123 Chapter 69: Ant Hill Dungeon Part 6

Derrick moved down the path ahead of most of his group. Now that he was split off from the rest of the parties he no longer had to worry about keeping up some sort of fake image or helping out other groups outside of his own. In fact the entire time he was fighting with Robert and the others he made it look like he was putting in effort, most of the time he used his skills with daggers to deal some damage to the stronger enemies in the area alongside the other high level members. Even so he made sure to hold back his real skills so people wouldn't know his full capabilities. The only abilities he showed were ones he gained from his job as a dagger user. People would know he had high dexterity and he could twirl his blades around effectively while hitting weak spots, but that would be all.

Now though he could let lose since the only people that would see him would be people from his guild. Unlike most of his companions he wasn't brought into the Raiders Guild as some sort of fodder or low level punk, no he was brought in because he was lucky enough to get a rather interesting skill when he cleared his first dungeon. Most people get rather basic skills when clearing the first dungeon. Skills that allow them to use their weapons better, or skills that allow a slight burst in stats for a certain time period. These skills were good, but could easily be offset by other people's skills. Hell Joshua had an ability from his job that did that and more without even having to clear a dungeon.

The other thing was most people don't clear the first dungeon they go inside in a fast manner so the skill they get is often a weaker version. For example some one that struggled through a first clear might end up with a stats boost skill that only gives a five percent boost in stats at the start and when maxed out might only reach fifteen percent. Now that isn't bad per say, but in comparison to someone like Lilly who got a skill that boost all of her pets abilities by ten percent at the start for a minute it is complete garbage. When maxed out Lilly's frenzy would end up giving a thirty percent boost to all of her pets for an even longer amount of time. So that should explain the difference between a good skill and a bad one.

Derrick didn't exactly clear his first dungeon in breath taking speed like Joshua, in fact he cleared it at a rather average pace. The thing he was lucky about was the fact that the skill he gained was rather unique. The skill was called blink. It was a skill that let him move from one spot to another in a…well blink. It's cool down was rather long at a minute and the distance wasn't all that much being about five feet, but that would get better as he leveled the skill. It was the perfect skill for his fighting style. It allowed him to surprise his opponents and flash to their weak points. Derrick still hated the fact that he couldn't get the more improved version of the skill since he didn't clear the dungeon at a fast pace or was the first person to clear the dungeon. Even so it was his trump card and only people in his guild knew about it. Anyone else that found out was quickly killed by him and he left their bodies for the ants to tear apart.

Thanks to his skill the boss of the Raider's Guild took him in early and helped develop him. He wasn't treated like one of the elite members, but he was treated far better than most members in the guild. Even now he was being given the chance to impress the boss of the guild by clearing the dungeon for him. That would get him the place in the guild that he hoped for and the only thing standing in his way was the damn ants and the other groups that he didn't mind killing if he had to. He would get that clear if it was the last thing he did and he rushed forward at a decent pace so that he could catch up to Joshua in time.

At first he was hoping the path forward would be the same for everyone. If that was the case then Joshua would have basically cleared everything for them. It would have been like with the ant worker area before. Even though there were several ants left behind Derrick did see the carcass of several larger ants on the path to the entrance of the dungeon. The worker ants were just fodder for them to push through, but that amount of ant soldiers would have held them up and they might have lost a lot more people if that was the case.

Sadly the path's split and now Derrick would have to make quick work of whatever got in his way if he wanted to catch up before Joshua killed the boss. He knew he would have some time since bosses never went down easy, but after seeing the devastation Joshua and his group left behind he wasn't so sure they'd have any trouble taking down whatever this dungeon had in store for them. He could tell that Joshua wasn't the type of person that would be slowed down by creatures of this level. He could just feel the authority and tenacity coming off of him, it was like looking at the boss of the Raider's Guild in that regard. They both just seemed miles ahead of him and he had no idea why someone like that would still be in an area like this. It didn't matter why in the end though, he just had to push forward and one up him before it got too late.

After rushing down the hall for a while Derrick's group finally came across an ant soldier that glared at them. It was larger than the other ants and quite a lot stronger, but with the number of people in his group they made quick work of it. They lit it up with spells before the melee fighters went in and took it down for good. The tanks took the front after that just in case they ran into larger groups of ants and they pushed forward.

