“Fire now, Sami!” Jorge shouted, tanking a charging bear.

  His voice had grown hoarse and weakened with all of the orders and screaming he had been doing, yet he could not stop. He shouted another command as loud as his lungs could and threw the giant bear off of him. Sending it crashing a dozen feet away into the group they had forced in a small circle.

  The other tanks crashed into any of the monsters that tried to escape the hellhole they would be subjected to.

  Jorge struggled to pick his legs up and step forward but forced himself to take that next step. Then the one after and another after that until he gained enough momentum to churn his legs and sprint at the slowly rising bear he had thrown into the pile. He slammed into it with his large shield while it was still struggling to get back up from previously being thrown.

  Mana surged behind him from where he knew Sami stood.

  He jumped back as far as he could, diving away in hopes to escape what he knew was about to arrive.

  The rest of the tanks followed his lead, doing the same to get out of the vicinity of the AoE attack.

  The world turned a bright red for a second as heat rushed over their head. Wind snapped back and forth as a ball of flame shrieked by and landed in a thunderous explosion that sent any still standing sprawling on the ground. All of them hurried to get back up in case one of the bears got lucky and escaped the epicenter of the charged attack. It took two minutes of focused concentration and a dozen mana stones of high quality to fire off something that large and powerful.

  Duty demanded they sacrifice their bodies to protect the second and rear lines. None of them would be found failing.

  A burning inferno roared in the midst of the giant bears, all of whom towered over them. He could hear their cries of suffering and pain echoing in his ears and reverberating in his skull. The bears had no choice but to engage their group, just like all monsters forced into these Dungeons by the system. He couldn’t blame them for what they did, but Jorge would not find mercy for anything that threatened the existence of their race.

  “No! I wanted some of their bodies!” Kalidor ran past the line of tanks.

  “Kalidor!” Jorge shouted as he lunged after him. “Stop! This is madness.”

  The blind-folded man dove into the burning pyre, slashing and hacking at the essence of the flames and dying creatures within. A mana barrier surrounded and protected him, but even Jorge could see it begin to waver and crack. It would not last long. Once it was gone, even if he would be nothing more than charred remains they would not be able to differentiate between the other piles of ash and black substance.

  Jorge cursed and raised his shield activating his [Bulwark of the Red] skill and jumped into the fire after Kalidor. He grabbed him, threw the idiot over his shoulder, and ran out as fast as he could before his skill died out.

  He threw Kalidor off him as soon as he cleared their front into the second line. “What the hell is wrong with you!? You could have died!”

  Kalidor did not answer him, instead he stared at the burning flames and dead monsters. Jorge could see the look of disappointment and dissatisfaction in his face, likely because he was unable to harvest them for resources and wealth. Wealth they needed as a party to survive. The bears would have gained them much in terms of loot had they a way of beating them without members dying left and right.

  “You’re fucking insane,” Jorge sighed, making sure to grab the man’s shoulder in case he made another ridiculous attempt.

  Kalidor turned his head and stared at him. Blindfold doing nothing to stop the skincrawling feeling Jorge got whenever Kalidor locked onto him. Using whatever [Class] skill he had to sense the world around him.

  Still, he had a duty that called upon him. Jorge shook his head firmly.

  The odd man deflated.

  His party, Shields of the Burning, had been fighting for the past half hour against these bears, struggling to keep alive when the gigantic monsters barreled down on them. Jorge had forced defensive protocols and kiting tactics for the majority of the fight to prevent deaths in their numbers but at the cost of more sustained injuries. Fatigue and exhaustion filled all their limbs to the very center of the beings.

  Mana was a distant thing in their empty cores.

  Jorge took a moment to share this moment with Kalidor and take in the vision of red and death before them. He turned away, there was no time for rest. The party needed him. His people and friends needed his leadership. A few of their own had lost limbs, others suffering fatal injuries. It was only a blessing that they were able to protect their healers during the mayhem that had been the initial ambush set by the bears.

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  An ambush that spoke of greater forethought than what a predatory monster at their level should be capable of.

  I don’t like the feeling of this.

  “Illaria,” Jorge shouted, walking back towards the center of the clearing. “Gather the rest of the healers! Sami, Kalidor, find all missing limbs to be reattached! We can’t afford any deaths or debilitating injuries. Not so early in our campaign in this dungeon!”

  Fucking Angorian bears!

  His party stilled for a second, all eyes turning to him. Action erupted a second later as everyone hurried to fulfil their tasks and help save their brothers and sisters. Even Kalidor hurried to do what he was told. Jorge surveyed the battlefield. The torn up ground, the burning patches of tall stalk grass. The groaning and suffering members of his Shield of the Burning.

