Chapter 2

Rattle! Rattle!

Bones produced sounds as they moved. Aldrich, from afar, looked at the ongoing battle and commanded.

Three wolves, surrounded by 11 undead wolves, couldn't survive for long as they were attacked from all directions.

Not long later, Aldrich encountered 8 wolves, and a huge battle commenced.

The skeletal wolves tore apart the wolves' flesh and inflicted deep wounds on their bodies. Likewise, the wolves scratched the bones and broke the bones with their teeth and claws.

But as the Skeletal wolves outnumbered them, they could only destroy a single skeletal wolf and measly injure others before dying.

The undead wolves' numbers increased to 21, and Aldrich couldn't be more satisfied. But even after 21 death of wolves, not a single item or skill dropped.

Aldrich got near to the stairs, and another battle took place.

Twelve wolves attacked them from all directions. Ferocious and full of rage, they all jumped at the Aldrich group.

Undead wolves all charged at the wolves. The battle was intense, but it was in favour of Aldrich.

As each wolf died, they would turn into undead and attack their fellow wolves. Likewise, the attack of wolves crumbled the undead wolves. Aldrich from behind could only watch the battle helplessly while casting Necromancy on dead wolves.

The battle ended soon. Five undead wolves succumbed, and disappeared into nothing. However, other undeads were fine, while some gravely injured. Aldrich heart pained seeing the death of undead wolves. But the addition of another 12 wolves soothed Aldrich's heart.

"Now that my forces have reached 28, I shouldn't just let them fight straightforward," he thought.

Aldrich wasn't a commander, not someone who had the knowledge of strategies. He was a common person and could only watch the battle of his undead.

So he made a plan and pondered deeply. "Can I stuff them somewhere or will they follow me all the time?" As he thought of that, a small portal appeared before him and sucked all the undead.

"It seems I can also store them," he then thought of letting out 5 and the portal reappeared spewing 5 undead wolves.

He also experimented more and found he could take and spew undead around the radius of 50m.

"Maybe I could use that," he thought as he moved around the first floor.

He encountered another 5 wolves hanging around, so he ordered 10 undead wolves to attack them. As the wolves began battling, Aldrich summoned five more undead from the sky.

Those undead fell upon the wolves and attacked them immediately, which startled the wolves.

They were having a hard time defending against 10 undead, and 5 more sneak attacks. They collapsed and died.

There were no casualties, despite some undead having cracks in their skulls and bodies, and another 5 undead wolves joined the horde.

"This isn't that efficient," he sighed. He just let out all the wolves, which reached 33, and marched some more, encountering more wolves.

An hour later.

"Phew, this is enough." Aldrich looked at the nearly 100 undead wolves; around half had minor scratches, 10-15 of them looked worse, but it wasn't a problem.

He ascended to the second floor.

"According to what I know about this Wolf Cavern, there are 5 floors, each floor having different species of wolves, and each floor's wolf being slightly stronger than the previous one." Because the second floor wolves would be stronger than the first floor ones, Aldrich piled up more wolves rather than charging up with some.

It took not more than 10 minutes to climb the stairs which had more than 300 steps.

The second floor wasn't that different from the first one, but the grass was quite dense on the second floor.

Aldrich didn't allow 100 wolves to surround him fearing monsters wouldn't attack him seeing the quantity of the enemy.

But he let 5 undead wolves surround him for security.

5 minutes after walking around the second floor, 10 wolves charged at him. They were about 2 times bigger than the first floor wolves, had 4 eyes, and looked stronger.

Their orange fur was dense and soft looking like nothing could penetrate it.

Aldrich didn't hesitate and opened a portal around the 10 wolves. 90 skeletons fell on top of the wolves and attacked.

The skeleton wolves looked small compared to the orange wolves, however, due to sheer quantity, the fight was in their favor.

The orange wolves struck and destroyed the small undead wolves. Despite the sheer numbers, the injuries the skeleton wolves inflicted on the orange wolves were small.

As 10 of the undead wolves were destroyed, the undead wolves' continuous attack managed to deeply injure the orange wolves.

Finally, after 5 minutes of battle and the sacrifices of 15 undead wolves, the 10 orange wolves fell and dropped cores.

"That was nerve-wracking." Aldrich wiped his sweat and picked up the cores. "These wolves are obviously much stronger than the previous ones." If Aldrich could barely defeat the first floor wolf, he couldn't even touch the second floor wolf. He was sure a single strike by the orange wolf would turn him into a meat paste.

