Chapter 21 Solo

Isaac stood up, but Rona grabbed Isaac's legs and refused to let go.

Llyne: If only there's popcorn. It would have been perfect.

Isaac: Llyne. Why are you sitting there doing nothing? Get her off me.

Llyne: Nah-ah.

Isaac tried to shake Rona off, but Rona squeezed Isaac's leg tighter.

Isaac: Fine. I'll tell you guys, so let go, Rona.

Rona: Promise?

Isaac: Yes. Now let go!

Rona let go of Isaac's leg, and Isaac sat back down. Isaac slouched forward and scratched his head.

Isaac: It's an embarrassing story. Remember how I told you I was poor in the city?

Rona and I nodded.

Isaac: On my first day of school, I was picked on because I was poor and I had no mother. Since then, I have been bullied every day. I couldn't stand it so I didn't go to school for weeks.

Llyne: Being bullied isn't something embarrassing. It's all about how you move on after that.

Isaac: I haven't finished my story, and that wasn't the embarrassing part.

Llyne: Oh, sorry.

Isaac: During those days, I learnt hacking and hacked a few accounts. Using the money from my hacking, I bought my school. Since then, no one has bullied me.

Rona: That's great!

Isaac: The most embarrassing thing is that I forgot to hack the education system to change my attendance, so I had to repeat a year. I took those useless exams for nothing.

Rona: Attendance is so evil.

Llyne: I hate attendance, too. It's always the attendance that holds people back.

Isaac: Isn't it? I don't understand the importance of attendance.

Rona: Maybe you can buy this evil thing called attendance.

Llyne: Attendance isn't something you can buy.

Rona: Isaac bought the school, though.

Llyne: Oh. You mean bribery. Nice idea, not legal, though.

Isaac: What's the use? We are stuck in here anyway.

Isaac suddenly got up.

Isaac: Let's go. Onto 2nd stage. Where DOOM awaits us all.

Rona: Attendance is such a big meanie. When I see attendance, I'm gonna teach him a lesson. Hmph!

Llyne: Oui...I'm with a bunch of screw loose people.

We walked ahead, and the blue screen appeared.

[Are you ready? OK]

I pressed the 'OK' button and the scenery changed.

The one trial dungeon got divided into 3.

[One player per route]

Llyne: Which route has the core?

Isaac: No matter which has or has not, we still need to take a route.

Rona: I choose left!

Isaac: I'll take the middle one, I guess.

Llyne: That leaves me the right. Good luck, you all.

Isaac: Ya, ya. Goodbye all, and hello, Doom.

Llyne: Oui... You need therapy for that depression of yours.

Rona: …

Llyne: Rona?

I looked to my left, but Rona already went into the left route.

Llyne: Rona left me?

Isaac: Everyone got to fly.

Llyne: No! She's too young to fly!

I pouted.

Isaac: We can still communicate through the team chat.

I grabbed Isaac's collar.

Llyne: Rona ain't responding!

Rona: I passed Stage 2. My route was so empty.

I let go of Isaac's collar, and he quickly sneaked into the middle route.

Llyne: Rona! Don't leave Mama like that?

Rona: Mama?

Isaac: Just ignore her.

Llyne: He-

I turned around, and Isaac was gone.

Llyne: You better hope I don't get to you, Isaac.

I closed my chat and continued into the right route. When I entered the right route, I looked upward and was greeted by what looked like, a night sky. It was breathtaking, especially when the twinkling stars were dancing in the sky, creating a light and dark harmonious feel. I was entranced by the magnificent sight of the night sky that I let my desire run free and reached my hands out to the twinkling stars. The twinkling star landed on my hand and instantaneously turned into a yellow powdery substance. I tried smelling it, but it was odourless. As I stepped forward, I felt something brushed my leg. I slowly looked down and saw a pure white lily, all alone. I reached out and touched the lily. In a split second, the whole place was illuminated by a trail of lilies.

My first thought was, 'I know I get lost all the time, but I know my road on a single path.'. However, when I looked up again, the sight of human bones dangling off the dungeon ceiling, straight away, put me off.

'This place is pretty, but it sure masked something sinister behind there.'

