In a cafe, a man was enjoying his snack in peace, until a young man suddenly bumped into his table and made his drink spill.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to."
"You have to change it."
When the young man started to take out his wallet, the man immediately stopped him.
"You know money isn't everything."
"I'm in a hurry, I didn't have time to order it."
The man looked at the young man's appearance in front of him sharply. "Who are you?"
"I'm Zen, Commander Zen. Can you let me go?"
"I'm Izrail, the Hunter team leader. Something happened?" The man who called himself Izrail, held the young man's hand to sit down, and ignored the young man's attempt to use his position of influence.
"I just sent a Rookie team to area 5. But I just received news about the increase in the magical energy scale from there. They haven't sent any information, so I guess they probably haven't realized that there are more powerful monsters there."
"So you intend to send another team to help them?"
"Yes. I have to decide soon which team I should send. They are still a new team, and the team leader has only been a C-rank soldier for a month, if I randomly send a team that is too strong, then it might damage their image."
"Why?"
"Dragon Claw is one of the most popular teams in this base. However, the previous team owners quit because they were 'tired' or had to 'rest'. And after a few months, the Dragon Claw team was inherited again. Oh yeah, you called yourself Izrail before, could you be the transfer soldier that was mentioned recently?"
"What do you want?"
"Can you go help them?"
"I'm not a team under your responsibility."
"I will discuss this with your commander. Of course, I will also compensate you as well."
*****
In area 5...
Compared to before, the Dragon team is having a hard time this time.
Humungo's scales are thicker and harder this time, increasing its defense. Then when combined with its recovery ability, it makes it have high endurance.
While its humanoid body shape, allows it to move more freely, and makes its size look bigger up to 7 meters tall.
"As expected, we were too confident."
After a while, they managed to understand Humungo's attack pattern, but unfortunately that didn't make them enough to defeat Humungo.
"We can't keep going like this." Dahlia said while fending off Humungo's tail attack which pushed her back.
"Is that so?. We haven't been hit by a direct attack. I don't mind competing stamina with this monster."
"Keep attacking until it runs out of energy?. We're talking about a monster dozens of our size here." Karen replied.
When Dahlia tried to think of another strategy, Humungo who kept receiving their attacks and her attacks always missed, became angry, then rolled up his body.
"What is he doing?" Karen asked.
Dahlia noticed Humungo's body which now looked like a wheel. When Humungo's scales suddenly bloomed and looked sharp, she was immediately surprised.
"Dodge!"
Right after Dahlia's warning, Humungo immediately rolled towards them.
The location of their battle was not wide enough because it was in a dried-up river area, leaving them with little room to dodge.
When Humungo sped past them, Dahlia became tense when she felt the wind carried by Humungo when it passed right in front of her body.
They saw Humungo stop, and maneuvered to turn towards them.
"Get on!" Karen shouted.
The three of them hurriedly got out of the river area, and ran to find a wider area.
"I hope he has trouble getting on."
After hearing Dahlia's words, Karen suddenly turned back, and saw Humungo whose speed had decreased because it lost momentum due to the sloping terrain.
When Humungo was almost at the top, Karen launched a flying kick, and sent Humungo falling back into the river area, before running after Dahlia and Leo.
Meanwhile, Humungo who was knocked down became even angrier, and crawled up, then rolled his body back up to chase them.
In the distance, the three of them saw Humungo who was still far behind. However, an Elite-tier monster suddenly jumped out from in front of them.
Leo quickly kicked the monster aside.
Dahlia checked the radar, and immediately realized that their fight seemed to have accidentally caused several other monsters to approach.
"We can't bring them to the construction site." Karen said.
"This way!" Dahlia turned right, towards an area where the buildings were much more damaged.
Several monsters appeared where they were, but the three of them were no longer there after entering an alley.
Near the ruins, chunks of buildings and broken walls were scattered, and Dahlia appeared with Karen and Leo.
"How did you know there was a hidden path?" Dahlia asked.
Previously, Dahlia had only wanted to try to trick and confuse the monster, but Karen suddenly suggested entering a narrow street.
"The street is still quite human, so I think someone must have used it before. Look, there's even a drink vending machine here."
Dahlia approached the machine that Karen pointed to. When Dahlia tried to insert 1 Priah, the machine immediately turned on, and displayed several types of drinks.
"The machine only sells energy drinks. It seems like someone deliberately prepared it for the people in this area. But aren't they worried about it being stolen?"
Dahlia took a 1 liter bottle of drink, which was low in carbonation and carbohydrates.
As Dahlia looked for a comfortable and clean place to sit, she saw Karen sitting on a large boulder, while signaling by patting her thighs to offer to sit on her lap.
Dahlia was actually a little hesitant, but she accepted the offer because she couldn't find anywhere else to sit.
After drinking her drink, Dahlia felt a little better, and exhaled.
"Let's rest here for now while we come up with a new strategy."
"Forcing ourselves to face an opponent with greater numbers and strength, isn't a good idea." Karen took Dahlia's drink, and started drinking as well.
"I'm expecting a great fight, but I also don't want to be ganged up on." Leo asked Karen for Dahlia's drink, then turned around to take off his mask and hide his face as he drank.
"I'll contact the Commander."
Dahlia took out her tablet and immediately contacted Zen, then reported everything that had happened~
"You don't need to worry. Actually, I already noticed something was happening there. The energy level was slowly increasing a while ago, so I've sent reinforcements to you. For now, you hold on, until they arrive."
"Understood, Commander."
15 minutes later, they carried out the new strategy they had created.
Their strategy was to defeat the monsters that were alone or far enough away from the others one by one, quickly and quietly so as not to attract other monsters, especially Humungo who had been chasing them.