The 10 new wolves grew from the core. Their size was twice as big as the previous wolves, their claws sharper, and bones thicker than the previous wolves.

Their four sockets emitted blue flame. They lowered their heads in front of Aldrich.

Aldrich touched the skull; it felt very tough and cold, but the wolf liked it as its tail swung.

"It sure feels like petting a dog."

The journey around the second floor was quite tough. The 10 undead wolves and countless small wolves overpowered most of the pack of the orange wolves.

But the wolves didn't only take damage; each battle, the number of small undead wolves decreased and the number of orange wolves increased.

By the next two hours, only 30-40 small undead wolves remained, but they had numerous cracks and scratches on their bodies.

Aldrich was satisfied and moved to the third floor.

The third-floor wolves came in a pack of 20, and they were quite bigger than the second-floor wolves.

Their fur was blue and very dense; they had five eyes, and claws longer and tougher.

Their one strike crumbled the bones of small undead wolves, while making a deep crack in orange undead wolves.

But no matter how strong they were, the sheer numbers of undead wolves managed to outnumber and overpower them.

Despite casualties, Aldrich managed to hunt the 20 blue wolves, only losing about 20 small undead wolves and causing some injuries to the orange undead wolves.

The blue undead wolves were somewhat bigger than the orange wolves, and their bones were thicker and stronger.

Like this, the journey to the third floor lasted for another 2 hours.

Similarly, on the fourth floor, big black wolves bigger than the blue wolves attacked them.

There was barely a difference in strength between the third and fourth floor wolves, but it was still quite tough to win.

Only by outnumbering the enemy did Aldrich manage to win. He himself never participated in battle nor did he use any cores on himself.

He only watched the battle and moved while commanding the undead.

Aldrich headed to the fifth floor.

The fifth floor didn't have an open ground; instead, above the stairs, a narrow hallway existed.

Aldrich walked to the end of the hallway where a grand door stood. The door, carved out of rocks, had various patterns engraved in it.

As Aldrich touched the door, it opened slowly.

Inside the door was a huge room. There wasn't a ceiling, but there was no sky either. The empty space stretched up endlessly.

The walls covered the room. There was nothing else in the room, only empty space.

In the middle of the room lay a huge wolf. If the previous wolves were big, then this wolf was a giant.

Its body was so big that it covered a huge space on the ground. Its head alone was bigger than Aldrich, who was 6ft tall.

Sending Aldrich, the wolf, pure white in color, stood. It was nearly 6m big and looked very strong.

The undead wolves looked like children compared to the big wolf.

Howl!

The wolf howled and generated shockwaves. Aldrich shook just from the howling.

"Damn, can I win against this thing?" He sweated buckets and trembled. He was just a normal human. He couldn't guarantee he would survive in this battle.

Even a single strike or remnant of shockwaves of the battle may kill him if he wasn't careful.

The wolf stared at Aldrich with its 10 huge eyes and looked like it was smiling. The act seemed like it was looking down on Aldrich.

Aldrich formed a fist and opened the portal.

Hordes of undead wolves jumped on top of the boss wolf.

100, 200, 300…Nearly 400 wolves wholly took the floor. Some hung on the boss wolf's body, and most of them landed on the floor.

As they attacked from all directions, down, up, left, and right, the boss wolf growled and stomped its feet.

Aldrich ordered his undead to jump back, while most of them managed to dodge it, some near couldn't survive and crumbled into piles of bones before disappearing.

"Damn!" A single strike took away 20 undead wolves. Aldrich cursed but commanded them to attack it.

The wolf jumped, making all undead wolves attached to its body fall down. Some dug deeper into the wolf's skin and hung on, causing the boss wolf to let out a loud shout.

As it landed, shockwaves generated which cracked the wolves' bones, but still, they all jumped at the wolf and attacked mercilessly.

Some bit their canines into its skin, some stabbed claws, and some tried to jump into the wolf's body.

Every action they did was related to Aldrich's subconscious, which was imagining how to defeat the boss wolf.

The boss wolf swiped its claws, sweeping 10 undead in one swoop, and jumped and landed heavily, causing 50 of them to crumble.

Some undead wolves who managed to hang on continued to dig deeper into the wolf and cause deep wounds.

The boss wolf bled and became more mad. It couldn't shake off those which stuck on its back and didn't have time as the undead wolves didn't back away.

Despite the huge casualties, the undead wolves attacked relentlessly. Their small attacks caused small wounds, and small wounds turned greater and greater the more they attacked.

