"Bro, what is this? Are we already too late? Damn it." Madam chewed his nails in nervousness. "I knew something was up when we got orders to finish this quest first despite our level."
"We could have easily taken care of this Kingdom quest if we were at least 40 or 45 like that damn monster Liam."
"Is that guy using viagra to level or what? How is he alone 10 levels above us?"
"And now not only are we weak in this zone, we also have some competition! Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!"
"Why the fuck is nothing going well these days!"
"First the flame fragment and now this!" Madan continued incessantly chatting in his nervousness.
He did not look like he was going to stop anytime soon, so Anya scoffed at him in irritation. "Can you stop talking?" She directly said, her tone cutting especially because of her unique accent.
Madan rolled his eyes at the flat-chested beauty. "I swear she thinks she is a supermodel or something. Why do I have to listen to her? Who made her the boss?"
Despite the cold beauty's warning, he continued to run his mouth in a low voice to Barret, the berserker with the mohawk.
But the other guy moved away quietly not wanting to involve himself in these two's bickering.
Luckily, Kouske spoke up grabbing everyone's attention. "Just like Madan said, someone else is definitely here. There are several footprints and this place is newly hollowed out."
"Let's hurry and take a look. Does anyone need more potions or stamina water?"
The team quickly ceased their shenanigans and became more serious, everyone preparing themselves for whatever came their way.
They jumped into the hole, with Barret taking the lead, Kouske, Madan, and Anya then following him.
"Look there are footprints here also," Madan mumbled, pointing his hand to the ground. He currently had a wolf pet whose tail was on fire.
So everyone was able to look around clearly.
However, just as they stared at the ground, something else happened. Their health bars started dropping and three out of four of them got debuff notifications.
[Ding. You are poisoned by the nether.]
[Ding. All your stats are reduced by 50%]
Three out of four of them got this same set of notifications and only Kouske was the exception. He wasn't affected by the presence of nether.
"I can't keep up with this." Anya gritted her teeth, struggling to refill all three health bars as they continuously dropped.
Especially with all of their stats reduced by half, this seemed like an arduous task.
After a couple of seconds, she knew that there was no way that they could move along the tunnel and quickly climbed back up to stand again on solid ground.
As fresh air assaulted her nose and the stale dingy smell disappeared, the nether debuff also disappeared accordingly.
She was still in the vicinity of her teammates so she quickly invoked an earth elemental spirit and healed everyone back up.
"Not possible guys. The tunnel runs deep. I cannot continue healing you two from up here."
She might be able to heal them now, but they couldn't possibly keep this up for much longer. So she curtly voiced out the obvious.
Nodding their heads, Madan and Barret as well climbed back up, and taking one last look, Kouske also followed suit.
After that, everyone started discussing what to do next and the best solution seemed to be Kouske taking a look at things all by himself.
After all, this was his quest originally and he was also the most compatible one with it. The rest weren't even able to get in without being affected by the debuffs.
They tried entering the tunnel a couple more times to confirm this and every single time, they got the same debuff.
On the other hand, sending Kouske in alone also seemed to be a bad idea because this was a high-level zone and they had come here without sufficient preparations.
They received orders that they absolutely had to be here today and attempt the quest. So they didn't have much choice in the matter.
While Barret, Anya, and Kouske were busy brainstorming and trying different things, somehow trying to figure out a solution for this problem before they ran out of time, Madan alone had a big smug grin on his face.
"Guys, are you ready?" He spoke in a mysterious way.
"Hmmm…" Anya narrowed her eyes, looking at the fat ball with a mixture of anger and irritation. "Ready for what?" She asked him in her trademark sharp tone.
Madan gulped and smiled awkwardly. He was genuinely afraid of this woman even though he will never admit it. So he did not dare build any more suspense and quickly blurted out.
"My big surprise!"
The next second, a black dot appeared in front of the four of them and the dot quickly became bigger, morphing into a small pitch-black bird.
The chirped happily on seeing the fatty and flew towards him to perch on his shoulder.
"He He He. Guys, meet 'Tweety'. My newest acquisition." Madan giggled as the bird lovingly rubbed against his cheek. "She is a darling softie and more importantly…"
Seeing him taking his sweet time, Anya growled, "Spit it out already."
"Ok. Okay." Madan gnashed his teeth. "I was just getting there."
"She is a dark element spirit beast! Alright? So she can enter the tunnel along with Kouske and scout for him."
"This way… even if our VICE-LEADER Kouske," Madan enunciated so that the Russian woman would know her place, "went in alone, he would still have time to react and be better prepared."
"At worst, he could always make a break for it and run back up, where we would be waiting."
"Even if someone else was present inside, once Kouske successfully lures that person out, we can take them down."
"Not that bro needs our help. He already has his undead minions. He He."
"Fine. Fine. Stop talking and try it already.." Anya scoffed.