The Divine Wolf... or?

Chapter 127: Carelessness leads to regret!

An explosion shook the atmosphere. The three youths sitting in a corner of a dimly lit cave couldn't help but exclaim as the shockwaves were enough to almost make them fall over. In front of them, the rest of their comrades were in the middle of battling with three large minotaurs. Minotaurs were savage and powerful creatures, and they were known for their brutal means of attack.

One of the minotaurs towered above the other two, and just judging by its build, it was a lot more powerful than the other two.

That being the case, there was still only a single youth that was fighting head to head with the large minotaur. While the other two minotaurs were held up by multiple youths each, this particularly big one was taken care of by a single person. The person in question had fiery red hair, and was fairly handsome. That's right, the one currently fighting the large minotaur was Arduin!

Even though he had numerous scars now, even one that covered part of his face, it almost made him look even better. Though it would normally make someone look worse, it kind of fit him. Not only that, the scar also enhanced his image, and he looked more like a fierce warrior compared to the old him.

After Arduin had been rescued by Ark, he had rallied his classmates, and they had started to level as quickly as possible. They didn't want to be weak anymore, especially not when they knew how much potential their respective classes actually held.

Arduin had already gotten past level 70, which had taken a lot of hard work, but after dungeon diving and battling day and night, his level had steadily increased to what it is today.

His classmates were also pleasantly surprised by this change of his, as they got to see him courageously fighting head to head with foes and opponents stronger than him, yet he managed to come out on top every single time. Granted, he had to take a few hits here and there, which was the source of the few scars that he had accumulated.

This courage of his also became a source of inspiration for his fellow classmates, and they were currently all working as hard as they could to grow stronger.

Arduin's capture and eventual rescue had been like an awakening for all of them, and they had steeled their resolve to grow stronger. None of them wanted to feel as powerless as they did when they couldn't even save their close friend and leader.

Arduin's reason wasn't as noble as the others, he just didn't want to go through that hell ever again, and no one could stop him from trying to achieve his goal.

The three that sat in the corner spectating the fight were all resting and recuperating when they could suddenly feel the temperature rise exponentially! They weren't surprised though, as they had already gotten used to it at this point. With Arduin at their centre, green flames suddenly erupted ferociously, instantly engulfing the large minotaur.

Miserable screams echoed throughout the cave system as the minotaur tried to desperately put the flames out, to no avail.

Arduin just sighed, it seemed like this was going to be yet another easy fight. Ever since he had been rescued, he hadn't run into a really tough fight yet, even though he still got some injuries, those were mostly just because of his own negligence, not because his opponent was actually strong. Just when Arduin was about to turn around, he could hear the minotaur roar fiercely.

With the large axe it wielded in one of its hands, the minotaur swung as hard as it could, with Arduin as the target. Since the minotaur couldn't fight the flames, the only thing it knew how to do was target its source, namely Arduin.

Arduin was almost caught off-guard, but at this point, he had already picked up a few tricks to keep himself alive. Green fire combusted beneath his feet, sending him flying through the air. Arduin flew straight past the minotaurs attack, and the large axe slammed straight down into the ground, leaving a long deep gash in the ground.

When Arduin was almost next to the minotaur's head, he used his momentum to flip his body until he was upside down. With his body spinning, Arduin slashed out with a flaming longsword, decapitating the poor minotaur in one fell swoop.

After flicking the blood off his sword, Arduin sheathed the sword, and collected the minotaur's mana crystal. With a fist-sized amber crystal in his hand, Arduin sat down next to the other three, and just rested a little. The three that were resting couldn't help but admire him, as he was a role model in their eyes.

Even though he had been through a lot, he didn't break, instead, he came back stronger than before. Just when he was about to sit down, one of the three couldn't help but ask.

"Are you not going to help them take care of the other two?"

Hearing such a naive question, Arduin almost felt like laughing.

"Of course not, what would the point of you guys coming with me be if I just took care of all the enemies?"

"Ah, that's right, sorry for asking such a stupid question." The guy scratched his head a little as he realised what a dumb question he had asked.

"Don't sweat it man, we're all friends here."

The three kept watching him with admiration on their faces. Even if they screwed up sometimes, even if they couldn't handle some easy foes, Arduin would never blame them. Instead of being mad, he would just encourage them to improve, and set examples for them to strive after.

