A flash of vertigo later, Sylas and the team were standing exactly where they left from, but the stone arch and blue swirling portal were nowhere to be seen.
Sylas glanced at the System clock. 'A little after 3. At least time passes by at the same rate in the dungeon.' With a greedy grin he continued to think, 'I've read too many novels where time differences after going through a portal mess up everything. Although, I wouldn't have minded if time moved slower out here.'
'Oh well,' Sylas abandoned the thought as Swain came out of the building with a wagon behind him. 'I should grab mine too.'
Sylas jogged over to the building, letting the others walk out with their wagons before grabbing his too. "Alright, we have everything?" Sylas took a look at everyone's wagon to see they all looked the same as when they left.
With positive responses from the group, Sylas pointed in the direction of the dorms and Swain took point. Diana's dorm was the closest so the group went to the junior dorms first.
The dorm buildings all looked the same from the outside, and mostly the same on the inside too. It was a large building with four floors. Each floor had windows roughly 15 feet apart from each other signifying a room. The outside was painted silver at some point in the past, but was now a dirty grey with some lucky silver specks still shining.
Swain broke the glass in the door to get in the dorm building since the doors were locked and the badge reader didn't work anymore. They couldn't easily get their wagons in so the group split into two.
Sylas and Swain stayed outside with the wagons while the girls went to Diana's room to get some clothes and any other supplies they might need.
The guys watched them walk down the first floor hallway before stopping in front of, what they guessed was, Diana's room. Then each of the women took turns kicking the door, but these doors and locks were solid after a public relations nightmare where a random drunk man entered the girl's dorms and was able to kick down the door to a dorm where a girl was terrified inside.
Luckily, nothing bad happened after because the drunk realized that wasn't where he was supposed to be. The incident was widespread across Silver Oak Country and even the other three countries, so the University installed new doors, locks, and the badge readers on every dorm to secure the campus.
The girls looked back towards Sylas and Swain, so Swain jogged down the hallway to give it a try as well. He backed up to the other side of the hallway, took a step forward, lifted his right foot up, and slammed the flat of his foot into the door.
There was an impressive sound from the impact and then the funny sight of Swain holding his right foot while hopping around on his left.
Swain shooed the girls back a few feet by waving his arms, then grabbed the axe off his back. He measured the distance between walls with his axe and had a few inches to spare.
Getting into a batting position, Swain took a swing at the door, hitting the handle, and creating an even louder noise than before.
Sylas had to turn around and face the outside of the building as the noise could attract some unwanted visitors and he thought it was much better to see them coming. He was waiting for another loud noise to come, but instead he heard footsteps from behind him. Swain had successfully opened the door and returned.
"I've always wanted to do that," Swain sighed and had a huge mustachioed grin on his face. Sylas chuckled, "I'm glad you enjoyed it because you have two more to do."
Swain looked eager to get to the next door, but they had to wait several minutes for the girls to come back with Diana's supplies. There wasn't much and her items didn't even fill half the wagon when it was packed.
The party went to Sam's dorm next, dispatching a pack of 20 zombies on the way, but they didn't even break a sweat. After the hellhound dungeon, what were just 20 enemies?
Sylas was left alone with the wagons once again as Swain and the girls went to break Sam's door. Swain returned within a couple minutes noting that nothing interesting happened. The boys were left to their own devices for almost ten minutes before the sound of soft footsteps were heard from inside the building.
The three girls appeared with bundles of clothing in their arms. Sylas gave Sam a quizzical look as they packed one of the wagons to the brim. 'Sam doesn't usually overpack like this,' Sylas mused, but Sam saw the look and quickly answered. "It's for Jackie too. She's not in the dorms so her things aren't here."
Sylas and Swain both nodded their heads at her reveal, while Sylas also gave her a proud look for thinking about others in such a tumultuous time.
Just like that, they were off to their second to last destination, Sylas and Swain's dorm room. Much to Sylas's chagrin, the journey was smooth.
'Why is there nothing to fight now that I want to fight? I want Tier 1 and whatever my class is going to be.'
Sam said she was going up to pack with Sylas and Swain because "they are boys" which the other two girls agreed with.
"Oh, that's right, you only get to smash two doors. I propped open our door so we should be good." Sylas recalled when he saw the front doors to the dorms kept open with pillows from the couches in the lobby. Swain just chuckled and continued walking.
The bodies of the zombie and dorm resident weren't at the bottom of the stairway anymore and it prompted Sylas to think back to their journeys throughout the day. There weren't many corpses wherever they went, with most of the area actually being clean.
'They must dissolve after about a day.'
They reached the dorm room, which was still propped open, and quickly started piling clothes on their beds deciding what they wanted to bring. After a moment, Sylas and Swain were both ready to leave and grabbed their chosen pile, heading out the door.
Sam stood in front of the door with her arms crossed. "You're both idiots. Put your clothes back down." The two guys complied and then stood there not knowing what to do. "You're hopeless. Toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, comb."
They both gave a sheepish smile while rubbing the back of their necks before dashing into their shared bathroom to grab everything Sam listed.
The trio returned to the wagons, each putting their items into their own wagon, barely taking any space. "Back to the student center!" Swain exclaimed with joy and Sylas understood why. It was around 5pm now, which meant they had been traveling, fighting, and hauling supplies for the last eight hours.
