23 Den For Den

After killing the hobgoblin, Shesmu looked at Ryan and said, "Hey, Ryan. Did it drop its shield and sword?"

Ryan checked his inventory before answering, "Yeah, plus a bunch of pills."

"Great," Shesmu responded. "With this shield, you'll be able to at least tank the boss."

"Yeah, you can count me on that."

With those words from Leo, Ryan materialized both a shield and a sword and gave them to the latter

Shesmu then looked at Leo and said, "I'll take five energy pills, you take the rest. I already have a lot of HP potions. Hopefully next time a dagger drops, that way everyone's equipment is Iron."

Leo looked at the ten Hp potions on Shesmu's hand before he laughed and said, "who cares about HP potions? Haha. I already have thirty of them, just split normally."

"Well, if you say so. In any case, next weapon will be Ryan's, no matter its rarity. We need everyone's gear to be topnotch," Shesmu concluded, leaving no room for discussion.

Both Leo and Ryan nodded at Shesmu's words. With the equipment split, they decided to take some rest and allocate the points they got from leveling up.

After a few minutes, the party continued the exploration of the den. As they did, they fought a pack of goblins after the next. Most of them dropped unranked weapons and some goblin fabric. However, occasionally, a rare item would appear

Ryan was checking his inventory when he suddenly called out, "Hey guys. This goblin dropped something weird."

"What? Is it a weapon or something?" Leo asked as he and Shesmu came over.

Well, if normal mobs dropped something weird, then it must be Ether stones, Shesmu thought as he walked towards Ryan.

When the two reached Ryan, the latter opened his inventory and took out an item. It was a blue stone that was slightly larger than a pebble. It gave off a cold glint, but other than that, it appeared normal.

"Its description is really vague. It says that it's an ether stone and that it drops from monsters with the ability to evolve, but it doesn't say anything other than that." After inspecting the stone, Leo was left with more questions than answers.

Listening to his friend's confused words, Shesmu smiled and thought: Well, that's to be expected. Hmm, maybe I should start buying them as soon as live servers are out.

"Yeah, that doesn't really say much," Ryan added. After thinking for a bit, he continued, "Well, it doesn't really matter anyways. We can just save them up for now until we understand their use."

"In any case, we can check the forums later after we finish this dungeon. Let's continue with the looting first," Shesmu concluded.

After a few minutes, the party finished checking on the loot and got some rest. Just as they were about to go out of the room and continue the exploration, Leo noticed that some of the goblins' bodies disappeared.

"Hey, I just saw some goblins disappear!" Leo exclaimed.

"Are you sure you aren't imagining things—" before Ryan could even finish his words, another goblin turned into particles and disappeared.

Looking at the disappearing monsters, Shesmu saw this as an opportunity to explain another concept.

"I guess that makes sense. If monsters were to be left alone after players kill them, everywhere would just reek of the smell of blood and death."

"Well, enough of this. We need to finish this dungeon as fast as possible so that we can reach the tower fast. We don't want to miss out on those rewards now, do we?" Shesmu added.

Leo then took out the torch from the handle, and the trio went out of the room. They continued walking on the main path of the cave.

"Hey, what do you think that room was?" Leo asked suddenly.

"Hmm, maybe it was a sleeping room or something? Either way, I don't think that there are that many goblins left in this dungeon. I don't know how many we killed there, but it gotta be more than a couple of dozen. I got to level 7 and more than halfway to 8 just from them," Ryan answered.

"Lucky you guys, I just got to level 6 from the hob," Leo pouted.

Hearing him depressed, Shesmu couldn't help but intervene, "Don't worry Leo. On the road to the tower, I'll let you have the last hits until you reach our level. We can't leave you trailing behind for too long."

When Leo listened to Shesmu's suggestion, he couldn't help but look and feel guilty, "you don't need to do that, man. I don't want to drag you guys down."

"You won't drag us down, don't worry. But you will drag us down if you don't get to our level by the time we reach the tower and there is some challenge there or something. It's better this way," Shesmu argued.

"If you say so. Well, I'll be in your care," Leo concluded.

The party then continued its journey until, suddenly, they saw a source of light deep into the cave. As the trio kept moving, the light grew closer and more apparent. In this part of the cave, there were torches on both sides of the cave illuminating the road.

No longer needing another source of light, Leo turned off the torch and put it in his inventory. Moments after, Shesmu heard step sounds. Thinking it might be his own steps, he stopped and so did his teammates.

"What's going on, is there something in front of us?" asked Leo.

"I think I heard stepping sounds," Shesmu answered.

"I heard them too, three monsters are ahead of us," added Ryan.

Hearing Ryan's guess, Shesmu couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. That's… an accurate judgment. Too accurate.

Shesmu didn't have the time to be lost on his thoughts, as the stepping sounds grew closer. The noise became clearer and louder until finally, the perpetrators showed themselves.

Three monsters appeared, and when the party inspected them, both Ryan and Leo were shocked.

Hobgoblin(Elite) Lv 7

Hp: 1000/1000

Hobgoblin(Elite) Lv 8

Hp: 1200/1200

Hobgoblin(Elite) Lv 7

Hp: 1100/1100