  The rancid stench of burning fur.

  The way the smell of coppery blood invaded his nostrils.

  When do Angorian bears ambush adventuring parties? When are they found in packs so large and not fight each other before fighting us?

  What he saw today went against everything he had learned about this dungeon and its inhabitants. Only the felines and hyenas fought in packs here. Nothing else. Years of experience hunting here and learning seemed to be thrown out of the window ever since they learned about the two high [Class]ers. Though there was another explanation. One he prayed was not the case.

  The plan was simple. Get in, hunt for as long as possible until the first portal back opens after roughly five months. They still had four more to go.

  Jorge’s stomach began to fold into itself, knotting at the thought that appeared in his mind.

  There’s a roaming boss in this dungeon instance. Shit. We need to retreat–

  “Jorge.” Sami approached him, her staff still smoking from the charged fireball she had launched. “We can’t retreat. We can’t afford to do that.”

  “The dangers are too great–”

  “That’s what we signed up for. We aren’t naive greenbloods. I have a family… They have families. We can’t earn so little for so much time wasted, starving ourselves and our loved ones before we can get access to another instance or dungeon.”

  Jorge grit his teeth because he knew she was right. “We can’t afford to be in this dungeon if there is a Roaming Boss walking these plains.”

  “We can’t afford to leave either,” a deep voice said from behind him.

  Jorge turned around to find a hulking mass of muscle and steel armor standing there with three of the tanks by his side.

  The giant ball of muscle and brawn, Malkim, stabbed his greatsword into the ground and unstrapped his shield from his left arm. Finally finishing by removing his great helm and strapped it to his hip. Sweat soaked hair stuck to his scalp and forehead and a large scar carved the left part of his jaw. “Party Leader. Please. Our last dive wasn’t as profitable either, at least this time we can keep following the two that have been carving through the dungeon's monsters and harvest the monsters they leave behind them.”

  Jorge wanted to curse the man for the burden he forced upon him. Malkim should have been the party leader, but had outright rejected it and forced it upon him. Elevating him to what he had once believed to be an increase in stature and power. He quickly learned that it was nothing like that, but rather a burden more than it was a prize. If only he had been as wise as the hulking man before him.

  He would have never accepted the mantle of leadership.

  It’s too late now, Jorge. Can’t regret the past anymore. Only deal with the present and plan for the future.

  “We can discuss this in a bit once the healers finish. For now, make sure no one dies on me today. Give Ilaria anything she needs and make sure this gets finished with haste. Prepare to fight a Roaming Boss.” Jorge said, unwilling to break eye contact with Malkim.

  The giant man nodded and hurried to do what he was told. The tanks spun on their heels and rushed to follow and help wherever they could.

  “I’ll go help too,” Sami said as she ran past him. “Ilaria is going to need access to my mana soon.”

  Jorge watched her run away back to the group of healers that had built a large open tent with bodies lined up on stretchers on the ground. Working hard to save everyone. He knew better than to be so naive as to expect perfection from them, but he could not… Nay, he refused to accept anything but the best to save his men and women no matter how far gone they were.

  He turned back toward the burning pyre and found Kalidor sitting on his haunches before it.

  Jorge walked up to him.

  “First we fail our investigation,” The blindfolded man did not turn to look back, but Jorge could feel his senses lock on to him. “And now this? Just one Angorian bear would have been a valuable addition to our loot, but a dozen? They could have funded much of our–”

  “There’s no point in this exercise, Kalidor. What is done is done. No point in overthinking what we could have done differently.”

  One of the worst things about his position was that he needed to figure out how to solve the same question a dozen times for a dozen people in a dozen ways. More will wonder and question if we could have salvaged the bears and Jorge would need to be careful how he answered them based on their personalities and how he knew them to react to different arguments.

  They trusted him, but that didn’t mean he was infallible to questioning and failures.

  Kalidor sighed. “You speak truthfully, Party Leader. Yet, to see this type of excessive waste… It irks me fiercely.”

  “Yeah. It doesn’t feel too good to light money on fire.”

  Kalidor chuckled.

  Jorge stayed there by his side until the fire died out.

  By then, the healers had done their jobs and stabilized the majority of their party members; reattaching limbs, healed any fatal wounds, broken bones and ligaments, and more. Out of all their members three were maimed too much for even their healers to stitch them back to normal. They would need to make a stop at the Healing Alcoves to get them back into shape.

  He shivered at the cost, alas, they weren’t callous enough to leave their own members to die on the side streets and in the back alleys.