‘This is about to become the worst case scenario.’, I thought whilst holding the shield about twice the size of my body. I just came in to the scene and I’m already about to be overthrown.

My plan was to find the spot right above the shield and unmaterialize to pass through the floor thus reaching the shield faster. There was no one on the first castle floors, so it was save to turn off ‘Materialization’.

I had thought the shield would be a small one that could be held with one hand or that could be placed on your arm to use it as a armor piece of sorts.

“He has the shield! Get him quick!”, the leader of the temporary party ordered, and the three other members readied themselves. “We need to get it before all the treasures have been collected, you three get the shield, I’ll try my best at taking care of the big guy.”

‘It’s at moments like these if which I was in their team.’, I lamented my teams lack of guidance, though it is partly my fault too.

Two of our members are lost, I cant even sense them anymore, and this ‘Berserker’ just came in charging into battle like a absolute maniac.

‘God? Is this what I get for being too greedy? I’ll change I promise… actually, scratch that. I can’t make promises.’, I made a pun to myself.

“‘Dark Bullet’.”, I shot a ‘Dark Attribute Magic’ spell from the tip of my finger towards them. A young boy with a staff held it in place and chanted a spell. ‘“Barrier’!”

A wall made from pure mana sustained the damage from the bullet, but it crumbled soon after impact. “A ‘No-Attribute Magic’ spell, interesting.”, I muttered to myself.

The same person wielding the staff chanted another spell, and a wind blade was shot towards me at a rapid speed.

“‘Barrier’.”, another wall of mana appeared, it wasn’t as powerful as the other one.

The wind blade collided agains wall of mana and both crumbled down to pieces, unlike the previous barrier, this one was merely a imitation a fake to be concise.

“He didn’t even chant!”, the mage boy exclaimed while sweat dropped from his forehead. “Leave it put to me then!”

A girl with leather armor and a steel sword leaped towards me.

‘Just as I thought, I’m better off using ‘Flame Manipulation’ and ‘Liquid Manipulation’.’, I speculated.

I held my hand behind my back, while the other was holding the shield in place. “‘Mana Shot’.”, I grabbed my staff and aimed for her stomach.

The glow stones on my staff glowed ominously, and a white bullet was shot from the magic circle on the tip of the staff.

The female swordsman was thrown back by the power of the white pallet of mana. “Damn it! Blurgh!”, she held her stomach, the pain was making her want to puke, but she held herself in place.

‘I see, the consumption of mana did decrease to a good level.’, I was testing out my staff, i was originally thinking about using it only when I truly needed to, but I also wanted to test it.

“However, it would still be more preferable to use my skills instead… oh?”, I saw a flashing light in the distance.

“Hey! I have no idea how you came here faster than me, but don’t you think you can get all the ‘fun’ for yourself!”, he held onto his pure white sword, he stood still and positioned the sword pointing towards me, and threw it.

The glowing sword almost seemed like a bullet for instances.

I evaded the sword by a hairs breadth and almost lost grip on my shield. “Hey! What the hell are you thinking?! We’re in the same team!”, I held the golden shield back up.

I suddenly caught something in my spell, two people were approaching from the distance.

‘Is it Gray and the other guy?’, I thought for a moment, I decided to expand the range of my spell, and I tremble in fear for what I had caught up.

“Hey! We need to leave quick!”, I warned the ‘Berserker’ who was approaching at a alarming rate, the other adventurers got the wrong idea. “Make sure they don’t escape!”

‘No! That’s not it!’, an earthquake shook the whole ground out of nowhere, everyone fell lost their footing and fell onto the floor except for the charging beast that was slowly but surely approaching the altar.

“Give me a break!”, I picked up the shield, it wasn’t too heavy due to my high ‘Strength’ stat, but it was still a bother to hold onto.

“Get him! He is trying to escape!”, the leader ordered and they got back to their feets’ without a moments notice.

I reached the party and grabbed to form a small circle. “Hey! The do you think you’re doing!?”, the girl whom I inappropriately groped shouted right into my ear. “I’ll apologize to you if we survive.”

“Now get DOWN!”, I grabbed onto the last person within the small dungeon below the castle, I held my shield upwards.

Crack, Crack, Crack

“Wha—“, the adventurers caught a glimpse of the ceiling breaking down onto the shield, the pressure was being hold by a single person, who’s arms seemed like they could break at any moment.

And so, the castle, that could even be called a stronghold crumbled upon the adventurers beneath ground.

 

 

 

“How’s the status of the stronghold?”, a man in expensive armor asked one of his team members who was holding a staff towards the destroyed castle.

“It’s been destroyed, as planned. Are you sure this was a good idea though? This is going to alarm the whole region of what’s happened here.”, the mage asked, as he took a potion to his mouth to recover mana.

“Yes, this is exactly what we want.”, he answered without a single tinge of doubt. “But, how are we going to the treasure among all the ruble?”, another teammate with a huge axe on its back asked.

“It’s not ‘us’ who is going to search for it, we’re having others do the job for us.”, he revealed the true sense of their actions to his team.

They all awed in amazement, their temporary leader was able to take action despite not even knowing their abilities nor backgrounds.

‘This is almost too easy, it’s like taking a walk in a park.’, he had thought to himself, full of pride and arrogance. ‘All I have to do is wait for a team to find the treasure and then take it from them.’

His plan was to destroy the fortress holding the treasure, whether there were adventurers or not. It would attract everyone’s attention, thus leading others to search the area for what is buried underground.

