12 Death

Five pushed the door opened. He was surprised at the scene unfolding in front of him. From his knowledge, goblins should be messy creatures but what he saw was the exact opposite.

Inside, he saw several aligned beds on which several goblins could be seen. The room looked like a large common shared hospital room. From one look, Five could already tell that the goblins on the beds were all female; he did not know how to distinguish goblins by their gender but it was clear from their bellies that they were all in the latest stage of their pregnancy.

Farther into the room, Five could see goblins holding newly born children in their arms. As soon as the door was opened, all the goblins turned their attention at Five with expressions of fear and nervousness. The mothers instinctively held their child closer.

"This? Is it a nursery?" thought Five.

However, before he could react, Five suddenly noticed something green charging at him from the sides. It was two goblins; these two were different from the others; they were taller and were wearing some equipment; it could not be called an armor, but they had shoulder plates and a heart protector.

The two furiously charged at Five. Seeing their spears viciously pierce towards him, Five immediately reacted and tried to dodge. However, even if he had good reflexes, his body could not keep up. He was still in a game where stats had a certain significance.

He tried to step on the side to dodge the spear, hoping to buy enough time for Roy to do something. But he immediately realized that he would not make it. His body was not moving as quickly as he wanted to, it was clearly slower than what he could do in real life.

"Wait!" shouted Five but the two goblins did not react.

In a desperate attempt, he twisted the ancestral spear and pushed the tip against the ground, to help him gain some momentum. That move gave him just enough speed to barely dodge the first spear.

Five ungracefully rolled to the ground, successfully dodging the spear. While rotating, he caught a glimpse of Roy who drew out another spear and was charging towards the goblin. However, it was the last thing he saw as the second goblin stabbed his spear right through his head.

"-75"

A massive amount of damage appeared right above Five's head. He panicked as he saw the number, not just because it was large, but because it exceeded the amount of HP he had and as he expected:

[System prompt: You have been slain by the Goblin Guard, level -1, applying death penalties]

Five's body immediately started to emit light. It slowly disintegrated into nothingness starting from his feet. It looked like his body was changing into pixels that were slowly dispersing. As his heart was about to disappear, an orb fell to the ground and all the pixels suddenly converged to that orb.

At the same time, Roy's spear instantly cut the two goblin guards with a single strike. But he was too late, Five already suffered from a lethal blow. As they saw the two goblin guards being slain, the female goblins broke into panic and fled to the other side of the room, screaming and shouting.

However, Roy did not spare them a glance. With the same expressionless face as ever, he calmly grabbed the ancestral spear he gave Five a few hours earlier and made it disappear. With a sigh, he took the orb, "I am sorry, the two goblin guards took me by surprise, I did not expect them to suddenly attack. I need to report this to Master. I shall accept the punishment," declared Roy while looking at the orb.

Without waiting, Roy immediately turned around with the orb and left the building.

...

A few minutes later, Roy arrived at the dungeon core's room where Kroff usually managed the dungeon from. He kneeled in front of Kroff and presented the orb while explaining the events.

Raising his right hand, Kroff silently used a skill, causing the orb to float towards his hand. With a severe expression, he waved his other hand to dismiss Roy before turning his attention to the orb. The lizardman quickly used its camouflage skill and disappeared from the room while apologizing for his mistake.

After a few seconds, Kroff started cursing at Roy's carelessness, "How could such a thing happen? I will definitely punish him later! He must have been slacking off for too long."

Finally, he made an apologetic face and said while looking at the orb: "Five! I know you can hear me in your ethereal state. I would like to apologize for what happened. There were factors we simply could not have predicted."

"The building you went in is the nursery of the goblins. It is a very important place for the goblin village. Even the goblin king cannot act freely there. Goblins value their females, especially the pregnant ones. You were attacked because they thought that you were an invader. You noticed that the building was slightly isolated from the rest of the village. Goblins cannot go there at any time and so the news that you are my disciple did not reach the goblin guards there. The two responsible goblin guards are already dead..."

Silence filled the room for a moment before Kroff resumed explaining the situation.

"It is really unfortunate; Roy tried to save you but even he could not react in time. Fortunately, you can still reside in your dungeon core until tomorrow. You will naturally get your body back 24 hours after death..." continued Kroff.

10 minutes later, Kroff was still apologizing when Harriet suddenly entered the room, "Did you call me, Master?"

"Yes! An unexpected incident happened to Five. But I still have the dungeon to manage. Since you are the most familiar with him, please look after him until he recovers," answered Kroff while making the orb float towards Harriet.

"This..." she immediately knew what that orb was. It felt like a weaker version of Kroff's own dungeon core; she could already guess what happened to Five. She silently accepted the orb and bowed before leaving. She already understood that she was to look after the orb.

...

Outside the room, she let out a sigh and closely looked at the orb, "I know you can hear me, Five. What on earth did you do for it to end like this?"

Without waiting for an answer, she quickly started walking through the tunnels towards the teleportation platform.

"It must have been terrifying to experience death. I've been in this situation twice before... I cried the whole night with my sisters after being revived the first time though I don't know if, as a dungeon master, you are experiencing the same thing...."

With a saddened expression, she continued to narrate her own experience as she brought the sphere to the Harpies' floor. "Let's at least take the opportunity to show you a higher floor."

A few minutes later, she left the teleportation platform and went through a secret opening in the dungeon wall. On the other side, was a single massive cavern. Compared to the lower floors which were divided into rooms and tunnel, this one seemed to be made up of a single large room. You could not even see the end of the room.

There were pillars made of the material as the rest of the dungeons looking like stalactites. Also, a few shiny rocks and shiny ores could be found here and there. It was clear that this was a floor rich in mining resources.

"Welcome to my floor. It is called the Avian Cavern. There should not be any adventurers right now, let me show you around."

Harriet paused for a second before deploying her wings. With a single wing beat, she took off and flew across the cavern. She was flying quickly while speaking at the same time: "These ores are Azemyth Ores. They are quite rare but there's a lot here!"

"The bones here are ancient dragon bones! They are very alluring to the adventurers!"

She continued to explain and eventually, Harriet started gaining altitude.

Everything looked normal at first but as she reached the roof, tiny platforms on which harpies were standing could be seen attached to the pillars. These platforms were about 100m high and could barely be seen from the ground since the color blended with that of the roof.

The harpies warmly greeted Harriet as soon as they saw her. Making a quick smile to the harpies she met. She flew across the cavern until she stopped just in front of a pillar that was much larger than the other ones.

"This is the central pillar of the Avian Cavern! I don't know much about structural things, but it is what allows the Cavern to be made of only a single room! Not only that, but there's more!"

Her left hand pressed against the rough material as a rune shone from both her hand and the pillar. A few seconds later, an opening appeared just above her head.