11

O(I)O(I)

Clive and his band of lowlifes trekked up the hill to Istum Serpentine Ridge. Clive took the lead, the green priest behind him, his thief on the priests' tail, and the brute at the very end as a shield in case someone were to nock an arrow or hurtle a brid/fireball from behind. They've walked this path quite awhile, it was like walking to a super market to pick up groceries to them now; a little sore on their feet but no pressure in when it is done.

Finally, they saw the sepulcher looking building on top a hill ten times the size with masonry made by only the most black hearted crafters.

Once they were at the entrance of the building Clive stepped back three steps and let Trug open it. From experience, the skulking gnoll's would charge in and stab anyone who so much as crept through the closed door. Trug's job was to take the jabs for the party-his strong vitality making it hard for it to kill him-and let Clive and Scino sneak in and slash them while Alxo used healing magic to restore him.

So far there was no response while the door was halfway open. And when he fully opened the doors...there was nothing but torches lit up and bodies sprawled on the cinder floors. These bodies were gnoll's and undead's, all dead. The undead nothing but scattered bones and the gnoll's beheaded, punctured through the head with their brains pouring out.

"Dead? B-But we haven't even entered yet." Alxo stammered. "This crypt also has new gnoll's and undead waiting for us..."

"Unless someone already made it inside and finished them off before us." Clive said, a salacious grin spread across his face.

"Why are you smiling?" Scion asked.

"Because our plan of getting a newbie to face these things and then be killed by us is still on. Hurry, let's find him before the fool is killed by the boss."

All together the four of them walked passing kobald's, flying snakes, grimlocks and ghouls all with holes through their faces or their bodies splaying their guts out. Whoever did this was strong, maybe stronger than any of the adventurers that came here before, but so were Clive and his posse.

Finally, they reached the door to the boss room and to their delectation the adventurer that came here was standing still staring at them like a cat. One by one the four adventurer's stepped forward than veered to a different side to lean against a wall. Clive was the only member to step forward with his fake smile.

"You actually came. How did you manage to find this place?" The caped baldy still stared without even blinking his eyes. "Congratulations. Behind that door is the boss we need to-"

"Stop being a browbeater." He said, Clive raising an eyebrow in response.

"Pardon?"

"Your trying to act like you show an interest in me when really your a goader who wants weak adventurers to come here just so you can kill them and receive experience points." Clive was momentarily silent hearing the bald plastic man utter all this. "I doubt Zami was the first to go. So tell me...how many did you lull here just to stab in the back?"

Clive touched his chiseled chin with his finger while smiling, pondering his question. He finally answered with a big malign smile:

"About eleven so far...that will make you the twelfth adventurer to fall." His three acolytes stepped forward as Clive whisked his sword out. "In the world of adventurer's it's quality that makes them not quantity and the experience from august people is too good to pass up."

Saitama just stood around while the four of them sauntered towards him in a line at a leisurely, skulking pace. They finally were close to Saitama-Scion and Trug since Alxo and Clive backed up.

"Brandish Sharpen Dual Blades!" Scioin enchanted as he unsheathed two scimitar-esque long blades with a glint of excitement in both his eyes and sparkling like diamonds.

"Monster Herculean Strength!" The sinewy Trug's muscles were covered in a green aura. It empowered his already impressive strength.

Now that both fighters were pepped, they leaped towards Saitama on his left and right sides. Trug's thumb replaced a normal brawlers' cocked fist in his attempt to kill him like he said he would. Scion was just looking at Saitama ready to swash his blades simultaneously. And-they were both sent flying upward into the ceiling; both falling to the ground.

Clive and Alxo were both completely stupefied by what just transpired.

"Did he just...knock them both out?" Alxo asked.

Clive looked at both his fallen comrades. He walked to them, stepped on their backs, and reached down to pick up some elixirs and items on their pouches.