‘Everyone in this competition must’ve been trying to survive rather than fight, in this case only a small number of people should appear.’, he had strategized everything ahead, he truly believed that nothing could go wrong.

… when suddenly, a pillar of light tat extended all the way to the sky and beyond appeared from the once been castle.

“What?!”

‘Someone is still alive? No it can’t be… it’s the shield that’s inside!’, he stood up from his earth chair, it wasn’t fancy but it was all he could get from his environment.

‘But why? Are they desperate? No that’s not it…’, he thought of every possible scenario, when one of his teammates suddenly announced.

“Enemies incoming! We have four, no thirteen. No! It’s increasing! Fifty! We have one hundred hostiles approaching!!!”, the teammates shuddered by the sheer number.

He was suing a ‘Fire Attribute Magic’ spell called ‘Heat Sense’, it allowed one to identify heat signatures as the name suggests.

‘Why?! Why is this happening now?! Who is ruining my plans?!’, he had thought out everything, no matter what scenario, situation or even location, he knew what to do and that is why.

‘Why is this happening?!’, he was confused by the outcome of his plan, he was holding his head back in a headache. “The only way of this happening would be that ‘he’ is here… the ‘Berserker’.”

His teammates recognized the name which struck fear in many hearts of adventurers. However, one was especially terrified, and that was none other than the leader himself.

‘To think I’d have to meet you here again!’, he remembered some memories of his past and shuddered. ‘He’s the reason why I didn’t get promoted to ‘S’ class!’

The two of them had confronted each other in the past, in a fierce battle between them, the one who came out victorious was the ‘Berserker’.

‘It was my Class Up exam, and he was my opponent…’, for one to promote to a higher class, one needed to go through an exam or be recognized as such class.

The exams are carried out randomly, however most of them are just the receptionists asking you questions, testing your knowledge to see if you’re qualified for a ‘Class Up’.

There are however, special occasions where you’re requested to battle against a certain opponent or you’re given a certain quest.

But in his case, he was ordered to battle a fearsome opponent, someone of the same class as him: the ‘Berserker’.

“What sort of twist of fate is this?!”, his body trembled, remembering the scars of his past was something he couldn’t sustain.

“Are you alright?”, his team member asked in a worried voice.

‘What am I doing? As of right now, I need to lead these people to victory along with myself.’, despite them only being there momentarily, he still refused to not extend a hand to those with him.

“Change of plans, we’ll have to have to charge towards our enemy!”, everyone became surprised by his command. “We don’t have anywhere to run to, we’re practically surrounded. And we don’t have the time to search for another treasure.”

Everyone within his team understood what meant leaving now, it would be inevitable that they would be dragged to battle. And if they left, they’d be admitting defeat.

“””All right let’s go!”””

 

 

 

“Are we still alive?”, muttered the teams leader, everything was dark as far as the eye can see. “Argh!”

I moved the shield to the left whilst throwing away the debris on top of it, thus revealing the moonlight.

“Phew, I thought I was a goner.”, I muttered as I let the wall support my back, I held onto the shield to make sure I wouldn’t let anyone get it.

“Why did you save us?”, the girl with the steel sword asked, holding her chest while blushing.

‘So that’s why I felt something soft.’, I thought, and then shook my head to get rid of those indecent thoughts.

“First off let me apologize, for ‘that’ and second: I don’t know.”, the party of randomized adventurers were flabbergasted by my answer.

“What do you mean ‘I don’t know.’, why would you help your enemy in the first place?”, she doubted my reasons and I thought about another answer.

“Well, has it been me, I would’ve wished for someone to save me.”, I answered a lie, why a lie? Because I knew that I wouldn’t have asked for help.

However, they are not me. That’s what makes us different, had it been them. Maybe they wished they would’ve been saved, that’s why I lied.

Had I never thought like that, I probably would’ve left them to die. I didn’t do this because I’m a good person, I did this according to what my mind, my thought processing said.

They were confused, they had the look of ‘are you okay?’, as if I was sick.

‘Don’t look at me like that, I just saved you…’, I thought, when I suddenly found the missing presence of someone.

The one who had set me up in this mess to begin with was not here. I was sure that I had saved him from collision, then where is he?

“Aha! Found it.”, the familiar yet annoying voice came from above the crater, I climbed up to find the person in question holding his glowing sword like a jewel or a artifact worth a lifetime.

“What are you doing?! Do you know what trouble I had to go through to save your ass?!”, I felt the lid pop off, and my patience run out.

“Shush, I need to do something.”, he held his sword towards the sky, I could feel mana being gathered around his sword. The feeling was horrible, it felt like it would burn my skin just by touching.

A pillar of light emerged from the sword towards the sky, thus illuminating the night with a scorching light.

“What are you doing?!”, I was almost out of mana, so I used what little remained to use ‘Sense’.

“…!”, a terrifying number of signatures appeared on my spell, before I found four in the distance together with a lot of mana gathered in one point, but this is madness!

“You lunatic! Are you trying to get us killed?!”, the other adventurers heard my monotone scream, and saw the surge of light coming from the sword.

It wouldn’t effect anyone, it was simply a turret of light, it couldn’t even kill the smallest demon.

“Now this is where the fun begins.”, his mouth curved up in a menacing smile, bloodlust emitting from his eyes and smile alone could scare a tiger off.

And so, the slaughter began.