Frost gave a quick look at where Luna and Leo were before focusing back on the Dungeon's entrance. Although the two of them were quite severely injured upon entering the Dungeon they seemed to have been reinvigorated by their sense of danger and had thus travelled quite far in.
"Hu hu hu" Leo was panting as he struggled to carry Luna on his back. The deep layers of snow only making his attempt to walk that much more difficult.
Boof!
Eventually he tripped and fell but luckily his landing was quite soft, so he didn't receive any new injuries.
"Leo!" Luna was filled with panic and worry as she screamed his name.
"I'm fine….hu…. j…just tripped." He attempted to regain his footing while keeping Luna on his back but failed. He couldn't straighten his legs.
"That's enough we need to rest Leo." Luna quickly dismounted his back and tried to help him up.
"But...."
"No buts, we can't continue. If we don't find somewhere to rest, we won't make it another hour let alone until help arrives." Luna put her foot down, menacingly glaring at Leo as he tried to argue. Leo couldn't utter another word under her gaze, gently nodding in agreement.
"Thanks to you carrying me on your back I've managed to regain some of my lost of energy. I'll quickly look around for some shelter while you wait here." Before Leo even had the chance to argue she left and with his current condition there was no way he could catch up to her, so he was stuck where he was.
So far, they hadn't encountered any monsters or really anything bar sheets of snow. Since the first moment they entered snow was already falling in thick endless waves and now a blizzard was starting up behind them.
'Guess we got lucky, if we came in 10 minutes later, we'd be stuck in the middle of that thing.' Leo counted his blessings as he witnessed the snowstorm growing in strength and size behind him.
Around 10 minutes later Luna returned with a smile on her face, she'd found a possible shelter. Hopefully after they rested, she would be able to cast a couple healing spells bringing them back to fighting condition.
Unfortunately, the bag with all their camping supplies and potions was lost in the earlier ambush and by the time they realised, it was too late.
Luna placed Leo's arm over her shoulder, supporting his weight as they moved towards the cave she found.
While Luna and Leo were fleeing through the winter highlands section as fast as they could the group of bandit underlings crossed the Dungeon's threshold and were met with a fairly strong blizzard, heavily obscuring their view.
"Shit! it'll be like finding a needle in a haystack with this god damned blizzard blocking our way." One of the larger bandits bellowed before turning to the others.
"Split up and search for those two brats, the first to find them gets first crack at the girl hahahaha!" The larger bandit laughed with an evil grin on his face before moving off in a direction by himself. Out of the group he was probably the strongest and was eagerly looking to become a deputy to Redhawk, so he moved quickly to earn some achievements.
The rest of the bandits gave a quick look at one another before splitting up. Most of them going alone but a few of the smarter or more cowardly ones grouped up in twos or threes.
The moment the bandits entered the Dungeon and split off into their own directions Frost began giving orders to all the monsters present within the first section. He arranged them into groups set to guard different areas of the Dungeon, hiding to the best of their abilities whenever they could.
The goblins took to these orders very easily, burying themselves within the snow or in the shadows of rocks completely vanishing from sight. With the addition of a blizzard, it'd be nearly impossible for them to be spotted by the reckless bandits. They'd be the prime fighting force in this battle.
The rest of his monsters prepared in their own ways, the winter boars and frost wolves just acted as usual because at their strength it didn't matter if they took precautions or not. Some of the artic foxes teamed up with the slimes and horned rabbits using baiting techniques. All in all, they were fully prepared to hunt these twenty or so bandits, and in fact each of the monsters were rather excited. Even the slimes were jiggling with joy when they received their orders.
"Perfect, everyone's in place, let the hunting begin." Frost announced the start of the hunt with a predatory smile.
He looked over the average strength of the bandit underlings as they crossed the threshold notifying his monsters of the slightly stronger ones but even then, there wasn't much to worry about.
Overall, the average daily DP income was about 15 per bandit and with twenty that'd be a resounding 3000DP in income once they were all killed.
With that much DP Frost could buy a goblin spawner or several new spells, further increasing the Dungeon's prowess.
After the adventurer guild's inspection party arrived Frost planned to visit Furano with Maya once things stabilised and with 3000DP to spend it made him feel much more reassured in leaving for several days.
While Frost was planning and giving orders Maya was in the kitchen preparing snacks for the big event. She was also quite excited humming a pleasant tune as she worked.
And so, with their orders received the hunting began.
First up was the larger bandit that broke off from the group first. He was armed rather pathetically just like his companions, wielding a crude iron axe and simple clothing for armour, offering little to no protection. He was the human equivalent of a goblin in Frost's eyes just uglier and more stupid, but of course he was slightly biased towards his own monsters finding even the frost goblins to be rather cute.
Strangely this bandit seemed to have a great amount of luck, he simply ran in one direction without any forethought or wariness, yet he managed to catch up to Luna and Leo in less than an hour.
The bandit was currently crouching down as he spotted a blood trail leading ahead. He used his fingers to dab the blood before bringing it to his tongue and tasting it. Frost and Maya's faces grew quite sickly at this sight.
