NOVEL WEB Chapter 6
Episode 6
“Mr. Boss… ‘He’ finally killed one vampire. It took 2 hours of game time, and a lot of persistent biting, and we finally caught 1.”
“Yikes! He must be level 60, ugh, I thought the experience balance was perfect, no one would ever be able to kill a monster more than level 20 above him!”
The boss was livid. Not a single player had ever leveled up so explosively, not even one, if you can call it that.
It was a unique case of a level 30 fighter who happened to be walking down the street when a huge guild went on a dragon-slaying spree, the guild was wiped out, and the dragon had about 1 blood left, and he saw a dragon in desperate need of blood, threw a rock at it out of curiosity, and instantly became a dragon slayer.
It’s a good thing he didn’t level up because he’s a Hetzling. After all, if he’d waited another day and become a Jackie Chan, the Dragon Slayer would have leveled up to about 100, although the fighter would have been happy to get two unique items.
The boss had always assumed that this situation would come up at some point, really, really soon, so he thought it was time to fix the experience balance for this near-fraud.
Originally, this should never happen if you’re playing the game right… but you never know. Even if you think you’re perfect, there’s always a gap.
The president didn’t sleep that night.
* * *
“Skill spear!”
A translucent window opened in front of me. I muttered something about how easy it was to ramp up, then hummed happily as I read through the active skills.
“Bash: Deals 1.5x damage and has a chance to cause the monster to take a step back. The more skill you invest, the higher the damage and chance. No delay.
Dash: Increases your movement speed by 1.5x for an instant. 1 second duration.”
There are a lot of skills, but Bash and Dash are the basics, and once you learn them, you can learn the rest. I didn’t know how to combine the skills to make the best character, so I invested one skill point each in Bash and Dash and one point in Iron Skin (which increases your defense) in the passive skills.
I’ll add the rest of the skills later, or whenever I feel like it. I looked back to where the corpse monster (?) had disappeared, and items were glimmering faintly in the lantern light.
I walked over with a twinkle in my eye and picked up the fallen items.
‘One gold coin for 5,000 gold? Only one? Hmmm, let’s see the item.
To be honest, I didn’t know how much 10,000 gold was (from the game’s market price), but I still didn’t like the idea of only one coin. There was only one item. It was a heavy sword with a silver blade.
“Vampire Slayer
100-120 Damage
40/40 durability
Level cap 60
150% additional damage against vampires.”
“Is it a good sword? Hmm. Good for decapitation, I suppose. Vampire Slayer… I wonder what a vampire looks like?’
I hadn’t seen a picture of a vampire on the website yet.
‘Hmmm. I guess vampires follow the usual setup, so they can turn into bats, and in the movies, they’re pale as a sheet… and they have fangs, right? Hmmm, and then again… wait!’
I felt my body grow creepier and creepier. Bats… I tried to remember the moment I fell in love with this place again. A swarm of bats had brought me back into this cave.
“Thousands of bats = thousands of vampires?
I looked around again. The corpse monsters looked like they could pass for vampires… I’d heard that vampires are quite high-level, and now I understood the reason for my out-of-this-world leveling.
‘For some reason, I don’t feel like decapitating.
I pulled up the time window. There was still about six hours of daylight left.
“Kkhkhkhkh…. Let’s do a bomb ramp (game term for explosive leveling), shall we?”
I put all my stats into strength.
“Character: Karen
Strength 341
Agility 20
Intelligence 15
Luck 10
HP 10,004 (10,004)
MP 100 (100)”
My HP increased with each hit until it finally surpassed 10,000. I vowed to only take Strength from now on and looked down at the vampires with a warm glow.
“My, experience points, let’s go hunting!”
I turned my attention to the vampire (= corpse monster) next to me and drew my Vampire Slayer to decapitate it. I had invested a lot of energy into it, as its stubborn neck was easily snapped.
“You’ve reached level 80, please distribute your remaining stats well.”
I was hoping to level up to 60, but I only gained 20. I was disappointed, but I figured I’d rather kill one every second than one every two hours, so I continued hunting. The vampires lying side by side in a row quickly died, leaving their items behind.
