Intruder in the Dungeon (2)

 Vee's eyes narrowed. Putting one hand on the wall to lean against it, she looked closer at the opening. She was able to see a space on the other side of the opening and grew suspicious. Tapping a finger against the wall, she decided to investigate this seemingly hidden space.

 Keeping one hand against the wall to support herself, Vee stepped through the passage. Once she reached the other side, she felt that same sense of disorientation as when she moved from one room to another.

 Letting the feeling pass, Vee made sure to take in all her surroundings to make sure there was not another ambush.

 The room could be described as a cave. It was almost the same as the first room except that it looked like it belonged in the Great Divide. There were no creatures, but instead, two slightly splintering boxes came up to Vee's knees.

 Hesitant and suspicious, Vee stepped forward to approach the two boxes. Once she was close enough, she reached forward with her clawed hand and quickly knocked one of her bladed fingers. The force of the impact was enough to cause the box to lift up and tilt back before falling back down and rattling on the ground.

 Not finding anything suspicious, Vee stepped closer and crouched in front of it. Keeping her clawed hand at the ready, she reached out with her other hand and undid the simple latch keeping the box closed. A flip of her wrist sent the lid flipping open. She raised her transformed hand in the event of a trap, but what she found was a pile of hay with a strange vial sitting on top.

 Raising an eyebrow in curiosity, Vee reached out with her normal hand to pick up the vial. Holding it up, she swirled it a little and watched the luminescent, azure liquid slosh around inside. "Huh…"

 Vee slipped the vial into her jacket pocket before moving over to the other crate. Inspecting it in case the first one was to make her lower her guard, she found nothing suspicious and opened it.

 Again, the box was mostly full of hay except for the strange swirling medallion sitting on top.

 Grabbing it by the red braided lanyard, Vee lifted the palm-sized, brownish-gray metal trinket. Looking at it with intrigue, she decided to slip it into her other pocket.

 Standing up, Vee let out a sigh. "At least I'll be bringing something back." She then turned and tried to make her way out of this strange place.

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 Ugh…

 The fog clears from my mind and my consciousness returns. The crystal in my hand now looks like dull, dirty glass before shattering into nothing.

 I feel…not bad…I guess the best way to describe it would be to say I feel 'full'. Really, really full.

 I lean back against the cough as I try to adjust to the new feeling, but I barely get a breath out when a translucent panel suddenly appears in front of me.

Congratulations! You have successfully repelled your first Invader!

Calculating results:

--Dungeon rating: E

--Intruder rating: D = Bonus for defeating superior enemy.

--Intruder gains: Healing Potion (low quality), Weak Enhancement Medalion = Low-quality items increase by thirty

--Intruder progress: 60% = Increase of Forty-percent for successful defense.

--First Time Reward Bonus of 500 DP

Rewards: 100 DP x 2 + 60 + 40% + 500 = 864 DP awarded.

 Blinking at the screen, it vanished just as quickly as it appeared.

 Between this almost overwhelming sensation of being full and the sudden appearance and disappearance of the screen, it takes me a few moments to process. Once I do, I try focusing on my DC and calling it to my hand. Almost instantly, I can feel my fingers wrapping around something cool. Glancing over, there it is.

 While I press on the Invader-logo to turn on the DC and my TV, I talk to Alice, "How long was I out?"

 "Hmm, not long," Alice replied as she put a finger to her lip in thought. "A few minutes. Fifteen?"

 "And we got our first intruder during that time," I say as the screen lights up. In the corner I can see my new DP balance. "Was it Sasha's little group?" As I ask this, I notice the that the holographic display of the dungeon has some rooms colored red.

 Alice blinked at me. "My knowledge is limited to you and your status as an Invader. How would I know anything about those who invade the Dungeon?" She then grinned. "Would you like to see the recording?"

 "There's a recording feature?"

 "Uh-huh!" She then scooted closer to me to point at the DC. "First of all, you can use the joystick to select a specific room of the Dungeon from the list on the right. Then, you can use the square button to repair them, or you can use the button to repair the whole Dungeon. This means respawning units, restocking treasure chests, and repairing any damage. But remember – this will cost half the initial investment."

 "To access the recorded invasions, you can press down on the R2 button."

 Listening to her instruction, I first try just pressing the square-button that gives me a prompt of whether I'm okay with spending fifty-two DP. It's not much, so I press the 'X'-button to confirm. Watching my balance drop, I'm left with eight-hundred-twelve.

 I then try the R2 button and a black screen pops-up on the TV. At the top in white, it reads 'Recordings'. To the far side is three lines I'm betting are options like sorting and such. Under that, there is a video in the form of a square thumbnail of a girl in the corner of the screen. Moving the joystick, the picture lights up. I try the X-button, and the video fills the screen.

 The video starts with someone walking into the Dungeon, and I immediately recognize them. Just as I thought, it was an early antagonist. Vaday – almost exclusively referred to as Vee.

 After the MC acclimates to his new situation, his mistress and her group stumble on a group engaging in illegal activity and become involved in investigating them. At first it looks like some sort of drug-trafficking thing, but it turns out that drugs is just a start. It's actually a mind control thing.

 This early group consists of Level three-to-five individuals and are responsible for the MC's early growth. Then, Layfon has his meltdown and gets killed. Then we find the big bad of the arc, Sasha. You'd think given her subordinates, that she'd be like Level six at most, but nope, she's level seven. In terms of outright power, she's not that dangerous, but instead, she's versatile. Rather than a tank or brawler, she's the type of enemy that goes for DPS and making the whole area to her advantage. 

