The Shadow Catacombs
I'm glad that I could get out of that camp before the arrival of Bell's party. Since Hestia and Miach Familias are allies, I would be inclined to help them. I don't have any problem with that, my concern is what comes after.
This is the part where Hermes starts to get involved. Hermes is one of the people that I never want to be involved with. Manipulation from the shadows isn't his worst characteristic, it's his unpredictability. Following Zeus's orders and having fun are his only motives. But having fun isn't a clear motive. Fun things today may not be fun tomorrow.
With his motive being fun, I have no way to know how to stay away from his attention and no way of predicting his actions.
Anyway, I just have to stay away from people like him until I'm strong enough.
Speaking of strength, what happened earlier today still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't like being pushed around by Tiona like that. Maybe between friends, I'd let it happen and laugh as it happens.
But this is different. I didn't want to go, and I couldn't put up any resistance at all. The power gap between me and Tiona was too big.
I always thought that If I got into a fight I can't win, I'd have a fleeing chance by using my (almost immortal) soldiers as a shield. But in front of Tiona's raw strength, I think it would be a shield made of paper. She would swat them away like insects.
Let's analyze it realistically. My soldiers are all as strong as average Level-2 (third-class) adventurers, except for Gold and the two Elite soldiers. Gold is as strong as veteran Level-2, and the Elite soldiers at the level of rookie level-2 adventurers.
As for me, my basic stats are at the highest point a Level-2 can reach. Adding in my various skills and abilities, I'd be in the realm of Level-3 (second-class). If I pushed my skill Fighting Spirit (the effect of the title: Transcendent of Predecessors) by getting several injuries, I might be able to beat any Level-3 adventurer.
But the one who pushed me was Level-5, a first-class adventurer. That's a whole new class. Moreover, a few days from now, she'll get her status updated and be announced as a Level-6. It's a given that I won't be able to put any resistance against her. Still, I don't like it. I want to get stronger.
I can just immerse myself in grinding levels by killing monsters. It would take some time, but I'll surely come out ridiculously strong.
But that would be gaining a few levels in a matter of months. In this world, it would be a huge pain in my ass to deal with all the heat that will follow.
The sheer interest of the gods, the jealousy of other adventurers, and the ill-intentions of some gods. Hell, I just made some money and Dian Cecht sent his lackeys to get me.
Increasing Stats in a short time would be problematic for me. I want to get stronger by doing something other than increasing my stats. Increasing the levels of my skills and increasing my control over them would be my choice.
---
I enter the Shadow Catacombs, take the soldiers waiting in the graveyard for me, and open the gate to the only building there using the key.
[Keeper's Key
Used to open the gate of the Shadow Catacombs.]
Inside, it looks like an ancient tomb. Narrow corridors, walls filled with coffins lined side by side, and an eerie atmosphere caused by the scarcity of light sources.
Ring~
[You have received a new quest!]
[Cleanse the Shadow Catacombs:
Different types of Undead are everywhere within the Shadow Catacombs. Kill the Undead and cleanse Shadow Catacombs from their evil presence to receive special rewards.
Quest generation condition: - Entering the Shadow Catacombs.
Quest clearing condition: - Kill all the Undead present in the Shadow Catacombs.
Rewards: 1- Highest-grade Rune Stone.
2- One Item from the Store (Choose the Item of your desire).
3- Bonus Stat points +50.
4- Unknown reward.]
"All the undead?" I have to kill every monster in this dungeon to receive the rewards. But oh, boy! The rewards are awesome.
Fifty Stat points reward is the equivalent of leveling up ten times.
An item of my choice, Finally!
For a while now, I have had enough gold to buy any decent item I want from the Store. But when it comes to decent items, I can buy them from shops scattered around Orario.
What I want from the Store are the exquisite S-rank items. They are equal to the 'Divine Artifacts' made by the gods. I won't find any of those in Orario as the gods have sealed their divine powers "Arcanum" when they descended to the Lower World.
Prices for S-rank items in the shop range from billions to tens of billions of gold. To buy them, I still have a long way to go. But with this reward, I can choose one of the most expensive items in the Store.
