Derrick wasn't having a good day, not by a long shot. He was a member of the Raiders Guild and he was in charge of their forces at the ant hill. For the past few months he managed their guilds presence in the area and it was a crappy job for the most part. He would occasionally get new people to join their guild that came to the area since most people that were willing to put up with the insect ridden place for grinding were usually people that were on the verge of being strong enough to get in a guild, but not quite there. It made it easy for him to get new members who honestly could have done better if they had trained a bit more to get in one of the bigger guilds, but the experience boost and promise of help was often too tempting for these tired souls to turn down.
Thus he was able to grow a rather strong force in the area over the months he had worked there and gained several new members that would go on to help the guild in other places once they grew strong enough to leave the place. Derrick himself was already strong enough to move on since he was already level thirty-eight, but he stuck around for one reason and one reason only. He wanted to clear the dungeon of the ant hill. It wasn't that it was anything special, but his guild had yet to clear very many dungeons for themselves and thus they didn't have places with bonus experience so they could train their new members. They had a couple of dungeons, but the really well to do guilds had several. The World Government Guild had even more than that and they were stuck with two dungeons to support their entire guild. Of course there were some guilds that were worse off, but their boss wanted to make it big, so they were under great pressure to push themselves forward.
In the end Derrick wanted this dungeon so that he could move up in the guild. The last person in the guild that had found and cleared a dungeon for their boss had become his right hand man moving forward. The boss himself had even cleared a small town and dungeon so that the guild would have a residence on earth where they could gather up. If derrick could clear this dungeon then he would have it made from this point on. He'd be put on the fast track in the guild and get extra training along with all the best equipment so that he could fight beside the boss and the other few elites in the Raider's Guild. All in all it was a dream that he was running out of time in claiming. Once he reached level forty the guild would switch him out with someone else to look over the area and he would be forced to move on and become a small fish in a tougher place.
So for the past few months Derrick had spent all of his time figuring out several ways to find the dungeon in the ant hill along with recruiting more people to help when he eventually figured out where the dungeon was. Sadly there were several problems with his plan. First and for most being the fact that the place itself was like and endless maze that could send a tidal wave of ants at you at any moment. Sure the ants were great for experience when they flooded outside of the mountain and he had plenty of fun killing them and stealing kills from other groups alongside the rest of his raider members, but whenever that happened while they were inside the mountain it could spell death for them.
The second problem was the reputation their group had gotten over the time they had spent hunting in the area. Stealing other people's kills was great and all when they had the larger numbers and the other groups couldn't do anything about it, but lately that had started to change do to one person. The overbearing knight Robert was the issue. The guy was good at his job and was only one level lower than Derrick. In a fight Derrick might have had an upper hand one on one, but the likely hood of that happening was minuscule. Robert had been the one to gather several groups together to kill off tides of ants whenever they became a problem and he was quickly starting to become a leader of sorts to all the experienced groups that weren't under the flag of the Raider's Guild.
This made it harder and harder for Derrick and the rest of the raider's members to kill steal with the other groups working together more often and it even made it harder to recruit more members since the newbies in the area would often go to Robert for advice or help instead of Derrick now. Although Robert probably wasn't there for the dungeon since the tides of ants were more than enough experience to level up at a decent pace he still got in the way by keeping a constant eye on Raider's Guild members along with the rest of his group. It was a great annoyance and often caused fighting which created more ant waves. This in the end always put Derrick back to square one at the end of the day.
Today was finally different though. This time around early in the morning Derrick was woken up by one of his members screaming to get his attention. It was a scrawny newbie that he couldn't remember the name of and the annoying brat urged him to come and see some new pair of people that had just came into the area. If the newbie wasn't bringing him for something important he'd make sure to punish him later, but for the moment he put his jacket on and came out of his tent to see something like he had never seen before.
Standing not too far away from his camp were a pair of people that immediately drew his attention towards them, but it wasn't because of them their selves. It was the giant towering spider they had following and the large turtle that soon followed right behind it. The spider was as big as any boss monster that he had ever seen and it looked far more ferocious. Even from a distance Derrick could feel the threat the large beast gave off and the heat that emitted from its body in small waves. The turtle looked just as threatening with how large its jaw was and how devastating its bites would be. The two enormous creatures were clearly following the pair of newbies to the area and the large spider was scarring off anyone that tried to approach them.
