The Ruined Death Knight

"Die already! You monster!" One of the Explorers wielding a sword yelled as he dug his blade into the skull of the undead.

"G-Geaaah~"

Seeing the last of the undead falling motionlessly to the ground, he showed his sword to his side while falling to his knees to take a breath.

Such a sight was everywhere to be seen in the tower front gate.

Together with the corpses of the skull wolves who either had their heads cut off or their skulls blandly destroyed completely in the ground. There were Explorers who sat tired to the ground to catch their breath while all the others looked vigilant at their surroundings.

So that if they were any more undead to pop up from the ground, they will be ready to react unlike how they were a moment ago.

Herald who was the same, yelled at one of the Explorers to come to him.

"What is it, Herald?" The one asked.

"Tell me... How many of us died?"

Frowning for a second, the man sighed before taking a good look around him.

Though doing such a thing was annoying for him, the man was used in such a request.

"It seems Herald that... 6 of us had died on the undead assault, with some receiving minor injuries. If it wasn't for the priestess's light then we would even suffer much more.

Hearing that, Herald cursed internally.

"To think that 6 of us would actually die from that mere undead. We even knew that those things will be hiding into the ground and yet we still received casualties."

Though the 6 casualties were those of the 2nd-tier, it still pissed him off that the so-called veterans of the desert died from a mere undead such as those.

They foolishly rushed at their target head-on so that they could dig their fangs into their flesh. Not only did they make themselves predictable, but they also let them use their weakness against them, which were the skulls.

Though the many undead hats they were, a very large amount of them had a so-called core that if it wasn't destroyed, the undead wouldn't perish. They were some exceptions to that rule, for example being purifying an undead from his dead mana.

For undead skeletons and zombies, destroying their skulls would do the trick of stopping them from moving.

But even though all their enemy's mistakes, they still received casualties.

Mostly because compare to humans, does undead skull wolves were just much bigger than them.

And with a wall of 20 or so undead skull wolves rushing towards you, it was fairly difficult to stop them.

Without being able to move left and right as there would be more mouths to get a piece of you waiting. The Explorers could only face that undead head-on.

Most of them managed to overwhelm them with their pure strength simply being higher than the undead.

But the 6 of them who weren't getting caught up with the ending in the undead mouths.

If there really wasn't the priestess [Holy Light] spell making the undead hesitate to move forward, they would indeed be more casualties.

"Pathetic" Herald mumbles to himself.

"Hey! What are you all standing here for! What we fought were just the mere minions of the mastermind! If there is anyone scared to go with us after fighting those weaklings, then go! If you do though don't expect any treasures of the necromancer's tower!"

Looking at each other, the explorers firmed the grip of their weapons.

"Ha! As if we let you take the treasure for himself, Herald!"

"Do you believe that we are fools!?"

"Hahaha! Those who got stomach ache by the appetizer before the dessert then leave! Leave the true man handle this."

Seeing the mood getting better, Herald nodded in confirmation.

"And here I thought I was staring at a bunch of little girls! Everyone! By the end of the day, we will call those towers ours!"

Having finished taking care of the wounded and equipment, they moved forward and went inside the tower.

But once inside there were surprised to find not a single undead inside and only a weakly lighten room.

"Hey, bring out the torches!"

Upon Herald's command, the ones in the front started igniting their torches.

"Hmm...this seems like a lobby of some sort." One of the magic casters said while scanning the surroundings.

"As long as we don´t see any undead, we don´t care what this room is about. We move towards the next floor."

After making sure that they truly weren´t any undead hiding around or any treasures to find, they moved towards the next floor which without the light that came from the gate became much darker.

"Hey Sylva, can hear any of the undead?" Sean whispered to the beauty, this time with a serious tone.

"No, nothing that I catch on..."

"Priestess, can you give us some light?" Herald asked while staying wary.

"Mhmm, I can, but I got to remind you that I have a limited amount of mana to offer to the goddess."