"Hahahaha it's human, looks like I get first crack hahahaha." The bandit loudly roared in laughter before jumping up and running in the direction of the blood trail.
Even with the loud blizzard ongoing outside the bandit was near enough and loud enough to alert Luna and Leo who were currently resting in a nearby cave.
Unfortunately, less than an hour's rest wasn't enough time, they only managed to catch their breath and do some minor bandages on their wounds before they heard laughter in the distance.
"Damn it they've found us; we need to move." Leo quickly sat up and gathered his gear together before looking over at Luna with pity. Luna was currently sitting cross legged in meditation trying to refill her depleted mana as fast as possible. She almost had enough to cast one more healing spell, but the bandits wouldn't wait.
"Tch" Luna clicked her tongue as she gazed out of the cave in anger.
"All I needed was five more minutes, just another damn five minutes." A single healing spell wouldn't place them out of danger, but it would allow Leo to fight at about 60-70% strength, more than enough to deal with a couple bandit underlings.
"I know but we have to move." Leo sighed before assisting Luna in preparing. From the sound of laughter, the bandit wasn't more than a 100 metres away and would need less than 30 seconds to be on top of them. If it was only one bandit, Leo would bravely attempt to face him, but since they had no way of telling how many were out there their only option was to move before they were seen.
"Hahaha" the laughter suddenly got much louder and was now incredibly close.
"Shit! we're too late." Leo panicked; he moved in front of the cave entrance protecting Luna behind him. In the distance he could make out a large shadow quickly moving towards them. They'd been found.
The moment Leo saw the bandit, the bandit also saw him causing his hideous smile to grow even wider, his speed also increased. He was running at full sprint completely ignoring everything else around him.
Leo drew his sword ready to battle against the bandit, sweat poured down his face. His wounds still caused him severe pain whenever he moved, and the feeling of defeat began to fill his every fibre. Even if there was only one bandit, more would quickly follow. By the time he managed to kill this one, two or more would be attracted by the noise.
Leo clenched his jaw so hard his teeth groaned from the pressure, his eyes became bloodshot, and his body burned as he made his resolve.
However, once the bandit was 40 metres away, just when he could clearly see Leo standing in front covered in wounds the unthinkable happened.
The bandit so filled with bloodlust failed to notice a shift in the nearby snow; he walked right into a trap.
Suddenly two frost goblins pounced out from the snow catching the bandit completely by surprise. So, shocked he couldn't even react. The two goblins lunged at his legs slashing with their rusty daggers. They ripped open large gory wounds on the back of his knees causing him to scream in pain as he started to fall forward.
The sight of this caused Luna and Leo to be shocked speechless, they had no idea there were frost goblins so close to where they were hiding. A cold, piercing sweat flowed down their backs as they remembered how they walked past that same area not so long ago.
The attack of the frost goblins wasn't over yet, however as the bandit screamed in pain and as his head quickly lowered itself there was another shift in the snow, this time in front. In what seemed liked hours to those watching but was less than two seconds in reality. A third frost goblin rose up from the snow but unlike the other two he didn't lunge or jump he simply moved slightly to the left before rapidly slashing his dagger across the bandit's throat, quickly silencing his screams.
Silence, other than the sound of the bandit's body crashing into the snow there wasn't a sound. Luna and Leo were both in awe, their mouths agape as they witnessed what just happened. In just a matter of seconds three goblins quickly took down a large bandit without the slightest bit of difficulty, three slashes was all it took.
"Gulp" Leo subconsciously swallowed and placed his hands on his neck. The bandit was lying in the snow bleeding out dyeing the snow a dark red. His eyes were still open in disbelief as he lay there motionless.
The three frost goblins looked at one another before cleaning their daggers and vanishing into the snowstorm as if nothing happened. Leo for the first time in his life suddenly felt that goblins were quite cool as he watched them walk away all nonchalant.
"That was so…. Cool." Luna muttered under her breath, ignoring the fact that it was monsters, goblins who had saved them. Without their timely intervention the two youths would have had a tough fight on their hands, one which would have ended up attracting more attention their way even if they were victorious.
Luckily the goblins not only killed the bandit for them but did it quietly and swiftly thus preventing the other bandits from hearing anything.
Although Luna and Leo were in awe of the goblin's actions they still remained as still and quiet as possible to not draw any attention their way. If the goblins were strong enough to take out a bandit in an instant, he and Luna wouldn't last much longer so they remained silent, waiting for the goblins to completely disappear into the blizzard before releasing anything more than a fly's whisper.
"Phewww that was close." Only after the goblins were completely gone did Leo realise how tense his body was, instantly becoming weak and shaky once the adrenaline faded.
"Yeah… to think we'd be saved by goblins of all things." Luna wasn't much better off; her head was pounding, and her body felt as though it was encased in ice.
'In our adventuring career we've killed dozens of goblins yet now were we saved by some, how ironic.'