Splurt–!
Blood splattered and painted my face red, it was fresh blood, and for so reason, it was so hot that I felt my skin was burning.
ραпdα nᴏνa| сom "Heh?" I spoke impromptu when a monstrous creature stood before .
The red-crimson color covered its hand like gloves. The woman's body hung lifelessly in the hands of the creature with her head crushed. It was one of Jin's companions.
With a gulp of dry saliva stuck in my throat, a chill rushed through the back of my bone like a rocket. Electrified; I felt like I just got electrified by a hundred thousand lightning volts. Petrified; I couldn't move an inch of my body because of how nervous and scared I was.
"Wake up!"
Soone shouted and brought back to reality. The one slight touch to my shoulder beca heavier and pushed away from my position.
I flung toward the faraway trees out of the central open area where we settled up a camp to survive through this dungeon.
Bam–!
It was weird. Even though I hit the tree so hard that I heard the bone of my back make a crunchy sound, I didn't feel any pain. Instead, when I opened my eyes, I was standing in the center of the camp.
Looking around, most of the civilians were lying on the ground as if they were possessed. So of them were screaming hysterically.
'An illusion? There is no other explanation for this situation than an illusion. But, it's weird. As far as I know, only the demon can use an illusion spell as strong as this…'
"Hey! Are you okay?!"
Calling to was a young handso man with blonde hair, it was Jin.
Now that I saw him this close. His feature matched Jin's description that I rember. A dependable guy with an extraordinary appearance and charisma. His blonde hair looked like golden threads and those blue eyes were clear as the sky. But for , he was a dangerous person.
I didn't exactly rember or it was just because I didn't write how and why but, in the future, he was going to betray humanity for the greater power.
Big hands gently rested on my shoulders. He shook as if I was so object that needed to be activated in so way.
I raised my hand, gesturing for him to stop and he did so.
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's okay…"
He examined with curious eyes. I knew what he was thinking, he probably wondered how I could break free from the illusion while so of his companions couldn't. After a while, he shook his head.
"How can you…" he hesitated. "No, never mind. I'm glad you're okay. But…"
He looked around the camp. Eighty percent of us had collapsed and were under the illusion spell. Only 15 people including and the other stronger Enhanceds were free from the spell.
Jin gathered them all in one place. And as a person who resisted the spell, I was to be brought along with them.
"We need to do sothing about this…" Jin said after we were gathered.
"But. How do we do it? This illusion spell is so strong to be just an ordinary spell. There must be a high-ranking monster in this dungeon," soone replied.
"No, wait. In the first place, which monster could use an illusion spell?! Isn't this only the wizard can do?"
"We don't have a wizard among us though…?"
Everyone was eyeing each other, looking for the culprit hidden among us. But, no matter how much they looked, we all were Enhanceds, not wizards.
Jin sighed and looked at . The mont his eyes locked onto , I got a goosebump. Not because I was terrified or anything, but because I just felt like he would ask sothing troubleso.
"What do you think, kid?"
When he said that, everyone was raising their eyebrows at him.
"Co on, Jin. What does he know? He is not even a full-fledged hero like us," said a bald guy with a mocking tone directed at .
This baldie…
I felt like I wanted to hit him in the face and grind that bald head of his like cheese. But, instead of getting provoked by those words, I just exhaled a short breath.
"I know that. But, look at him. The fact that he is standing right now ans that he is as strong as us. Or probably, his blessing has to do with anomaly resistance?"
My ears twitched as soon as I heard the word 'blessing'.
In this world, when soone awakened their power as a superhuman or Enhanced. They would be blessed with nurous gifts.
Blessing, talent, and trait; these three were the power gifted by the higher beings in this world or so they called a God.
Blessing has sothing to do with one soul; internal power. Even if one never uses much of their blessing, it would still exist in their soul and never disappear until they died or their soul was destroyed.
anwhile, talent and traits were the sources of external power. It could disappear if a certain condition had been t. Talent was soone's innate skill, it was mostly related to combat skills or anything that uses one body to perform things such as swordsmanship. Then, the trait was soone's mind and physical capabilities, sothing like passive skill, for example was Steel Body; a trait that made soone's body harder than usual.
Just like in the real world, if one never used or honed their skill. At one ti, there would be lost touch with it and forget how to use them. But, when they tried to get it back, it would be easy because that power had once been there.
Though there were three types of gifts. Not everyone was born with all of them. The most common power people would have of all three was talents and the rarest were those with blessings. Even though soone has a talent and a trait in their possession, the one with only the blessing was still the rarest one.
Of course, our most precious protagonist needed to be special, right? So, I gave him all three types of gifts. Blessing, talent, and trait, he possessed all of them. To be more detailed, he had three blessings, one exclusive talent, and two traits. One of his blessings was that of the exclusive system that helped him to beco the strongest throughout the story.
Fuh. How unfair… Even though I was the author. Not only I had only one talent–it was two now, but even my stats were also a piece of shit.
But, anyway, I didn't have any blessings as Jin said. But, he was right, how could I stand firmly when so higher-rank heroes were trapped by the illusion spell? It could be the cause of my hidden power or sothing but h, I doubted it. Because there should be at least an indication in my status screen that served as a little proof if I have a hidden power. Sothing like a '???' description.
