The Illicitous Dungeon

The heroes entered the town through a wooden gate which was damaged all over. There were holes that appeared to have been chewed through it, and several especially large portions at the bottom which the only remained splinters of wood spread throughout the ground.

They pushed open one side of the gate in which rusted hinges squeaked in protest.

"Urgh…"

Several of the heroes threw up onto the ground as inside the town were half rotten, half eaten corpses sporadically left on the ground. This place was so eerie that not even carrion birds hung around, leaving behind an uncomfortable silence.

Ms. Greenwood was pallid with one hand covering her mouth and tears in her eyes.

Only a handful of students managed to remain steadfast. Even though they had thought they mentally prepared themselves for this world, that instantly collapsed the moment they were faced with such a gruesome scene themselves.

Jake was at the front of the party and he barely managed to maintain a smile, his face several shades whiter than it usually was.

"This shit is fucked up," Elija almost spat out in disgust.

A soft padding sound broke the silence as several zombified corpses ambled into sight.

"There are zombies!" One of the more timid girls cried out with a sob.

"Remain calm everyone! They are only zombies, the weakest kind of undead."

Jake hurriedly solidified his composure and tried to rally everyone. He wasn't happy with the situation, but he couldn't allow himself to collapse in front of all these people.

Pointing at the zombies with two fingers, a light bulb size ball of soft white liquid light formed in front of his fingers. It then shot off with a snapping sound and flew at them like a cannon ball.

The holy bolt struck a zombie in the center of the head, causing it to explode backwards in a splatter of blood, flesh and bone.

[

Zombified Human <Lv. 3> killed!

+ 49 exp

]

Jake's experience bar immediately shot up over half way from that one kill, leaving behind a strange sense of satisfaction that seemed almost alien to him.

The other zombies became enraged upon sensing enemies after one of their own was attacked. They immediately howled as a group and woke up any sleeping enemies in the town.

This included large amounts of grey bipedal monsters that stood about two feet tall. They had sinewy grey wings on their backs the same color of their skin and had four pure red eyes instead of a human's two.

They glared at the heroes and cried out in anger in high pitched voices, pointing forward the spears and tridents in their hands in clear hostility.

"Be careful!" One of the boys called out as the new enemies appeared. "They are gremolkins, a species of the demon race. They are vicious and like to eat brain matter."

Several heroes visibly tensed up but their training in the castle hadn't been for nothing. They readied their weapons and confronted the enemies with nervous expressions.

Jake looked at Ms. Greenwood from the corner of his eye. Both her and him were de facto leaders of the heroes, her by her status as their teacher, and him by his status of Princess Zoerina.

The teacher was a Guide, which didn't seem to be a powerful class by the name as it was focused on peering into fate, but it also had an elemental magic skill.

There was about 80 gremolkins and 40 zombified humans that could be seen. Seeing that there were only about 30 humans, their courage was greatly bolstered and they simply charged without a care for tactics.

The heroes fought back with various emotions, mostly panic. Fireballs, earth shots, arrows and other ranged attacks were fired at the enemies while the melee classes stood at the front of the group under Jake's directions.

Most of the attacks missed due to nervous aiming, but many still hit as arrows pierced flesh, fire burnt, water and stone cut and bruised.

Jessica forewent attacking and cast a holy guard on the front line warriors, rapidly draining her mana and leaving her mind spinning from the rapid loss of mana. Perhaps it was to not stop gate support classes, but she also received 10 percent of whatever they killed, so she quickly received a plethora of notifactions of 2 to 5 experience points each.

"Squeeeee!!" About ten gremolkins squealed and raised their spears in preparation of throwing them.

"Everyone, fall back and focus on defending!" Ms. Greenwood called out as she cast a third fireball at the enemy.

"No, stand your ground!" Jake shouted and raised his shield and sword, the latter glowing with holy enchant as the milky white liquid light seemed to flow over the entire weapon.

Ten spears flew forward like bolts of grey light. The imp like creatures weren't all that strong normally, but they all trained in a skill that apparently temporarily buffed the strength of one arm so they could throw their weapon with incredible force.

Most were blocked by the frontline defenders who had shield, but a few made it through the line and hit the heroes at the back.

"NOO!!!" Pamela screamed out in grief as Ashley Scott, the Dancer who did support dances for the party to give them a strengthening buff, had a three foot spear pierce through the middle of her chest.

Ashley had a brief look of disbelief as she weakly grabbed onto the spear and took a step backwards before she dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, fresh blood tricking down the weapon and covering the old stains.

Ms. Greenwood had a dark expression as she sent and accusatory glare at Jake, who was grimacing at the scream but still holding down the frontline.

Swords cut into gremolkin and zombie alike, while gauntlets broke bones with direct hits.

One of the most prominent heroes was Mason Anderson, the Ink Mage, he had been creating monsters out of ink ever since he was being summoned. He held a large sketchbook where he would paint the monster on the page, its detail and size determining its strength.

