Howling Dungeon’s enemies were mutated animals. Of course, it was along the same vein as the monsters in the Howling Forest, but... creepier. There was something about the way dungeon darkness clung to them—something that made even familiar horrors feel wrong.

"That is...!"

Seeing the coming enemy, Kiki faltered.

The enemies were mutated rats. They were as large as Dobermans, crawling on all fours with a low, skittering gait that made the stone ground vibrate faintly underfoot.

Their fur pitch black, and covered with weird bubbly protrusions, like someone having large blisters all over their bodies—clusters of them, swollen and glistening, straining against the skin as if begging to burst. The faint, wet sound of them rubbing against each other with each movement was enough to make one’s stomach turn.

Blisters that, if popped, released a rancid green liquid.

"They’re plague rats!" I shouted warily. "Be careful when attacking or defending! Do not burst those blisters as much as possible!"

"E-Eh?! The heck?!"

"Ew...! They stink..!"

Kiki and Miyabi complained fast as the monsters came close, screeching, scratching the stone ground of the cave with claws that left thin white lines carved across the rock.

When Miyabi attacked by reflex, she ended up smashing a single blister, causing weird green, icky liquid to splash all over the ground—hitting the stone with a sound like a wet slap, spreading in a thin, sickly puddle that steamed faintly in the cold dungeon air.

That very instant, a loading gauge with a murky green bar appeared around our lower vision.

[Plague: |-------------------]

"...!"

Gasps echoed upon seeing the notification.

After all, this was the first time such a status condition appeared in the game.

[MoeLover: Oh no! If that bar fills up, they’ll get inflicted by the plague!😅]

[DefectiveRonan: Oh thank you for pointing that out, Mr. Obvious... 🤨]

[MoeLover: I’m a miss not mister! 👿 Don’t assume my gender...!]

[Granger: Jiggle jiggle...? Or wiggle wiggle? 😲]

Even the chat, albeit faded out, could still be seen clamoring about the situation.

"FleetingCloud, be careful!" I called her out. "We can tolerate a few mistakes for now, just make sure to not do it 20 times in a row!"

The Plague status piles up by 5% every blister popped, and goes down by 1% after every 10 seconds. If it reaches 100%, the player will get the Plague Status and lose 1% of HP per second.

If you have lots of HP pots, or a teleportation scroll to return to the city instantly, then there’s a chance for survival. You can just ask a church to cleanse you for a price. But if not, then you can only die in the field, coupled with a high chance of dropping an equipment.

Finally, if you have a cleric party member with a cleansing skill—which comes out at level 50 or above—then it’d be even easier to remove it.

Thus, we shouldn’t fear it as long as we don’t pop too many blisters at once. If we did, we could also wait away until the bar goes down to zero before continuing.

Thankfully, Ram and Gwen were moving with 100% precision.

Each attack, each block were done avoiding the blisters completely, downing the Plague Rats one by one. The way they moved was almost surgical—clean, efficient, blisterless. After a few beats, Kiki and Miyabi also returned to their senses, focusing on the fight and trying to kill the monsters without causing the party any trouble.

"That’s a wrap!" Miyabi announced while sheathing her sword.

Around 30 rats attacked us this time, coming in two waves with a short interval. With that many, a few errors were normal. Miyabi, Kiki, even Gwen, ended up popping a total of 17 blisters.

Right now, the entrance smelled like sewers—no, worse than sewers. It was the smell of something rotting beneath standing water, of old illness left to fester in a closed room. Sharp and sweet and wrong all at once, coating the back of the throat like a film that refused to leave. The girls looked sick, as if they wanted to puke already. Eri was the only one who looked fine, but...

"Me? I toned down the smell sense slider to 0%, so it doesn’t bother me."

"..."

Hearing her words of wisdom, the girls copied her immediately. This was, after all, "still a game."

Me? I’m already used to such smell. It doesn’t really bother me much. And, of course, I don’t want to toggle my sense of smell down, as that would limit my detection ability.

Detection is important in dungeons, after all.

After waiting until the Plague bar disappeared, we then continued onwards.

I knew the path already, so I just took the lead. Though, of course, I didn’t tell the viewers or the girls about this. To them, I just selected a random path to traverse—the path on the opposite side from where monsters came from.

The path heading to the right is the right path! No pun intended!