"I do have a similar blessing like that…"
I lied. But, it's not like I could do anything about it, didn't I? They would find it weirder if I had said I didn't have that resistance blessing. Although I liked to be recognized, I hate if I got interrogated.
Also, looking at their shocked expression ant that none of them had the 'Lie Detection' skill which put at ease for lying in front of this strong human.
"Oh! T-that is obvious! Of course, you have it. Or else, there is no way you could break free from the illusion, right? Haha!" said the baldie.
"Haha…" I reluctantly laughed.
Jin nodded in acknowledgnt of my bullshit. But, he didn't know it anyway, so he also thought that I really have the resistance blessing.
"Anyway, kid. Do you know sothing about this situation? Anything is fine, just tell what's on your mind."
Should I tell them that this was the work of a demon-kind? But, I doubted that they would believe if I told them that. There was no record of a demon appearing in this world, even if there was one, the higher-ups would definitely keep it a secret to avoid unnecessary trouble. But, that was where they were wrong! That was the last thing they wanted to do!
"Hmm… I don't think any monsters are capable of doing this. The monsters we fought and found in this dungeon seem to be low-rank monsters. So, the possibility of it being caused by them is almost zero…"
"We also know that. But, we can't ignore the possibility that there might be abnormalities happening in this dungeon."
"That's true. But, it rarely happens that abnormalities would occur in a re week ti flash dungeon," I said.
Although I said that, I couldn't help but be nervous. As far as I knew, I stated that an abnormality wouldn't occur in a flash dungeon that had less than 10 days' ti. Such abnormality was like a unique trait of the dungeon; a aningful event whether it was a good thing or a bad thing such as this illusion.
But, what I know was that this was not caused by the dungeon itself. But, by an external force such as the demon or anything that wanted to harm us.
I gasped. I rembered that we were once a hundred people. But, so of them went on their way, leaving the group. There was a chance that the demon was among them, or maybe they were the ones who did it.
"Where did that goblin butcher man and his group go? Did any of you see them?"
"Goblin butcher?"
Everyone seed confused for a mont, but then instantly recognized what my words ant.
"Ah. Herman's group? No, I didn't see them again after we parted."
"I didn't see them either…"
" too!"
" neither..!"
All of them never saw that goblin butcher's group. Wasn't this sound suspicious? There must be sothing going on right now.
I peeked at Jin. He seed to be deep in thought. Then, after that, his eyes widened as if he found the answer to all of this. As expected of him, the great commander of humanity yet the betrayer when the demon invaded the world in the future.
There was no doubt anymore. This Jin guy before was the sa Jin that would be an important character in the future's catastrophe. Not only he was strong in the physical aspect, but he was also smart.
He clapped his hand to get everyone's attention. He observed each of us before he started talking.
"I think you all already know who our target is."
They all nodded in unison.
"Good. Let's split the group. I need 7 people to search for Herman's group, and the rest will protect this camp."
Seven people were volunteering to beco the search group, while the rest including stayed in the camp.
"Okay. You all can do basic flare magic, right?"
The seven of the search group nodded. But one of them was showing off instead.
"Like this, Jin?"
"Yeah, that is it. I want you guys to shoot the flare to the sky once you found Herman's group… Or worse, at least, the corpse of a human…"
"Okay. That's easy," said the baldie.
Jin nodded. "Now, scatter!"
Looking at the eight of them disappear into the darkness of the woods. I walked toward the campfire, there was nothing I could do to help the victim anyway. The fact was that it was they who told to just sit and don't do anything.
They were so kind to give that much privilege so I couldn't refuse the offer, hehe.
"Hah… This will be a long night for them."
Yeah, this would be a long night for them but not for , why? Because I will just sleep and hope that everything will be solved when I wake up!
Just when I thought of that. A small piece of mory was being played in my head.
The city was burning, the sky was dark, and screams filled the entire city. Soone was standing in front of masses consisting of a hundred heroes more or less, that was a big charismatic guy with eccentric full-plate armor. Before them, was a three ters giant creature with red skin and a pair of wings, and horns.
The demon.
The big guy suddenly kneeled in front of the demon which made people behind him gasp in surprise as well as confusion about why did their leader kneel to the demon.
The demon's smirk widened as he extended his hand to bless the big guy acting as a leader to the heroes. For so reason, no heroes dare to interrupt the demon's rite as he turned their leader into their kind.
When the rite finished. The leader grabbed his face and tore it apart, it was not flesh that was being torn apart but suddenly there was a white blank mask without an eye socket on his face and his feature slowly changed. From the big charismatic, veteran-looking guy to a tall handso guy with an athletic body, his black hair changed to blonde.
It was Jin.
I instantly opened my eyes as soon as the mory ended there, where Jin betrayed his comrades over power. And all of that was because of one particular artifact he got.
Still dazy, I shook my head and then ran into the woods.
"Hey, kid! Where are you going?!"
"I need to take care of the worldly matters, I can't hold it anymore!"
With that, I disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
What I rembered when I closed my eyes was the backstory of Jin the great commander (betrayer). He got a really amazing artifact in the flash dungeon in his early year as a Hero. And that flash dungeon was probably this current flash dungeon because this was the only flash dungeon he got himself trapped into according to my mory.
That artifact was one of the great artifacts in his possession that helped him soar through the sky like an eagle and beca the top 300 heroes in 3 years.
"Now, shall we start the treasure hunting?
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