Past Life Returner - Chapter 133

The teams were restructured. The pre-Awakened had become the leaders of each team, and authority was finally transferred from mercenaries to them.

“This place is so weird” the Fourth Virtue whispered quietly.

I asked “What did they say?”

“The mercenaries said that nothing works here even guns and grenades. They are no different than blind men here. In this case…”

Meanwhile the Second Virtue and the captain of mercenaries forced us to move in a tight formation where our shoulders bumped into each other. This minimized the chances of losing anyone in the dark. I could hear the tense breathing and smell the sweat of the mercenary right beside me. I could even see everyone’s expression in this room and the mercenaries looked like they now regretted joining us. However this wasn’t even the beginning of the dungeon conquest.

“The CEO is in trouble since the mercenaries he trusted are now useless” the Fourth Virtue said.

The bald guy with the Chaser trait reported several things to the Second Virtue. I overheard numbers that sounded like the number of monsters behind the door. There were two rooms and only one monster was in each room.

However this was the Baclan Corps’s territory. Their name was similar to Declan mutts but their physiques and strength overwhelmed those mutts by a landslide. Fortunately they had a smaller population.

“We got the order to move.”

We moved towards the door. Those with long-range attack skills acted as hunters those with tanking skills defended in front of the hunters and those with short-range attack skills were placed on the sides ready to enter. Those without skills like the Fourth Virtue and me were pushed back. The formation was simple except that the mercenaries stood behind the pre-Awakened like walls. The pre-Awakened stared at the mercenaries discontentedly and the bald guy with the Chaser trait opened the door.

Squeak-

Everyone watched the front nervously as they instinctively knew a devil would jump out of the darkness. There was unbearable tension everywhere as if something was about to happen. I didn’t hear anything except for people’s gulping sounds and nothing rushed out. The Second Virtue double-checked with the bald guy and his hunch was correct.

A gigantic monster with a cow’s head was hovering around the end of the corridor but it was too far. Basically the Second Virtue and the monster couldn’t see each other at that moment. The door was narrow but the corridor was wide. We could quickly enter and reassemble the formation but the Second Virtue decided to just send an advance scout since he wasn’t aware of the dungeon’s structure.

In the past the Baclans were nicknamed ‘Cow Pawns’ due to their appearance and because they enjoyed crushing the targets and tearing off their limbs. Although the advance scout was an elite with decent skills the result was as expected. A desperate cry filled the corridor.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!”

“Help me! Aaah! Please help! I don’t want to die! Aaah!”

“Keuuuek!”

Everyone became pale with fear including the Second and Fourth Virtues. The formation immediately fell apart as the Awakened stepped back unconsciously and mixed up with the mercenaries in the back. Then the thumping began since the Cow Pawns were enormous and heavy. The one that slaughtered the advance scout jumped into the entrance room where we were standing.

“M…monster! Monster!”

Although it was only a pawn its appearance was no different from that of the boss monster.

“Ugh!”

It picked up a mercenary and ripped off his neck and that was just the beginning. People were frightened by one monster and ran away looking for an exit especially the mercenaries who couldn’t see anything. They stumbled pulled on each other and screamed nonsense.

The Fourth Virtue came up to me amidst all the chaos.

“You… You….draw the monster’s attention…and I will smack him…from…from…the back. Okay? Where…where is it? Where is this bastard?”

He trembled his body and his voice shook.To read the uncut version go to daotranslate dot com.

“That is unnecessary” I replied.

“Coward.”

“Follow me” I said.

I led the Fourth Virtue to a spot where we could see the Cow Pawn and where the Second Virtue was looking at the monster with an Awakened. The Awakened was shivering as if he was about to faint but he had done his job. He used the Restraint insignia and the Cow Pawn was growling. Then the Second Virtue thrust his military dagger into the monster’s back multiple times. When it fell on the ground he climbed on its back and slit its neck. He didn’t seem to be aware of what he was doing as all that remained in his eyes was frenzied terror.

The Fourth Virtue jumped towards the monster and the two began disemboweling the pawn. The Awakened who used the insignia frantically retreated because he was shocked by their madness. The pawn was already dead but no message popped up since this group didn’t know the concept of a party. Apparently they had not received quests yet.