“Kkk, humans die and leave names! Monsters leave items! Kkkkkkk!”
I went on a rampage, slaughtering vampires with my berserker. I stopped leveling up and only started to gain experience. But I was already at level 89.
I was getting tired of these vampires giving me such a paltry experience without the same quick leveling up that I was used to. But with no way out, I kept slaughtering them for items and gold, collecting money and items to build up my inventory.
“Phew, there aren’t any more of them, are there?”
I couldn’t see outside, but it was probably time for the sun to set. Before I knew it, I was level 98, and soon I would be a master. I had slaughtered all those vampires, and since there were no more left, I started looking for an exit. I recognized the door at the far end.
“It’s the Hell Gate. Is this the inside of the Hell Gate?
Once again, the gate blocked my path, refusing to open despite my increased strength.
“Damn it. How do I get out?”
I looked around and saw that the vampires were regenerating. First at intervals of an hour, then at one-second intervals. They seemed to regenerate in proportion to the time I spent killing them.
I pounded on the gates of hell again, several times, then gave up and lay down.
‘Am I trapped……?’
I thought.
At that moment, the gates began to open.
I quickly left the room, afraid that the gates would close. As I scanned the landscape with my lantern, I realized that the place looked familiar. I thought I could finally breathe. It turns out that I was level 5 before I went inside the portal, and 98 when I came out.
I had evolved and come out.
I’m like, “Pfft… Operator assholes. I’m sure you’re feeling the heat by now.
I’m sure they were hoping there wouldn’t be any more scandals like mine. No, I’m sure they hoped it never happened. Who can get to level 98 in a day? No matter how easy the game is, it’s not possible to get to level 98. I thought I was a case of leveling up a little too easily.
“Operator, is it up? Merong~ Kkkkk.”
As I was playing, doing what I thought was childish, I heard a shout from behind me. I turned around and saw thousands of pale-faced men standing there.
“Vampires, huh? Why are there so many of them? Are they already regenerated?”
The leader of the vampires nodded slightly.
“I see. …Then you’re going to come at me, aren’t you?”
The vampire boss nodded again, this time more vigorously. Then, in a grim voice, he instructed.
“Kill that bastard right now.”
‘Shit…….’
I thought for sure until hundreds of vampires attacked me. But then I was dead. I got up from the capsule and went to the homepage. I was going to research everything about vampires.
I didn’t like those vampire bastards. They’d just give me experience for nothing… and then they’d kill me.
“Cheat, Chet.
I cursed at the operator and scanned the website to see what I could find about vampires.
“Vampires live in the Vampire Castle and cannot be found during the day. When the sun comes up, users who are connected to the Vampire Castle are forcibly removed, and the vampires go to sleep in unknown graves. At night, the Vampire Castle is always open.
The Grave is an unknown location, presumably not too far from the Vampire Castle. The Vampire Grave is also home to a teleportation circle, a permanent magic circle designed to allow vampires to travel directly to the castle as soon as they wake up.
However, there is no way to go the other way. This is to prevent users from accidentally discovering the path and entering the tomb.
You can also access the tombs of other Clans by using the magic circle hidden in the tomb. The Crimson Blood Clan is the most powerful of the nine clans, as they are directly under the control of the Blood Emperor. The graves of the Crimson Bloods who serve the Blood Emperor are so little known that some say they exist in Hell.
Rumor has it that the magic circles in each tomb can be used to reach the Crimson Blood’s grave, or even the Blood Emperor’s castle.”
“Blood Emperor…….”
“Blood Emperor. King of all the undead. He wields absolute power over the undead, and all undead obey his every word (except for those in the service of other demons or fiends).
The Blood Emperor is the highest-ranking demon at level 300, a vampire of high bloodline. He is also known as Count Dracula. He is said to be invincible and his movements cannot be followed by the eye.”
“What an ignorant bastard… You should avoid him.”
I got some good information.
“Hmph, each tomb is connected by a magic circle? Where is that?
My character’s current location was probably a tomb. In the beginning town, you can be reincarnated right where you died. The gates of Hell only open twice a day, and that’s when the vampires come and go. I searched my memory and guessed where the magic circle might be.
“The pit I fell into the first time!”