"I saw him once a few days ago. He had a big red mark over his head. The other players surrounded him, but he killed them all before he left that place. I'm not sure what his level was, but he was pretty powerful," Shu told Ryder.
"A red mark? He should've killed the guards of Estella. Quite stupid, I suppose, but that would make the game more interesting for him as well," Ryder muttered as he smiled.
'I wonder if I should do something like this as well. Although a red mark makes it tough for you to hide from other players and makes you a target, it comes with some benefits as well. When you kill the players that want to kill you, you get experience as well,' Ryder thought.
"Look, there's a box there! Our first loot box in this dungeon!" Shu exclaimed as he pointed towards the distance.
As he was a thief, his vision was the greatest amongst the players that were present there, making him able to see the farthest.
Everyone walked to the Box.
"Looks amazing; who's going to open it?" Mimi123 asked the others.
"It doesn't matter. The rewards are going to be shared equally no matter who opens it, so don't worry about that," Shu comforted others before he stepped towards the box and opened it.
As soon as the box opened, a giant snake jumped out of the box. Shu sat down in a hurry and managed to dodge the attack, but the snake instead landed on their Warrior and bit his head off.
The Warrior was poisoned, and his health bar reached 0 before he could even use Healing Potion.
"Shadow Ball!" Ryder used his skill and killed the snake before it could target others.
"This was a trap box; the snake was at least a level 14 beast; you should stay careful with what you open next," Ryder told Shu, who was still lying on the ground in shock.
Ryder walked up to him and extended his hands towards Shu. Shu caught his hand and stood up.
"I'll keep that in mind. I was too ignorant just now," Shu nodded his head.
"Hey, there's something else in the box!" Lightindarkness pointed out.
Shu and Ryder glanced towards the box and saw that it indeed had something in it.
There was a small ring in the box.
Shu picked up the ring and got a notification about it.
"It's called the ring of increment. A mid-grade treasure that can increase the HP and the Mana by 5 percent," Shu informed others.
"Incredible! That treasure is so useful for us mages; one of us should keep it. We can cast more spells with more mana," one of the mages said as she looked towards the ring.
"Hey, that's not true! You know that we warriors fight on the front lines, and we take the brunt of most of the attacks. We need the increased HP more than you need the Mana. Just look at BlizzardCane; if he had more HP, he might have been able to take the Healing Potion before dying!" the Warrior, MountainMan said.
"What about us Priests? We need the boost as well! We're the weakest when it comes to defense, and the HP can be useful to us!" the priest said.
Just like that, slowly, everyone started asking for the ring for themselves, giving a big headache to Shu.
"It's too soon to be sharing the treasures right now as there's no way I can share the ring equally between you all. I understand that this ring is useful for every class. How about we wait till the end of this quest before we find all the rewards, and then we can decide who gets what equally. There's no need to be in haste as we might find even greater treasures later," Shu thought for a while before he decided that it was too soon for sharing.
"So we are supposed to let the ring sit uselessly until the end of the quest? You know that it can help one of us, right? How about I keep that. I'll return it at the end of the mission, and we can decide who keeps what?" MountainMan again said.
"This… This would be unfair for others as they all want it. It might even divide our team. I'll keep it in my storage in the meanwhile. None of us will use it," Shu said as he put the ring in his storage.
Although other players were left unsatisfied, they all agreed in the end.
They walked down to the 10th level of the dungeon. Even though the number of monsters was less compared to the upper floors, the monsters were all level 14 monsters now. The fights took longer as Ryder let the others fight instead of taking care of all the monsters himself.
Rale just stood behind everyone watching everyone fight. He was also starting to get bored as he couldn't do anything here; still, he stayed alert as he considered protecting Ryder as his primary mission.
They reached the end of the 10th level and saw a big door in front of them.
"Everyone, restore your HP; the room ahead should be the room of the Boss Monster on this floor. Even though he will be a level 15 monster, his real strength would be way higher," Shu told the others as he sat down and started restoring his HP using potions.
The others also did the same. Even Ryder drank a potion to get his Mana to full as his HP was already full. Since the start of exploration, he wasn't harmed in the slightest.
After everyone was ready and prepared, they pushed the door open and entered the room.
They saw a giant humanoid monster standing at the end of the room with his eyes closed. It looked like an Orc, but it has two heads instead of one. The monster was 7 meters tall and looked like a giant. Its arms themselves were as wide as the shoulders of Ryder. The Monster held a four-meter long machete in his hand.
As everyone entered the room, the eyes of the monster opened. Its red eyes glanced at the intruders.
"Follow the formation and attack!" Shu commanded everyone.
The two warriors ran to the monster, and the Mages started attacking it, but their attacks didn't seem to be harming the monster too much.
They could see the HP of the monster getting lower at the snail's speed.
"Such frightening defense," the priest muttered as she stood in the back, casting buffs on the other players that were fighting.
Ryder hadn't attacked yet.