I straightened up and cautiously followed the trail left by the lilies. That's when I found a huge iron door with some weird blood inscription on it.

Ping.

[You have a new message]

Isaac: Looks like mine's empty, too. How about yours, Llyne?

Llyne: Dreadful. There's human bones hanging above my head, and I'm facing a huge iron wall with strange blood inscription on it.

Isaac: It must be the boss room. Good luck?

Llyne: Maybe I'll peek inside.

I pushed open the iron door slightly and saw a giant boar charging at me.

'Oh Crap!'

I immediately closed the door, but the pressure from the boar slamming into the iron door flew me away.

Ack!

My back dropped hard on the ground, and I squeaked a sound.

Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.

Rona: Llyne?

The dungeon's ceiling shook, and the human bones were dropping one by one, creating more sounds.

'Oui. Could this get any worse?'

The wall monsters began pouring in, baring their teeth at me. Without hesitation, I used 'Dash' and rushed back to the iron door. I kicked open the door and met the boar face to face.

The boar roared and charged at me.

"I ain't your opponent, bozo. They are." I threw my scythe at the ceiling as hard as I could. "This had better work." I rushed towards the boar and leapt above it. I dropped right onto the boar and focused on gathering my strength on my legs. I leapt upwards and grabbed my scythe. "It works!". I looked down and saw the boar fighting against the swarm of worms.

Both opponents were mercilessly tearing each other apart as I struggled to keep myself from slipping off the scythe. It was bloodbath down there. The boar tried to slam the worms into the wall, but the worms were too slimy. It was annoyed, but it could only throw the worms to the wall, hoping the force would crush them.

While I was distracted by the brutal scenery, I felt movements behind me and turned.

Haack!

Few worms tried to attack me. I dodged in time and swung my chain at it.

Splat.

The worms splat onto the ground.

[Level Up!]

I raised my fist and scolded. "Come here again, and I'll make you all into my Ma's favourite, fried worms!" The worms quickly descended and attacked the boar instead. "That's right! My Ma loves to eat worms! Bet that scared ya, huh?"

I opened my skills screen and chose Isaac's 'Information gathering' skill to examine my opponents.

[Ravonsac Wild Boar]

LV: 50

HP: 135,000 (-10)

MP: 120 (-10)

Attack: 305 (-10)

Defence: 558 (-10)

Stamina: 125 (-10)

Agility: 70 (-10)

Luck: 1 (-0)

[Skill]

Passive Skill:

Hurl

Active Skill:

None

[State]

Bleeding

Corrosion

'Oui, the boar has worse luck than me. And the name, Rovansac, why does it feel like I've heard that name before? Oh well, beats me.' I quickly moved on and was puzzled by the decrease of stat. But I didn't ponder for long as I wasn't all that interested.

[Alkin's Precious Worm, Al]

LV: 10

HP: 222

MP: 9

Attack: 20

Defence: 5

Stamina: 10

Agility: 70

Luck: 15

[Skill]

Passive Skill:

Crawl

Co-op

Active Skill:

Bite

Stats Down!

'Who in the right mind would name such a deadly worm? It has good HP and agility, but the rest of the stats are just sad.'

I scrolled down the blue screen, and something got my attention. 'The skill 'stats down!'...Wait.' I pressed on the skill, and it stated 'decrease the stats of your target'.

Uh, oh.

I quickly looked at my own stats.

[Llyne]

LV: 10

HP: 55

MP: 20

Attack: 88

Defence: 20 (+10)

Stamina: 101

Agility: 75

Luck: 3

I sighed in relief that my stats didn't decrease. I continued to hang onto the scythe as I watched the army of worms and boar fight. Although the worms dealt very little damage however there were some significant wounds on the boar.

'The worms are intelligent. They all focus on one place to attack. It must be co-op skill they have.'

After some time, the number of worms pouring into the room decreases, so as the boar's HP. The boar HP was reduced to 60%.

I opened the skill screen again and used 'Merry Go Lucky!' on myself. 'I hope my ludicrous idea works out fine.' I took out the twin dagger and coated it with the scythe's poison.

[Warning! You have been cursed by the cursed dragon. Penalty is death.]