"Ok so, what does this highest-grade Rune Stone do?" I check the details of the first reward.
Ring~
[Highest-grade Rune Stone: Ruler's Domain.
By breaking this highest-grade Rune Stone, you can learn a new Class-specific Skill.]
"Tsk, I expected something that allows teleporting like 'Shadow Exchange'". It would save me a lot of time traveling through the Upper Floors of the dungeon.
The skill I'll get is called 'Ruler's Domain'. If it has the same effect as 'Monarch's Domain', then it would buff my soldiers' Stats when they're near me.
Anyway, about the unknown reward… If it's something like the 'Holy water of life' that Jinwoo got, it would be worthless in this world.
They have an item here called 'Elixir', it's a potion that can cure everything. It's very expensive and the price can reach half a million vals but it's there.
So, I doubt I would receive it as a reward. I can only hope that the reward will grant me something unique and useful.
[Experience points needed for the next level-up: 45,000.]
"I get an experience meter inside this dungeon?... Nice!"
----
Moving forward, I find three humanoid monsters lurking around. Equipped with rusty armor and weapons, they stand over 2 meters tall. They look like zombies but firmer and more decayed. It seems that all their skin has fallen off, the muscles of their bodies are only covered with armor.
"You remind me of Draugr, only grosser."
They have a dark red name floating above their heads, [Undead Soldier]. Alright, let's see how strong you are.
I charge at them alone to assess their strength. Once they see me, they brandish their weapons and attack. I exchange a few blows with them, evade a few attacks, and throw some attacks and feints.
The final verdict is, they are dumb but fast, strong, and resilient. A good target to practice my skills on.
[You defeated an Undead Soldier.]
[You have earned 100 experience points.]
[You have earned 200,000 gold.]
[You have found a Rusty Helmet]
[You defeated an Undead Soldier.]
[You have earned 100 experience points.]
[You have earned 200,000 gold.]
[You defeated an Undead Soldier.]
[You have earned 100 experience points.]
[You have earned 200,000 gold.]
[You have Found an Old Hammer.]
"Woah… 200,000 and equipment? This is a goldmine!"
---
After twelve hours of killing Undead Soldier all over the corridors of this instant dungeon, I have leveled up twice and my soldiers are leveling up too.
I can't sense any more monsters in the vicinity…
[You have cleansed the first floor of the Shadow Catacombs. An entrance to the second floor will be created.]
The ground begins to shake, and the floor tiles in front of me start to get separated. Before long, an opening with stairs leading underground is formed in the ground.
So, I go down…
---
I spend days after days training my control over my skills. I start with 'Brilliant Light' magic. I hunt through five floors of catacombs using only magic. Attack, defense, and support during short-range brawls, mid-range fights, and long-range sniping… you name it.
I used nothing but magic. It was pretty hard at first, I never used magic to defend against powerful ranged attacks before. I also never thought to use magic in close quarters.
And once I get used to it and fighting using magic only became a routine, I change the style.
I fight using the Ruler's Hand only. Jinwoo only used it as a brute force to smash and grab enemies (and car keys). But I think it can be used for so much more than that. I use it to hold my sword and fight with my hand in my pockets. It's like an alive flying sword.
After getting used to it, I hold another sword in my hand and fight with both of them simultaneously. I'm fighting normally with one sword while the other is hovering around me protecting my blind spots and attacking enemies beyond my reach.
I found out that it's way harder than carrying the two swords, one in each hand. Maybe it's because I use my Sense Stat, not my eyes, to figure out where to direct the sword. It took some time, but I mastered it after all.
Of course, the Ruler's Hand skill leveled-up during the training. Unfortunately, I can't level-up the Bloodlust skill here since it doesn't affect the undead for some reason.
The two Elite-grade soldiers finally get upgraded to Knight-grade. I assign their names, Hercules and Karna. The fire-spitting Hellhound is 'Karna' and the Minotaur is 'Hercules'.