 The early arc is a little formulaic, I think. Kinda like the early stage in a videogame I played a few times. You have this enemy faction, you work your way up to the boss, you beat them, and you open up a new area of the map with a new faction. It's mostly for introducing the power system and how the story will really work.

 But again, the characters are so much hotter in person than the artwork suggested. In the original work Vee died and I hated it. You have an MC who fucks practically every female character he meets, why can't she have joined the harem! I always liked the bloody, vicious kind of characters. So hot.

 I may have randomly decided to go for the 'world domination' route. But I have no idea what to do. Given who I am, I'll probably have to go the villain route. No matter what I do, I hereby declare my first mission toward world domination: Recruit Vee!

 "Hey, Alice," I say while we watch the recording.

 "Hmm?"

 "I got DP from this, but how exactly does that work?"

 "You'll get DP from your actions in the world, but the system itself will judge that. So, you could get points from anything. The only particular criteria – which are not universally applicable – are 'personal success' and 'plot deviation'. So, if you recognize something as being a significant accomplishment or cause a significant change to the intended events, you'll gain DP. But you could get DP for anything really."

 "As for dealing with intruders. The Invader is either supposed to support the development of the world, or conquer it. The Dungeon is how you do this. Either killing intruders or making sure they walk out stronger than they came in!"

 "So that's why I get DP for both them getting stuff and being defeated." I saw Vee collect the items from the chest and ask, "Hey, what exactly did she get?"

 "A low-quality Healing Potion and a Weak Enhancement Medalion."

 I roll my eyes. "I know that, I meant, like 'what do they do?'"

 "Hmm, the Healing Potion can heal minor injuries. That leg injury she got is about the upper limit of what it can do. Might not do it all the way though. The Medalion provides a perpetual buff. It's not strong, but it can be useful for weaker individuals. Hitting harder, moving faster, sharper senses, that kind of stuff. This girl seems to use some sort of transformation ability. It could also strengthen that so her claws are longer and sharper – plus whatever else she might be capable of. The effect becomes less noticeable the stronger the user is. Someone of your caliber would be the maximum of what people would notice, and even then, it would be small."

 "Still, for them, this'll be good…Hey, is there a way for me to get that stuff? Or do I have to go to the Dungeon?"

 "The treasure chests are random. While you can physically go to the Dungeon to get items, there's no telling what will be inside. If you want something specific, you should go to the Dungeon Shop and buy it directly. You can also use this to purchase higher quality items and add them to the Dungeon." The last line she said with a beaming smile.

 "Okay." The recording over, I use the 'O'-button to go back to the main screen and navigate over to the Shop. Then I stop.

 "Oh! The whole intruder thing slipped my mind, but what about the dragon crystal or whatever. What did it give me? Do I look any different?"

 "No," Alice says flatly. "The crystal you absorbed was only proportional to a third-stage unit. It won't be until you acclimate to it that there will be any changes physically. Even then, it'll be relatively minor. Once you manage to achieve a higher level of power, you may experience more drastic changes, but these may be condensed into some sort of ability to transform."

 "So, what did I get from the crystal?"

 "Try using Analyze on yourself again?"

 I do as she suggests and Analyze myself.

Layfon Drogo (Stan Jude), Rank: C

Doru-Bloodline! Stage-Three.

--Increased Agility

--Metal-attribute

 Raising an eyebrow, I can't help but ask, "Is that it?"

 "What did you expect?"

 "I mean, you said it was a dragon bloodline. I was expecting something a little more…dragon-y."

 "I mentioned that at this stage, the Doru-species is more like a beast. It is only at the next stage that its latent dragonic bloodline starts to become more prominent. Also, though it is not mentioned in your Analysis, but the Doru-species is quite adaptable with high combat ability. This would help you developing additional abilities and countermeasures against enemy abilities."

 "Hmm, that sounds good," I say unsurely. Honestly, evolution, adaptation powers are always been some of my favorites. But it's hard to get my excitement up when I can't really see it. Hope it lives up to the hype I want it to.

 Looking by to the screen, I go into the Shop. There are only two items present: low-quality Healing Potion for one DP and Weak Enhancement Medalion for five DP.

 "These are pretty cheap…"

 "They are of low-quality."

 "But didn't I just spend, like, twenty-five DP to restock some treasure chests? Buying the items directly are practically a quarter of that!"

 Matter-of-factly, Alice explained, "That is the price of continence. Buying the items directly means needing to physically go to the Dungeon to set them back up. Also, it makes it possible for you to make purchases in bulk."

 "Wait. Can I stack the Medalion's effect?"

 "To use the Medalion, you have to have it attached to your body. So there's a physical limit to how many you can use. Also, items like this have a sort of aura about them that surrounds the user so to empower them. Weaker items are just that – weak. But stronger ones have a risk of interfering with one another. This can negate the effect or even have a sort of backlash."

 "Got it. Stackable, but with restrictions. Plus, from how you described that Medallion, I'm guessing there's an issue of diminishing returns – relatively." Not to mention, I might not even really be able to benefit from that Medallion.

 Using the joystick, I manage to select the Healing Potion. Pressing the X-button to purchase, a pop-up asking how many I want to buy comes up with an option to cancel the order. Moving the joystick up or down to change the number, I move it down to see if it'll go to the maximum and find it jump to ninety-nine. I then hit the option to buy.

 The pop-up vanishes and I am left wondering where exactly my purchase is.

 Before I can ask, Alice says, "Purchased items are deposited in your Inventory."

 I focus my mind and find it is as she said. A stack of ninety-nine Healing Potions (low-quality) are in one of the spaces of my Inventory.

 I then move my selection to the Medallion. I may not be able to use it, but that doesn't make it useless. I buy five of them.