Randy was standing hunched over his friends with a half-drawn, flickering mana arrow in his bow. Blood trickled down his arms from deep gashes in his shoulders left by stray Clay Goblin claws. He was breathing heavily, begging his exhausted body to pull the bowstring back one last time.

  Because if he didn't, all three of them were going to die.

  "Vesper!" Randy shouted hoarsely over the snarling monsters, endlessly marching toward them across the bridges. "You need to administer CPR. I don't think Valoria is breathing!"

  "Don't you think I can see that, you idiot?" Vesper snapped back from the ground.

  Vesper had taken a nasty Clay Orc punch to the knee, shattering the bone and leaving him writhing on the floor in agonizing pain. Meanwhile, Valoria had swung her hastily regrown staff until she fainted from exhaustion and hit her head on a rock. While they had trimmed the enemy's numbers by a considerable margin and leveled up a few times during the life-and-death battle, it seemingly hadn't been enough.

  While Vesper winced in pain as he pulled himself next to Valoria and started to weakly attempt to administer CPR, Randy felt a slight tinge of hope as Valoria showed signs of still being alive.

  "Hang in there, you two," Randy said, standing to his full height and grunting as he drew back the bowstring and aimed at the largest target before them, the last remaining Clay Orc that had made it across the bridge. "Stay back, you bastard!" Randy roared at the top of his lungs, "You hear me? One more step, and you're dead!"

  The Clay Orc, leaking steam from some light wounds left on its gray skin, grinned at his words. Wreathing its hands in earth mana, the beast stepped defiantly forward.

  "I'm seriously warning you!" Randy yelled, but fear crept into his voice. So what if he was a Hunter and had supposedly signed up for this? He was also just Randy, a twenty-year-old college student with parents, a sister, and dreams. He didn't dare picture the horror on his parents' faces when they answered the door to a Guild Association employee and found out their eldest son had died in the World Dungeon.

  "Don't step any closer..." Randy begged, his voice breaking down. "Please... stay away!"

  The Clay Orc only grinned wider at his words and kept stomping forward.

  Randy's arms were shaking—half from exhaustion and half from fear—as he aimed at the monster's face. With no mana left to empower the hardly formed mana arrow, his only chance at dealing any damage to this Orc was by aiming for the eye. Please, please, please! he prayed, his hands trembling as he tried and failed to steady his aim. The wounds on his shoulder made raising his arm to aim at the towering Orc far too painful, so, gritting his teeth and saying one last prayer, he let go of the string.

  The arrow flew.

  Randy felt the world slow down as he watched his last hope. The Clay Goblins he could maybe fend off until Vesper finished reviving Valoria, but this Clay Orc would kill all three of them with one mana-empowered slam. If this arrow didn't land... they were dead. That's why his eyes widened as the arrow struck true—it went right for the Orc's eye! The lumbering brute didn't even bother to try dodging, likely believing itself to be superior to some half-baked mana arrow.

  The Orc smirked and closed its eye. The mana arrow struck the eyelid and caused it to bleed, but the Orc was very much still alive, having prevented the arrow from penetrating its brain.

  Randy collapsed to his knees in despair and felt the harsh stone graze his bare legs. The final shot, the one he needed to work the most, had failed. It was over. He looked down at his two friends as he felt the ground beneath him tremble from the approaching Clay Orc.

  "Sorry, guys," he said, a tear rolling down his cheek. "I wasn't good enough, even after Valoria entrusted her mana potion to me and fought until she passed out. I failed." He looked up at the towering Orc. "Sorry, Mom, I should have listened to what you said and never become a Hunter."

  The Orc was so close he could smell the putrid stench from its grinning maw. It raised its two clenched hands, pulsating with earth mana. While they belonged to a monster on a similar level to him, they might as well have been the hands of a wrathful god in this moment to Randy as the end came.

  "I... don't want to die," Randy whispered to nobody but himself.

  An explosion followed, and Randy instinctively winced and tensed up like trembling prey. Yet the pain from being pulverized never came. Opening his eyes, he saw a wall of erupted water behind the Orc, carrying with it large chunks of the bridges. The rubble-filled tsunami lurched forward, crashing onto the shoreline with cataclysmic might. The Orc towering over Randy hardly had time to look over its shoulder in confusion before a giant slab of stone slammed into its back, sending it falling forward. The Orc braced itself from crushing them and face-planting by dropping onto its extended arms.

  Randy gulped as he found himself staring wide-eyed into its ugly face. The beast's arms trembled as it tried to stand despite the large slab of rock on its back. But the monster was too late. Water and rubble crashed all around them, causing the Clay Orc's body to begin melting in a cloud of steam.

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  The Orc roared in pain, caking Randy's face in Orc spit and flesh-rotting breath.

  Randy used the last of his strength to grab Valoria's staff and stuck it between the beast's chest and the ground. He then scrambled to get away from the Orc's mouth before it tried to bite him as a last act of revenge.

  Thankfully, the Orc was too busy roaring in pain from melting alive to bother with the escaping human.

  "What is happening?" Vesper asked as Randy joined him and Valoria under the monster's shelter.

  "I... don't know? The bridges suddenly exploded, and a giant wave filled with rock rained down on the enemies," Randy said as he tried to wipe the Orc spit from his face.

  You have assisted in killing multiple opponents. Experience has been split between you and your party members.

  [Archer] has leveled up: 25 -> 26.