…
After the tenth floor, stronger types of undead monsters began to appear;
Death Knights (The stronger version of Undead Soldier. They're usually accompanied by a dozen of Undead Soldier subordinates.),
Ghouls (Large crawling monsters. They're slow but very strong and very resilient. Always coming in groups.),
Wraiths (Ghost-like monsters that can't be affected by physical attacks. They use large-scale magic for attack and defense. They're usually accompanied by a mixture of Undead Soldiers, Death Knights, and Ghoul subordinates.),
and Vampires (They are very fast and can use blood magic 'which is very annoying as it sucks the health and mana of foes and friends alike'. They're usually accompanied by an army of Undead Soldiers, Death Knights, Ghouls, and Wraiths as subordinates).
---
Thirtieth floor down in the catacombs, I step into the last room followed by my soldiers.
In the back of the room, stands a Vampire. Floating beside him, are two Wraiths carrying their staffs. In front of them, stands an army comprised of three-dozen undead monsters of different types.
"Gold and I will take the three in the back… I'll leave the minions to the rest of you."
After this, the battle commences with two large Fireballs thrown by Fenrir and Karna. The Fireballs land in between the three commanders in the back and the minions in the front.
The attack itself doesn't do much damage, but the explosion in the middle separates the two groups and creates some distance between them.
Gold and I use this opportunity to bypass the minions and charge at the boss and his two lackeys.
A Wraith reacts and erects a dome-like shield around them to prevent us from approaching. I stop in place while Gold punches the shield and shatters it quite easily.
I spring forward and swing my sword at the Vampire. Since Vampires are faster than me, he avoids my swing quite easily. But I knew that would happen, so the vampire finds another sword flying towards his neck.
He is still fast enough to punch it away and to quickly turn around to fend me off his back. He receives my sword with his right forearm and punches me with his left.
I receive his punch by forming a shield made with light magic at the site of the punch. It doesn't damage me, but it still throws me a few meters back.
Once I land on the ground, I sense a magic attack coming at my back. But I give it no mind because Gold jumps right between me and the attack and shields me. I took him with me to this fight especially for this.
He has an anti-magic body. Exactly the opposite of those Wraiths, he can't use magic or be hurt by it while they can't use physical attacks or be hurt by it.
The fight between the Wraiths and Gold is pointless. But it's necessary to keep them in check while I fight the boss. He's doing a great job at it.
I can sense the Wraiths are frantically trying to attack me and my soldiers on the opposite side of the battle. But Gold doesn't let anything pass through him, as he gets in the way of every attack.
Anyway, the Vampire starts using his blood magic. Arms of blood start erupting from his body with their target set on me.
If this blood magic hits me, it would injure me and suck out both my blood (and HP with it) and my mana. And if I used magic to shield myself, it would suck the magic itself then injure me. "I learned it the hard way, sigh."
This is where 'Ruler's Hand' comes. Making weapons fly isn't the skill's only use, I use it to smash the blood arms. The blood splashes on the floor. And before it could regenerate, I use 'Swift Strike' to stab my sword in the Vampire's throat.
But it isn't enough to kill him since more blood arms erupted from his body to catch me. I quickly retract the sword and use 'Whirlwind' to cut through the arms.
The arms reform themselves and this time, they attack Gold and the two Wraiths. Gold takes no damage since he's immune to magic, but the Wraiths get their health and mana sucked out to heal their Vampire leader's wound.
The reason I hadn't tried to dispose of the wraiths first is because of their always-active mana shield. They're immune to physical attacks and they always keep a mana shield around their body to protect them from magic attacks. (I also learned that the hard way, Argh.)
But now, the mana shields have been sucked into the Vampire's magic. So I release my pre-prepared magic attack.
Two big swords of light fall from above and impale the Wraiths to the ground.
Ring! Ring~
It's probably system messages announcing the Wraiths death, I don't look at them as I use 'Swift strike' to attack the Vampire before he retracts his blood arms from his dead lackeys.
This time, the Vampire reacts quickly and blocks my stab with his hands. The stab wound on the Vampire's neck was healed by the mana he sucked from his lackeys, but it's alright. Now he won't find anyone else to use his magic on.
"Make sure no one gets near us!" I shout to Gold as I fend off the Vampire's punch with my sword. But this time, I infuse light magic into the sword. And it works, The magic-imbued sword cuts deep into the Vampire's fist and cuts off two fingers.