The wolf jumped, swiped its claw, howled, and did what it could, nearly destroying 200 undead wolves, but the remaining ones didn't back off and bit and stabbed the wolf.

The battle lasted for nearly 15 minutes, with 300 undead wolves lost in the process, but they managed to beat off the giant boss wolf at last.

The boss wolf fell to the ground and whimpered before disappearing. It dropped no item, nor any skill but a giant core.

"A boss core!" Boss cores weren't rare, but unlike normal cores, they increased all the stats by 1. It was quite expensive.

However, Aldrich didn't plan on selling it.

"Necromancy." He tried to summon it into his undead. And he succeeded!

The huge core exploded, and bones scattered all over the place. Each bone stacked one on top of another. The bones turned bigger and thicker, reaching nearly 9 meters in size.

A huge skull bigger than Aldrich grew on its neck.

The huge skeletal wolf faced Aldrich and sat down. It lowered its head, waiting for Aldrich's orders.

"This…is…" Aldrich's eyes gleamed. "So awesome!"

When Aldrich exited the dungeon, it was already late at night. He had spent nearly 8 hours in the dungeon.

"I feel so tired." He stretched his body and yawned. "If it wasn't for exhaustion, I would have a second go in the dungeon." He shook his head in disappointment.

He didn't save cores and summoned countless undead. So, he didn't earn anything from today's exploration.

He called a cab and went to a small hotel. The hotel he went to was called 'Peaceful Resident'.

He booked a room and ordered dinner. As he waited for dinner, he lay on the bed, looking at his wallet on his mobile.

[100 Coins.]

After the apocalypse, humans didn't continue with paper money and began using coins. Each and every transaction was done either through mobile or cards; there was no physical money.

"100 coins…" This was enough to last three months if used wisely. "It took 50 coins for a night with food. I can't last more than 2 days with this much money." He sighed.

An F rank skill cost 2000 coins, a skill book which doesn't guarantee skills. That was enough to last a family for a year. And that was all his savings.

He barely earned 30 coins a month, due to overworking and many minor jobs, he earned around 50 per month.

In this world, normal professions didn't earn much money; only Supers and other risky jobs gave more money.

"But…" As he was about to think of his skills, someone knocked on the door.

He opened the door and found a beautiful lady wearing only a bra and underwear handing him a menu and plate. She winked at him and left the area.

"What is this?" Aldrich had never stayed in a hotel, so he didn't have much knowledge.

He first opened the plate. It was a big steak burger. It was only one, but big enough to fill any adult's stomach.

However, Aldrich still wasn't satisfied so he spent another 5 coins to order another burger.

While the food came, he looked into the menu.

[Girl] [Per Night]

Average Adult Girl - 20 Coins

Average Teenage Girl - 30 Coins

Beautiful Adult Girl - 50 Coins

Beautiful Teenage Girl - 60 Coins

Virgin - 100 Coins

Very Beautiful Virgin Girl - 500 Coins

Masterful Very Beautiful Girl - 1,000

There were even pictures of them. Average girl was beautiful. Teenage girl looked young and pretty.

Very beautiful girls were indeed every beautiful. They were at the level that anyone could be super model, or rule the celebrity world.

But due to the world still being at the apocalypse moment, there was no entertainment community.

Normal people who needed entertainment didn't have time, not money to spend on models. Likewise, Super, who are rich don't watch entertainment, they directly take the girl.

Normal citizens aren't more than slaves for Super. There was no law limiting Super, hence it's a very unfair world for normal humans.

Aldrich didn't look into the menu, and dismissed his thoughts.

Knock!

The door knocked and the small girl in her undergarments, provided food to Aldrich and spoke in a seductive voice.

"Hey handsome, it's only 20 coins, wanna have me for a night." She placed her hands around her chest, and stretched her bra.

"No need."

Aldrich shook his head and closed the door.

"Tsk! Another poor man." The girl clicked her tongue and left the place.

"Phew." Aldrich was also a man, so her looks were seductive enough to make him nearly take her offer. But, he shook his head again, endured the feeling and ate the burger.

"If I want someone to accompany me for a night, it would be a virgin and someone I have feelings for. Those who work as prostitutes aren't healthy enough." In this apocalyptic world, prostitution was a famous job.

Many men had their hands on such girls. While the genius of this world had made medicines to cure any sexual diseases and even cancer, Aldrich still didn't want to suffer from any diseases due to them.

"Let's not think about this." He laid on the bed after dinner, and began contemplating.