Halting for a second, Herald nodded.

"Do it."

Raising her staff, she released the light that comfort the living.

"[Holy Light]"

With light illuminating the whole room, the explorers got relieved to see no undead waiting for them in the dark.

"Huh? This room is...similar." The young magic caster said to himself.

Catching on that, Isamu asked about it.

"What do you mean? What´s similar?"

"Well, this room slightly reminded me of our class back in the academy where they taught us the basics of magic." He said while talking to his fellow magic caster about it.

Going through the next floor, before the priestess was about to cast [Holy Light] once more, the magic caster stopped her.

"You already wasted enough of your mana. Let me handle this." 

Raising his staff with a bright red crystal in it, he started casting.

"O Flames, burn-in pierce my enemies in front of me!"

With flames gathering above his staff and forming a flame in a form of a lance, he shot it out in front of the group. Although only lighting the room for a split second of where the flame spear went, it was just enough for the group to see if they were any enemies or not.

"Quite the magic you got there, my friend." Herald said, while mentally noting to make connections with this magic caster.

While the other Explorers moved forward with nothing to worry about as they weren´t any enemies on this floor either.

The two magic caster frowned.

"Hey, isn´t this like the training grounds for the seniors?"

"This seems like to be the case..."

"But why would there be a classroom together with training grounds inside this tower?"

"I thought it was a magic tower by the first look, but now I getting the feeling that it´s more of a...academy?" 

"Huh? What are you talking about? Aren´t those massive towers in your kingdom the academy?" Sean asked,

"Do you really believe that hundreds of students could learn inside a tower?" The young magic caster scoffed at Sean.

Ignoring him, Sean looked at the other magic caster.

"Well, when you refer to a magic tower. They are considered the absolute domain of a magic caster. A place where the owner of the magic tower is at their strongest. But this tower could have been an academy in the past. After all, why would let people in inside your stronghold?"

"I see. Thanks for the info, Magic guy." Sean said, totally ignoring the other magic caster.

Making him annoying because of it.

Going up the next floor and finding a place where the magic caster was recognized as the alchemist grounds, the group of explorers soon arrived in the closed-up door that looked much stronger than the other one.

"Hmm, this door seems like it barely survived the test of time, huh? At least it isn´t closed completely." Herald said while pointing to two explorers to his side.

"Hey you two, go and open that door, it will take too long if we go one by one." 

Grumbling to each other they walked towards the door.

Pushing the door, the two frowned as the door seemed to be only to go that far in.

"Is it broken?" The one asked the other.

"Hmmm... doesn´t seem like it. I think something is blocking the door from the other side."

"Dammit...I should even complain of being chosen."

With every one of their party staring at them, they felt somewhat pressured to hurry.

Going through the door, with one of their hands holding the torch. Once the two came to the other side and lighten the area around the other side of the door, they found what was blocking it.

"Swords? Why are there swords pierced through the door?"

Though they both were confused about it, they didn´t think much of it and went out to reach the swords.

But before they were able, they heard a growling sound coming behind their back.

"What the-!" Freaking out, they pushed their torches towards the direction of the sound.

At first, the light of the torch didn´t illuminate in what was inside the darkness. 

But not much later, in where the light was, there was a much bigger claw together with two skulls of wolves releasing their killing intent to be seen.

"Gweaaagh!"

"Gweagggh!"

"Shit! This floor has those things too!"

Turning around to go to the other side, their eyes halted on a massive mouth being opened up above them, with them being in the middle of it.

"Huh?"

They were only able to see a glimpse of it.

An undead skull wolve twice the size of the other undead that they fought. Using his metal-like claws to stay stuck in the wall of the tower directly above the door.

Maybe they got too used not to see any undead on the past floors or maybe the torch's light wasn´t enough to lighten above their head.

"Wha-!?"

"No-!

Nonetheless, they could only stare as the massive mouth closed and cut their bodies in half!