"It's a good thing allies are good distractions for monsters that carry their own enhancers. Whatever your level is I wouldn't stand a chance at my current strength, but with some enhancements and a green priest to aid my defense and heal me...I'm pretty much impervious."

Saitama listened to him monologue and did nothing when he splashed powdery substances all blue, green or red over himself while Alxo enchanted a spell that coated him in a silver blue aura.

Clive howled with laughter in this quaint room while swishing his blade around like a dragonfly changing directions rapidly. He moved so incredulously fast off his feet he was practically a trajectory soaring off the ground and sticking to the walls. Before he continued his onslaught by launching himself at Saitama, his green priest used a white flash to create a dire wolf made out of condensed light.

"Sick'em!" The priest commanded.

The wolf pad his footsteps so the echo of his presence was known to the man donning bizarre clothing before it thudding towards him at quick speed with a ravenously hungry face.

Saitama hopped off the ground right before the dire wolf could gnaw at his ankle! The dire wolf raised its nuzzle to the ceiling witnessing the man almost floating tranquilly in the air like a leaf before he went down and crashed into the ground; his force created a shockwave dispersing the wolf and blinding the green priest. But it didn't stop Clive from moving in like a hawk before parrying his thin blade at Saitama-not a single jab could even poke a hole in his skin.

Saitama looked like he was going to mess up and get stabbed any minute from now, but before that actually happened he zoomed away from Clive to Alxo. The green priest shuddered, pouring with tears and sweat of fear, he conjured a green barrier trying to protect himself before the boring but laddish adventurer could get to him!

To Alxo's surprise and relief he saw the yellow donned bald man staring at him through the refracted light in his barrier. Now it was just him and Clive all alone; Clive still getting support spells from Alxo and healed by his staff when he tried oscillating his sword swings.

"Tell me one thing, low rank." Clive sneered. "How long have you been waiting for us?"

"Long enough to properly put away the bodies of all the adventurer's you killed so I could toss you to them and let you properly get your comeuppance."

Clive was fidgety leering at Saitama. It made him antsy not being able to just charge in and hack at him, but if there was one talent he had it was manipulating...or goading people.

"You want to know how I came up with the idea of killing fellow adventurer's to get their experience points?"

"Not reall-"

"It all started when my father kept hitting me after returning from the pub. One time he hit me so hard I fell and he tumbled down just to breath his pungent air in my face...but back then I was so scared of him that I stabbed him in his jugular with his own hunting knife."

"Was your father an adventurer or a butcher?" Saitama asked.

"No sooner than he died I rose from a small level one to a level four. As for finding a way to keep killing so my stats could grow without alerting any knights or royals...I scoured the land for most of my life just to find the perfect place to lull adventurer's in to kill them."

"And no one realized your dad was dead and it was your fingerprints on the knife that killed him?"

Clive trailed off not because of how insipid his opponent was with his muttering but because he wanted to deign everything the baldy has done and prove his way of doing things was absolute.

"If you could raise from level 4 to level 10 with just the death of one person...wouldn't you do it? At the cost of only ten adventurer's I've risen to level 39. Just ten more and I'll have surpassed level 50. And then-I'll finally be strong enough to take down this boss and finally Niaz Aaol Gown, that evil god that we share misotheism for."

Saitama waited for Clive to cool down with his reveling in his own power drunk with mana before he blurted out what he thought.

"That's stupid." Clive was bewildered to hear that. "You get stronger, so what? All your doing is eliminating opponents who can't even put up a fight; ergo you'll never do well against anyone strong. The key to being a hero has always been go against the tough and learn from them. Even when I was as weak as someone here I never stopped going against monsters elevated above me. But it's because I had strong enemies to face I strived to get stronger." For the first time in a long time, there was a fire in Saitama's eyes. "You made your choice to go against other adventurer's and now you will face one too strong for you."

