"We are humanity’s last hope. Without us, humanity is no more."

Without waiting for Abel to respond, he pulled back and sat in his seat.

Abel pondered Philip’s words briefly before turning his attention back to his channel to gain a better understanding of it before they reached their destination.

Twenty minutes later, they arrived.

The air carrier descended onto a flat stony hill.

The rear ramp slowly opened up.

Philip led the way out of the air carrier.

Abel and the others followed behind.

Countless hills stretched across the horizon - pointed, flat, and even partly divided - surrounded by a sea of red sand stretching outward. A canopy of trees stood at the edge, serving as a barrier holding back the sea of red sand.

With numerous dungeons contained within the city, Abel hadn’t expected the Hunter Association to take them all the way out here.

Abel quickly spotted a bald man dressed in a red robe with golden inscriptions and embellishments, holding a staff. He carried a sword strapped to the side of his waist as well.

Abel was unsure whether he was a healer or a mage. But he knew one thing; if this was the man Philip had said would protect them within the dungeon, then he wasn’t weak. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

They halted before him.

"Everyone, this is Bear Bard, a Professional Level 1 dual-class Healer and Warrior. He’s a rare breed even among Hunters and is the one the Hunter Association will be handing over your care to within the dungeon," Philip introduced the man as he shook his hand.

"I’ll be waiting outside to protect the air carrier and observe your battle through your livestream." He stepped aside.

Hunter Bear Bard studied them and said, "Silver Sword has already sent me your channel names. I’ll send a party invitation to you all so we can begin."

A holographic interface appeared before each of them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Bard Shard has invited you to join his party.]

[YES] [NO]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Abel accepted the party invite.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Party Name: Newbie Dungeon Raiders #523212243125]

[Party Leader: Bear Bard]

[Party Members: 5]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"I’ll go live now," Hunter Bear Bard Shard said.

Another holographic system interface appeared before Abel.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Party Name: Newbie Dungeon Raiders #52321224312]

[Viewers: 1]

[-Live Chat-]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Your party [Newbie Dungeon Raiders #52321224312] has gone live.]

Abel read through the series of notifications. He was honestly excited because this was his first time livestreaming a dungeon run. Unlike last time, he wasn’t role-playing as the Final Boss, but as a Hunter, so he decided to use the opportunity to clear his mind from his previous dungeon run.

"I’ve sent you the livestream ID," Hunter Bear Bard glanced at Philip and said.

"I will hook you guys onto the Hunter Association Channel and recommend the video on the forum immediately," Philip said, looking at the empty space before him.

But they all knew that he was communicating with his system interface, which only he could see unless he allowed others to see it as well.

[Congratulations! You have been tagged on the Hunter Association’s Channel.]

[Congratulations on your first feature! Your party’s livestream can now be viewed on the Hunter Association’s Channel.]

Abel saw the series of alerts. They were simply achievements that were marked down somewhere in the corner of his profile. There were no rewards or coins.

’They are very stingy,’ Abel thought, clicking his tongue inwardly.

But it made sense. Considering how difficult coins were to obtain, it shouldn’t be that easy to earn them merely by getting featured on another channel’s page. Or else there wouldn’t be any unregistered or runaway Hunters. All they needed to do was find their way into a guild and consistently get featured.

"Follow me," Hunter Bear Bard said. He walked to the edge of the hill and leapt down.

Bewildered, the group turned to look at Philip.

Philip smiled mischievously. "Bye...! Good luck on your first dungeon run." He turned and walked back to the air carrier through the rear ramp.

"I’ll go first. It shouldn’t be that difficult with our current strength," Hunter Executioner Five said. He walked forward and leapt down from the cliff.

Hunter Poison Rose nodded at them, walked forward, and jumped off the cliff as well.

Abel decided to take the next jump. He walked toward the edge of the cliff, then jumped off. The fierce wind grazed against his body but failed to penetrate due to his special Hunter attire.

Abel landed on a sea of red sand with a thunderous, "BOOM!" The ground under his feet caved in.

A billow of sand and dust exploded outward before slowly settling back onto the ground.

"Ahhhh!!" Before Abel could stabilise himself, a high-pitched scream sounded from above.

Looking upwards, Abel’s eyes widened before he opened his arms and leapt up, catching the familiar woman before she could touch the ground.

BOOM!!

"Cough! Cough!" Hunter Firestar wheezed as she waved off the cloud of red sand gathering in the air from her face.

Realising that she was in Abel’s arms, she pushed herself off and landed on her own feet.

"Thank you," she said before taking out a handkerchief to cover her nose and running off to meet with the others.

Abel shook his head at the sudden turn of events that had just transpired and followed behind her.

Soon, they caught up with the others. They stood before a wide blue portal with edges flickering outward like lightning and scorching the surroundings.

"This is a Level One D-ranked dungeon gate. Many of you must have seen one already in the city... Many of you may not have. Regardless, you will all experience what is inside one today," Hunter Bard Shard explained with a solemn expression.

"Prepare yourselves, we’re going in."

Hunter Executioner Five drew both his long swords.

Hunter Firestar gripped her staff tightly.

Hunter Poison Rose removed her bow and lined an arrow on it.

Clanke!! Clankle!!

Suddenly, the clanking of chains rang in the air.

Everyone turned their attention to Abel, who had unstrapped his shield, removed the chains wrapped around it, and tied it around his wrist before wrapping the rest around his right arm. Then, he tied the other end of the chain under the ring at the end of the battle axe handle.

Abel grasped the battle axe tightly.