They followed the path for a while and cleared out several ant soldiers that stood in their way. They were all linked together in one large party of around thirty people so the experience was evenly split between them, but Derrick didn't really care. He was already level thirty-eight and he wasn't trying to clear the dungeon for the experience or the experience boost. Hell if he cleared it he'd move onto a tougher area to gain strength and hopefully by then his boss would be giving him even more preferential treatment. So he allowed the newbies of the group to gain a lot of experience for the upcoming fights and some of them were even leveling up from basic fights.

It took a while since their group didn't really have very many high level people in it. It took time to take out every ant soldier and even more so when it came to groups of ant soldiers, but he wasn't going to force things and lose people before they even faced the boss. He would need all the strength he could get before taking on a boss, especially if he planned to kill steal it. Soon the group ended up near a large door that surprisingly turned see through when they approached. On the other side of the door he could see several ant soldiers charging forward towards a group of people that were slowly making their way through the area. He watched on for a moment before he could make out Roberts figure standing at the front of the humans in the place.

Robert was shouting as he grabbed the attention of several ants before his shield lit up and he blocked their charge along with a few other knights. The rest of the humans attacked from afar. Half were attacking the group of ants trying to push past the knights and other tanks while the rest were shooting the flying ants out of the air. The group of humans must have been at least a hundred strong which told Derrick that all three groups had made it to the room ahead of them. He wasn't all that surprised since they were all filled with higher level members outside of his own, but judging by the amount of insects in the room up ahead he was sure they were going to take some time struggling forward to get past.

Derrick turned to look at the direction that the ants were coming from and his eyes lit up when he could see the large door with a huge skull on it. He was certain that was the boss room up ahead. He saw two large ants next to it that towered over every other ant in the room. He was just close enough to observe and when he did he noticed they were called ant generals with three stars by their names. They seemed more armored than the other ants, but he got the feeling they were a weaker version of the general type since they were only three stars. He looked back and forth between the door to the boss room and the group pushing their way towards it and he knew they wouldn't take too long to get there.

That's when a bright idea came to Derrick and he knew he found a way to get to the boss room quickly while holding the others off for a while. He knew that Robert wasn't rushing forward because he didn't want to fight the ant generals at the same time as all of the ant soldiers and flying ants. If given the chance Robert and his group could clear out the other ants slowly before taking on the ant generals. That would be efficient and safe, but if Derrick could lure the ant generals over and that would cause havoc while prolonging their fight. He could use the confusion to lead his group to the boss room ahead of the others.

"What are we going to do boss?" One of his members asked him while the others looked towards him for an answer.

"You lot are gonna stay here and wait for me to tell ya to come over to the boss door through the party chat. I'm gonna go create some havoc down there. Thin out the competition a bit." Derrick said with a smirk before opening the door and waltzing out. He used a presence hiding skill that he had so all of the flying ants would ignore him as he made his way towards the boss door and the two large ant generals. He could hide his presence from a distance, but once he got close enough to the ants they would take notice of him. He wasn't exactly a stealth expert like some people he knew, but he could make do in the current situation.

When he got close enough to the two large ant generals they took notice of him, but they didn't budge from their position and just kept glaring at him. "Well if you want to have it that way…"Derrick said with a smile before taking out two canisters and chunking them at the ants. A canister exploded on each one of their faces and busted into a large flame that caused the ants to shriek. Before the smoke could even clear they started charging towards Derrick angrily as he rushed towards Robert's direction smiling the entire way. Robert took notice of this and glared angrily towards Derrick.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Robert shouted as he fended off some smaller ants and cut off one of their heads.

"Oh nothing much, just bringing you guys and gals some more ants to kill. Hope you don't mind." Derrick said before coming to a stop right in front of the large fight going on. The two ant generals glared at him as they charged over, but just as they were about to grab him with their pincers, he suddenly blinked away and hid his presence. In actuality he didn't move all that far, but he got out of their line of sight which made them lose focus of him. He used the opportunity to rush away and turned around to see the two large ants charging towards Robert and his group." All according to plan."