"Nothing?" – asked the young man with black hair.
"Nope. Nothing. We looked around and asked around, but there are no traces of them anywhere here." – said the young brown haired boy who walked out of the bushes.
"We talked with anybody who had seen them walking around, looking for the hunting grounds, but they also had nothing."
"It is just as if they disappeared into thin air, just like that."
"Fuck!" – said the angry black haired man.
"…"
"How many hunting spots do we have left to check?"
"Honest answer? We checked pretty much everything near as well as on the outskirts of the forest." – said the boy with a scar on his arm.
"…"
(Dammit…. What the hell is going on?) – thought the young man with black hair as he grabbed his head in frustration.
(Arthur wasn't seen in any of the usually hunting grounds, nor in any areas where he could fulfil the commission quest he took…)
(The hunting grounds were full with newbies, so somebody should have seen them or something.)
(So where they...Wait.)
"Map."
"Now!" – said the impatient black haired man, causing the man with the scar to take out the map, and before he could open it the black haired young man instantly snatched it away from him.
"…"
"The areas deep in the forest. Can you find rabbits there?"
"Well… Yea? But- "
"Then let's go check it out." - said the black haired young man before the young man with brown hair could reply.
"Eh? But dude, those areas are- "
"An areas where E rank adventurers are not allowed to enter. Yeah, but honestly, those are the only spots that we have yet to check out." - said the black haired man, again, interrupting the brown-haired man's question.
"I know it sounds stupid and all…. But honestly, it's better if we check all possibilities, if you get what I mean."
"…"
*Sigh*
"Yeah, yeah." – said the young man with the scar.
"Anyway, MARKUS! We are moving!"
The group of three adventurers here was members of the search party.
And they were looking for the missing trio of the newbie adventurers who had gone missing after they left for the quest.
As for the leader of this search part? He was the older brother of the missing adventurer Arthur.
And the leader of the E rank adventurer party.
"…"
"So far… Only slimes… Are you sure we should be finding any dangerous monsters if we go in this direction?" – asked the man with brown hair, as the group arrived at the forest and started searching around, but once again not finding anything related to the missing adventurers case.
"Yeb, if we go in this direction, we should reach the area where beast-type monsters usually wander around, including the horned rabbits." – said the young man with the scar as he walked straight through the bush.
"And that would be the only spot that-"
"!"
"Huh. A bit earlier than I had expected." – said the man with the scar as he saw several horned rabbits running towards the group.
"…"
*Sigh*
The young man with black hair pulled out the long sword on his back and swinged it around, cutting all the rabbits in half instantly with single swing.
"…"
"I guess we found some horned rabbit territory. Look around and….?" – the black haired man stopped as he noticed some noises coming from afar, before moments later, another group of rabbits appeared and charged towards the young man, only to meet exactly the same fate as the group before, getting cut in half and not even landing a hit on the young man.
"…"
"Dude. Stop killing them. If you kill them all, what will newbies hunt?" – said an annoyed brown haired boy.
"…"
"..."
"..."
"Em.... Dude? Why did you suddenly went silent like that?"
"Say... Is it me…. Or were these rabbits "running away" or something? They kind of looked scared to me." – said the black haired man with a confused look.
"Eh? You sure? I mean, these rabbits usually charge at you recklessly." - said the brown haired man.
"Yea, I know, but they weren't running directly at ME!" – said the black haired man.
"…"
"Let's go deeper." – said the black haired boy as he began moving alongside his party members.
The party traversed the forest, encountering wild monsters, with some of them seemingly running away.
And after a while, something appeared.
"…"
"What the hell is this thing doing here?" – said the party leader with a confused expression as he saw a person approaching the group.
However, it wasn't a person.
It was an zombie.
"…"
The zombie noticed the group and began walking towards them, but before it could reach them, the party leader swung around his sword, decapitating the zombie.
"..What the hell is going on? Why the hell is there a zombie here?!" – said the worried party leader.
"…"
"I don't like how things look, mate....Shit…. We better check the dungeon." – said the man with the scar.
The group ran through the forest at full speed, and after a while, they had managed to arrive at their location.
"…"
"Oh…. Shit. That ain't good." – said the brown haired man who was on top of the tree, looking at the nearby huge hill that had a cave entrance sticking out of it.
And around that very entrance, a huge group of humanoid undead monsters gathered, ranging from skeletons to zombies.
"Oh crap. There is no mistaking it." – said the brown haired man as he jumped down and joined the hiding spot used by his friends.
"It's a dungeon break."
