Dungeon Prowler : One Man Army

Chapter 62: Veins

An hour later Lili watched with disbelief as the three students; Yunan, Reina and Leol; took the lead and waltzed inside the territory of kobolds. The three students had crossbows in hand and weapons in sheaths at their sides. Their armors fit perfectly and they hunted down the kobolds with an air of someone who did it before.

The kids were organised, Yunan took the lead while Leol and Reina followed behind him. The three of them took turns on looting the corpses, while advancing slowly and killing every kobolds they laid their eyes on. The closer they got to the heart of the nest the more kobolds grouped up and the number of patrols increased.

Around midday, the kids opted to let a patrol escape with heavy injuries while they changed their location and took a rest under a hidden groove to recover from the morning fatigue and eat some rations and rehydrate. Since the small party had no trained scouts at the moment they had to buy the help of Lucian with some monster cores. The latest report indicated that the heart of the nest was almost empty as all 300 kobolds left have gathered and are searching for the attackers.

The plan became to fight the kobold army and leave the heart for another time or after they have decimated the army so as to not fear their attack on the heart might be disrupted by the remaining kobold stragglers. After an hour of rest and recouping the kids went towards were the army was centered, Yunan was chosen for the close combat, Leol would switch between ranged or close conbat depending on the situation and Reina was to only use close combat to save her life if both Yunan and Leol were indisposed and could not help her at the moment.

The hunt began and with Yunan drawing the attention of more groups everytime they fought, by sunset they had killed 200 out of the 300 fighting kobolds. Although Debauchery was against a night fight they allowed it because the caves dug by the kobolds were maze like and there was no point leaving an almost destroyed nest for another group who might come by to pick up the leftovers and end up slaying the boss before Debauchery came back. Inside the heart of the nest in the cave system Yunan decided to follow the biggest tunnel because the boss should be able to make use of them to move.

Yunan guessed correctly, the biggest tunnels did lead to the chambers of the boss, but they still had to fight their way into it, the remaining kobold soldiers had returned after sunset and were now either hindering the party's path or harassing them from behind or the side tunnels. Now even Reina had to keep her cross bow and draw her blades.

The boss was very different from the goblin boss, it was not just a magnified version of it's race but also something different. The kobold boss was what you would expect a werebeast to look like, twice the size of human and hairy with beastly features. Animal head and face, long arms with intimidating claws and prehensile tail. Thanks to the kobolds still coming after them Leol had to block the door and Yunan would solo the boss while Reina would provide ranged support for the one who needs it most.

With superior equipment, the kids could afford to get hit a few times where their armor would protect them, while their weapons delt major wounds upon each contact, and so the battle went smoothly, and Reina dropped the idea of looking after Yunan and focused on helping Leol who was struggling to keep the kobolds out of the throne room. Half an hour later the boss was decapitated and its core was removed, and the Party were now exploring and exterminating the rest of the nest.

They found themselves a few hidden chambers with all kinds of items inside them, in one of the chambers there was an egg that looked like a obsidian stone laced with red patterns and designs. Further exploration proved very fruitful as they found some store rooms and treasure rooms piled with all manner of ores and raw gemstones. They also found some precious ore veins that the kobolds left intact for some reason, one had even an aura of mana overflowing from it that even the kids could feel. Thus Debauchery has changed the schedule, they needed to stay in the heart of the nest for further investigation and maybe some mining since the expert blacksmith Balin was drooling over them.

As the ones who cleaned up the nest the Debauchery juniors had the exclusive rights to decide what to do with anything inside the cave. Thus after bargaining with Debauchery seniors they allowed them to extract the ores and share whatever rewards they have gotten with the juniors. As for how the sharing works, it was from the total value of everything inside and Debauchery seniors must prioritize the juniors in case they forged any items or found something that is more helpful to the juniors.

With the cave secured the children decided to sleep while the seniors did their thing, they slept in the mana abundant room, because it had an amplifier effect on the Starheart and the Starheart could absorb said mana to last longer and give out better effect. Although Lili refused to share the room with the boys, the soothing effects of the Starheart helped her sleep faster and her protests were drowned in her deep breathing.

While the kids slept to restore their strength after the long arduous task they performed. Debauchery seniors were very industrious all night long, and with the guidance of master Balin they cleaned out all the exposed veins in the cave with a surprise found in the boss room. Under the throne of the boss was a spirit vein that turned out to be a cart sized stone, it was still developing and probably why the kobolds made their caves in that location. As monday dawn arrived the children woke up to the smell of a delicious meal being cooked, it did not take long before breakfast was over and the last bit of maining needed to be done was being planned.

The plans stopped after a cracking sound spread in the room, the egg they found yesterday was making those sounds, Reina who won the egg kept it beside her instead of putting it inside her storage ring, from the egg crawled a bat like creature with long neck and taught skin wings that extended to make its forearms and a long tail, the lizard like creature had the same black color and the scarlet pattern its egg had, the creature crawled its way onto Yunan's neck and coiled around it as close to the Starheart as possible and the familiar sound of """lucky bastard""" almost startled the new member Lili to her feet.

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