NOVEL WEB Chapter 5
Episode 5
“Sir… we have a problem, we have a user stuck in the ‘graveyard’.”
“What?”
That couldn’t be happening. Just today, we made a patch about vampires. We finished the vampire’s nine castles and the vampire’s shelter, which we call “the tomb”-although the tomb was tweaked a bit before the patch. It’s only been a day since the patch, and I’ve run into a problem.
The vampires’ setup was simple enough. At night, they’re in the vampire’s castle, doing their job as monsters. Then, in the morning, all the dead vampires regenerate into bat form and go to a well-hidden “graveyard”. In bat form, of course.
The nine castles are spread across the continent, and the nine tombs are located at some distance from the castles.
The reason for the castles and tombs is that… during the day, vampires sleep. They can’t move, and they don’t know who kills them. The vampire of the day is so different from the vampire of the night.
That’s how it’s supposed to be, hence the ‘grave’. It was well hidden so that no user could find it. Or so it was believed. But there was an intruder.
“A level 5 swordsman… he’s been killing there since before the patch, and he was accidentally led by a group of vampires into the ‘gates of hell’.”
“Huh… this is troubling.”
The gates of hell only open once. Just in time for the vampires to enter. After that, it was never supposed to open. It’s programmed not to open no matter what outside interference.
“If a 5th-level player kills a vampire… how many levels do they gain?”
The experience balance in Middle-earth is very unique: you need to defeat a hundred monsters of the same level by yourself to level up. But as you get higher, monsters of the same level get stronger, and you can even lose a fair 1v1 fight due to better tactics. This makes it difficult to level up alone.
This is where Party Play comes in.
With Party Play, experience is shared equally. The maximum party size is 6 players, and if all 6 players are on the same level, you can kill monsters up to 10 levels higher than you.
Of course, this assumes that a level 10 monster is alone, but monsters usually travel in groups. Therefore, it’s important to catch a lot of monsters that are slightly lower than you quickly, not just monsters that are higher than you.
Occasionally, players will kill monsters that are higher in level than themselves because of the salty taste of experience that comes from killing monsters that are higher in level.
To increase the utility of party play, monsters lower than your level will give you extremely low experience, monsters of the same level will give you normal experience, and monsters of higher levels will give you the best experience.
Monsters 10 levels higher than you get 1 level of experience, monsters 20 levels higher get 10 levels of experience, and monsters 30 levels higher get 20 levels of experience. A level 30 monster will give you 20 levels of experience. And so on.
However, no matter how strong your party is, it’s very hard to catch a monster that’s 10 levels higher than you. And since they usually stick together, you can consider them impossible to catch. Monsters that are 20 levels higher than you will die in one fell swoop.
That’s why we’ve been able to attract users with such a proud experience balance, and we haven’t felt the need to tweak it much.
Until, of course, …….
“For starters, you’re so underpowered that you won’t even be able to pierce the vampire’s skin. Oh… and even if you do manage to pierce it, you won’t be able to catch it, as the vampire’s resilience is faster than a troll’s, so it won’t matter much.”
“Who wrote the setting that vampires’ resilience is only possible when they receive negative energy?”
“Ah! I did. …Ah! I see, it’s daytime, so they can’t recover, and since swordsmen are strong… Hmm, I suppose I could cut off an arm if I’m good, but that would take an hour or two of game time, and who’s up for that?”
The boss’s face twisted into a grim expression.
“With the balance of this game… if you can kill a monster that’s about 90 levels higher than you, who wouldn’t? It takes two months to raise a character to level 60 normally, and if you could shorten that time to one hour, wouldn’t you do it?”
The researcher was speechless.
“Is there any way to stop it?”
“No. The gates of hell have closed, and there’s nothing we can do about it directly.”
Not even through hacking. It was a bitter pill to swallow, even though it was their system.
“…I wish you well, Vinnemann…….”
