Chapter 59: Fighting Back (part 2)

Chapter 59: Chapter 59: Fighting Back (part 2)

The fight was exhausting, but this time, the adventurers had discovered a weakness.

Eventually, the final skeleton collapsed, and the graveyard became silent.

The surviving adventurers stood among piles of charred bones, breathing heavily.

"We survived."

One of them laughed.

"Check the graves."

"What?"

"If this place is guarded by that many skeletons, there might be something valuable here."

They began searching.

To their surprise, their efforts quickly paid off.

One of the adventurers opened an old coffin and discovered several silver coins hidden beneath the remains inside.

"Look at this!"

Another searched beneath a broken tombstone and found a small magic stone.

The mage picked it up and examined it.

"This is worth quite a bit."

The group immediately became excited.

Their earlier fear began to fade. The dungeon wasn’t only a place of death, there really was treasure inside.

Elsewhere, another group had also discovered something valuable.

After surviving an encounter with the giant bats, they stumbled into a small chamber containing several wooden chests.

Everyone stared at them.

"Are those treasure chests?"

The leader slowly approached.

"Don’t touch them yet."

After confirming that nothing appeared to be wrong, he finally opened the nearest chest.

Inside were several gold coins, a few gemstones, and two potions.

The adventurers stared in disbelief.

"We actually found treasure."

One of them picked up a gemstone and held it toward the light.

"This alone should pay for the expedition."

The leader smiled.

"Then we’re taking everything."

Their confidence increased immediately.

They had already fought monsters, survived traps, and found treasure. To them, the dungeon was beginning to look less like a death trap and more like an opportunity.

But they had no idea that another group had just discovered something far more dangerous.

The goblin village.

The adventurers had been wandering through the maze for some time when they found a corridor that eventually opened into a much larger area.

They stopped at the entrance.

"What is this place?"

One of them slowly stepped forward.

Unlike the other areas they had encountered, this place looked organized.

There were crude wooden structures.

Small huts.

Training areas.

Storage buildings.

And dozens upon dozens of goblins moving throughout the settlement.

The adventurers froze.

"Is that..."

"A goblin village?"

They stared in disbelief.

Nobody had expected to find something like this inside the dungeon.

The goblins noticed them almost immediately.

One goblin dropped what it was carrying. Another turned around.

Within seconds, the entire village had become silent.

Dozens of goblins stared toward the adventurers.

One of the warriors slowly drew his sword.

"How many are there?"

"I don’t know."

"At least twenty."

Another adventurer swallowed.

"Maybe more."

The leader looked at the village.

Then he looked at his companions.

"We can handle goblins."

His words were confident, outside goblins are very weak.

The goblins were small, and they were armed with crude weapons.

And yet there was something strange about them. They weren’t attacking, they were simply watching.

The adventurers slowly moved forward.

"Stay together."

One warrior raised his sword.

"If they attack, we cut through them."

The adventurers slowly moved forward, keeping their weapons drawn as they entered the goblin village.

The creatures surrounding them remained strangely quiet, watching every movement without making a sound. That silence made the adventurers more nervous than an immediate attack would have.

One of the warriors tightened his grip around his sword.

"They’re just goblins."

The others nodded.

The moment they took another step forward, the goblins finally moved.

The village erupted into chaos.

Dozens of goblins rushed toward the adventurers from every direction, surrounding them before they could establish a proper formation.

The adventurers immediately fought back, using their skills whenever they had an opening. A swordsman activated Power Strike, smashing through several goblins, while an archer used Rapid Shot to fire arrows into the approaching horde.

A mage cast her only offensive spell, Fireball, creating a burst of flames that sent several goblins flying.

But there were simply too many.

The goblins continued attacking from every direction, forcing the adventurers backward. Their limited skills quickly became unusable as their mana was depleted, leaving them dependent on ordinary weapons. One adventurer fell, then another, and soon their formation collapsed completely.

"Retreat!"

The leader shouted. But there was nowhere to retreat. The goblins had already surrounded them.

Within a few minutes, the entire group was dead.

Throughout the entire battle, the Hobgoblin mini boss never moved.

It simply stood near the center of the village, watching the goblins slaughter the intruders.

The adventurers had entered believing that they could handle a village filled with weak monsters.

They never even came close to reaching the Hobgoblin.

----

Deep within the dungeon, Ragnar watched the various battles through the magical projections available to him.

His expression remained calm, but the satisfaction in his eyes was obvious.

The adventurers were fighting his monsters, they were triggering his traps.

Some were finding treasure, while others were dying without even understanding what had killed them.

Most importantly, Soul Points continued accumulating.

[Soul Points: 31]

Then another notification appeared.

[Intruder has been killed.]

[Soul Points +2.]

Ragnar smiled.

[Soul Points: 33]

Another notification.

[Intruder has been killed.]

[Soul Points +2.]

[Soul Points: 35]

Ragnar leaned back against his throne.

"Fifteen more."

His gaze shifted toward the dungeon upgrade.

The second floor required fifty Soul Points.

He had already spent a long time waiting for enough Souls to accumulate, and now the goal was finally within reach.

"At this rate..."

Ragnar’s smile widened.

"I’ll have my second floor very soon."

But the thirty adventurers had not all died yet. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

For the next couple of hours, the remaining adventurers continued exploring the dungeon.

However, their earlier confidence had disappeared completely.

After seeing several groups vanish inside the maze, the survivors had finally understood the most important rule of this dungeon. The deeper they went, the greater the danger became.

Every corridor could lead to another monster nest, another trap, or an enemy far stronger than anything they had encountered before. Even the treasure they had discovered came with a price, and none of them wanted to gamble their lives for another chest.