The Rise Of A Porter

"Mr Long has told us to keep him 'alive'. But he didn't refrain us from torturing him, did he now?" The leader of the merc group, Jin Rong, smirked as he once again plunged his sword deep within his prey's knees, "Since Boss Long will get to have fun with your bombshell of a sister, so it's only fair that we get to have some fun as well. Don't worry, our sense of having fun is different than what Boss Zing has."

Jin was a very creepy looking guy. That was the only way to describe him. He had a wide face, a hooked nose, very thin lips, and had greedy dark brown eyes. He also had a large scar on his neck which he never failed to tell the story about. The stories kept changing according to the crowd he was narrating the story to, but the most common tale mentioned how an ogre sneaked up on him and stabbed him in the neck.

However, this was far from true. Because for starters, if an ogre sneaked attack anyone especially on their neck, no matter how weak the attack ended up being, it would do more damage than just grazing the skin. Moreover, Ogres were proud monsters. They never sneaked up on their target but always faced them head-on.

Not to mention, there was not a single ogre in the dungeon Jin had gotten the scar from. It was a dungeon filled with goblins and that was about it. It was a basic dungeon, now which had a low-tier Hobgoblin as its boss. But the funny thing was, even the goblins were too much for him to handle back then and had to be taken care of by the team he had been a member of in his early days as a warrior.

Jin was just clumsy and that's how he got the scar. While he was collecting fallen loot, he slipped and fell on a goblin carcass. Unluckily, the dead goblin was still holding onto its stone dagger which grazed through his neck leaving the scar on his neck. It was so embarrassing that he had to pay a huge amount of money to the people who went in the dungeon with him in order to keep their mouths shut about the incident. 

Ever since then Jin had been boasting about how he managed to fend off an ogre or dragon newt or even an ice golem, in his vulnerable state. Sadly, people were foolish enough to readily accepted his explanation without a shred of doubt. 

The woman's son, Bai Tao, was one such individual who believed in Jin's false tales and was dragged into the dungeon with them without proper gears. Bai Tao was a brawler who started learning martial arts from a very young age. But never got to implement his learned skills.

Under normal circumstances, he was more than capable of defending himself. But these basta*ds had drugged him, rendering him motionless and without his gears, he couldn't do much. Right now, he was their toy. It had been an hour since he was drugged and since then, the six bandits had already stabbed him more than a dozen times.

But the bandits were skilful and knew exactly what they were doing. They had stabbed him a dozen times but not once did they caused any vital injury to him. The drug just made Bai Tao lose his ability to move, but he could still feel the pain caused by the stabs.

Bai Tao had been tied to a tree trunk. The bandits had already cleared the dungeon apart from the dungeon boss. Numerous elf corpses were scattered around the floor. Their precious blood oozed out of their body, mixing with Bai Tao's blood. 

'It's hopeless...' Bai Tao thought to himself, 'I should have listened to what mother was trying to tell me. I thought I could easily make money from being a warrior and this is where it ended up bringing me.'

"Hey, Jin. This basta*d isn't reacting to being stabbed anymore... and it's no fun if he doesn't scream you know." Ming, Jin's right-hand man, repeatedly stabbed him but after Bai Tao had resigned to his fate he didn't care about the pain anymore.

"Huh... is that so? Then I guess it's time to change our methods. Luó! Get the acid!" Jin's voice echoed through the empty dungeon.

The group's porter, 5'4" tall, fair-skinned man, Luó Liang quickly took out half a dozen vials from his backpack and handed each of them a vial. Jin broke the sealed vial the reveal the foul-smelling liquid viridian coloured liquid inside.

Bai Tao's eyes opened wide in terror. He immediately recognised what the liquid was. It was Arachanid's acid. It was among one of the most corrosive acids to ever been found within a monster. Just one drop of the liquid was enough to bore a hole into the thickest surfaces. No matter whether it was steel or diamond, nothing stood a chance against the acid. As a result, this acid was used by the warriors to take care of heavily armoured enemies.

"Let's see whether you scream now or not..." Jin's ears eagerly waited to hear Bai Tao's incoherent screams.

His hands were shaking from the excitement of seeing Bai Tao beg for his life. At that moment, Jin had completely forgotten about what Zing had told them to do. All they cared about was to see Bai Tao struggle in pain as they slowly poured the acid over him.

"Kids shouldn't play with Arachnid's acid. Didn't your mothers teach you that?" In their excitement to torture Bai Tao, they failed to notice that an unknown person had joined them.

The bandits quickly turned around, only to be knocked out before they could even react against the intruder. Everyone except Jin and Bai Tao was on the floor. 

"Looks like I went overboard yet again... *sigh*. I need to get used to this strength as soon as possible..." The man with a prosthetic arm mumbled before crushing Luó's hand along with the acidic vial, "Now, what should I do with you?"

Arnold threateningly took a step towards Jin, while leaking his hidden aura. Jin was petrified with fear. Just who was this man? And why was he doing this to them? But before he could muster the courage to ask these questions to him, Arnold ignored him and walked over to Bai Tao, setting him free.

"Can you walk?" Arnold asked Bai Tao in Mandarin. 

Bai Tao's body was still numb but he managed to shake his head in reply.

"You can't? Oh well." Arnold quickly summoned Alice who immediately began treating the poor man.

"W-What do your think you're doing by i-interfering in p-private matters." Jin finally mustered the courage to speak, "We have bought the rights to this dungeon. And if you don't leave n-now, we'll have to take strict-"

"shhh." Arnold put a finger on his lips before getting back up, "Since you bought this dungeon, that means you can clear it right?"

"What are you even-"

"Just answer the dam* question."

"Yes, but-"

"Very well then."

After saying that, Arnold grabbed Jin by his collar and dragged him into the boss room before throwing him inside and locking the room. After that, he dragged the rest of the bandits and threw them inside as well. 

"What... is... he... doing... they were... Yu Zhung's men..." Bai Tao mumbled in mandarin but Alice couldn't understand him so she gestured for him to stay quiet in hopes that he would not piss off Arnold.