Clive reacted flashing a malachite at Saitama. With one tight squeeze, the malachite started glowing and wind roared into a hurricane around Clive's blade. Not only was he preparing his signature move, Alxo enchanted him with enhancement magic. He was at the pinnacle of his strength...

"Green Rush Hurricane Flurry!"

Clive glowed like a piercing star with the radiance of a horde of goblins under a moonlight as he moved so fast he mimicked Genos speed only he let his sword hit Saitama close to his left side unleashing a wind speed of 300 mph directly at him. Saitama was reeling back while trying to compose himself as a man minimally raising his left hand in defense. After he couldn't stay still any longer, Clive rushed around him trapping him in the eye of a storm, then sent a blade-esque wind slash at him, finally thrashed his wind at the ceiling until it collapsed on the three men-Clive keeping himself safe with wind thrashing away the rocks and Alxo still protected inside his barrier.

After the dust cleared, the whole quaint room was strewed with large rocks. Clive and Alxo were standing unscathed and with wiggling room in the form of small circles around them in the aftermath. However, they didn't account for Scion and Trug and how his trump card clearly crushed them just like it seemingly crushed the bald man.

"Now let's see how I-we managed to rise to great heights from his death." Clive said in a soliloquy.

He opened his state screen fixating on the upper left hand side.

Clive

Gender: Male

Level 39

Strength: 119

Wisdom: 59

Speed: 201

HP: 408

Skills: High charisma, Aptitude for Wind Magic, Persuasive Conviction/lying, Existing, Backstabbing

He couldn't believe his eyes; he didn't level up. Even if he was a level one he was one goblin slayed away from reaching level 40. Before Clive could make a guestimate on why he didn't accrue to his next level...he heard a gasping sound from Alxo.

"Ssave m-me..."

He turned around and saw the baldy with his right hand clutching Alxo's neck. Alxo had his hand up and his eyes bulging in a petrified face before he eventually passed out. He then picked up the green priest and tossed him on the top of rocks in a corner...Scion and Trug also there and still unconscious.

Clive trembled at the realization his last chance was a dud, shook his sword with one hand in a scared last ditch defense effort.

"Nooo...that's impossible! Not even a Gold or Platinum adventurer could evade those rocks that fast. What are you...some kind of Gary Stu from those fables I read as a kid; someone impervious to everything?!"

Saitama strided up to Clive too dispirited to even move now. When he reached him he picked him up and carried him all the way over to the far wall where a pit made like a chimney in those two story houses he could never afford. He held Clive over the pit with four fingers on his armor's cowl and loosened two.

"Please! I can't stand dark, tight spaces!" He whined.

"If you were a real knight you would fight me to your last breath before letting me drop you down into the abyss. Good thing you don't have to fall down feeling alone."

Before Clive even got the chance to ask why Saitama let go as he plummeted down the hole. Miraculously he fell very slowly, but he also couldn't move his arms or even shiver in the tight, dark chute. At the sluggish speed which he fell, hitting a solid structure felt like his feet touching the floor from his bed. But Clive had no idea what he could've possibly touched on his way down this hole.

Already so dark, alone and quiet he could hear the trilling of his heart in this nerve-wracking situation, he was in for the biggest scare of his life. He looked down...there were dead bodies below him. Not just any dead bodies...they were donning the same armor as the adventurer's he killed.

The worst part of these morbid sight of grotesque, pungent bodies...his feet was pushing them just a sliver down the hole every time he breathed which was repetitive since he was hyperventilating.

Above, Saitama looked down the opaque hole only imaging the hell he was going through.

"Those who are too lazy to take care of the dead will only be trapped with the dead. Although I critizied him for attacking people weaker than him, I technically still haven't found anyone who can survive a single serious punch from me. Does that make me...hypocritical?"

With one intentional sneeze at the north end of the room, he cleared away the rocks hiding the door. He could now move on and face the boss...with a sneaking suspicion of what Baragon meant:

"It will take more than strength to clear this dungeon."