Trash In The Apocalypse

Suddenly, a strange smell lingered on the lift. Edward slightly raised his arms and sniffed his s.h.i.+rt. Afterwards, he sighed in relief and looked around.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Angelica"s cheeks blushed beet red. She felt uncomfortable all of a sudden as she squirmed about on her place. No one talked as the lift brought them. 

No one really payed attention earlier but the ceiling of the cavern was filled with luminous crystals. The crystals grew like a flower and shone with a lighter shade of blue. The lights they gave off enough radiance to light up the whole cavern.

"So beautiful," Sheila admired the crystals while holding the lift"s gate. She was the last to board the lift which placed her on the front. Her eyes roamed about and she felt so tiny after realizing the size of the cavern.

The lift rattled a bit, which caused her to move her face forward. She got a glimpsed of the ground and to her surprise, saw a flowing river. She then heard strange sounds below.

After looking around, she finally found where the sound was coming from. Dozens of frenzied large rats were running around.

Every thing about those rats could be considered normal, except for some physical changes and their size. Their height is about 1-2 feet tall, has claws and a long tail. Two sharp buckteeths protrude from their mouths.

"Guys, I think we"re in trouble." Sheila said

With no questions asked, Jun step forward and pushed Sheila to the side.

They were still atleast 20m in the air and considering the speed of the lift, they would reach the floor within a few seconds. Jun observed the creatures below and noticed that the large rats were only moving randomly as if confused or agitated.

The reason for the large acting like this was because they weren"t used to the mechanical sound the lift was making. Furthermore, they could feel the vibration the lift was making while it was going down.

Jun opened the gate even though they haven"t reached the ground. Angelica, who was lectured sternly by her father about safety, grabbed his hand.

"Are you crazy? That"s dangerous! What if we accidentally fall down?!"

Jun looked at her in confusion.

Then smiled.

Angelica thought Jun was acting weird when all of a sudden he jumped off the lift.

There was only a 15m distance between the lift and the ground. With his strengthened body, Jun didn"t even feel the force rebound. He arrogantly strode forward without wielding a weapon a.s.suming that these rats that barely reached his knees were the same ones as the above.

When Jun landed squarely on the floor, it caused a loud sound that echoed further in to the cavern. He looked ahead and couldn"t even see the ends of it. He followed the path and finally met with the enlarge rats.

The first rat that jumped on him was slapped away and hit the walls of the cavern. It bounced back and fell to the ground before dissipating.

When the rodents saw one of their kins died in front of them, their eyes turned red as if frenzied. They quickly pounced on Jun in pairs while screeching loudly. Jun deflected most of the rodents that attacked in front, which sent them flying. Unlike the first rat, the succeding rats didn"t die with his backhand slap and managed to get back up in a much berserk state.

When things turned awry, Jun quickly pulled out his bonehammer from his dimensional storage and swung it around. He prioritized a low-swing since most of the rodents near him were the ones who lived after his backhand slap and were nibbling on his legs.

After swinging a couple of times, his backup arrived and they cleared the surrounding area.

"You panicked right?" said Edward with a smirk.

"I didn"t. Why would I?" replied Jun as he led the way.

They walked along side the river and was only separated by preventive railings that reached up to their waists. The water was clear and one could see everything underneath it. No fishes though, just small stones with varying colors. 

Angelica came forward and stood beside Jun with her hands behind her back. She glanced at him for a few times before finally gaining the courage to say something.

"Thank you for coming down with me," she said blus.h.i.+ngly. "I knew you promised that you"ll help me but still, thank you."

Jun felt that something was weird but decided to ignore it. He also felt bashful and only looked ahead. Having someone thank him genuinely was something he would never get used to.

Jun kept silent but nodded his head as a sign that he accepted her grat.i.tude.

Everyone chatted as they fought forward. Everyone was relax since the lower leveled individuals were given priority on killing the rats. Although Jun wanted to prioritize himself and take all the experience, everything that happened today made him realize that he can"t do everything alone. Unless he becomes so strong that no one would even plan against him, he needed everyone"s help and the only way for other"s to become useful was for them to level faster.

As they were walking, Edward suddenly laughed. "This feels like were inside a dungeon. The only thing missing is a treasure box, traps and a boss monster."

Some laughed at him while others became more serious after considering the possible threats further ahead. Nik peeled his eyes open and looked at every crevice on the walls.

Nothing really changed to the way Jun walked, but he thought of a few things as he killed a large rodent that dodged the attack of the people ahead.

Dungeons... hmm. he thought. He was thinking of how easy it was to kill these rodents and besides a few scratches on his pants, he didn"t receive any damage at all. He was then reminded of the difference between the cemetery and the mines. 

If their were levels of difficulty to categorize places, this mine would be considered a beginner or even tutorial area while the cemetery was a mediocre one.

While it was true that the rats had fewer attack patterns, their size and numbers were proving to be an adversary for other people. It was only Jun who was having a hard time since he was using a blunt weapon. Everyone else including Nik and Adrian had to fight seriously since they used sharp blades that lodge deeply into the rats body.

It was fine if the blade gets stuck. The problem was that other rodents were given an opportunity to attack.

Unlike the cemetery that sp.a.w.ns enemies at 1:1 ratio, the mines resp.a.w.n large rats at 1:5 ratio. That means every minute, 55 or less large rats sp.a.w.n in their surrounding. They don"t know what happened to those missing ones but they"re probably resp.a.w.ned at a different place.

It wasn"t hard to kill the large rats, but keeping an eye with the resp.a.w.n timer was proving difficult for some who doesn"t like to do so.

The flower-like crystals overhead changed into long stalact.i.tes. Jun couldn"t help but imagine that if an explosion or an earthquake occured those stalact.i.tes would break and fall on them.

"We"re near." Angelica uttered anxiously. Her voice was soft and filled with concer.

Jun focused and looked ahead. The cavern split into two, one on the right and one on the left. They could see lightbulbs on the walls at exact same distance with each other.

After killing all of the resp.a.w.ned rats, Angelica ran forward and took the left wing. The left wing leads to the Leisure Room where her father was supposed to be trapped.

Everyone followed after her and saw her standing still on the idle, staring at a 1 meter tall rat. 

"What is that?!" exclaimed Angelica.

Jun turned and looked at her in confusion. Angelica noticed Jun"s questioning gaze and explained herself. "I didn"t saw that when I ran away! There were only those slightly larger ones! Not this one! But it seems that there"s less of them now... does that mean..."

"Did they ate each other? That"s gross..." Sheila said with disgust on her face.

"Let"s just deal with it."

Jun rushed forward with his bonehammer. He channeled energy before unleas.h.i.+ng a burst of flame as he threw the bonehammer forward.

The group of large rats already noticed them when Angelica decided to ran forward and wasted their element of surprise.

However, with or without surprising the enemy, Jun would always charge first when he knew that he could deal with enemy. Besides its large body, there was nothing else that differed against the large rats. It still had one tail, two claws and two protruding buckteeth.

The flames on the hammer"s head blazed and burned the hairs of nearby rats that it pa.s.sed through. Before it could hit its target—the one meter tall rat—the bonehammer was swiped by its claws and bounced of the wall.

An ear piercing sound echoed as the giant rat screamed in anger. The ferocity in its eyes apparent as it madly charged forward, shoving and smas.h.i.+ng the smaller rodents to the side.