Dungeon Salvation

Food stalls and vendors filled the clearing, serving tired adventurers as they exited the jungle. Most left the dungeon directly, but a good number of them stopped to eat and rest.

Elias hadn’t seen such a lively scene the last time he’d been here. He had only passed by this clearly early in the morning or very late at night, when it was empty. He supposed it made sense for the more entrepreneurial people to come sell food to tired and hungry newbies. He decided to check out the stalls before entering the jungle.

He hadn’t known purchasing food in the dungeon was an option!

The pricing of the food stalls was pretty steep, but nothing beyond reason, considering they had to lug the stalls there everyday. The dungeon did not appreciate people trying to build anything inside it. As in, it aggressively destroys anything that could be considered a permanent structure. If one of these stalls were to be left unattended overnight, the owners probably wouldn’t even find a piece of it left the next day.

A couple of stalls even provided rest areas for an additional fee. He noticed that all of the adventurers that used those areas seemed to be returning to the jungle after eating and resting.

Elias was in love with it all, and was elated he wouldn’t have to rely on cereal bars every other day for sustenance. As he walked, he was already making a mental list of places he would be eating at, whenever he came to grind exp. The best part of it all was that the energy he gained from grinding should be enough to pay for his meals, probably. He definitely wouldn’t be able to use any of the rest areas with that amount, but that was fine.

Walking around, he even saw Melinda’s friend, who he had met the day before, taking orders at a stall selling burritos. The food smelled amazing and it definitely got bumped to the top of his ‘must eat here’ list. The fact that the girl was unbelievably beautiful had nothing to do with it. From the number of young men eating at the place, he guessed he wasn't the only one who thought so.

Rebecca wore a white apron over a loose black shirt, her hair held back in a long ponytail that whipped about as she worked. Elias stared at her, mesmerized, as she smiled and greeted the customers. She caught his stare and gave him a tight smile and small wave, which he returned, and continued attending to her customers.

She looked busy and he decided he had seen enough of the food stalls for now. He didn’t want to bother her. Besides, he’d already eaten.

Fine, he was embarrassed by being caught staring at her like an idiot, again. At least this time he didn’t look like a hobo.

He entered the boughs of the jungle and followed the proven strategy of wandering around until he heard something, then killing it. That is what happened when the source of the sound was a monster, at any rate. Occasionally, he also bumped into other people, most of which were walking in the direction of the dungeon’s exit.

The first monster he saw for the day was a white horned bunny. He spotted it from afar thanks to its bright colored pelt and began to approach, using Analyze.

*******

Horned Rabbit

Level 4

Common

This medium sized rodent has a pair of small dull horns that it uses to bash into its victims. These creatures are very aggressive and will attack anything that moves on sight.

*******

One of the many issues with no longer having any projectile weapons, was that it would be impossible to approach the rabbit without it noticing him first. As soon as he was close enough, the beast pounced.

Even though he was expecting it, the creature’s aggressiveness still caught him by surprise. There was no hesitation, just bam. One second it was quietly hopping in one direction, and the other it was flying at him like a murderous teddy bear.

He sidestepped the monster and it flew by him, hitting a tree instead. Somehow, the beast wasn’t even stunned and just kicked off the tree, jumping at him again. This time, he couldn’t dodge and tried to cushion the impact by grabbing it.

The horns of the rabbit looked like stumps more than anything else. It definitely wasn’t going to be piercing him even if it hit, just dealing a bit of blunt damage.

He managed to grab the rabbit midair, just below its front legs but failed to completely arrest its momentum. Surprisingly, the impact was very weak and Elias looked at the bunny in his hands with an evil glint in his eyes.

There’s no escaping now!

The beast kept kicking and squirming to try and escape his hold, presumably to continue trying to murder him. He did not let go. Instead, he managed to negotiate his grip into grabbing the beast's head instead of its body, and started bashing it at the nearest tree again and again.

Until the end, the bunny struggled to free itself from his grip, but it was all for naught. It might have been resistant to impacts with its head, but the rest of its body sure wasn’t. Soon, he received an experience notification.

You have gained 40 exp.

Elias collected the energy from the rabbit's crystal and moved on. Although the monster was fast, its hits were very weak. Not surprisingly considering the beast was basically an overgrown bunny and level 4 to boot.

The monsters he found in this part of the zone were all very easy to kill as he expected. Those that were strong were slow, those that were fast were weak, and so on. His next few weeks would be a grind of killing monster after monster, until he leveled his attributes to the first threshold.

He decided to at least try to use the monsters to practice his hand-to-hand fighting techniques. Fighting monsters was very different from fighting people, and not just because people were smarter. At higher levels, monsters would be just as intelligent as humans, but what made fighting them so different was their bodies and attribute distributions.

People needed to have their attributes within at least ten levels of each other. Someone couldn’t have their Strength at 19 and their Vitality at 30, as the System wouldn’t allow it. Even then, not many allowed the difference in their attributes to be so significant. Having one attribute at a level much higher than others made them unbalanced. All things considered, there's little use in having a high Strength if you don’t have the Agility to control it properly.

