Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

The chase was intense.

The adventurer huffed and puff as she ran through the eerie corridors. Terror reigned after a realization dawned on her. On the odd chance of her successful escape, she may very well get lost and find her way to more precarious situations.

This realization removed any semblance of logical thoughts she might have had. Now there was only room for the knowledge that she was being chased with no hope of survival.

The only one that kept a cool mind in this situation was W who had to make a decision.

'I can transmit for the mage to stop but…' Given all the weird things that happened to the adventurer girl, if she had any shred of awareness she'd notice someone or something was protecting her.

That wasn't necessarily bad since that would tell her he had good intentions, but W was not exactly able to tell the future. He didn't know how the girl might react. A perfect example was the current situation.

"Aaaaaah!!!! Someone help!!!" She unexpectedly let out a desperate cry for help. But maybe it wasn't so surprising, the girl was at the end of her wits, what else could she do!?

Noticing the breakdown of their opponent's mental state, the skeleton finally decided to use their core to cast a simple spell. The earth beneath their feet rose into the air before shooting past the white skeletons and breaking onto their target.

"AAAH!!!" The adventurer girl instinctively covered her head but it was of no real help. One of the earthen shots crashed into the arm she was protecting her head with, the force from the impact still entered her head.

She fell forward without grace and hit the ground with a tumbling thud. Her head bled and her arm was without a doubt broken yet the most painful part was that she was still conscious in spite of having muddled thoughts and hazy vision.

"No…" She couldn't die there, not yet! Was she going to repay her mother's loving care with pain and sorrow instead of with gratitude and affection? She didn't want to disappear, she knew that the moment she left this world her mother would follow soon after.

But against her strong will she lost all senses and remained in her own head with a hazy mind. The culprit was W, he deprived her of her senses.

'Stop!' W transmitted to the skeletons. He needed them to go away while the girl was unconscious.

Upon hearing the transmitted voice the skeletons froze into place. They had not yet become acquainted with Ed and technically this was W but they knew better than to defy this voice.

The mage skeleton forcefully halted their next spell and without a second thought turned towards whence they came. The main thing all skeletons wanted to do was show off their capabilities to their liege.

That was to say if the liege said not to kill they didn't need to kill. The secondary thing they all wanted to do was shower Ed with treasure. In other words, equipment. But wasn't this person completely broke? They wore rags and their sword was not even worth the earthen mana he lost when harming the adventurer.

Those were the reasons the skeleton mage was able to turn back so resolutely. He was however not followed.

'Follow and listen to the mage' W managed to realize this so he made sure to transmit them to resume their normal behavior.

'I better heal the girl's body now' W thought as he controlled her to lay up off the ground. The blood that oozed out of her head suddenly stopped and reverted into her skull as if by magic. The wound also started to slowly close.

But this process halted after W lay witness to an unexpected occurrence.

An arrow.

The arrow came whizzing from afar. It flew above W and into the crowd of stationary skeletons. With frightening momentum, as if the skeletons were made of paper, it tore right through their skulls.

The arrow was beelining towards a figure, the target was clear…!

The skeleton mage whose back was still turned back… did nothing. The constant impacts diverted the arrow's course resulting in it sinking into the ground beside the skeleton mage.

If it succeeded in anything it was in gaining the attention of the earthen mage skeleton. They turned around with the intention of spotting the archer but they instead noticed a swordsman darting towards them.

"You can die again at my hands now!" This new figure said as they flashed forward. They skipped past the adventurer girl's confused body and lunged at the skeleton mage within a matter of seconds.

W was dumbfounded as he witnessed the man push through a small horde of skeletons and directly decapitate the earthen mage.

'Ah… That skeleton was probably one of the older unnamed…' They had a robe on after all and Ed didn't distribute robes willy-nilly. It was a real shame to lose such a mage but the human that attacked just then was too strong for W to even think to help.

Two more arrows came flying at the small horde of plain old skeletons and they were once more decimated into piles of bones.

'All that material…' The dungeon was probably going to reclaim those bodies, which meant those skeletons wouldn't be reborn as strong anti-skeletons in the future. What a pity!

They would be regular white skeletons in the future...

Was what W thought until the moment he saw the new swordsman bring out a weird substance. He tossed it onto the bones causing them to melt rapidly. The chemical even stained the ground with its acidic properties.

'This… Truly wasteful' The humans were unable to see the true value of those bones!

Though on second thought, maybe they did. Why else would they destroy the parts?

"Are you ok, miss?" The young and elegant swordsman said looking rather handsome. W had been deep in thought so he shot him a lost look before knowing that he overstayed his welcome. He directly relinquished control of the body.

In the eyes of the swordsman, the girl suddenly fell unconscious much to the shock of this protagonist-like hero.

"Christian, we should probably get this girl out of here" Another young man said as he approached. He had a bow in hand.

"Yeah, I agree but…" It took a good bit for them to leave the dungeon. Plus after a quick check for injuries, the girl seemed ok. The injury on her head looked clean in a very good way.

"We should just wait for her to wake up and ask some questions" Christian couldn't fathom why such a weak girl would come this far by herself. The crypt had become divided into two sectors.

The first sector was the newbie sector, there was nothing but plain old skeletons there. The second sector after the safe room was up to chance, however. The odds of encountering an actually powerful entity increased the deeper you went but that didn't mean other areas of this sector were safe.

Death was equally present in every room of the dungeon. This was common knowledge for the adventurers of Arbor Town.

Judging by the girl's attire, she was no adventurer though. In Christian's eyes she was just seeking death. Even he and his friend Archer only dared venture this deep in with hesitance.

Admittedly part of the reason for the hesitancy was their traumatic and humiliating experience in the next floor but… despite having once lost against some orcs they were quite powerful.

After that incident, they both formed a party and visited famous dungeons across the kingdom. These journeys helped them gain both better and equipment and greater experience.

At some point during their travels, they heard of the increased difficulty of the crypt and the treasures awaiting discovery.

Hearing about this they both felt it fitting to return in an attempt to conquer their fear so they did just that. Following constant honing and adjusting, they made a vow. After reaching the A-class they could seek revenge with some confidence.

Samuel Oakley was beat back by a single orc so the danger remained. It was just that they could at the very least escape at the A-class providing a safety net.

"I guess we should…" Archer said feeling a bit unsettled. Call it an Archer's keen eye but he didn't really trust the girl after her bizarre behavior.

Both he and Cristian witnessed her being pelted down only for the skeletons to stop in their place. With the dim lights it might have been a bit hard for Christian to notice the next detail of the skeletons wishing to follow after the retreating mage.

Archer would have liked to investigate the matter more closely but Christian had a big heart. He had rescued lots of people in the crypt up to this point and made a name for himself among those he rescued.

Angelic hero! Was what most of the maidens called him. The men thought he was cool and gallant wishing they could have just an ounce of his talent and skill.

Why Archer knew these things was obviously since he was always present. The girls kept on trying to talk to him in hopes of learning about Christian. How frustrating!

Nevertheless, they were friends. He could put up with this bit of torture. There were plenty of people in the land. Putting aside his love woes, Archer helped Christian find a safer location.

This rescue would surely turn out like all the others. At least he hoped it would.