9 Chapter 8: Preparing the Way (2)

As soon as the tools disappeared, many hunters got frightened enough that they tried to run out of the chamber.

The sudden action caused a great panic in the rest of the hunters, and they all raced to the entrance of the chamber. Sheryl jerked her feet hearing another sweeping sound. The wind pushed her onto the ground, forcing her to crawl away from the two blocks for her life.

At the same time, five of the hunters had already run past the entrance. Then, everyone heard a thundering sound as an enormous stone fell and blocked the way out, imprisoning everyone inside the chamber.

The merciless 'thud' sound eventually echoed away. The rest stood still, having no gut to move.

Dust flew everywhere, suffocating a lot of the hunters. The ones nearest to the exit placed their hands on the stone. All the colors vanished from their faces when they realized there was no way they could push the stone out of the way.

They were locked inside now.

The room remained quiet. Then, everyone looked up to the message box at the same time.

[18 minutes]

The countdown continued.

The hunters looked at each other knowingly. One of them said softly, "eighteen minutes left before the boss appears."

Silence.

Thud!

"Help! Is there anybody out there?!" a hunter shouted as he smashed his fists on the stone.

The others joined in and started shouting.

"Help us please! We're stuck in here!"

"Anybody hear us? Hey! Help!"

When no one answered, they slumped their shoulder, feeling despair. Raydel could not help but give in to the hopelessness of the situation.

He knew why everyone was so stressed out because he felt the same as them. They had no clue what the boss would be. It might be able to fly or have some weird ability that was impossible for them to handle. Everyone knew that if they could not kill the miniboss before the boss appeared, they might be forced to get back into the dangerous blocks, reducing their flickering chances of surviving even smaller.

The last surviving choice they had was to get to the skeleton and kill it with all they got before the boss came.

Sheryl, who had just escaped from the blade, stood up. She looked deathly pale. However, the person who jumped in and raised everyone's spirit was Shane.

"Even if it has a shield, I'm sure we can destroy it if we work together," Shane said before pointing at the time that was still counting down. "We have to hurry now."

"But how do we get to it? We can't see the tools now!" somebody shouted.

"So does anyone remember which hand was holding the rake?" Sheryl asked with a loud voice, silencing the others that were arguing. "Does anyone remember?"

A man pointed a finger at her face angrily.

"Aren't you at least ashamed of this? How can we remember? You just stepped on its mechanism and now we don't know which is which anymore!"

"..." Sheryl pursed her lips and turned away. She knew that she made things worse. At first, she thought that they might be able to keep choosing the same side at the rake and pass this monster easily. But her body was prepared when she accidentally stepped on the trap and activated the invisible state of the tools, so now no one knew on which side the rake was.

"Did anybody see the blade? Does anybody know which side had the prongs of the rake?" Shane asked.

"That's even more nonsense. How can we see when they move that fast!?"

While everyone was arguing, the student that stood outside of it raised her hand hesitantly.

She opened her mouth as if to say something but was overwhelmed by all the quarrels. Not knowing what to do, she pointed at Sheryl's feet instead, and then pointed at the two blocks on the floor. She looked up, saw Raydel who was looking at her, and gave him an awkward smile.

Raydel followed the direction and saw Sheryl's feet. He played the scene where she stepped on the floor in his head again.

Even if it was such a short moment, he believed he saw the floor sink down a little… as if it was a sheet of metal that would activate the trap inside when stepped on. Raydel frowned for a few seconds and took off his right shoe. His stomach still hurt from when he was stabbed by Cthulhu's tentacles at the hospital, so now when he bent down to throw his shoe on one of the two blocks on the floor, he had to sneak a curse under his breath.

Thud.

The shoe touched the floor but nothing happened, so Raydel took off another shoe of his and threw it to the same block.

Still, nothing happened.

The student saw what he was doing and started taking her shoes off. She handed him the shoes. Raydel tried dropping them on the same block, but the floor did not react.

"..." Raydel thought for a moment before walking to Shane and prodding at his shoulders.

"Brother," he said.

The other looked back at him.

"Can you do something for me? I think the floor is a pressure-activated metal sheet. If someone steps on it, that would activate the trap, right? So, can I borrow your shoes and the others…"

Shane understood right away. He announced loud enough for everyone to hear, "Everyone please take off your shoes."

At first, the other hunters did not understand why they had to take off their shoes, but when they saw Shane throwing his shoes on the same block as Raydel's and the girl's, they exclaimed as the realization kicked in. They followed Shane's order and threw their shoes on the floor hastily. Some of them put too much force into it and sent the shoes flying over the block that they aimed for, so the weight was not enough to activate the mechanism.

Sheryl was the last one to take her shoes off. Her face showed no emotion as she concentrated on something in her mind.

"The trap could start at any moment, right?" she asked.

"You can throw your shoes to that block. There's no need to get close to the trap," Shane said.

"I can't do that. If I miss, the weight won't be enough."

