Broken

Chapter 52

I sat against a lumpy cave wall between Carson and Nick as we watched Argus play around with a kobold roughly the same size as himself. It was hard to believe that, just a few short months ago, I would have died to such a creature. Now I was relaxing in a boss chamber like I was at the local playground.

"Ha ha! You can do better than that!" cackled Argus, his red hair the brightest thing in the low light of the boss chamber. 

The kobold's minions had been wiped out already, and now the berserker- bored with the instance so far- was toying with the kobold commander. It was easily over six feet tall with a hunched and light-deprived body, beady eyes, and too-long arms. It's face was vaguely human, except it's mouth and nose stuck out like a muzzle, and its teeth were uneven and huge.

kobolds were craftier than goblins, but they weren't as sturdy. For Argus it was like swatting flies.

It was surprising to think that I might have been able to solo this instance myself now. It wouldn't have been as effortless as how Argus made it seem, but I still could have managed. So one might ask why it took us a week to get into this instance. The answer? Red tape.

Its law that you can't enter a dungeon without at least 10 raiders. Having that many of our guild in a zero-star instance would have been a huge waste of guild man power, especially given that our guild didn't hire anyone below three-start, outside non-combatants.

Plus, most- if not all- lower tiered instances were run by the Raider's Association, and then auctioned off to low level strike teams. Carson had to go and fill out a bunch of non-sensical paperwork to get us here. And, because were were only taking four guild members- no matter how strong those members were- the Association also stated that they had to send out a representative to accompany us.

We all knew that this was likely an excuse for the Raider's Association to get a read on my skills and potential. It was why the strawberry-blonde agent, Warren Trench, was here with us. He was currently standing off to the side, watching Argus with a disinterested gaze. If he had been wanting to see what I could do, then he had been greatly disappointed so far. All I had done was follow leisurely along at the back of the group.

I, on the other hand, wasted no time getting to know him better. Not the normal way, of course, but by using <Honesty>. I didn't use it last time I had seen the man, but didn't even hesitate this time around, summoning up the skill the second the suit wearing man stepped out of his company car outside the instance.

[Name: Warren Trench (Divine of Loyalty)

Attribute: N/A

Level: 100

Mental State: Vigilant

<The level of the skill <Honesty> is not high enough to read the target>

<The level of the skill <Honesty> is not high enough to use -Lie Detection- on the target.>]

To say that I was shocked to learn that Agent Trench had been a Divine this whole time would be an understatement. I wasted no time whispering my find to Carson, who also seemed surprised by the news.

I had to admit that the names of the Divine Higher Powers sounded far nicer than the Depraved... but a Higher Power was a Higher Power as far as I was concerned, and I doubted they were really any better in the end. Though, being called a 'Divine of Loyalty' did make the man himself sound trustworthy, even though there was no proof of that being the case.

"Come on Argus." Carson sighed, getting annoyed with his berserker's tom-foolery. "Lets wrap it up, yeah."

"Alright, alright." The other man laughed. He locked his fingers together, brought his conjoined fists up over his head, then brought them slamming down onto the monster's head. The kobold splattered like a damn water balloon, with even the ground under them cracking.