Even though a good scolding was necessary sometimes, he never went over the top, and all of his classmates respected him because of it. Pointing out someone's mistakes and correcting them is a good thing, but doing so by insulting them is never the right thing to do, at least not if you want them to improve. That was the way Arduin did things at least, and it worked splendidly for this group.

It would be another thing if they were all total strangers, but that wasn't the case here, they were all friends and classmates.

They knew each other well, and all they had was each other, if one was shunned from the group, then that person would be truly alone in this foreign world, and no one here wanted that, which was why they all tried so hard to help each other out, and point out each other's weaknesses and mistakes.

About 5 minutes later, the other 2 minotaurs were both dead next to their leader, with their mana crystals extracted. When they were finished, most of them looked at Arduin, waiting for him to give them instructions. When they were in dungeons or in the wild, they had all agreed to have Arduin as their leader.

If they all went about and did whatever they wanted in such a dangerous location, then who knew what the consequences might be. It was better and easier if they just listened to Arduin during times like these, of course, to a certain extent.

"We'll rest up here for 15 minutes first, then we'll continue to explore the dungeon!"

After hearing that, everyone felt at ease and just sat down. Some of them used their spatial bags to retrieve some food and other necessities to build a small campsite. The ones who could cook volunteered to do so, while the ones who couldn't just waited for the food to be ready. Like this, 15 minutes passed quickly, and all of them got their own share of food and rest.

"I don't know how far we'll be able to go, but let's head deeper for now!"

They moved out almost instantly, they had already anticipated that this would be Arduin's call, and they had all mentally prepared to fight a lot today. The dungeon they were in was located in the outskirts of Estridsen, and it was famous for its high death rate. Even though there was such a high death rate, and the dungeon was fairly infamous for it, Arduin had still chosen it as their destination.

There were a lot of rewards that were equal to the risks, and how would they get stronger if they never faced any hardships?

The first floor of the dungeon was essentially just a large cave, and it was the floor they were currently on. The minotaurs that they had just faced were actually the bosses of the first floor, and they could now easily access the second floor. Since they didn't know too many specifics about this particular dungeon, none of them were sure of what was awaiting them on the next floor.

Was it going to be about the same difficulty as this one, albeit a small increment? Or was it going to be something completely different? Were they even going to make it out alive?

There was no way to be sure, except for trying it out themselves. In the far back of the large cave system, a rather large wooden hatch was in the midst of being opened by the numerous youths. This wooden hatch was the way down to the second floor, and even if it seemed a little sketchy, there was no youth here who didn't have enough courage to explore it.

Though that was mostly because of Arduin's presence.

The way down was actually a rather crude ladder, in a fairly cramped enclosure. Because of the tight space, two youths decided to stay back. One of them was a claustrophobic, and leaving someone by themselves in a dungeon could easily be a death sentence, so another youth stayed behind to look after their friend.

There was no light in the small passage down, so Arduin used some of his flames to illuminate the way forward.

After almost an entire minute had passed, the youths could finally see some light, and they exited the cramped space they were in. Even if none of them were actually claustrophobic, tight enclosed spaces were still uncomfortable for a lot of people, and these youths were no different. Instead of the large cave they were in preciously, they were now all standing in a large room.

The floor of the room seemed to be some weird kind of red marble, and it was utterly beautiful.

The walls were also made out of some kind of stone, but none of the youths were able to recognise it. The walls had all kinds of engravings on them, as well as plenty of torches that lit the room up. The eerie part about these torches was the fact that they burned with a purple flame. In the far end of the room, two large doors stood in the middle, oozing with a weird amount of pressure.

Even though they had no idea what waited for them on the other side, there weren't a lot of them that were especially excited to find out.

As Arduin was about to take a step forward, the room suddenly started to shake fervently.

"Rumble!"

To their surprise, four parts of the walls slid down, revealing hidden rooms. From within these hidden rooms, 4 silhouettes slowly made their way into the large hall. When the 4 figures had left their respective rooms, the walls closed behind them again, hiding the hidden rooms from sight again. With every step they took, their large steel frames shook the ground around them.

With one shining red, one shining blue, one shining green and one shining brown, four large golems stood tall in front of the two large doors.

Even though the appearance of the four golems were a little abrupt, Arduin was itching for a fight! The fact that they had their own elements actually had nothing to do with their attacks at all, and their elements only showed what the golems were resistant against. So the golem that shone red was resistant against fire for example.

Since there were four opponents, Arduin would have to split their group into four to combat them, and when he thought about it, it was a little risky.