After ending the sentence, Sheryl moved closer to the two blocks on the floor. She squatted down and stretched her arm out as far as she could before dropping her shoes on the existing pile of the others' shoes.

As soon as she let her shoes fall to the ground, she pulled her arm back. Another sweeping sound followed in the blink of an eye.

Everyone took a huge breath as they stared at Sheryl who sat still with wide eyes. They can clearly see the blade cut off a lock of her hair that once dropped on her cheek.

Her hair slowly fell to the floor.

Silence.

"The rake is on the left," Sheryl said with a trembling voice. "The shoes are fine."

No one moved when the skeleton started switching the tools between its two hands again. Sheryl fixed her sight on the action without blinking. When the skeleton finished switching, she jolted up.

"On the right!"

This time, everyone leapt to the block on the right side. They lined up in a long, straight line. When they put enough weight onto the metal sheet, the floor sank down, and then came another sweeping sound zooming past everyone by just an inch!

Raydel could almost hear the other's heartbeats. They all were covered in sweat when the skeleton raised its hands and switched the tools again.

This time it was on the left.

"Arrghhh!"

Somebody did not jump to the left side in time. The blade slashed through one of his arms. He collapsed onto the ground, hugging himself with the one remaining. The hunters behind him had to help him stand up and pushed him forward because they were all moving in single file. The incident slowed down the speed of the rest of the hunters.

"...!"

One unlucky hunter did not make it.

The others froze in their spots, faces covered with blood of the unlucky hunter whose entire body vanished. Now, the only things they could hear in the chamber were the sweeping sounds of the blades and the 'thud' sounds of hunters jumping after the ones before them. In fact, the hunters at the back could not see which side the rake was on. They could only trust the frontmost hunters, Shane and Sheryl.

Sheryl was perspiring heavily. Her whole body felt like a bag of flour as she stared at the skeleton's hands.

"Left," she whispered and was about to move, but Shane grabbed her by the shoulders.

They said nothing while watching the miniboss switch the tools one more time.

"Right," Shane said. "This time it took longer to switch the tools."

Sheryl glanced at the back before looking above her head.

[11 minutes]

They couldn't waste any more time.

As the leaders of the exploration team, both Shane and Sheryl were transfixed by the stress to the point they could hardly move even the tip of their finger. The lives of the remaining hunters were up to their ability to remember which side the rake was on. They were so focused that they coudn't hear anything around them. The movements of the skeleton became slow motion, and it began to raise one hand and switched the rake to the…

"Hey you, why didn't you follow everyone?!"

That voice immediately tore her focus into pieces.

Her eyes went wide when she realized the skeleton finished switching, but she could not remember the hand that had the rake…

"Right!"

Shane shouted into her ears. Sheryl dashed to the right, leading everyone. But everything happened so sudden that some of the hunters did not react fast enough. The blade raced through the bodies of those instantly.

The slashing sound echoed in the chamber.

Silence.

"The rake… where is the rake now?" Sheryl trembled. In her head, she could on think about the two hunters that had just died. Shane tried to calm her down while the skeleton switched its tools, but she felt she could not take it anymore. She was stuck between her concentration and the others' voices that kept begging the ones that still stood outside the block to follow the rest.

When Sheryl was at her breaking point, Raydel who was at the end of the line had to say something.

"I'll go back to help her."

That silenced the hunters. Raydel tightened his lips before slowly stepping back to the starting point.

After the hunters stopped shouting, Sheryl seemed to finally get back her focus. Raydel felt a surge of relief but was still stressed about his own situation. He couldn't turn his back on the skeleton. He had to look at it without blinking and stole the moments it used to switch the tools to look back to see who were the hunters that were too afraid to follow the rest.

It was that girl.

She was trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She whispered, "my legs won't move."

When he looked at her skirt, he realized that she had peed herself…

Raydel had no choice. The girl reminded him of his sister, so he softened his tone, "I'll carry you on my back."

She nodded with her colorless face. She was so afraid she had to nod several times like she was going mad.

"Look at my hands. When I clench it, jump on my back," Raydel said.

He opened his hand and showed it to the girl while he stared at the line before him. When the hunters jumped to the right, he clenched his hand into a fist and squatted down, getting ready to carry the girl on his back…

"...!"

The girl screamed at the top of her lungs when Raydel suddenly pushed her onto the floor.

Swoosh!

The blade swung past their faces narrowly.

Raydel, who jumped out of the way in time, held his breath. His legs were shaking, but he tried squatting down to let the girl get on his back. When she saw the hand signal, she jumped immediately on his back. The girl could not fix her legs on Raydel' waist, so he had to turn around to see what she was doing. By the time they were ready to set off, the skeleton had finished switching the tools.

When Raydel turned back to the line of hunters, he widened his eyes with shock.

Everyone… had already arrived at the other side of the chamber.

There was only him standing in the trap of the miniboss.

It switched the tools again. The trap was about to start.

"Did anybody keep an eye on the rake for me?" Raydel asked.

Everyone halted before looking at each other. Raydel felt like the current silence was creeping up on his spine.