After a few minutes the Fourth Virtue stood up first then shouted after pulling up the Second Virtue. It sounded like he was making a royal remark stating that the CEO himself had killed the monster. The commotion died down and we realized that five pre-Awakened and seven mercenaries had died. It was natural that everyone’s attention was drawn to the pawn’s corpse instead of their colleagues’ bodies.

Two doctors clung to the pawn’s body. Non-combatants had also entered the dungeon and their gowns were also ruined. Although they had been the farthest away from the monster they were run over by panicked people. They looked horrified at the monstrous abomination and began dissecting it with trembling hands while depending on the faint light from a small lighter.

“Damn it.”

The Fourth Virtue smacked the ground with his fist. His close friend was one of the dead and he gnashed his teeth with bloodshot eyes.

“There was only one! I could just stab it and kill it before…Why? Why him?”

He even shed tears which I had never seen in the past.

The Eight Evils and Eight Virtues had destroyed the world through their own civil war and they were merciless beings even to their own group and beliefs. However one of them was crying and the other was looking at the monster with eyes full of shock. The excitement I had seen from the Second Virtue when he was giving a speech no longer existed and it didn’t look like he was planning on delivering another.

However they would still manage to conquer the dungeon despite the horrific damage or some would receive the escape insignias. They would somehow survive and form the Revolucion as it was what had happened previously.

Well they were still very unskilled…

***

There was a delay before entering the second room. The bald guy reported to the Second Virtue that there were eight Pawns in the room and panic spread around the group.

“There are eight in that room. From now on I’m not going to trust my life to these people” the Fourth Virtue said.

“So you’re leaving the group?” I asked.

“No I’m going to be in the frontline. I hope you…will help me” he hesitated.

“How?”

“I don’t know. Just fight right next to me. I’ll fight against the monsters properly instead of panicking with those cowards. I think you’re holding up much better than them” he said.

I asked “Did you get permission from the CEO?”

He continued “You were right. What we need now is a strong mentality not skills. The CEO will agree with that.”

He was confident but it was just his idea. The Second Virtue had no intention of placing the Fourth Virtue in the front as he had no skills. Instead he emphasized the importance of the formation with the mercenary captain. We had seen the monster could be killed by a weapon and everyone had an instinct that they had to move forward and kill monsters to escape from the dungeon. The rules were simple.

The Fourth Virtue looked at the frontline of the formation and muttered “It won’t work out. I’ll move forward when the formation crumbles.”

“…”

“I might look like a crazy person who wants to die right? But no. I don’t want to die. I think… you would understand” he added.

He looked at me with eyes begging for my help.

The door opened when the Second Virtue gave a signal and things happened immediately this time. As soon as the cow’s heads came in a few long-range skills flew at them. The monsters jumped into the formation with a painful scream then soon collapsed heavily in front of us.

The formation had been solid until then but it was soon smashed as more pawns rushed in one after another. My sight was filled with deathly pale faces of those who had turned around to run away towards the entrance. The Fourth Virtue shouted as he punched one of them rushing at us “Are you going to trust your life to them? I can never do that!”

He ran toward the front in the opposite direction of the crowd. There was the Second Virtue and he was yelling at the fugitives like the captain of a wrecked ship. A pawn was right behind him and when the Second Virtue finally noticed it I brought up my Agility to its maximum and sprinted forward. I crushed the monster’s face then killed the second third fourth and fifth pawns. Their faces exploded at a blow and in the end the sixth one’s blood and flesh spewed out in all directions.

There was an Awakened buried under the last pawn’s foot and no matter how much he struggled the pawn didn’t move at all. The monster lifted its fist to punch the Awakened and when it was about to hit the skull…

Smash!

I kicked it and grabbed its neck while it was staggering. It must have realized that the more strength it used to escape from my hand the tighter my grip would become. It was determined to kill me to survive and tried to reach me with both hands. That was its last thought.

Crack!

I dragged the pawn’s limp body and everyone’s attention was focused on me. The Fourth Virtue was on my way and he stepped out while looking back and forth at the body and me with a startled look.

“Hey Joshua” I called the Second Virtue as I threw the pawn’s corpse in front of him.