"I’ll be back in a minute," Jerry responded hastily, snapping out of his thoughts.
He leapt out of his office cubicle and ran towards the Departnt Supervisor’s office.
Fortunately, Jerry found him standing outside his office, talking with a coworker.
He halted before them, breathing heavily to recover from his shortness of breath.
Both of them turned to look at him in confusion.
"Do you need sothing?" The Departnt Supervisor, a man who appeared to be in his early forties, dressed in a grey short-sleeved shirt and a tie with a pair of black trousers, asked with a raised brow.
"I thought you were supposed to be overseeing a party of newbies today. Or have they already completed their dungeon run?"
"...There’s a problem," Jerry responded after a slight hesitation, glancing at the other coworker standing beside them.
The Departnt Supervisor frowned. He turned to the other worker and gestured for the office worker to leave, "We’ll continue later."
The coworker nodded and left.
"What is it?" He asked, his tone serious.
Jerry lowered his head, closed his eyes, and replied, "The newbie party assigned to my managent failed to conquer the dungeon."
Upon hearing the report, the Departnt Supervisor narrowed his gaze at Jerry and folded his arms. "According to the report, they were supposed to be clearing Baneroot Forest, a Level One D-ranked Dungeon with a 99 per cent completion rate, almost near 100 per cent. Am I correct?"
Baneroot Forest was a popular dungeon owned by the Crimson Bull Guild that newbies who joined the guild aid to conquer to gauge their strength. There were nurous training materials and even simulators that replicated what the dungeon battle would look like.
For a party of newbies to die within the dungeon ant they were either careless, overestimated their strength, underestimated the danger of the dungeon, or failed to train.
"Yes. However, sothing went wrong," Jerry responded, his voice wavering.
"And what would that be?" The Departnt Supervisor asked.
"They are all dead," Jerry replied. "The Final Boss and its pack launched a surprise attack on them at the beginning phase before eliminating them."
The Departnt Supervisor’s expression turned sour.
Before he could speak, Jerry opened his system interface, quickly found the last livestream he had watched and played back the recording for the Departnt Supervisor to watch.
"Please just watch," Jerry pleaded.
The Departnt Supervisor’s words were caught in his throat as he watched the playback video.
He observed the mont a party of four newbie Hunters, led by a slightly experienced newly awakened Hunter, entered the dungeon and their light conversation before they leapt into battle. From the mont they fought the goblins to the mont they were attacked by the wolves and executed.
Everything happened too fast.
Then, the picture froze as the playback ended.
The Departnt Supervisor’s face drained of colour as he realised the gravity of what had just transpired.
"Let’s go in," the Departnt Supervisor said, opening his office door.
Jerry followed him into the office.
The Departnt Supervisor closed the door behind them.
They stood beside the decorated table and chairs, at the other side of the room.
"Have you inford anyone else about what happened?" the Departnt Supervisor asked, nervously polishing his glasses with a white cloth.
RINGG... RINGG...
"No..." Jerry was about to respond when his phone rang. He wanted to cut the call, which had interrupted his important eting.
But, upon seeing the caller’s na, he froze.
Jerry gestured for his Departnt Supervisor to pause the eting for a minute and, with trembling hands, picked up the call.
"Hello."
A familiar voice erged from the other side.
The smartphone fell from Jerry’s hand and landed on the ground.
Jerry’s eyes widened further than before. His body trembled as though he had been doused with a bucket of cold water.
"Evaluator Jerry, what’s going on?" the Departnt Supervisor asked, his tone growing more nervous as he observed Jerry’s erratic behaviour.
Jerry stared at the Departnt Supervisor. "Supervisor... that was Draven, the party leader who had led the newbie Hunters into Baneroot Forest," He replied with a tone tinged with doubt and disbelief,
"He’s alive."
---
"Where am I?" Abel asked, looking around. He thought that he would reappear in his hospital bed, but instead, he was in a passageway. And soone was dragging his arm forward.
"Hey, wait a minute! What’s going on?" Abel forced his legs to a stop and asked. He looked at the figure dragging him and saw that it was a man.
He looked at his hand and saw how small it looked compared to the hand holding him.
Hearing his voice, the man turned to look at him.
PAP!
"How dare you challenge after I told you to shut up?" The man shouted at Abel as he slapped him to the ground.
Abel found himself lying on the floor, clutching the stinging side of his face that had been slapped, uncertainty filling his eyes.
He scrutinised his body and saw that he had beco a teenager again. And most of all, he was wearing a school uniform.
"You bastard. I’ll deal with you," the man caught Abel by the collar and pulled him up.
Abel struggled, but was unable to escape the grasp of a grown man.
Soon, they reached the end of the corridor and arrived at the back of a building facility, resembling a corner with towering walls on each side.
The man then threw Abel into the corner.
Abel braced himself for the pain until he ca to a stop. He looked up and saw five other boys, the sa height and wearing the sa uniform as him. They seed so familiar, but Abel couldn’t rember who they were.
"Beat him for . You don’t need to worry about being punished. I’ll et the principal myself if anything cos up," the man said, buttoning his sleeves and cleaning his hands with a handkerchief.
At that mont, Abel realised that his cheeks were stained with dried tears.
///////
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