Attributes have a synergistic relationship with each other, especially when Skills get involved. A limit-break type Skill, for example, would take a toll on the user’s body, requiring them to have a large enough Vitality level to use it safely, even though it is a Strength type Skill.

The progression of monsters was very different, however, as they had no say in how their attributes were distributed. They only increased in level and rarity, and that was it. That made it so some monsters could become very specialized, like the rabbit. Specialization meant some monsters were very strong in specific aspects, but always had some kind of weakness that could be exploited.

Throughout the rest of the day, he walked around the jungle and killed any monsters he could get his hands on. Literally. Fighting monsters without weapons was very different from what he expected.

He couldn’t just kick and punch everything until they died, unless they were small and delicate. At some point, his hand would become a bloody mess from trying and most of the blood would be his. Anyone who ever tried punching things repeatedly knew that there was only so much punishment you bare hands could take until they started to bleed and swell.

He needed to focus on better utilizing his environment and hunting strategies instead. Smaller creatures were the easiest to kill as he was still physically stronger than them and could just overpower them. Larger monsters like boars, however, were a pain to deal with. He had to keep luring them into traps, or making them hurt themselves some other way.

Worse of all were the plant monsters he occasionally encountered. He didn’t have the strength to rip them off the ground most of the time or the weapons to cut them. Strangling them wouldn’t work and punching them was often an exercise in futility. The only strategy he found that worked was getting a large stick and beating them with it repeatedly. Their branches would break and they would keep trying to regrow them, expending energy. Once they ran out of energy, they would wither and die. It took a while.

By the end of the day, he’d killed over a hundred different monsters, earning a good chunk of exp to his next Vitality level. Overall, it was a much slower accumulation than during his first day. He already had 3870 exp banked from his frenzied killing spree the other day and now he had a total of 9610 exp. He had earned just under 6000 exp from fighting non-stop all afternoon.

Thinking it over in his head, he decided that it would be best to level his Strength instead of Vitality. He already had the 9000 exp he needed to do it right now and wouldn’t need to wait to level up. Also, it would make dealing with the monsters a lot easier, now that he no longer had weapons.

Congratulations! Your Strength has risen to level 5.

Name: Elias Oliveira

Exp: 610

Spirit: 8

Skill: None

(17.000 exp to level)

Wisdom: 7

Skill: None

(15.000 exp to level)

Intelligence: 7

Skill: None

(15.000 exp to level)

Charisma: 3

Skill: None

(7.000 exp to level)

Agility: 6

Skill: None

(13.000 exp to level)

Strength: 5

Skill: None

(11.000 exp to level)

Vitality: 5

Skill: None

(11.000 exp to level)

The only attribute he now had below level 5 was his Charisma, but he only planned on leveling it after maxing out his physical attributes. Unlike his Vitality, Strength, and Agility, his Charisma would not be very helpful in increasing the rate of his exp gain. He decided to prioritize reaching level 10 in all the attributes as fast as possible for now, rather than keeping them balanced throughout.

If he raised his physical attributes, he'd be able to go to the core areas of the newbie zone again, making his leveling much faster. Right now, he wouldn’t be able to kill half the monsters there due to lacking weapons. He just wouldn’t be able to deal enough damage with his bare hands to many of the larger creatures.

He briefly considered raising his Charisma by a few points before maxing his physical attributes anyways. He knew of at least one cute food vendor he would like to go talk to with a higher Charisma. Unfortunately, the attribute had a lot more to do with how he perceived himself and others, than how others perceived him.

Done for the day, he decided to go check out if the food stalls provided dinner as well as lunch. He hoped they did, because cereal bars were not a good substitute for a good meal. He found a few more monsters on his way back, gaining another few hundred exp.

There were far less food vendors in the clearing now than earlier that day, less adventurers too. He supposed it made sense, since far fewer adventurers remained in the dungeon after dark.

Whereas before the place looked like a food fair, lively and bright, it now looked like a large outdoor tavern. It was still lively, but people were decidedly more rowdy than before.

There was plenty of beer going around along with the food, as well as other drinks. Some of the patrons seemed to be commemorating a good haul, while others were simply eating after a long day of grinding. Most were doing both.

Elias’ eyes bulged when he noticed the kind of prices of the food from the trucks. The food was at least twice as expensive as when he checked during lunch. A cheeseburger with fries was priced at almost 2000 energy. He only had a little more than 5000 energy on him!

He had only been able to collect 2000 energy from grinding nonstop all day! The only reason he had enough money to buy a cheeseburger at all was because he recovered his energy card. He debated whether he should eat something here, or just go home, when the attendant manning the stall spoke.

“Welcome to Last Shift, what can I get you? I recommend the veteran combo. That's a double cheeseburger, fries, and a beer for only 3000 energy,” said the vendor. Elias balked at him saying that it was just 3000 energy, but ended up buying it anyway.

