Hazel and the rest of her team entered the lobby of the Hospital with their weapons drawn and ready for any attack. As the group moved further inside the lobby, they began to spread out and inspect the area to make sure that there were no enemies nearby.

While the other players scoured the lobby the old-fashioned way, Hazel used her Astral Eyes and sent them around the hospital. To save time, she sent an Astral Eye to each floor of the building to cover as much ground as possible.

While searching each floor with her Astral Eyes, Astrid snuck up on Hazel, slightly surprising her. Despite literally eyes everywhere, she still couldn't see everything, apparently. Which slightly irked her ego and confidence.

"So, see anything particularly useful in this place?" Astrid asked in a quiet tone.

Hazel shook her head. "Not yet. Though I should find something soon. Hopefully."

She then switched her vision, looking through her Astral Eye on the second floor of the hospital building. Aside from the floor being completely deprived of light and life, it was also a complete mess, no matter where Hazel looked. There were papers and other items scattered everywhere, along with patient beds in the middle of the halls or the center of the floor.

Other than that, it was completely barren. Well, aside from the few monsters lurking about in the rooms. Thanks to Hazel's Astral Eye, they couldn't see it floating around and alerting them. So, the creatures continued to roam about the first floor without a care in the world.

It wasn't just the first floor either. The other floors that her Astral Eyes were scouring were also infested with them. They were mostly humanoid types like monster rats, dire wolves, and even slime.

Hazel had never fought a slime before. Not even in the Fractured Dungeon. However, that was mostly because of how unstable the dungeon was. Which was why the creatures she fought were more or less on the brink of collapse. Most of them still put up a good fight. She couldn't forget her battles against the Classed Fractured humans or Orcs and flying monkeys that nearly killed her.

Thankfully, these creatures were rather low-level. None of the ones she spotted were past level ten or even fifteen. Which basically meant that they weren't worth Hazel's attention. Maybe the low-level players in her team could make use of them?

"There seem to be monsters on the other floors," Hazel informed Astrid. "They're pretty weak, so let the low-level players deal with them. Think of it like a training exercise of sorts."

"I'm pretty sure that they had plenty of that during the spider horde battle," The dark elf noted.

"Regardless, these monsters were pointless to us since their levels were too low. And I'd rather not waste my time with them when the other members of our group could benefit from them. Unless you wish to take the little XP they would provide for you."

Astrid gave Hazel a brief scowl before letting out a sigh. "Fair point. Though I don't have much of a desire to level up after everything that happened with the spider horde."

Hazel scoffed. "Speaking for yourself. After killing the spider queen, I now have a new goal."

"Oh yeah, that Arcane Heart reward you got. What level did it say you needed to be to actually use it?"

"Level fifty, I'm afraid," She answered while groaning. "It's not going to be easy since I need to level up fourteen more times. And right now, I have no idea how to reach that level as fast as possible."

Hazel was able to level up around ten times or so in the span of four or five days because she was fighting hordes of monsters and several enemies that were at least five to six levels higher than her. Then there was the Queen, whom she took down on her own, which was Level fifty-five. It was no surprise that she was able to level up so much in that short amount of time.

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Sadly, that was no longer the case now. The queen was dead, and the horde of spiders was all slaughtered in the last battle. Which meant Hazel couldn't use them as XP farming material. So, in conclusion, she was in a bit of a pickle now.

"Hmm...?" Hazel muttered after noticing something.

"What's up?"

"Something is happening on the fifth floor of the hospital..."

Through one of her Astral Eyes that was currently investigating the fifth floor, Hazel noticed a rather peculiar scene. There appeared to be a fight happening. At first, she figured that it was just some monsters fighting one another, but after taking a look, it was something else.

Rather than a battle between monsters...it was a battle between players. Human players, at that.

There were around five players...and two of them were going up against the other three.

"The hell are you doing, Simon?" One of the players growled, questioning one of their companions' motives.

The player named Simon, who had round glasses, black hair that was tied into a ponytail, and wore a purple mage outfit, backed away cautiously as the other player brandished his sword and pointed it at him.

"No need to get hostile, Nick," Simon said in a calm, yet somehow douchy voice. To put it simply, he sounded like one of those intellectual assholes that believe that they were smarter than everyone around them.

"No need?" Nick snarled, clearly offended by Simon's words. "You brought us here because you believed that this place contained a dungeon, or that the hospital was a dungeon, and yet here you are, backstabbing us!"

He aggressively took a step forward, forcing Simon to take a step back to maintain a certain distance. Though Hazel could tell that he didn't have a lot of space left if he continued. A couple more steps and he would soon have his back against the wall, with no way to walk out of the situation he clearly put himself in.

"To be fair, backstabbing would entail that I was once part of your group but then betrayed you after the fact."

"Is that not what this was?!"

"Well, technically speaking, I never considered myself part of your little group. Same goes for the Guild, really."

"You slimy-!"

Just before Nick could charge at Simon, the glass-wearing mage quickly raised his wooden, gnarled staff at his former companion, if they ever were one, at least. Nick quickly stopped in his tracks, hesitant to approach the mage now.

"Easy, now, Nick," Simon warned. "I'd rather not risk casting my little spell in such an enclosed area. Well, at least not until I'm at a rather safe distance before casting it on you guys."

"You piece of shit...!"

Simon shrugged. "I won't deny it, but even you must understand that this is merely...business, really."

"Business...?" Another player spoke up, sounding offended. "You mean luring us here in this abandoned hospital under the pretext that a dungeon was located here, only to kill us in the end? Can you really call that a business?"

"Under these current circumstances? Yes, basically. At least to my Guild Master. My real Guild Master, anyway."

"Wow, this is getting juicy," Hazel muttered while watching the entire scene unfold with a smile. "I wish I had some popcorn."

"What are you on about now?" Astrid questioned, immediately bringing Hazel out of her astral eye vision.

She looked over at her partner with a nervous grin, realizing that she had forgotten her surroundings due to how absorbed she was in what was happening on the fifth floor.

"Sorry, I got distracted," She coughed to clear her throat. "More importantly, we have a bit of a situation happening on the fifth floor."

Astrid arched a brow curiously. "What kind of situation are we talking about?"

"There's a human party on the fifth floor, and from what I just saw, one of the members set them up to die."

"Wait, seriously?!" Kane blurted out, immediately getting invested in the news. "You said this was happening on the fifth floor?"

Hazel nodded. "That's right."

"Then let's get moving and see what's going on!"

The brawler didn't even wait and immediately bolted for the stairs. John and Chegyaeyi stood there for a moment, still taking a moment to process the information Hazel had just told them. Then, after seeing Kane run off, they followed behind with the rest of the players. It was clear that Kane was likely going to cause trouble or get into trouble, so the other two were going after him to at least mitigate the chaos that was about to ensue.

As for Astrid and Hazel, they stayed behind. Hazel stayed behind because she wanted to know more about the situation before charging in. And Astrid, well, she wasn't really interested in the affairs of humans. Even when betrayal, the very thing she experienced firsthand, was involved.

Instead of saying anything, Hazel simply switched her visions back to the Astral Eye on the fifth floor, so she could continue seeing the action unfold. All the while, she wished that she had popcorn to eat while watching. She then made a mental note to store snacks in her bracelet for occasions like these. You never know when you would stumble across such a scene, such as what she was currently looking at through her Astral Eye.

One thing was for sure, though. There was more to this story than meets the eye, and Hazel wanted to see how it would end.

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