Treants are plant-type monsters and among the toughest that any hunter can face.
Like orcs, they come in multiple variations depending on the Dryad that governs them.
They should have been ordinary monsters residing inside the dungeon, but now they roamed free, hunting down any survivor who had managed to escape the Dryad's poison.
"How many?" Rowan asked.
"I saw 4, but I already killed one," Kale said. His injuries had come from the treant he had fought alone.
Rowan gave him silent respect. Fighting a D-rank dungeon monster alone was the equivalent of fighting an E-rank dungeon boss. This man had fought like hell.
"Does anyone have a mask?" Rowan asked the children. "A handkerchief or any piece of cloth will do."
The students looked at each other. Some began pulling out masks they had kept since the pandemic. "Here, mister!" A girl near the front held up a box of masks.
"Good. Hand them out to everyone. Lee, can you still heal?" Rowan asked. Lee's face had gone from white to a flushed pink.
Mana was one of the hardest resources to measure and control given its otherworldly nature, but with enough will there was always a way.
"Maybe two more times," Lee answered, his words careful and measured.
"Alright, here is the plan. You and Kale watch our backs while I deal with the Treants. Find a way to escort the kids to the north blockade. The police and other hunters should have arrived by now." This was an emergency. While other hunters would be organizing a full subjugation, there should already be scouts in the area.
"You are going to fight three Treants? Alone?" Kale asked, his face tight with worry. It was not his own life he feared for. It was the children; they were barely halfway through high school. Even if they wanted to run, they would not be fast enough.
"We have 30 seconds. They are coming. Help the kids get their masks on and do as I say." Rowan did not bother arguing. His senses told him that the non-human life signatures were already on the stairs.
Time was running out.
Kale looked at Rowan and nodded. "Yes, sir!" He pushed himself up and helped distribute the masks, pulling one on himself as well. But they were still rushing when a child let out a sound that drew the monsters' attention.
Rowan snapped up and raised his shotgun.
"EVERYONE GET BACK!!"
The barricaded door exploded inward as a tree trunk swung through it, and a massive wooden creature forced its way through the frame. Its body was a mass of vines coiled together to form muscle, its bones made of thick timber, its joints of twisted branches.
Rowan took the full force of its punch and was sent flying toward the window. He caught himself, snapped back into position, and took aim.
[Soul Devourer]
The AA-20 let out a banshee scream. A piercing shriek tore through the building as the flaming rounds swarmed the Treant. Its body and soul ignited in blue flame and it withered away in a single shot.
"GO! GO! GO!" Rowan kicked the charred remains aside and held his ground as two more Treants came down the hall.
[Soul Devourer]
[Soul Devourer]
With enough soul to spare, he blasted them with burning flame that ignited both body and soul, cutting off their life force from both directions.
He could not afford to be conservative with plant types.
If the fire did not spread fast enough they would regrow. If it was not hot enough it would not even catch. And with the Dryad's vines covering every surface of the building, regeneration was inevitable unless he burned their souls completely.
This was the nature of a dungeon break. It was no longer a zero-sum game but a war of attrition. A race between human hunters running dry and the monster army doing the same.
And they were standing in the middle of ground zero with little advantage except the souls he had saved up.
The vines around the building began to shift. The Dryad had noticed his presence.
Flowers began to bloom across the hallway, releasing thick clouds of poison spores that filled the corridor.
"I can't see!" Several children cried out in panic. The masks kept the spores out of their lungs, but the spores still irritated their eyes and choked their vision.
Rowan took a hit too, but at his level it affected him far less than it would a grown adult, let alone a child.
"Form a train. Grab onto the person next to you and follow my voice!" Kale, a man who had spent his life as teacher, took charge. With Lee's help, he guided the children into a wobbling single file line, leading from the front.
"Follow me!" Rowan told Kale and took point to lead them down the stairs.
With each turn, more and more Treants began to appear.
[Soul Devourer]
[SP: 180]
They came from every angle, many forming blockades while others closed in from behind.
Fortunately, they were slow-moving creatures.
He had managed to get children to the street, but the monsters kept coming.
Rowan quickly mapped out their positions and fired only when a threat was immediate.
The problem was not his soul count. It was his fire rounds.
He only had two magazines since they had been freebies.
'I should have bought more!' He could one-shot each Treant, but he only had around 30 rounds.
As Treants flooded the street in greater numbers, the Dryad must have called the entire dungeon to her side.
And to make things worse, the Demi-Saplings still roaming the area came rushing in like a tide of zombies.
"Shit!" Rowan raised his gun at them but Kale grabbed his hand.
"Kill the Treants. I borrowed this!"
Despite his injuries, Kale moved faster than any ordinary human, let alone a Demi-Sapling.
He snatched the knife and broke away as the Demi-Saplings swarmed toward him.
But as the saying goes, you can never take the war out of a soldier.
'He's good.' Rowan watched clearly as Kale worked. He was no ordinary hunter. His knife work was precise, his movements efficient despite his injured body. He knew exactly which hits he could absorb, which he could not, and what it took to break free from a grapple.
But as more came, the Demi-Saplings quickly numbered in the hundreds, pouring in from every direction. Kale began to get overwhelmed.
"Let me help!" Lee poured his remaining reserves into healing Kale, but the effort made him black out for a moment.
Stopping in the middle of a horde was a death sentence. They would get swarmed in seconds.
"Grab him!" The children were not strong, but nearly 50 of them were there.
They surged forward and caught Lee, holding him up and carrying him between them.
With his movement restored by Lee's healing, Kale carved through the horde and cut a path open.
Rowan swapped to buckshot and opened up in full auto, shredding through the swarm in a rain of blood. He did not let himself think about the death. It was the living he was trying to save.
"GO! RUN!!"
Rowan stopped running and shoved the remaining kids toward the front as Kale shifted into the vanguard position.
Kale had already read exactly how capable Rowan was. He did not look back once, pushing forward with everything he had to clear the way ahead while Rowan held the horde behind them. As the last child broke through the wave and made it out, Rowan turned and stood alone.
The entire dungeon surrounded him.