"Oh, before we go!" Sylas cleared a spot in his wagon and then took the [Mana Slow Cooker] out of his inventory and set it down. He grabbed the large mixing bowl he and Swain used to hold ice and chill their drinks while gaming, and put rabbit meat in it. After gathering more rabbit meat from the others, he had about two pounds in the bowl.
Sylas mentally focused on the [Mana Slow Cooker] which opened a System window showing 20 slots. He put the bowl into one of them and saw an icon of the bowl appear in the first inventory slot with a two hour timer across it.
As the others inspected the slow cooker, Sylas explained "I figured I'd test it out by seeing how long this guy takes to cook and what it tastes like."
"I hope it's good!" Swain was practically drooling already. "I miss meat and it's only been a day."
Everyone laughed as they continued on their way to the student center. Sylas was happy as this time they ran into a gaze of raccoons. He didn't hog the experience, but he enjoyed every step closer to his goal.
The party was approaching the student center when Sylas felt the familiar pulling sensation. The feeling was coming from the same direction the group was traveling so he kept quiet and continued on the path.
In the large courtyard in front of the student center, an ancient yet regal stone archway stood with a blue swirling portal in its middle. Sylas smiled as he approached the stone arch. 'Maybe we can make it to Tier 1 today.'
[Dungeon]
[Difficulty: 1]
[Environment: Grassy Plain]
[Enemies: 2 type, Humanoid, Tiers 0 and 1]
[Completion Conditions: Defeat boss]
[Completion Reward(s): Survival Utility Item]
[WARNING: Completion conditions failed. Dungeon break is imminent. 8:48]
"Shit!" Sylas was the first one to read to the end and immediately understood what was happening. "A dungeon break is about to occur. We have to get our shit and leave."
Sam was the first to react and follow Sylas as he started running towards the student center's entrance. "Are we not trying to clear because of the Tier 1's in the dungeon?" She asked as they reached the door.
"Yeah, I don't know if only the boss is Tier 1, if there are multiple, or if they are higher leveled Tier 1 monsters. It's too dangerous for us right now." Sylas brought his wagon inside, brought it to the side, and then held the door for the others as he ushered them in.
"Bring the wagons! We'll leave out the other side of the building after grabbing the food and some bedding."
The party was rushed to their temporary room by Sylas where they then packed the wagons with the portable grill, bedding, and packed the backpacks with the remaining canned food. They moved at speeds faster than most humans were capable of, but it still took them around around five minutes to go from the dungeon to being fully packed.
TRIGGER WARNING: Anyone with SA triggers, please skip to the next chapter.
They raced down the hallway, heading towards the other end of the building. Sylas was drenched in sweat. Even though he was hoping for the best, he was fearing and planning for the worst.
Suddenly, Swain, who was leading the charge, stopped in the hallway, almost causing those behind him to collide. Sylas looked past him and saw why he stopped.
Bright red blood, human corpses with knives in their backs, and almost every female corpse was in a state of undress. These were the survivors the group had seen last night and this morning.
Each person had an expression of fear, confusion, or hatred etched into their forever still faces. Sylas started to get angry at the What If's running through his head.
What if they were here when this happened?
What if Sam was here when this happened?
What if Sam was here and he wasn't able to protect her?
What if Sam was one of these women who had their clothes torn and their necks slit?
Sylas was seething with rage when a piercing scream rang out. Sylas started running towards the sound, but Swain had better physical stats and easily beat him to the source.
In the large opening of the guidance counselor's office, Swain came to a stop as he and Sylas processed the sight in front of them.
The rat-faced Dexter Sawchain was stuffing items into a bag as his leader, Brock Creighton, was laying in his bedding with his back towards the duo and his pants partially pulled down.
Dexter noticed the duo first and spoke as he walked over to them, "Hey! Why are you alive?". Dexter's words made Brock turn his body to look towards the door. That movement allowed Sylas and Swain to see past him.
Their vision turned red as they saw the knife in Brock's hand pressed to the throat of a young woman who was likely a student before the integration started. She had tears streaking down her face as blood bubbled from her neck. Her clothes ripped down the middle.
When she saw Sylas and Swain, she screamed the same piercing scream they heard earlier.
Swain backhanded Dexter as he approached, sending Dexter flying into the nearby wall. He landed and stayed there unmoving, life or death unknown.
Sylas brought out his wand and didn't even think about the consequences of his next action. He shot a [Rotting Bolt] at the waste of space, Brock Creighton.
At this moment, Sylas didn't care that he had never taken a human life before. There wasn't a thought about how his action would be considered murder 48 hours ago. It was probably still considered murder.
He didn't think about how easy it was for him to shoot the bolt. He didn't think about anything as he watched the black-green ball float towards Brock. Sylas just watched.
He watched as the wall Brock's bedding was resting against suddenly exploded. He watched as a brick intercepted his bolt as it flew from the force of the explosion.
Then covered his face as debris from the wall scattered, revealing a short green humanoid in a robe with a staff in its hands.
[Goblin Shaman]
[Level: 10]
[Tier: 1]
[Rank: Commoner]