Chapter 362 - Reasonable

The dungeon was located in a particular mountain a few miles away from Natasha's camp. However, even before the group could walk for half an hour, the number of encounters increased exponentially. There were many groves in the area, so the Cursed Eyes just wandered around there when they didn't try to destroy the camp.

"Oh, right… I have to make another crossbow and use Seal on those monsters," Ryan thought.

Ryan will have to leave that for another, but perhaps he won't even have the chance to make a crossbow since at least one soldier kept their eyes on Ryan. The only moment where he will have an opportunity to make a crossbow was when he takes a dump or something.

Regardless, Ryan confirmed his theory that most survivors chose the melee classes or the magic classes. From that group of twenty-seven survivors, only Ryan and Natasha used crossbows. No one else used bows or other throwable weapons.

"You are overly cautious with your skills," Femradiel said. "I used Appraisal on everyone here, and they can't cause any problems for us. Even I alone can kill them in a single moment."

"Let's not kill anyone without reason," Ryan thought. "I am more worried about information leaking, and I am not at the level where I can kill someone based on the possibility of them spreading information about my skills."

"You are truly naïve," Femradiel said and she seemed pretty unsatisfied.

"I would prefer to think that I am a man trying to be reasonable in an apocalyptic scenario," Ryan thought.

The human race already lost too many members of its species, and they certainly didn't need Ryan's help to walk at large steps toward extinction. Ryan didn't want to kill anyone unless they were a lost cause or they started the fight. His stealth style to fight had been made only to hunt monsters, not humans.

In any case, even though the terrain helped the Cursed Eyes, Ryan and Natasha managed to keep the monsters under control when they appeared in high numbers. Her crossbow couldn't slow down the monsters all that much, but she had an uncanny skill to cause critical hits. Even though Femradiel said that she was far weaker, Natasha's strength was far beyond her status represented. Even more than that, she wasn't afraid to join the frontlines to use Purification on her allies when they got hit by the Petrifying Gaze. She was indeed the core of the city's survivors, and it wasn't surprising that she was also the leader of the region.

Ryan had planned to take a look at the dungeon that day, but much to his disappointment, that never happened due to the frequent encounters. Things were looking really bad…

"When was the last time you guys approached the dungeon?" Ryan asked while frowning.

"Three months ago, before the first dungeon break," Natasha replied.

As expected, the situation was dire, and despite everything, the best Natasha and the people of the city managed to do was to hold their ground against the monsters. In the best-case scenario, they probably killed at least a good part of the Cursed Eyes that spawned in those four months, but only those that spawned regularly. There must be thousands of others that appeared when the dungeon breaks happened.

In the end, Ryan failed to think of any decent plant to take down that massive number of monsters. If they continue at that pace, they will only find the dungeon on the dungeon break day.

"Do you guys hunt at night here?" Ryan asked.

"No, that is suicide," Natasha frowned. "The visibility is terrible, and if we use flashlights, we will only become easy targets for the monsters."

"If you don't mind, I would like to ask to hunt at night. We won't make much progress if we keep fighting only during the day and while being so cautious," Ryan said.

Natasha considered the idea. Now that she could use Purification, perhaps it was time to take some risks. Besides, Natasha knew that the number of bosses increases by a lot with each dungeon break. If her calculations were correct, almost five hundred Medusas would appear in five days. With so many monsters at their side, it was only natural that they would try to destroy all the nearby camps and then create a small army of stone humans.

Since she was already planning a plan to evacuate a good number of the city residents, Natasha already recognized the impending doom of her camp. Still, the real problem was that the monsters would quickly spread all over the country. For now, the other tier three dungeons were under control, but if those creatures attack the survivors' camp by behind…

"I will try to recruit some soldiers to help us while hunting at night," Natasha said. "However, I don't think many will agree unless I decide to go. The more tired I get, the less effective I will be on the battlefield, so I will become a member of the support team and prevent casualties."

"That is only natural," Ryan nodded.

"I agreed with your idea. Now you will have to agree with mine," Natasha said, and that made Ryan frown. "Honestly, I can't believe that we can clear this dungeon in just five days, but if you are planning to do that, then we will offer you all our support. If you want that, then you will have to go all out as well."

It looks like Natasha noticed that Ryan still had some leeway while he was fighting. While that wasn't a bad thing per se, it wasn't a good thing either. It wasn't fair that he could hold back a little while everyone else was trying hard to survive. It looked like Ryan will have to use his two crossbows much sooner than he had planned.

"That is fine. I will do that," Ryan said and then took out his Pestilence Crossbow from his spatial ring.