128 Grand Endless Grassland 2

And truly, they hadn't even walked wor five minutes, when suddenly a wolf tunneled out of the grass at the side. Its target was Tina, who had walked on that side.

Coming out like this, it managed to surprise her, even though all of their concentration was raised to the maximum. Luckily for Tina, it didn't choose to attack her throat, because that would most likely have been a death sentence for her. Instead, it targeted her leg. And it succeeded too.

Tina had barely started to react when the wolfes sharp teeth entered her leg, "Aaaaarrgghhh.", she exclaimed in pain. But she didn't let the pain stop her. With all her strength she stabbed downwards towards its head, with the short sword in her hand. She was hoping that she could force the wolf to release her leg. Unfortunately, she was mistaken. Instead of releasing her leg, the wolf used its huge physical strength to abruptly pull her leg away.

Unable to keep her balance, Tina couldn't continue with her stab and instead fell. But this short time had enabled Tom to react. He used his sword to hack down at the wolf, while at the same time channeling a healing spell for his sister.

While hie attack completely missed the agile wolf, it nevertheless got it to release Tina's leg. Tina hurriedly moved away from the wolf and got back on her legs. Meanwhile, the others had just taken a short look and seeing that it was only one wolf, focused on their surroundings again. Tina and Tom should be able to get rid of the wolf together, but it would be bad if someone else got surprised too.

Having regained her footing, Tina paired up with her brother and put pressure onto the wolf. Whit two people attacking him, he couldn't use his agility as well as before. The problem was that neither Tina nor Tom were able to land even a single hit on it.

This stalemate continued for a bit until the wolf decided that it wasn't worth it. Unlike some might believe, the monsters in the dungeons weren't stupid crazy beasts, that would only know how to attack adventures. They too would be driven by their basic instincts. And the reason the wolf had attacked Tina was that it saw her as easy prey.

Now that it had realized that it was different, it didn't hesitate to vanish back into the grass.

"Damn.", Tina cursed. She knew what this interaction meant. "Guys, prepare to die.", she then said, trying to inject some humor into her voice, to liven up the situation.

If even one single wolf was this difficult for them to handle, then there was no way, that they would be able to withstand a full pack of them. Although Susan, Lars, and Ivan were better at close-quarter fighting than the two of them, this wouldn't be enough, if they got surrounded.

"Yeah, this sucks. It seems like we will fail hard on this floor.", Susan agreed. The floors in the dungeon had a multitude of checkpoints. At these checkpoints, one would be able to leave the dungeon as well as rest for a bit since they were designated as safe points. But on the Grand Endless Grassland, there were no such checkpoints except those that served as start and endpoint for the floors.

But judging from the combat just now, it wasn't likely that they would be able to reach the first checkpoint.

"Damn, I heard dying in the dungeon sucks.", Lars too started to curse.

While one would get revived by the system if one died in the Training Dungeon it wasn't a comfortable affaire. Not only would one be able to feel one dying, which depending on the dead wasn't fun. Because who would want to experience slowly being eaten up, or dissolved by the acid in a monster's stomach?And after this bodily pain, there would be the pain to the soul, which was a side effect of the revive.

Of course, there were some masochists who didn't have a problem with it or even enjoyed it, but those were a rarity and most teams would hate to have someone like this as a member. Someone who didn't really fear death, while sometimes being able of astonishing deeds, would in most cases be a danger to him and his teammates.

"So what will we do now?", Tom asked.

"I'm not sure. Does anyone have a good idea?", Tina asked while looking at Ivan. It seemed like she had gotten into the habit of expecting him to always have something up his sleeve.

But this time she was doomed to be disappointed. Ivan didn't have a good idea either. If he was alone, then he might be able to do it, but together with the others, it was impossible.

"I don't have any idea either. How did the other teams do it?"

Because they were in Nightmare Mode, they had had more failures on the third and fourth floor. This had slowed them down compared to the other teams, which meant that some other teams should have already finished this floor. Since Tina liked to talk to others, Ivan was sure, that she had talked with those teams about it.

"Yeah, but I don't think their experience will be of much use for us. According to them the only problematic thing about the wolves was that they would appear. But besides that, they could easily defend against them and kill them, if the group size didn't exceed 20.", she told them what the others had said before continuing, "But the won't work for us. These wolves are to fast for us to defeat. Although Ivan should be able to do it. And maybe Lars as well. But we others are just sitting ducks in their eyes."

"Then can we only continue on and hope for the best?", Susan asked. She didn't seem happy about it, but neither did the rest. It was just that nobody had a good idea.

"Is there no way, to increase our speed?", this was Lars who asked.

"I don't think so.", Tina answered, "Or do you have such a blessing?", she then asked her brother, who shook his head.

"I don't. But I could get one called Blessing of the Wind from the church. It is just that it is a bit expensive."

"What does it do?"

"It generally speeds up the targets. It is a group blessing, so I could cast it on up to five targets at the same time, which would be perfect in this situation.", Tom explained.

"That really sounds like something we need. Then what would you need to get it?", Tina said.

"We priests have to contribute to our church and this way we can earn points. We can then use them to buy different things."

"So we won't be able to help you.", said with disappointment in her voice.

"Yeah, but I have some points saved up. So if I focus for a bit, I should be able to buy the blessing in around two months time."

"That's quite a long time."

"Well, it won't help us at the moment anyway. For now, it would be better to continue on.", Ivan interrupted the discussion. They were still standing in the middle of the grassland, so it was definitely not a good idea to hold this discussion at the moment.

Once again the group made their way slowly forward. This time they were even slower since Ivan took the time to cut a larger path. Even though Tina and Tom wouldn't be able to defeat the wolves on Tina's side, with the larger path it would at least be less likely that they would be caught by surprise again.

They now stood closer together as well. Although this would hinder their maneuverability, this didn't really matter in the current situation, since none of them except Ivan was capable of really evading the wolves. As such the better defense capabilities of their new formation outweighed the cons of not being able to evade as well.

They hadn't gone far when once again a wolf jumped at them. This time it targeted Susan, who was in the back. Unlike Tina, she was well versed in defending herself in close quarters. As such, she was able to position her shield between her and the wolf, which fully collided with it.

The force of the collision was big enough to force Susan back a step. At the same time, the wolf who hadn't expected this turn of events was influenced as well. A hit to the head couldn't just be ignored. Although it didn't fall, it still staggered. Its moment of confusion was then exploited by Lars who tried to stab it in its throat. This was something he had learned on the floors below. Always go for the kill, and if that doesn't work, then continue with slowly disabling the enemy.