undead. Perhaps they had some senses after all and could tell that it led somewhere. The map was slowly becoming covered in red dots and all of them were in a conga line toward his home. For the time being he would leave it to the turrets as they were the main line of defense, if they became overrun then his golems and also Agni that was looking sad would finally join the fight.