Trash in the Apocalypse

Chapter 252: Dungeon Boss

"Calm down... I know it's hard to do it, but everything is for your benefit. Just keep hitting them and keep your eyes closed if you feel scared." Jun said while having a Giant Rat pinned down on the ground.

He was stepping on its body causing it to lay flat on the ground. Grandma Teresa already gained two levels after fighting for about an hour inside the mines.

Grandma Teresa's skills weren't that great, but she wasn't scared of fighting slightly huge "pests" and easily got herself into the rhythm. Unfortunately, she doesn't have high stamina and had to take frequent breaks.

Chloe tightened her grip on the bone sword and stared at the Giant Rat. She took a deep breath and recollected everything that her uncle has thought her.

She raised the sword and made a quick stabbing motion downward. The Giant Rat was pierced in the head and died without being able to defend itself. 

No one really needed his protection except for Grandma Teresa and the kids. Jamie's group easily killed Giant Rats by swinging their swords, they even have shields for protection in case of unforeseen circumstances.

Most of the Black Haven staff were around level one or two since they weren't interested in leveling up after securing the mall. Only people who had things to do outside were left to level up.

Paterno had a decent level since he was the first scavenger of the group and hovers around level four, about to reach level five. With his level, he was able to grab a Giant Rat and help Judy safely level up.

After the group reached an average level of four, Jun as an exception, he finally felt confident to leave the group. They've been fighting for a long time on the second floor and hadn't visited the floor even once. 

"Anna, watch over the group for a bit. I'm going to clear the third floor. We can't have too many Giant Rats mutate at the same time. We don't even know if those mutations can mutate further if left alone."

Mobs in a dungeon respawn every minute and their numbers depend on the number of people in the area. The Northern Mine dungeon summons five Giant Rats per person and the veteran's of the group kills half while leaving half for those who had lower levels. Giant Rats only takes one hit and dies so they weren't a problem for beginners.

A troublesome feature of the dungeon was its ability to respawn mobs on random floors. Most of the mobs respawn at the floor with the highest people density while a small fraction gets summoned elsewhere. With this feature, Giant Rats can spawn on the third floor, a troublesome floor to hunt on because you need to ride the elevator.

Thwangg...

Anna released the string of the bow and pinned another Giant Rat on the wall. The Giant Rat shrieked and moved wildly but more than half of the arrow was lodged in the wall behind it. After confirming that the Giant Rat can't move, she then turned to Jun. "Be careful. Send a message to the chatroom if you need help."

Jun waved his hand and headed to the elevator lift. Even before the lift reached the third floor, he could already see the swarm of evolved giant rats, encircled by packs of giant rats acting like they were bodyguards protecting their kings. There were dozens of them in the area and it made Jun wonder whether the other two factions entering this dungeon even clears the third floor.

Just like usual, Jun opened the safety cage door of the lift and jumped off after reaching the twenty feet distance from the ground. He started wrecking swarms of giant rats and their mutated leader turning them into gold nuggets that dropped on the ground.

Since Jun already know that Ophir's gold is useful, he started picking them up along the way.

Killing giant rats have become so easy it could be done by slapping them on their head or randomly swinging a bone sword around. He prefers not to use Buruth's Warhammer when clearing mobs, since he hasn't found a way to repair its durability.

After mowing the crowd of giant rats and only seeing gold nuggets drop as loot, Jun couldn't help but understand why veteran survivors don't want to hunt inside dungeons. The mobs give meager XP while only dropping useless loot.

Now that he found where to use the gold, he planned to keep the information to himself and keep survivors guessing.

After looting all the gold nuggets, he couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Jun thought: "How great it would be if I could loot their hides and turn them into leather. Especially the mutated rats back, they make a good coating for shields due to their toughness. Haa... if only their bodies don't disappear when they die..."

Jun was walking when an idea suddenly popped on his head. When he saw a giant rat charging at him, he couldn't help but feel excited. "Let's test it out!"

He welcomed the giant rat and grabbed its mouth. The flickering shadows on the cavern's walls illuminated by glowing gems showed what Jun was doing. A dagger was used to saw the outer skin of the giant rat. It didn't even take long for the giant rat to die and disappear.

"So, it won't work if it takes too long, or is it because giant rats have low health? How about mutated ones?"

Upon further experimenting, Jun learned that he could cut a regular giant rat's tail before it could vanish. With this discovery, a myriad of ideas came into his mind. But for now, he should finish all the mobs on the third floor.

It took several minutes until he reached the intersection of the resting area. When he reached the place, he saw the pathway that leads to the unexplored cavern area and immediately became interested in it. He even laughed derisively when he thought that he could explore the whole cavern by himself.

Was he getting ahead of himself or was he truly become strong to think like that?

He chose to investigate the area to determine whether it was doable or not. The corridor that led towards the unexplored cavern was a straight wide path but had a low ceiling. The corridor can fit ten people walking side by side and is two to three meters high.

The corridor was dark but the exit was glowing with bright lights. The other side couldn't be seen but the closer Jun got to the exit, the clearer things appeared to him.

The unexplored cavern was twice as large as the third floor. Glowing crystals attached at the ceiling served as a source of light that kept the cavern bright. In the distance, a piece of land with a small rocky mountain filled with minerals caught his attention. The rocky mountain was filled with various minerals and a ten feet mutated rat was sitting on top nibbling on them.

He stood at an elevated platform and everything below was part of a clear water lake. As he wasn't paying attention, a mutated giant rat tried to claw him from below. Fortunately, he managed to retreat back and barely dodged the swipe attack.

He heard several loud screams from below and became shocked to see dozens of mutated giant rats waiting for him to jump down the elevated platform. 

While observing the cavern, Jun witness a giant rat respawn in the cavern only to get eaten by mutated giant rats nearby. The weird thing he noticed was the body not disappearing after getting killed.

Shouldn't it have disappeared? Was it because it was assaulted by its kin?

After seeing a strange scene, Jun couldn't help but stare at the ten feet mutated giant rat sitting on the mineral mountain. It stopped eating the minerals and stared at thin air. A few seconds later, it gave birth to a giant rat, which plopped down to the ground squirming. The event continued for five minutes straight and every minute a new giant rat would appear.

When it finished giving birth, it got off the mineral mountain and waited for something. A giant rat respawned and the mother rat shrieked. The onrushing giant rats stopped on their tracks and turned towards it.

As if understanding its intentions, the giant rats ganged upon the newly respawned giant rat and delivered its meat to their new siblings. After watching the scene, the mother rat went back to the mineral mountain and started nibbling again.