Walking through the forest, Salias again was really enjoying his new senses. The feel of grass beneath his feet was completely new to Salias who had been a skeleton who had never even seen the light of day before today. Now, it was like a whole new world, one full of color and life unlike he had ever seen before. Rather than stubby fungus growing on all the surfaces of the dungeon, he was now surrounded by leafy wooden pillars that were everywhere and a carpet of green and brown covering the floor.

  After a while, and the novelty of feeling grass between his toes wore off, Salias heard a strange noise, almost like a cry for help. Naturally, he went to investigate the noise. Making his way into a clearing, he saw four wolves surrounding a small giant spider youth. This act of the strong beating down the weak angered Salias who shouted out to grab the attention of the wolves,

  "Hey Mutts!" he shouted, causing all the wolves to turn around facing him.

  "Yeah, you guys!" he goaded.

  The biggest of the wolves, probably the Alpha strode up to Salias. Salias could smell the blood, both new and old, that stained the wolf's dark coat. This dog must be familiar with the taste of flesh, Salias thought as he adjusted his stance, ready to slash should he be attacked. However, at that moment, Salias realized that the wolf was not focused on him, but on something behind him.

  Realizing the threat approaching from behind, Salias stepped to the right as a smaller wolf soared past him, barely missing. Seeing the threat before his eyes, Salias swung his great-sword, cleaving the weaker wolf in half. Without letting the Alpha in front of him out of his sight, Salias glanced back to see two more wolves behind him. Salias knew he had to do something quickly, or else he would quickly succumb to pack hunting tactics. Quickly thinking, Salias lunged towards the Alpha.

  Though the wolf jumped back, Salias still caught his face, wickedly slashing across the face and through the right eye. The Alpha whimpered in pain as blood dripped down his face. The Alpha glared at Salias with a gaze full of killing intent. Salias could tell that the Alpha was considering risking his other eye to get revenge. Ultimately, the Alpha backed off, howling before running off into the forest. Along with the Alpha, all the other wolves fled into the wood.

  With the threat extinguished, Salias made his way to the young spider about the size of a small dog. Crouching down before the spider, Salias was reminded of the many spiders from the dungeon. Though less colorful than the poisonous spiders of the dungeon, this spider still had the characteristic hard carapace, though this one was dark purple, almost black, in color. The spider, though at first apprehensive about the newcomer, seemed to not be afraid of Salias.

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  "It's alright buddy," Salias cooed while stroking the spider, "You can go home now."

  The spider seemed to understand Salias, but shook its head as if to reject leaving. The spider then turned its head and looked behind it. Salias followed its gaze and saw a spider next that had been destroyed. Hundreds of dead spiderlings, as well as one large bear-sized spider, littered the nest. Salias then realized that this spider no longer had a home. It reminded him of the dungeon he left. Extending his arm, Salias said,

  "Come with me, I will take care of you"

  The spider seemed to understand and climbed up to perch on Salias' shoulder. Salias then went to the dead wolf and used his sword to slice off a chunk of flesh before feeding it to the spider. Stroking the spider's head, Salias stood up and continued walking deeper into the forest.

  . . .

  Meanwhile, in the dungeon town of Einslingar...

  A pair of guards were guarding the gates, it was a boring task as not much happened around here. The two guards were talking about the recent group of mercenaries that were hired as a kill squad recently when they saw another guard sprinting towards the town. Naturally, the guards stopped him as he was not supposed to be here yet.

  "Tommy?" A guard said upon seeing the panicked man, "What are you doing here? We aren't set to send out the afternoon shift for another two hours! And where's Ralph?"

  "H-H-He's D-Dead! I g-gotta speak t-to the Captain!" Tommy managed to say.

  Up close, the guard could see that Tommy was trembling in a way he had never seen before. Something must have seriously spooked Tommy, and Ralph being dead? That was a serious matter. Nothing significant had happened in this town for decades, because of that, this town was actually seriously underequipped. Although they had a dungeon near them, they didn't actually meet the requirements to deal with it as there had been no problems until two months ago when adventurers started going missing in the dungeon.

  With the recent disappearances, no one knew what was happening until a survivor told them about a troop of skeletons deeper in. After closing the dungeon to the public temporarily, the Captain used guild contacts to get a kill squad to wipe the dungeon of these skeletons, and they came back reporting a success hours ago. There shouldn't have been any problems as they were going to reopen the dungeon tomorrow, but with this, there definitely would be an issue.

  "Alright, calm down Tommy, it's gonna be alright. Hey Bill!" the guard called out to his companion, "Go get the Captain."