The reason why it was risky was mostly just because the golems were very high level, and they were not that many. Luckily for him, the golems were not sentient beings, and they wouldn't attack if you didn't provoke them first, this gave Arduin some time to think.

In the end, Arduin decided to take on one of the golems by himself, whilst splitting the rest of his classmates into three groups to take care of the other golems.

"Is everyone ready?"

"Yes!"

"If that's the case, then let's get to work!"

After he drew the sword on his waist, Arduin rushed forward. The rest of the youths took this as their cue to attack as well, and they all rushed to their respective targets. Since Arduin's main element was fire, he decided to take on the earth golem.

He could've taken the wind golem, but he decided to take on the earth golem since he wasn't sure if his other classmates would be able to break through its defence, as it was more robust than the other golems.

After he had gotten within a ten meter radius of the golem, it started to slowly move. Even though it was both big and abnormally strong, golems had two inherent weaknesses. First of all, they were slow, very slow. This was easy to exploit, as it could make the golem's attacks pretty harmless. It didn't matter how strong they were if they never hit anything right?

The other inherent weakness a golem has is their lack of sentience and intelligence.

Because of this, the golems attack patterns were very simple, at least these golems. Some golems are of course more advanced than others, and their attack patterns depend entirely on their creator. But creating a golem with a complex attack pattern is many times harder compared to creating one with simple attack patterns.

Arduin didn't plan on fighting with this golem for too long, and when he defeated it, he was going to help the others take care of their golems. Even if this may be an opportunity for them to get stronger, Arduin knew that it was a little too risky, these golems were really strong after all.

And his group of friends wasn't an army, a single casualty would hit them all hard, and they would be filled with sorrow.

If that happened, then more casualties could easily follow, and when that happened, their little mission to get stronger would come to an end. Since Arduin didn't want any of that to happen, he was going to go all out from the beginning, and slaughter this golem with all of his might. As he rushed straight for the golem, his longsword started glowing with a scarlet light.

With a burst of flames, the cold and damp hall suddenly became a little bit more comfortable to be in.

With a flaming sword in his hand, and with the intention of helping out his friends, Arduin suddenly leaped. As he did, the large steel fist of the golem slammed into the ground where he had just been running.

"Teng!"

The ground trembled fiercely as the golem's fist made contact, and a small shockwave was sent out in all directions along the floor. As Arduin flew through the air, he arrived right beside the golem's neck. Since his attack was already prepared beforehand, Arduin swung with his sword as hard as he could, aiming for the golem's neck.

Though he didn't expect the attack to instantly kill the golem, the result of his attack shocked him greatly.

"Teng!"

A similar sound of metal clashing against metal rang out, and there was only a small line left behind on the golem's neck. Arduin knew that it would be bad if he was up in the air for too long, and he made use of the golem's head to kick off of. After landing safely on the ground, a thought crossed his mind. Before he could even think about it, he was interrupted by a sudden scream.

"Nooooo!"

In the fight against the wind golem, a girl was sitting down on the ground. Next to her was the bloody body of one of their classmates. As she shook his body, trying frantically to wake him up, all she could do was cry in despair. The girl and the boy had started dating in their past world, and after they were taken to this world, they had only grown closer.

The girl was in shock, and she was almost hit by an attack of the wind golem as a result. Her classmates saved her, but they were not much better of then she was, this was their friend as well after all.

This was what Arduin was afraid of, that someone would die due to carelessness. But as he thought about it, his expression turned a little dull. This classmate of his didn't die due to his own carelessness, he died because of Arduin's carelessness. Feelings of guilt kept invading his mind, distracting him from his current fight.

The shockwave that was sent out due to the earth golem's missed attack had thrown this poor guy straight into the wind golem's attack, and he was now dead due to it.

Even though Arduin just wanted to be sad and grief, he knew what he had done wrong, and if he just gave up now, his other classmates would probably die as well. There was no way that Arduin was going to let anyone else die, and he was almost consumed by his own rage. He was mad because of himself, he was mad that he was careless, he was mad that he had caused his classmates death.

But most of all, he was mad at these golems. Even if Arduin might've been one of the causes, the main cause was the golems.

No matter what Arduin had done, these golems had quite literally killed one of his friends, and he wasn't too happy about it. Since he knew that physical attacks would have little to no effect with his current strength, Arduin knew that there was only one thing left to do.

The hall was filled with a dreadful mood at the moment, as everyone had already seen exactly what Arduin had seen, but as many of the made their own convictions, the cold halls temperature suddenly rose by more than 10 degrees.