There were a lot of serious adventurers around and he wanted to scout the place out. He had planned on continuing to grind after eating and he was already here. He did not want to just eat energy bars if he knew that wasn't his only option. Besides, this seemed like his kind of place and crowd. He wouldn't be able to eat here all the time, of course, not at night, but he should be able to come by once in a while. When he got stronger, and wealthier, he would even be able to come by often.

He grabbed his beer and a table closeby to wait for his food to get ready. There were many groups of people chatting and joking about, eating and drinking. Elias just observed and listened to some of them while he waited, sipping on his beer occasionally.

There were a few other people like him, who seemed to be just starting their adventuring careers, but most of them were in groups already. Some were also eating alone like him, but most of them were older adventurers. There was one table with a young man sitting by himself, though, and Elias decided to approach.

“Hey there, I’m Elias and this is my first time around here. Are you by yourself?” The young man looked up and gave him a friendly smile.

“Hey, I’m Marco. It’s actually only my second time eating here too. I just turned eighteen last week, you know? Wanna sit?” Elias agreed and sat with Marcus.

“So, are you trying to become a professional adventurer as well?” Elias asked. Marcus’ eyes lit up at the question, providing an answer unto itself.

“Yeah man, of course! It just sounds so amazing, you know? How can anyone choose to be a crafter or something, when they can get paid to go on adventures? It makes no sense,” Marcus said with a shake of his head, getting an energetic nod of agreement from Elias.

“I know, right? I swear I just don’t get people sometimes! Well, most times, but that’s beside the point,” said Elias with a laugh. The two continued to chat as they waited for their food.

Marco was a young man of average height, short cropped, curly black hair, and dark brown skin. Elias would never admit it out loud, but he would even describe him as handsome. He had an obviously toned body that spoke of frequent training, and light brown eyes. He also wore the ‘newbie uniform’, that consisted of a shirt and vest with many pockets, military style pants, and boots. Lastly, he had an expensive looking curved sword resting against the table within its sheath.

Marco was new to Vinegrove, having moved here from a large city in what used to be known as Brazil. His father had worked there as a swordsmanship instructor for the better part of the last few decades; he had taken full advantage of this to become a competent swordsman in his own right. They even promised to train together sometime when Elias said he knew how to wield the sword as well.

Marco was surprised he was a weapon user as well, considering he didn’t have any on him. That led him to briefly recount exactly why he didn’t have any weapons on him, which only served to amuse the other man.

“Ha! Oh man, that’s exactly the kind of thing my dad would do too. Don’t go giving him any ideas or he still might!” Marco laughed at Elias’ predicament of having to go around fighting monsters without any weapons. “I actually thought you were one of those kids that pay to be power leveled. I had the whole sales pitch ready too.”

“Definitely not being powered leveled. I can barely even afford to buy food in this stall right now,” said Elias, still not completely over the ridiculous pricing of the cheeseburger.

“I know, right? I swear, these prices are daylight robbery! Actually,” said Marco, letting a mischievous grin show. “You could even say you were being robbed for the second time this week!”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyways, what time do you usually come by to grind? We could meet up for lunch sometimes. I only come by every other day, like I said, but still,” said Elias, trying to hide how anxious he felt.

“Sure, why not? I usually come to the clearing to eat around noon everyday, so we can just meetup then,” Marco said with a smile. “There are some really good food stalls around here. You really have to try this one that serves meat skewers, it’s amazing. Have you ever tried chicken heart skewers?”

Elias blanched at the mention of eating chicken hearts and thought his new friend was joking. He then realized that no, it wasn’t a joke. Still, he promised to at least try them so as to not look like a punk. Their food arrived as they continued to chat and, if nothing else, the cheeseburger was delicious. They had a green sauce on them similar to mayonnaise that tasted amazing.

After eating, the pair exchanged their contact information before parting, promising to keep in touch. Marco had arrived in the morning, unlike him, and left the dungeon altogether. Elias returned to the jungle to hunt monsters for a few more hours.

He had a much easier time killing the monsters now that his Strength attribute was higher, but it barely showed in the rate at which he gathered exp. It simply took much longer to find the monsters than to actually kill them. Regardless, it made his job much less tiring and he was able to keep a fairly constant pace of it before deciding to call it a day.

It hadn’t been enough to gain an extra point in any attribute beside Charisma, but he made a little over 7000 exp, bringing his new total to 8460. He did gather more exp than during his afternoon hunt, since the dungeon was much emptier, but there was little difference overall.

He only managed to find one monster every couple of minutes, getting about 50 exp per kill on average. Killing the weak monsters didn’t take very long, especially since most of them attacked you on sight. Only a few of the beasts, such as the Tamarin Macaw, did anything other than mindlessly charge. They weren’t very smart and a bit of acting went a long way to speed up his grinding.

He briefly thought about just leveling his Charisma, since that was the only thing he could increase right now, but decided to wait to increase his Agility after all. It would help him move faster through the jungle, increasing his exp gathering rate.