  Randy paused as he felt a wave of strength pour into his body. It did little to quell the agonizing exhaustion, but it was enough for him to be able to move without feeling like his muscles were tearing themselves apart.

  Since the Orc is still alive, that experience must have been because of the water wiping out the Clay Goblins that had accompanied the Orc, Randy thought, quickly looking around and taking in the situation. With adrenaline pumping through his veins, his mind grasped for a way to survive.

  "We need to get out from under this Orc before he melts and we get crushed. I'm unsure if Valoria's staff can hold the full weight of the stone slab," Randy concluded, shifting to position himself near Valoria's head. "I'll drag her out, you crawl."

  Vesper nodded and began dragging his bloody self across the rough stone. Randy didn't even want to imagine how excruciating that was, as just walking around barefoot was painful enough.

  "Alright, Valoria. Hang in there for me," Randy said, hooking his arms under her and wincing as he had no choice but to drag her out with far less grace than she deserved. Once they were out from under the Orc, Randy glanced to the left to check on the bridges. All three were partially destroyed, as if blown up by a bomb, and no longer connected to the shoreline. A dozen or so Clay Goblins were waiting on the bridge to repair itself, but it seemed the Underworld Orc had stopped feeding the bridges with earth mana.

  The water around the bridges was incredibly choppy and covered in a layer of steam, likely from the melting corpses of the goblins that had been on the bridges at the time of the explosion. Randy was about to focus back on dragging Valoria to safety when he saw something emerging from the steamy water. It wasn't immediately clear due to the haze and the low lighting in the cave, but it seemed to be a... helmet?

  "No way," Randy muttered in awe as the helmet rose, and the silhouette of an armored man followed—one he was all too familiar with.

  Is that Gerald?!

  Fully stepping out of the lake with a bundle slung over his shoulder and a sword in hand, Gerald strode out of the steam with water pouring out of his armor. Glancing around, his hidden gaze through the helmet slit eventually landed on Randy.

  "Our savior returned for us," Randy whispered in awe to Vesper.

  The Orc that was still melting beside him managed to give one last hate-filled roar of pain in Gerald's direction before his body lost its strength and he fell to the side under the weight of the stone. Valoria's staff held the stone's weight for a moment before snapping. The stone slab fell onto what remained of the Orc, filling the cavern with the sound of crunching bone.

  You have assisted in killing an opponent. Experience has been split between you and your party members.

  [Archer] has leveled up: 26 -> 27.

  With Gerald's presence and the Orc that had been a second away from ending his life, Randy fell to his butt as all of the strength left his body despite the level-up. He was tired, and his fighting spirit had been pushed far beyond its limit. Finally, with the threat of death no longer looming, he just wanted to collapse and rest.

  Gerald came to a stop before them. "Looks like—" he spluttered and hurled up a lungful of water that exploded out of his helmet slit.

  Randy looked on in shock. "Are you alright, Gerald?"

  Gerald raised a hand to show he was fine, and after coughing a few more times, he cleared his throat and tried again. "Ugh, sorry about that. I forgot my lungs were filled with water. Ahem, anyway, sorry for running late, but it seems I made it in time?" he said, glancing around and nodding to himself at the destruction he had likely somehow caused.

  "Yeah..." Randy sighed. "Just about, but we are all in pretty bad shape."

  "That's fine, so long as you're all alive," Gerald said, dropping the bundle he had been carrying. Only now did Randy recognize it as one of their coats. Crouching down, Gerald opened up the coat to reveal all of the gear they had abandoned to the lake, including potions, arrows, and their clothes.

  Randy eyed the haul like a kid on Christmas Day.

  "Take this stuff and take care of yourselves. I'll be going now," Gerald said, standing up and facing the bridges.

  Randy blinked. "Alone?"

  "Mhm," Gerald hummed, striding forward. "I work better alone."

  "Will we see you again?" Randy asked, realizing how scared he was at the idea of Gerald abandoning them again.

  "Yeah," the armored man glanced back at him, and he could tell he was grinning behind the helmet. "After I've killed everything in this cave."

  Randy didn't get another word in as Gerald sprinted toward the middle bridge and, with a massive leap, barreled into the gathered monsters with such force that he exploded many of them on impact despite having no skills active.

  "Just how much did he level up?!" Randy thought in utter disbelief. Unable to hide his curiosity, he cast Appraisal. Focusing on Gerald with his golden mana eyes, his savior's class and level were proudly displayed over his head.

  [(Spellblade: Level 15)]

  Randy glanced between the floating system message and Gerald casually massacring the horde of goblins that were in the level 20s and snorted.

  You're going to have to pretend better than that, Gerald, if you want people to believe you're that weak.

  Shaking his head, he ignored the distant slaughter and grabbed two standard-issue recovery potions from the pile of goodies looted from the lake. Passing one to a stunned Vesper, he shifted to Valoria's side and tried to make her drink it.

  "He really came back for us," Vesper said, wincing as he sat up and inspected his crushed leg. It was going to need medical treatment at a hospital, but the recovery potion would take the edge off for now.

  "Yeah, and now he is going to face the boss alone," Randy said, shaking his head. "This whole situation is ridiculous."

  "Randy, I've been thinking," Vesper said, drawing his attention.

  "Oh yeah? What about?"

  "After this, and assuming we still make it out alive, I want to make that guild with you, Valoria, and..." he looked into the distance, "him."

  Randy paused and then nodded. "Yeah, I was even thinking of asking him to be our guild leader."

  to read ahead!