"Wait, are you for real!?" – asked the boy with a scar in disbelief.
"Yeah." – replied the brown haired boy.
"There is no mistaking it."
"It's dungeon break."
Question.
What is dungeon break?
Well, in short, it was already said that the dungeon monsters aren't real monsters. They cannot leave the dungeon; they are trapped inside the dungeon and do not possess the ability to leave, and when the dungeon monster is slain, only a portion of their "existence" is left behind as a dungeon drop.
However, what happens if the monsters survive and just live for a specific amount of time without dying?
What do you think happens?
The answer.
They manifest.
Dungeon master not only produce miasma for the dungeon as a resource, but they will also produce miasma for themselves in order to manifest their own body.
Once it has enough, the monster will manifest.
Their bodies will become "fully manifested", meaning that they will not be some "dungeon monsters", but instead now "monsters".
And the original rules that bound the monster to the dungeon will be gone, meaning that it can leave. This also means that they won't be turned into "dungeon drop" when they die, since their bodies are now real.
Now, what is "dungeon break"?
Simply put, it is an event where a large number of monsters inside the dungeon have manifested.
And all at once started leaving the dungeon, causing the number of monsters in the area to instantly increase.
"But why the hell is the dungeon break happening anyway?!" – said the angry party leader.
"This dungeon shouldn't be too problematic!"
(And I don't want to waste my bloody time on those fucking undeads while we are searching for my brother!)
"…"
"Actually…. It maybe is…" – said the boy with brown hair.
"This dungeon is quiet far away located."
"The drops from there are shitty like hell…."
"And the beast dungeon is both closer and gives way better profitable loot."
"Maybe people just didn't want to go to a place that was too far away and didn't give them enough profit."
"…"
"Some of the undeads we had encountered so far were sometimes far away from the dungeon… Probably chasing some random animal or monsters, which in turn caused it to get separated from the other undeads…" – said the man with the scar.
"…"
"Question is… When did the dungeon break occurred? This is honestly the most worrying question we should be asking right now."
"…"
"We need to go back and report this." – said the brown haired man.
"!"
"Wait! But we still haven't- "
"I know! I know bro, but think about it!" – said the brown haired man, cutting off the black haired man mid-sentence.
"What if it's related?"
"?"
"R-related?" - asked the young man with dark hair as his expression instantly changed.
"Yes. Related." - said the brown haired man.
"If that dungeon break was going on for some time now, then Arthur and his party could have ended up being caught by the undeads. The wandering undeads may have found him and his party, forcing them to run away.....Or....."
"..."
"…"
"We need to have guild report this to the guild and have them help us out. We maybe even able to find your little brother this way as well."
"If we have more people fighting the undeads, the search will also be far easier."
"If your brother party escaped the undeads and is currently hiding somewhere, they may reveal themselves once they realize that the rescue has arrived."
"This is the only correct course of action we can take now, mate."
"…"
"Fuck…. Okay…. We will do this way." – said the black-haired man as he grinded his teeth.
"You two go back, while I continue searching area."
"!"
"Hey, hey, hey. Dude. This is too risky." – said the man with the scar.
"If a large group of these things finds you, then you are straight up fucked."
"Don't worry, I will just focus on scouting. If my brother party had been chased by the undeads or something….. I just…. I just can't go back… Sorry." – said the black haired man with a worried look.
"…"
*Sigh*
"Just don't die like an idiot. Got it?" – said the man with the scar as he started walking away with the brown-haired young man.
"Yeah, don't worry. I won't." – replied the black haired man.
The two men began running at full speed, trying to get to the settlement, while leaving behind the black haired young man who continued searching around for the traces of his young brother who had gone missing.
However, the simple search had now turned into a massive problem as the dungeon break was discovered.
No matter how weak or low danger rank of the dungeon is, the dungeon break will always cause harm and problems, meaning that the adventurers will have no choice but to instantly take action and try to deal with the problem.
However. There was a problem.
The settlement knew about two different dungeons here, and they knew what they were and how much danger they posed.
The beast dungeon.
And the undead dungeon.
Those are the only two dungeons that the town was aware of.
But what they didn't know was the fact that the third dungeon had been recently born, and it was the culprit behind the young adventurer's disappearance.
And currently, this dungeon will be soon seeing some major changes.
This third dungeon was somewhat…. "Helpless" and "weak", but the problem was that nobody knows yet about that said dungeon existence.
And right now? All of the adventures' gazes will be only focused on the undead dungeon, not realizing that another yet unknown threat is growing in secret.