* * *
I didn’t think any more foolishly when I saw the darkness that persisted even after the stun time had worn off. I rummaged through my inventory, pulled out my lantern, and lit it.
I took a moment to admire the hard, round object I’d been slicing through.
“Gahhhhh!”
You’d never believe it was coming from a man, but even men sometimes scream when they’re surprised, even when they don’t believe it themselves.
My gaze was fixed on a body. It had a strange appearance that I hadn’t seen on the homepage. It was too pale, too dead, too motionless. It wasn’t even breathing.
“Is this a monster?
I asked myself as I regained my composure. Upon closer inspection, there were thousands of corpse monsters. I don’t know where they came from, but the line of corpses seemed endless. There was one in front of me, and one before that, and one before that.
“What kind of monster just lies down and sleeps?”
I wondered where I was, but the question of what was in front of me was stronger. I raised my trainee sword and began to decapitate the corpse monster.
Swish, swish, swish.
‘Why do I hear this sound when I cut flesh? Is this wood chips?’
The corpse didn’t spew blood, and its white jade-like skin didn’t have a single crack in it. No matter how gently it was cut, it was a fraud.
“Hmph. It seems that this monster only kills by draining the user’s health with its mills. It’s a clever trick, hmmmm~.”
I was pleased with my deduction and began to slash at the monster’s throat with more force. I made small slices, but the progress was very minimal. It felt like I was cutting wood with a saw, not like I was using my neck. But I felt like I was making small, very small cuts.
I was very reluctant, but I thought, what an easy monster. The orc I saw last time (I thought it was a pig, an animal monster, but after checking online, I realized it was an orc, and it was a level 10+ monster) also rebelled… but this monster seemed to be a monster with only a mill house.
Sure, it’s hard, but it gives you a lot of experience and doesn’t require potions. It’s like playing Nogada, but I still need to level up to 100 fast!
I heated up and continued to slice for half an hour. I was covered in blood. Of course, it would disappear naturally after five minutes, but the blood continued to soak me because I was constantly slicing. The sword was also reddish, not silver.
Crouch.
“Why does that sound like metal clanging……?
Something heavy caught the sword. It stopped slicing. As if using a dead monster’s neck in the dark wasn’t scary enough, it suddenly stopped cutting, and I freaked out, but my brilliant brain quickly figured it out.
“What the hell is that? …That’s right, bones!”
I realized that this humanoid corpse monster must have bones, too, and that what I was dealing with was probably a neck bone. I tried slicing and dicing, kneeling and bending in hope, but it wouldn’t break. The lifeline was tough.
“Damn it! Keep slicing from the other side.”
I got nauseous and kept slicing from the back of my neck.
After about half an hour of this, I heard the sound of metal rubbing against metal again. Believing that it would be easier to break the neck now, I brought my knee down and tried with all my might to break the neck and break the bone. But the bone was harder than iron, and it didn’t bend in the slightest.
“Hmph. Tough!”
“Your strength has increased by one.”
In Middle-earth, there are several systems, one of which is the adaptation system. This system allows you to increase your Strength stat by one as you continue to perform actions that involve Strength. However, it’s very hard to increase your stats this way, and as you get stronger, the adaptation system doesn’t work as well, so it’s faster to level up than to increase your Strength or Dexterity by training all the time.
“Character: Karen
Level 5
Strength 41
Agility 20
Intelligence 15
Luck 10
HP 210 (210)
MP 100 (100)”
I looked at my stats and realized that I had gained some strength, so I continued to perform the neck twist. I continued to twist backward, left, right, and so on. It took a lot of stamina, but it paid off.
Swoosh.
“Your level has reached 65. Please increase your remaining stats.”
“Phew, finally one.
After catching one, it notified me that I had leveled up. Now I’m finally level 65… 65?!
I was level 5 just a moment ago. I had just killed a corpse monster that was barely standing still, and I had leveled up a whopping 60. The thought of reaching level 100 was surely going to be a quick one.
“This game is easier than I thought.