Days of Dungeon: From Simple Quest to Strange Adventure-Chapter 137: From Beastkin Nation To Aiden Town - Part 1

"Found them!—I told you, Mr. Arezu, there would be a nest here."

Continuing on the second day of their journey from the Beastkin Nation to Aiden Town by traveling through the forest instead of the roads to lose any possible pursuers or bounty hunters, Lynn easily found the nest of low-level monster kobolds she was looking for using her scouting skill.

"Do you really have to shout and attract their attention?"

Despite his complaint—and the fact that his halberd-axe had become nothing more than a polearm sickle with only its small scythe blade remaining and the axe blade missing—Arezu dropped his bag and stepped forward to fulfill his role as vanguard against the few dozen kobolds coming out of the cave.

The kobolds fired their arrows, but Arezu easily parried them and quickly followed up with a powerful horizontal swing of his weapon, bashing the first wave of kobolds that were about to reach him while brandishing their swords. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"You’re doing a good job, Mr. Meat Shield!" Lynn teased, cheering for Arezu in her own way as she prepared to cast her mystic spell.

"Please just hurry up, Lynn."

Granting Arezu’s request, Lynn raised her right hand toward the kobolds, then cast her mystic spell.

"Obelisk"

Multiple blackened rock spikes, stronger and sharper than metal spears, rose up from the ground, impaling to death all the kobolds outside and even those inside the cave.

Regardless of the pool of blood soaking the open ground, the fight wasn’t over yet.

—ROAR!—

"Tsk!"

Lynn clicked her tongue upon hearing a loud roar coming from inside the cave, annoyed that one monster managed to dodge her mystic spell.

"Punish it for the crime of evading my glorious attack, my loyal follower," Lynn said with her usual dramatic flair, timing her speech the instant the bleeding werewolf stepped out of the cave.

The mid-level monster werewolf might be gravely injured, with its entire right arm severed from the shoulder, but its fierce glare told Arezu that it would continue to fight until death—making the fight just as dangerous as if it were unharmed, especially since he didn’t have a proper weapon at hand.

"Can’t you just take it down with another mystic spell?" Arezu said, refusing to fight the werewolf if it wasn’t necessary.

"But I can’t just waste my mana, can I, Mr. Arezu?"

Lynn’s mischievous grin said that she wouldn’t take no for an answer—and she wouldn’t help—forcing Arezu to fight their last opponent.

Arezu gripped his broken halberd-axe, turning it around so he could use the small scythe blade to pierce the tough hide of the werewolf.

He rushed to intercept the charge of the wounded werewolf, passing through the impaled, hanging bodies of the kobolds before clashing blade against claws.

As the werewolf was pushed back, Arezu raised his weapon, extended his mana, and activated his combat skill to strengthen and sharpen the blade.

’Pierce’

The scythe blade of his broken halberd-axe bored through the werewolf’s head, crushing its skull and ending the fight.

"I knew you could do it," Lynn said, approaching Arezu, then tapping him on the back to urge him forward.

"Let’s go check our loot, Mr. Arezu."

"You’re not even sure if we could find a halberd-axe there," Arezu said, reminding Lynn of their original purpose in raiding the kobolds’ nest—to look for a halberd-axe he could temporarily use as a weapon.

---

Although the cave wasn’t deep enough to branch into multiple paths, Lynn still cast a Flame Arrow before entering to check for any explosive traps.

Carrying her enchanted lantern—which could warn of poison in the surrounding air—along with a wisp of light cast from her divine blessing, Light, Lynn led the way inside the cave.

More impaled kobolds were inside, along with a few more werewolves. But what Lynn was really after was right at the end of the cave.

Kobolds are monsters known for their capacity to wield weapons and even learn to craft them. Regardless, the weapons they could make were nothing compared to what a human crafter could produce.

"Besides, if you used a weapon made by monsters, Beatrix would be just as mad as if you’d purchased a weapon from another crafter," Lynn said, warning him of how unreasonable Beatrix could be.

"Not as much as you still," Arezu retorted, still annoyed at Lynn’s attempt to kill the Fire Dragon and destroy the town by dropping a gigantic iceberg from the sky.

"I wasn’t, okay? I knew for a fact that the burnt hag was going to stop my mystic spell!"

"That’s even more unreasonable!"

"Hmph!"

Before their squabbling turned into an argument, Lynn and Arezu reached the end of the cave.

"So this is what you meant by picking up," Arezu murmured, looking at the collection of weapons too big for the one-meter-tall kobolds to use.

Like humans looting monster cores from monsters, kobolds would also loot weapons from humans after devouring their bodies.

"And if their victims are adventurers, they even tend to loot these like some kind of trophy," Lynn said, ending her explanation as she picked up a bundle of adventurer tags ranging from copper-rank to iron-rank.

"Let’s gather what we can so we can bring them back to the guild," Arezu said, consoling Lynn after noticing the hint of sadness in her eyes as she looked at the adventurer tags.

"Mhm."

While Lynn dismantled all the kobolds and four werewolves for their monster cores, Arezu tossed all of their corpses into the pit Lynn opened in the ground with her mystic spell—Tremor.

Once they were done looting, Lynn offered a prayer to the goddess Isleen so that the monster corpses wouldn’t turn undead—reminding Arezu that she was indeed a priestess.

"You’re being rude just now, aren’t you?" Lynn muttered, pausing her prayer and opening one eye to glance back at Arezu.

Lynn then closed the pit with the same mystic spell, followed by sealing the cave with all the weapons of the fallen adventurers inside so the Adventurers’ Guild could recover and return them to those still waiting for their return once the adventurer tags were turned in.

In the end, Arezu didn’t find any halberd-axe, but instead, a great axe.

"Both are basically axes with only a difference in length, but are you fine wielding it?" Lynn asked, remembering Arezu’s habit of refusing to wield any weapon other than his halberd-axe.

"If another unreasonable situation arises, then I don’t have a choice, right?" Arezu said, complaining about Lynn dragging—or rather, pushing—him into danger. Regardless, the faint smile on his face told Lynn that he would protect her.

"Of course you are—you’re my loyal follower, after all."

"At least stop with the ’loyal follower.’"

---

It was already nearing dusk when they finished looting the kobolds’ nest.

After walking a few minutes away from the cave, Lynn and Arezu made camp for the night near the forest river.

"What is this about now?" Arezu sighed, unsure why Lynn was shoving the werewolf’s monster core into his face.

"Aren’t you hungry?... Isn’t it about time you eat another monster core, Mr. Arezu?"