The Giant Rat pounced five meters away and instantly reached in front of Jun. It looked like a frog in mid-air as it spread all of its limbs disregarding defense and openly showing its stomach. Its two arms then slashed towards him since he was the closest target.

Jun tumbled to his right. After recovering, he quickly swung the sword without looking. A weird sound rang out when the sword struck its target. When Jun turned and saw where he hit, he became dumbstruck.

The hairs on the back of the Giant Rat were protruding like spikes as if they were a hedgehog. The sword was stuck in between the hairs and halted its advance.

The Giant Rat didn't appreciate his attack and quickly swipe its claws towards him.

Jun hurriedly blocked the swipe with his sword, but to his shock—the bone sword shattered and divided itself into three fragments. The upper and middle parts flew away and dropped to the ground while the handle remained on his hands.

Jun quickly distanced himself and pulled a new sword from his dimensional storage.

Jun wanted to remind everyone about how strong its claws were when he heard a shout from the side. Sheila shouted, "Watch out!"

When Jun looked to his right, he saw the Giant Rat's tail swinging towards him like a whip. He knew he didn't have the time to react but still tried and raised his sword to attempt to block it.

All of a sudden, a l.u.s.ter yellow barrier appeared before the tail whipped him. The barrier broke from the strength of tail whip but thanks to it being slowed and delayed Jun was able to dodge it.

When the barrier broke, Edward felt a slight backslash and his energy was drained an additional amount for its breaking. It wasn't that Edward was weak or that he doesn't have enough energy. The tail was only able to penetrate the s.h.i.+eld because he miscalculated the force applied by the tail whip and didn't allocate enough energy. His conserving of energy caused the barrier to break and drained more energy in return.

However, even though it was unfortunate, this still helped Jun to dodge and get into safety. Just as Jun was about to relax and look for an opportunity to attack the Giant Rat, he heard screeching noises closing towards him. When he looked from where the noise was coming, he saw his bonehammer lying on the ground being ran over by dozens of rats with frenzied eyes rus.h.i.+ng towards him.

If blade weapons doesn't work, then blunt ones should be able to do so, right? With that thought in mind, Jun charge on the oncoming rats then shouted, "Stall for a bit! I'll deal with its little brothers!"

"We're already doing that! Just hurry!" yelled Nik as he threw a bonespear into the Giant Rat's defenseless stomach. The bonespear flew at terrifying speed and struck the Giant Rat's stomach.

As if to prove that it has great defense, the bonespear that struck the Giant Rat's stomach bounced off and it ignored the poking feeling it felt. The Giant Rat focused on Jun and turned around.

After the bonespear hit the ground, a dagger appeared from thin air followed by hand and a person's body slowly appeared. "Play with me, little rat. He's not alone here, you know?"

Adrian stabbed the side of the Giant Rat and felt great resistance as its skin almost bounced off his attack. The failure didn't stop him from attacking as he quickly channeled energy into the dagger. The tip finally sunk into its skin and caused green blood to seep out from the small wound. When he felt that the dagger sunk deeper, he grasped the dagger in reverse and held it with both hands. He exerted force as he pulled the dagger down and made a huge horizontal cut wound.

The Giant Rat howled in pain and its eyes ferociously turned to Adrian.

When he finally got the Giant Rat's attention, Adrian pushed the dagger deeper and quickly retreated, leaving the dagger stuck on the Giant Rat's side.

"Let's pull it back to somewhere s.p.a.cious." Adrian said as he regrouped with everyone.

The Giant Rat ignored Jun and chased after its attacker since it felt threatened for receiving a wound.

Jun took this time to slaughter the slightly smaller rats. A slash with the sword can easily kill the large rats while an empowered punch was able to do so, but with a bit of damage to his health. He trampled over them rather straightforwardly while soaking their damage. Even with all that, his health didn't even went down by a quarter. This can be attributed to his stats and that he was only being attacked on non-vital areas like hand and legs.

He picked up the bonehammer and stashed his short sword. On the distance, he could see the entrance to the room where Angelica's father was supposed to be trapped. It was blockaded by tables, sofa's and chairs. There's huge holes on its lower portions enough for large rats to enter. It seems like some rats were able to squirm they way through.

All of a sudden, sc.r.a.ping noises could be heard. The blockades were being removed and when only the table remains, a pair of legs appeared on the hole on the table's lower portion.

—

Dominic Sison. One of the pioneer miners of this mine. With his special access to the mine, he brought his daughter for an out-of-town vacation. His daughter was a botanist and he thought that she would like visiting the mines since it could be considered a part of nature, but things turned out that it wasn't. She easily got bored of the mines and requested for them to go home.

The vacation was a failure and not only did he gain his daughter's displeasure, terrible things happened after one another. Something change with the world and they were stuck at the camp site. Thankfully, the army stationed here to guard the mines were able to defend the place from the initial outbreak. There were atleast ten soldiers at that time and a few clerks, but people have families to worry and most of them left. They requested the military to escort them and half of the army were sent out. Though his daughter suggested that they join the group, he decided to stay and wait for things to calm down. Days and weeks pa.s.sed, no one came back.

With the army defending the area, there was nothing for them to do nor anywhere to go to. Besides wandering around the forest, which is the only thing his daughter liked, there was nothing else to do. That's the time when he suggested for the two of them to explore the mines. With nothing else to do, his daughter agreed.

The first time they encountered the large rats was when they were at least a few meters from the entrance, due to him explaining hazards and safety regulations to his daughter.

The large rats resp.a.w.ned and immediately surrounded them. He picked up the nearest thing near to defend his daughter. A worn rusty metal pipe.

With numerous large rats surrounding them, he was already thinking of sacrifing his own life so his daughter could live but to his surprise, after fighting with no regards to his life, he stood alone with his daughter supporting his back. There was nothing around them as if everything was a dream. They went out and told the army about what happened. The army investigated but didn't see any rats around the entrance. When they entered and searched around, the large rats resp.a.w.ned in great numbers. Though the army easily killed the large rats, it caused them a bit of ammunition to do so. Although they receive experience for killing the large rats, they stayed away from the mines.

When Dominic recovered, to his surprise that only took a few days, he went back to the mine and fought large rats alone until he became comfortable to protect his daughter. He learned the good things about leveling up and so he brought his daughter to level up.

They spent days in front of the mines leveling while the army was busy looting for supplies at the base of the town. It could be seen that they were not contributing but the army still chose to ration foods to them, but never called for them to join scavenging since the army thought that an old man and a woman would do no help to them.

After a week of fighting, they became confident and ventured further in to the mines. They discovered the changes from their first time coming in and immediately became enchanted with the place. Though a botanist doesn't deal with ores and stones, his daughter became interested with the unique things she was seeing.

When they easily reached the third floor, they started to relax since everything was killed by them in one hit. They walked along beside the river and appreciated the glittering crystals above. When they reached the end, he went to the Leisure Room and reminisced about his times here.

All of a sudden, he heard his daughter shouting for him to be careful. Before he could react and get out, he already saw the swarm of large rats filling the corridor. He told his daughter to get out and not to worry about him.

This led to his current situation trapped inside the Leisure Room. He quickly barricaded the room and waited for his doom.