A green light engulfed the entire room, and everyone present was able to guess what Arduin was about to do. Ever since he had arrived in this world, this skill had always been his strongest skill, the skill that made him who he was today. Without it, he would've just been like anyone else in this room, strong, but nothing too special.

The green flames of samsara was Arduin's bread and butter, and now that he had shown it to these golems, he would surely kill them all!

The earth golem had no idea about what was going on, and it only swung its fist one more time, heading straight for Arduin's head again. Arduin narrowly dodged the fist again, but instead of letting the same thing happen again, Arduin used some magic to cancel out the force of the shockwave, before he headed straight for the golem again.

The golem wasn't just going to let Arduin do whatever he wanted, but fortunately, he was too fast for the golem to stop him.

After circling behind him, Arduin made use of his sharp sword to stick it into the golem's leg. After doing so, he used the sword to propel himself upwards, before sticking the sword into the golem's back. This wasn't supposed to hurt the golem, as Arduin used way to little force for it to actually do something, all he wanted to do was safely scale the golem.

It didn't take more than 5 seconds before Arduin was already on top of the golem's head.

Even though his previous attacks had done nothing to hurt the golem, Arduin wasn't disheartened, he knew that he was able to kill this golem, and he would do his best to do so as quickly as possible.

Since he knew that there was no other way for him to kill this golem other than relying on his flames, Arduin used all of his strength to shove the sword in his hand as far into the golems head as he could. The golem didn't react at all when he shoved the sword into it, as it had no sense of pain at all.

When the sword was inside the golem's head, Arduin started to summon as much green fire as he could, sending it along his sword and straight into the golem's body. After a minute or so had passed, Arduin started to sweat a little, but he still stood steadfast atop the golem's head.

The other golems were occupied with chasing Arduin's classmates around, and so they weren't even able to notice that the earth golem had already started melting a lot.

The original majestic steel golem was now shining orange and Arduin knew it was time to deliver the final strike. Since the golem had basically melted to a certain degree, Arduin just threw another attack with his sword, infused with a fairly large amount of mana. The golem was easily cut into two with this single sword attack, and Arduin landed shortly on the ground no far away.

Even though he had managed to kill one of the golems, Arduin wasn't satisfied or happy at all, it was quite the opposite.

A classmate had died because of him, and the golem had taken way too long to kill, endangering his other classmates even more as a result. Because of their fallen friend, many of his classmates had become reckless, and it showed in their attacks. The ones who were reckless quickly got themselves injured, leaving the rest of their classmates to handle the golems without them.

Luckily, Arduin wouldn't need to spend as much time to defeat the other golems. The earth golem was a golem that was specialised in defence, and breaking through its defence was the hard part.

The other golems were better in other areas, the fire golem had very destructive attacks, the wind golem had very swift and fast attacks, while the water golem was like a mix between them all, being mediocre and average at everything, but at the same time not having any glaring weaknesses. Since he didn't have any time to waste, Arduin hurried to his next target, the wind golem.

The fire and water golem would take a little longer to kill, while the wind golem was the most dangerous for his classmates, as its attacks were harder to dodge due to their swiftness.

The other golems attacked fairly slowly, and their big movements made their attacks very predictable. That being said, Arduin's classmates still had some trouble with dodging their attacks. The people that were holding off the wind golem retreated a little when they saw Arduin running at them at full speed.

"Split up and help the others! I can take care of this one!"

Hearing this, his classmates promptly split up into two groups and left to help the others, everyone except for the girl. After her boyfriend had died, she had just been sitting there on the ground by his side, gently caressing his face from time to time.

Even though it was dangerous, Arduin knew that he was in no position to tell her to move out of the way, as he was the reason she was acting like this in the first place.

The wind golem didn't just sit around and wait for Arduin to attack it, and instead, it fiercely sent its fist flying through the air as soon as it saw him approaching. Trying to doge the fast fist would be a little hard, and Arduin would end up in an awkward position if he did do so, so instead, he decided to meet the fist head on.

With his sword drawn, Arduin imbued his swing with a large amount of fire mana, sending a wave of fire to parry the golem's blow. Even though the golem's attack managed to get through the wave of fire, Arduin had successfully managed to buy himself some time.

With this time, Arduin sprinted forward as fast as he could. The golem managed to adjust its fist a little, sending it on course to Arduin's face again. Since the golem's posture turned out to be a little weird, Arduin managed to slide under the attack, dodging it narrowly.

