The two GAA members also didn’t expect Almond to find someone he knew. Well, that made things certainly easy because they knew they’d be facing some annoyance from this guild courtesy of them crashing into their raid.
Alas, they didn’t know they might be facing more than just annoyance now.
“I…wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Henry wryly smiled. “But…” his eyes showed confusion and disbelief as he asked, “Shouldn’t you be silver-rank still? Don’t tell me you reached Gold rank?”
“Haha, I am still Silver-rank, of course,” Almond chuckled as he stretched his hand. “How’s things been since then?”
“Not damaging,” Henry shook hands, a grateful smile on his face. He also magic whispered. ‘Thanks to your leniency, nothing bad happened, but you here…might bring trouble to you.’
Almond captured a hint of distress in his eyes.
Henry’s party members were curious, so everyone introduced each other, but Henry didn’t speak much about their encounter and just said that they met on the first floor this month when he went as a Knight.
However, everyone figured out everything.
It was well-known in the guild that the vice-guild leader’s son was brutally beaten up on the first floor by a party headed by the student of Lady Aria.
The fault lay in him, so they couldn’t openly hold her accountable.
But that didn’t mean the grudge was settled.
The vice-guild leader and his son both held grudges, especially Zoren.
He had made posters of Natalia, Lily, Almond, and Alfred from his memories and wanted to find more information about others aside from Lily. So, the guild members knew about them.
“Now that everyone knows each other by name, at least, let us start the raid,” Henry said as he turned to the portal door.
The Thunderbird guild group went inside first, followed by Almond, Nikki, and Anton.
[You have entered the dungeon: Blitzercrow’s Thunder Land.]
The starting area was Thunder Hills. Past it, they could see lightning crackling tall trees with dark clouds in the sky that chain reacted with trees.
Most of this lightning naturally had lower intensity and power than actual lightning. They were a product of Mana’s transformation with lightning elements of proportional amount.
The monsters were gathered at various parts of the hills, so the party started moving towards the first hill, filled with grass and some trees, housed by Lighting Horn Rhinos from level 70 to level 85.
[Lightning Horn Rhino]
-Rank: Gold
-Level: 80
-Stats:
—Physical:
↳[Strength: 165|Health: 200|Stamina: 150]
—Mental:
↳[Mana: 200|Focus: 150|Perception: 150]
“You better stay safe and back, silver-rank. It’s already too much that someone at your level was even allowed to enter a gold-bordered B-rank dungeon,” said a short, dark-brown-haired man named Krag.
“It’s fine, you don’t have to worry about me,” Almond responded carefreely. “Just do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”
“Yeah, but don’t intervene in our fights, or you’ll put us in trouble,” the yellow-haired girl chimed in as she pointed her staff high, intending to use a skill on a herd of seven Lightning Horn Rhinos ahead.
The other five spread around and moved forward at her action.
The Tank of the group provoked the Rhinos and moved in a different direction as the yellow-haired girl cast multiple buffs on him.
The others became ready to flank and hurl their attack skills on the Rhinos.
Henry didn’t move from his position and adopted a stance of watching.
“You’re not going to fight?” Almond raised his eyebrows.
“Nah. I am mainly here as an observer for this party. I’ll only intervene in an emergency.”
“Gotcha,” Almond said before summoning Infernal Knight Ashkar, Starlight Beast, and Chimera Crystalist.
All three were bigger in terms of size among his summons and could cover his left, right, and behind.
“They aren’t strong enough to fight monsters here from the stats,” Henry frowned.
“Yeah, I don’t want them to fight here,” Almond chuckled. “I’m just letting them out to get them some air. By the way, we are going ahead because I want some lightning strikes in that forest.”
“Just you all?” Henry frowned and informed. “This dungeon has a density value of 533, so there will be more monsters in that lightning forest.”
“Yeah, no worries. We’ll be fine. I got two strong guards with me,” Almond grinned.
“…”
“…”
Nikki and Anton were slightly speechless. He was really treating them as his bodyguards, though that was the purpose, but still.
“Alright, move as you wish then,” Henry nodded.
The Thunderbird group had already killed a Rhino when Almond was leading his monsters past them with Nikki and Anton.
And that was when Starlight Beast reacted.
The beast turned to the magic crystal dropped by the Rhino and conveyed its thoughts to Almond.
Chimera Crystalise also conveyed the same thing.
‘Eh? You want to eat it?’ Almond paused. The reason he summoned Starlight Beast and Chimera Crystalist was that both of them had a lightning affinity.
Chimera Crystalist had lightning skills, and although Starlight BEast didn’t have pure lightning skills, it also had affinity because there were a few monster spirits with lightning attributes in the Spirit Kodoku session that birthed it.
“Can we kill a group of Lightning Horn Rhinos?” Almond turned to Nikkin and Anton, “I would appreciate your help.”
“Sure, we can, but I heard Marshal saying that the dungeon won’t pose a threat to you. What does he mean by that?” Anton asked.
“By that, he probably means this,” Almond took out a random Rare-grade Mid-tier spirit sword that he had crafted yesterday and didn’t sell for delivery.
He hadn’t worn any of the equipment that he wore when he went to the dungeon with Julian and Roken.
Turning to the group of four Rhinos twenty meters to his right, Almond promptly kicked the ground as he went full throttle on his Mana techniques.
Strength Boost level 10.
Fortification level 5.
Focus Field level 7.
Body Enfold level 4.
Weapon Enfold level 7.
He had drastically improved his Mana techniques level during the past two dungeon raids.
*Swoosh!*
Nikki and Anton saw Almond slashing off a Rhino into two at the start as he dashed past the group.
Both of them were shocked at that display, but it was just the beginning.
In the next second, they saw one Rhino’s head suddenly wrapped by faintly neon-glowing white-blue thread…that instantly sliced its head into slabs.
The other two Rhino’s horns crackled with lightning as two horn-shaped projectiles conjured and shot toward him.
Almond jumped even without looking back and somersaulted above the Rhino while waving his sword from above, slicing one into three with two swift slashes and landing on the other before piercing his sword into its head.
‘What’s with that swift coordination of his moves?’ Anton was dumbfounded.
“His reflexes are crazy. It feels like he has way higher perception than what his level suggests,” Nikki muttered.
“I guess that’s one of the reasons why Marshal didn’t show us his status profile.
Henry, who also watched everything, had his jaw dropped to the ground.
‘What the fuck? How is he a silver-rank? I knew he was strong on the first floor, far stronger than what his level indicated, but what the fuck is this?’
Moments later, the Thunderbird guild had also finished off the seven Rhinos and looked in Almond’s direction, hearing the slight commotion of battle there.
“Did he just kill those three Rhinos?”
“Are you an idiot? How can he kill them when he’s a silver level 10 brat?”
“No, seriously. I think he killed them. And only he is there. The other two who are Gold rank are not even close.”
“Let’s ask Henry.”