We walked forward warily through the narrow tunnel.

The surroundings were dark, after all, and we don’t have any light source on us. The walls were damp here, slick with moisture that caught what little ambient light existed and turned it into a faint, cold sheen. Somewhere deeper in, water dripped at irregular intervals, each drop echoing just long enough to sound like two.

Thankfully, everything that’s within 2 meters of each player is completely visible, making it possible to continue marching forward still. As expected of a game. How convenient.

It was a pretty slow pace, though.

Even if we can see 2 meters ahead, that wouldn’t give us enough time to stop if we were running and happened to see a cliff ahead. That’d be a one-way ticket to the respawn point.

"Wait!"

After walking for about 3 minutes, we finally arrived at the next "room."

Why do I know it? Because the room just appeared on the mini map. But that’s not the real reason why I asked them to stop.

"What’s wrong?" Miyabi asked, concerned.

However, I didn’t respond to her, but instead, pointed at the spot near the ground, about a step away from Ram and Kiki’s position.

"There’s a tripwire over there. Must be a trap. Don’t step on it."

"Traps?!"

Kiki gasped, jumping back and checking the ground. "Oh, it’s real! There’s a piano wire laid out!" She squinted, leaning just close enough to see the thin glint of it—barely visible, catching the dim ambient light at just the right angle. Any less and it would’ve been completely invisible.

"Nice find... But that was close." Miyabi continued. "We should be even more careful from now on!"

"..."

Of course, although finding the trap beforehand was great, this still made me frown. After all, it ended up appearing as predicted. Traps.

Dungeon with traps should only appear after the beginner village is cleared. However, we were literally right in the middle of one with traps right now.

’It really changed... This is giving me a headache...’

"Squeak...!"

"...!"

And as if fate was playing with us, the sound of monsters echoed—the familiar clatter of claws on stone, but louder this time, and coming faster. By the echo of the steps becoming faster and faster, they were heading straight for us—from both directions.

"We’re trapped!" Eri gasped in worry.

And this, too, was not a simple "bad" situation either.

"Kristal and FleetingCloud, handle the front about 10 steps away from the trap! Ram and Gwen, to the rear! Don’t let the monsters pass through and activate the tripwire!"

Right.

We’re right before a trap now.

If the monsters ended up triggering it, then we all would get caught in whatever trap it was. Worst case, if it was an instant death trap, then we’re dead.

"Yes!"

Without doubting my commands, everyone moved fast.

Kiki and Miyabi jumped over the tripwire and stood side by side about 10 steps further, barely within range. They were blocking the path completely. Ram and Gwen did the same, but much closer. About 5 paces away.

With their robot-like reflexes and accuracy, there shouldn’t be any problems.

Eri stood one step ahead of the tripwire, with me planting my flag right beside her while my feet still stood behind the tripwire. With this, everyone should be within the flag’s buff range.

"Master, they’re here!"

"Gwen, moving to eliminate incoming monsters!"

Although Kiki and Miyabi headed further out, it was the android girl’s group who encountered the enemies first.

SLASH!

CRITICAL!

2,603!!!

1,848!!!

The two’s damage was high enough to one-hit each of the rats, though Gwen’s was still 50% more powerful than Ram’s. It didn’t really matter much since both were overkill either way.

Of course, their accuracy was impeccable too.

Each sword stroke traveled the shortest paths to the enemy’s vitals, all while avoiding the blisters containing that foul-smelling liquid. Every movement was clean, deliberate, almost like watching a demonstration rather than a real fight—the kind of precision that made you forget they were in danger at all.

But as expected, the numbers were too much.

There’s like 5-6 monsters attacking both of them at once. Although blocking a few was fine, there were moments where damage still registers.

It was slower than my flag’s regeneration speed, though, so Eri still haven’t had her time to shine.

"Ugh...! Too many...!"

Soon enough, even Kiki and Miyabi began engaging the Plague Rats.

Their movements were sloppier than the androids, but after learning a few pointers from the previous fight, the number of "mistakes" this time was a lot less. The occasional blister still caught a stray swing here and there—a wet pop, the brief acrid flash of green mist—but nothing that sent the Plague bar surging.

With our quick formation, the defense was holding on...

At least, until Kiki’s cry echoed loudly.

"Fuck! I’m about to get afflicted with Plague...!"

An emergency had occurred.