As he kept sliding, Arduin used the momentum of his slide, and a large amount of mana to swing at the golem's leg once he ended up next to it.

"Teng!

The same metallic sound echoed, but Arduin managed to successfully slice the golem's foot of cleanly. Since it only had one leg left to pivot on, the golem was sent tumbling down onto the ground. Arduin took this as a chance, and when the golem was in the midst of falling over, he got into position to swing his sword.

As the golem's head was just about to hit the ground, Arduin slashed out with his sword again, and this time, it was easier than when he sliced off the foot. This was because he could use the golem's own momentum against it when he sliced its head off, and it worked out perfectly.

With two out of four golems down, Arduin was beginning to grow tired. Luckily for him, his classmates had managed to get the remaining two golems under control after they combined their forces, but they couldn't kill them. Since that was the case, all Arduin had to do, was wait for an opportunity to strike, before he killed them in one fell swoop.

Before he did anything though, he glanced at the girl and his classmate. Seeing the dull look in her eyes, and her tearstained cheeks, Arduin could feel his stomach turning with guilt.

Even though that was the case, he made sure to not dwell too much on it though. Even if he was feeling guilty, even if he was feeling down, what would that change? Would the classmate that died because of him feel better if Arduin felt bad? No! His classmate was dead, the dead don't feel.

No matter what Arduin did, the fact that he was responsible for his classmates death would still remain, and nothing would change just because he felt down and sad.

He wanted to be brave, he wanted to be strong. He wanted the rest of his classmates to rely on him. During such hard times, would this little group of friends benefit from him being down? No! Since that was the case, Arduin held his head high, and he rushed out to help his friends take care of the rest of the golems.

After another 5 minutes had passed, all of the golems were completely defeated. Arduin had to heave for air when he was done, as he had to go all out during that fight multiple times. Defeating the water and fire golems was also a little harder than he had anticipated.

"We'll rest here for a while, before deciding what to do next!"

With that said, all of them completely collapsed onto the floor, too tired to do anything. After time passed, some of them managed to stand up and retrieve some food and water from their spatial bags. After all of them had rested up plenty, a heavy atmosphere took over as complete silence reigned.

Almost every single person here knew, and were friends with the guy who passed away, and sadness was encompassing every single one of them. Upon seeing the sad state his classmates were in, Arduin decided that it was time to say something.

"Everyone, can I have your attention for a moment?"

Everyone slowly turned their heads to look at Arduin who had now stood up, even the girl turned her attention towards him.

"Look, I know that everyone here is sad because of the loss of our friend, so am I. But do you think this is what he would've wanted from us? Do you guys think he would be proud if all we did was just sulk? We all came here to explore this dungeon today, shouldn't we at least finish what we started so that he can rest in peace?"

Silence. Complete silence. That was the response Arduin got. But it wasn't a bad silence. Almost every single one of his classmates were fired up after hearing what he said. He was right, what would their friend think if this was all they did?

Wouldn't his sacrifice have been in vain? After everyone slowly came to terms with what had happened, one of them stood up.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm with him! I don't want his sacrifice to be in vain, I don't want to imagine that he died for nothing!"

"Yeah!"

"Me too!"

"We can't just let it end like this!"

As more and more people stood up, in the end, only the girl was the only one still sitting down on the ground. Arduin looked a little dispirited when he watched her sitting on the ground. But as he was about to open his mouth, she slowly stood up.

"I don't think he would be happy with me if I just sat here, so I'll go with you!"

Even though she said that, Arduin could see the reluctance on her face, and he only smiled wryly.

"Well, since everyone's on board, let's head out straight away!"

With Arduin in the lead, everyone slowly walked up to the two large doors. The doors had no handle, but since that was the case, Arduin only assumed that he was supposed to push the doors open.

"Everyone stand back a little, I'm going to open the doors now!"

Since he told them to, everyone else took a step backwards, while Arduin walked up to the doors, and slowly pushed them open. Due to their enormous size, Arduin had to use all the strength he could muster for the doors to open slowly. When the doors had opened completely, the group only saw darkness. The room behind the doors was too dark, and it almost looked like they stared into an abyss.

The group of teens couldn't help but shiver as a gaze ran over their bodies. One of them almost fell over, but he had no idea why. "Arduin, may-maybe it's best if we get out of here!"

Before Arduin could even respond, a pair of white eyes opened in the darkness.

"Kukukuku, it's been a while since the last time someone came here, it seems like someone has a death wish!"