"Kaaaaah!" the Vampire screams as he directs the blood arms at me. I jump back as I use 'Ruler's Hand' to smash his magic again and then use 'Swift Strike' to bolt forward and stab the Vampire's chest.
I let the sword stabbed in the Vampire and summon another sword from the Inventory. I activate 'Whirlwind' as I swing the sword to increase its power and cleanly cut the Vampire's head off.
Ring~
[You have defeated a Vampire.]
[You have earned 1,500 experience points.]
[You have earned 750,000 gold.]
[You have found a Vampire's Robe.]
Ring~
[You have leveled up.]
I look around to see my soldiers' battle with the undead minions ending as they finish off the last Ghoul.
…
"This was easy enough!"
Knowing your enemy is half the battle.
The first time I faced a Wraith was chaos. It used large-scale magic attacks to devastate my soldiers. And until I figured out how to get through their mana shield, the Wraith was invincible since both physical and magic attacks didn't work on it.
As for my first encounter with a Vampire, it was an infuriating disaster. Dealing damage to an enemy that would regenerate himself by stealing my own mana, felt like dealing damage to myself and not to my enemy. I had to sleep in the spot after the fight to regain the pools of mana that I had lost.
But now that I know how to deal with them, defeating them is a piece of cake.
"Okay then, next order of business is sorting out the inventory."
I upgrade the soldiers' equipment and sell all the useless stuff.
Now, all the soldiers are fully equipped with armor sets.
Gold and the Minotaurs (Bjorn and Hercules) already had good Orcish weapons. The Lygerfangs (Tigeril and Wolverine) use their claws and fangs to attack. And the Hellhounds (Fenrir and Karna) are now equipped with 'Ancient Staffs'.
Ancient Staff is the drop items of Wraiths, it increases magic attack power by +30%.
"Good," is what I say as I examine my squad with satisfaction.
I don't know how much time has passed since I entered this instant dungeon. I feel like it's been several weeks but I'm not sure.
I should've bought a pocket watch before coming here. It would cost me a fortune, but it's better than this situation.
Last time, when I spent two weeks in the Dungeon of Orario, I knew the time and the day through the adventurers of Rivera. Since Rivera has its own day and night, the adventurers on it can know the time outside the dungeon by simple calculations.
And this is the reason I hadn't thought of buying a watch before. Anyway, I think it's time I make my trip back. But before going, let's take a look at my Status.
[*Name: Rick Stark *Miach's Blessing (Level: 1)
*Level: 68
*Class: Ruler *Army Status: None (7/145)
*Title: Beast Lord - Transcendent of Predecessors
*HP: 77,520 *MP: 8,704 *Fatigue: 0
*Stats:
Strength: 132 Endurance: 114 Agility: 132 Intelligence: 128 Sense: 94
(Available Stat points: 91)
*Damage Reduction: 47%
*Skills:
- Passive Skills: Unknown (Level: MAX), Advanced Sword Technique (Level: 2).
- Active Skills: Swift Strike (Level: 2), Whirlwind (Level: 2), Stealth (Level: 2), Ruler's Hand (Level: 2), Bloodlust (Level: 1).
- Class Skills: Light Magic (Level: 1), Purify (Level: 1).
*Equipment: - Ancient Supreme Helmet 'S' (15%, +20 Strength, +20 Agility), Keeper's Necklace 'S' (+20 Endurance), Koffac's Cloak 'A' (10%), Ancient Breastplate 'B' (12%), Ancient Boots 'B' (5%), Ancient Gauntlets 'B' (5%), Ancient Magician's Ring 'B' (+5 Intelligence).
*Gold: 231,449,080]
…
"91 Stat points available?" Oh, I think I just found a way to calculate the number of days I spent here.
I stopped distributing Stat points gained from Daily Quests on the day Miach updated my Status. I left for the dungeon 9 days (=27 points) after, this leaves us with 64 points. If we subtract the 10 points that I got from the Emergency Quest, then it means that I stayed away for…
"About 18 days." This is a week more than I had intended.
Anyway, Let's go back home.