This didn't cost any mana, only when he was turning it into an actual monster did it cost, so he had many drawings saved up. As he was limited to monsters that could be created with 30 mana as he was at the third level of the skill, he was still limited to rats and other small creations. He could even summon a goblin, but that took longer to draw properly and he wasn't much of an artist.

One of the front line warriors was stabbed in the kidney and quickly fell out of line, his fear getting the best of him. He cried in pain and a hero with a healing skill quickly went to him. Vivian Jiang promptly cast heal on him and help staunch the blood.

It was only a low level spell with a low skill level, so she had to cast it three times to fully close the wound, leaving behind a harsh scar. She also cast cure once to avoid any infectious diseases that may have been on the weapon.

The hero quickly rejoined the front line under the pressure of a seemingly harmless glance from Jake, although he was a bit less afraid of getting stabbed now that he knew what to expect.

Vivian rushed around the battlefield and healed whoever needed it, but still had to ensure she kept enough mana in case of an emergency. This kept everyone in top condition.

The demons and zombies eventually fell, the sporadic remaining gremolkins fled in a panic once the tables turned on them.

"Is everyone still alive?" Jake rallied everyone and asked once the last of the enemies were taken care of. "All those who need healing, go over to see Vivian and Jessica who will treat your wounds."

He held his hands behind his back with a forced smile, trying to show a brave front and hiding his still shaking hands.

All the heroes had levelled up at least twice in this battle, the frontline defenders at least three times due to them killing more. Jake alone had reached <Lv. 5>, increasing his stat points overall by 5 points each, while the Hero class gave him 6 extra stat points per level.

All the other heroes had classes equivalent to a Second Step ranker, so they also gained 5 extra stat points per level, but the Hero class was a step above them. Jake not only started with a higher starting point, he was also getting stronger faster than the rest, solidifying his position as leader.

"Jake! How could you?" Ms. Greenwood stood in front of him and publicly chastised him. "You caused that girl to die!"

Jake's stomach clenched at the accusation but he still fought back against the accusation.

"What, and following your instructions would have been better? Ms. Gree… Andria, if we hadn't stood forth and stopped as many spears as we could, how many would have died? None? I think not."

"That… It is still not okay…"

"We are not in our home world any more! Our values from there are worthless. Please remember that currently, I am the leader of the heroes."

"…"

"If anyone wishes to take over that role, speak up."

Even though everyone was feeling confidence in their strength which seemed to break through the human limit through levelling up, they didn't say anything to challenge his position. Even the teacher bit her lip and broke eye contact.

"Good, now, everyone focus on recovery and we will scout the rest of this town to try and determine how long ago it was attacked."

"…Excuse me." Vivian, off to the side came forward.

"What, do you want to be the leader?"

"No, it's not that," The asian girl nervously shifted her eyes around under Jake's gaze. "I was checking in on everybody, and someone is missing."

"What? Who?"

"Alex, the Compounder."

Jake recalled who that was, the reclusive silent kid in class, and instantly put all the dots together.

"He ran, huh? Forget him, he is no longer one of us."

"Jake!" Ms. Greenwood called out in anger to see him abandoning a classmate, clearly very unhappy with his actions.

"Enough! We don't need a traitor!"

~~~~~

Later that afternoon, all the heroes brought over the wagons and were setting up tents and a campsite for the night, an action they had become familiar with ever since leaving the capital.

Zac, a Blademaster and best friend to Zac, approached him with a bit of an awkward expression.

"Hey, J, you've been pretty harsh on everyone. It been like this for weeks now, and I know you are stressed, but so are we."

Jake hardened his heart and brought out his best smile, using his nickname that the entire football team used for each other.

"I understand that, Z, but it's necessary for everyone."

"Why? Surely it is okay with some people not doing as well, or being weaker, than others. We are only human, and that's inevitable."

"Z, would you trust your back to someone who couldn't defend it? This world isn't like ours. If they are weak, they will die, then whomever they were protecting will die too. You saw what happened to Ashley. If we were weaker and stopped just one less spear, there could have been one more death."

"…Still, you can be a bit gentler on them."

Jake patted Zac on the back and stated "I will try" with a soft laugh.

Zac, who had been Jake's friend since middle school, could tell that he was being insincere, but only hoped he would consider it more.

~~~~~

After the camp was set up and several classmates were in charge of cooking a potato and mushroom soup for everyone's dinner, Jessica sat beside Jake who was overlooking everyone from the side.

"Jake, what is your relationship with Princess Zoerina?" Jessica bluntly asked, prompting Jake to turn his head toward her with raised brows.

"My relationship? What do you mean? We don't have any relationship."

"I mean, she does go to your room and order the maids to change your clothing, even having your armor personally catered to before anyone else."

"Oh, that. That is about… public image. As I am not only a hero, but my class is a Hero, I am seen as a public image of everything. I will be placed in the spotlight and my actions will be reflected on all the other heroes, so I must do better than everyone else."

"Is that it?"

"Yeah."

"And there's no personal relationship with her?"

"What? Of course not."

Jake couldn't see it, but Jessica's hand was clenching a bunch of grass on the ground so tightly her knuckles were white.

The two sat in silence after that, so close to one another yet further away than they had ever been.