After inspecting the two creatures he turned his eyes back towards the pair of people that were strong enough to tame the two beast. He first looked at the small girl that was clearly petting the large spider to get it to calm down. If there was any term that Derrick could use to describe her it would be pure or kind if he was being nice, but gullible and easy to manipulate were what came to his mind first given the way he handled things. She was fairly cute, but that wasn't what he took notice of most. He noticed the staff she had strapped across her back and knew she must be a healer or mage of some kind so he turned his attention to the other person that stood next to her.
The man that stood out like a bright light in a dark room towered over everyone in the area. Even Robert who was well over six foot looked short in comparison. He was built with muscles that his leather armor and scarf couldn't hide in the slightest and he had a somewhat rugged appearance with a beard that hadn't been trimmed in a week or so along with hair that was kept short on his head. When he looked towards the giants eyes he felt like he was looking at a predator, it was like he was watching a giant wolf that could tear into him at any moment and when he saw the man smile at seeing the ant hill a chill went up his spine. This person was definitely not someone he wanted to try his luck against. It was in that moment a loud sound came from the ant hill and Derrick knew exactly what that meant. There was going to be another tide of ants coming their way and he rounded up all his members to be prepared before it got there.
By the time they were all prepared for the oncoming onslaught Derrick was out in front of his group that was off to the side from the rest of the people in the area. Many of the people grouped to fight alongside Robert and all of the knights formed a line to take on the wave of ants with everyone else preparing to attack in their own ways. Derrick turned to look towards the new comer with the tamed beast and was surprised at the excited expression on his face. Most new comers were scared the first time they saw a wave of ants come out of the ant hill and he could see several such people all over the place, but this guy seemed to want to dive right in.
Soon the ants poured out and the battle started. For a while Derrick and his group just attacked from a distance and particularly targeted ants that were on the verge of dying so that they would get all the experience. This annoyed people, but for the moment taking care of the wave was the priority and that's when he saw the giant man take action. He charged forward into the fray of ants and was one shoting them with his scale blade left and right. As long as he got a good angle he would chop off their heads while avoiding another ones attack. His partner wasn't too bad herself as she shot large fireballs into the crowds of ants and burnt them alive. He noticed her hair color had changed when she started casting spells, but several people had odd soul beast so he didn't really think much on it.
The entire feeling of the battle changed though when the large spider grew in size to the point where it towered over the ants as it leaped over the knights and started putting on a show. Its webbing and fire magic made quick work of the rest of the ants and it quickly overwhelmed them to the point where they started to flee back to the ant hill in panic. Of course the spider caught a few of them, but for the most part the remnants of the ants disappeared back into the mountain. Most people looked on this sight in absolute shock and fear. Derrick was definitely one of them, he knew that if he ever had to face such a beast he would be torn apart easily. It was too fast for him to be able to escape and he wouldn't be able to hold up against such powerful attacks for very long. It would take his entire group to take that beast down and even then he wasn't sure. The frightening thought was what if the large turtle could grow in size as well.
Derrick noticed Robert walk over to the large man and start talking with him. Apparently Robert was explaining things and he was sure that the annoying knight was probably telling them about his group along with other stuff to watch out for in the ant hill. Soon the two split apart and the large man along with his little partner made their way inside the ant hill and Derrick could see several people let out a sigh of relief at the fact that they were gone. For a moment Derrick felt the same way, but then he started to think. Why on earth would such a powerful pair of people be here? He couldn't see their level so he couldn't tell just how strong they were, but based off of how well they fought they were probably higher level than him.
That's when a horrible thought started to plant itself in Derricks mind. What if they were there to claim the dungeon? What if they took the dungeon away from him? That single line of thinking made him angry. All the time and effort he had put into this place would be useless if that were the case. He wasn't going to let that happen. There was no way he would let everything he'd worked for go to waste. That's when a smile formed on his face. He walked over to Robert and his group and saw the knight grow tense at his approach along with the rest of his group. Derrick stopped in front of him with his hands held up to show he didn't mean any harm. "I've got a proposition for ya." He said with a smirk.