Nightmare Fantasy Online - Chapter 3

Logging out for today is one option, but spending a whole day just to figure out how to beat a baby’s first monster is sorta humiliating. Plus I’ve got no clue what I should choose as my fifth skill…

Let’s explore some more. Afterward, I can see what other players have to say on the bulletin boards and cross-reference it with my own experiences. Then I can see whether to take the last skill tomorrow or wait for a better opportunity.

Okay, let’s go and spelunkle! Since I’ve defeated the spider already, let’s take the right path that it was guarding…, did it guard this place, or was it a random spawn?

Anyway, let’s take the right path.

—

*Thud!*

Mwa-hahaha! I win again!

The new spider monster, a venomous green one, laid on its back as the Angry Spider before it. The only difference between them is the colors…did the designers simply give one model different color variations?

No drops this time either. Tch. And no level-ups either. TCH!

Well, this time I fought a creature with a lower level instead of the opposite. Guess levels don’t grow on trees. Or spiders.

While I’m at it, shouldn’t my stats have increased since the last battle as well? Completely forgot to confirm that.

Ooohh! Level 2! And the stats did grow! Well, obviously. Guess I’m getting too high here…

What are these brackets for? Extra stats? Maybe they’re from this title thing? Let’s see if there’s something about it…

Proof over having defeated a spider creature as your first kill in this world. The title grants no special effects.

Status enhancements!? And you can get special effects from titles? Wait, there’s something in the tutorial menu here. Ehm…

Or so it seems. Wonder if I’ll turn into some spider-killer when I evolve.

Regardless, there are no obvious clues on how to get these titles, so I’ll just count myself as lucky if I get one.

Moving on…there’s nothing here. The expectant right path has so far just given me one more spider to kill, and that’s it. I didn’t even have the time to Identify it, so I don’t even know what type of spider it was.

This feels more and more like a miss. Let’s look some more before turning back…oh? A door. It was placed close to the end of the corridor in a way that you wouldn’t notice it right away. Maybe there’s treasure inside? There’s nothing else that looks suspicious on this path.

Softly, I tried to open the door. It’s not locked. Excuse me…

The inside of the room was small, with none of the torches inside, and only a single chest placed by the wall on the other side of the room. Treasure! Or maybe that thing is…

I KNEW IT! A freaking Mimic! Way to kill the wind in my sails!

And look at that level…it’s way above mine. Yeah, I can’t beat this thing. But my curiosity is getting the better of me…

Safety first. Here, eat a rock.

*Thud*

*CHOMP! CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP! GULP!*

A gigantic mass of flesh popped out of the chest and started to eat the rock with such voracity that drool was flying to the door opening where I was standing. After it was done with the “meal”, the flesh-creature returned to the chest, leaving nothing behind of the rock I had thrown in……….

TACTICAL RETREAT!! AND LOG OUT!!

—

Phew. That was one heck of a sprint I did there. Not that my real body feels the exhaustion.

I took off the VR headgear and started up the computer. I want to see everyone’s opinion of the game and look for clues.

Some people say that the difficulty of fighting so realistic monsters is too high for them, especially with limited numbers of skills at the beginning of the game. Some guys again find the experience thrilling and tell the first group to grow some balls. Ain’t that too…oh, the first guys are those starting with E-rank races and lost to G-ranks? Yeah, let’s ignore their comments.

As for the gameplay, most people either chose to start in the main capital or one of the 10 sub-capitals that represents one of the primary elements.

NFO has countless attributes, named elements in-game, that are given to monsters and skills. There are 12 “main” elements, referred to as “primary elements”, as well as various “composition elements” created by combining two or three of the primary elements. The primary elements are:

But the last two don’t exist in skills or monsters and are only used to form composition attributes.

Players can choose to specialize in 1 primary element and 2 composition elements. The reason for this limitation of the primary-type elements may be related to the 10 sub-capitals, but we got no proof as of the moment.

To “specialize” in an element means that you own a Talent-type skill. And it’s only after obtaining one of these skills that you can start obtaining and using skills of that element.

Say, if I wanted to use Fire element skills, I would need to get the [Lesser Fire Talent] skill, which is the 1st-tier of the Fire element Talent-type skill. And apparently, a Talent-skill at a high level will make other skills of the same element stronger, so they act as an enhancement-type skill as well.

There are no restrictions on the composition elements except the number, and that you need some special items if you want to buy their Talent-type skills. No one knows where to find these key items yet though.

Not that I’m interested in an element this early in the game though. I wanna play some more before deciding on that.

Looking at the section “Racial Starts = Hell-mode?”, I found out that most people were having trouble in their starting locations and had to remake their characters. The nice part of NFO is that you can “save” your character ID and transplant it into a new avatar. Some people created a copy of their old avatar and simply switched their starting location to one of the capitals.

Those guys must probably find it too difficult to brave a Dungeon right from the start and with no help from other players. Because wouldn’t you know: all the Racial Starting-locations are inside Dungeons~.

Yeah, it’s hell-mode.

Some people are preserving inside these “racial Dungeons”, so I’m not the only crazy monster around. Let’s keep on going in this direction.

As for that “Chest Mimic”, it seems to be a monster of the demon-line just like me. Its level-cap of 50 reveals that it’s an E-rank monster to boot…

Yeah, I can’t beat this one. The hardcore gamers have concluded that a level gap of at most 5 is the limit if equipment and skills are not taken into account. And that hope-crushing chest is likely to have more of everything that I have. Trying to beat it with no plan will result in me dying and feeding it EXP.

Meaning, I’ll forget about that guy for now!

No one has created a “Top 10 skills”-list or something like that yet, so I’ll postpone those plans.

Regarding my other boss-like problem…, no one has figured out how to alter the Player Room, OR its door, yet. Tch.

Tomorrow, let’s explore the left path instead. Good night!

—

And good morning!

After logging in, I struggled with the last boss (the door) and defeated the Angry Spider who’d respawned over the night. Its level had returned to Lv.1, so no worries about dying from now on. As long as I kill the killer afterward.

The left path is just like the right one I traveled yesterday. Made of dark-grey concrete-like rocks, with a purple carpet in the middle, and torches lit with purple flames to cast some light on this gloomy place. Lots of dust on the floor as well. Hope no one sees my footmarks and comes chasing after me.

After walking for a little while, I found something new. And dangerous.

What is that thing? The Angry Spider’s evolved form? It’s bigger than a grown-up man! Maybe two meters high? It looks like it’s standing guard in front of some room with a sign of crossbones and a skull. Scary stuff.

I looked at the huge, scarlet-colored spider from behind a pair of bigger pieces of broken Concrocks when the thing suddenly turned its gaze to where I was hiding. How?! No, calm down. It isn’t certain that it has noticed me-

“HEY, THE GREY ONE HIDING THERE.” – Huge, scarlet spider

It knooows!! Crap, retreat!

“COME OVER HERE. I HAVE SOMETHING TO ASK YA.” – Huge, scarlet spider

I paused my escape before it could even start. Not because of the spider’s words, but because something had appeared in front of me.

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

The guardian Red Rage Spider asks you to accept its Quest.

Do you want to hear it out?

Y/N

A Quest? From this monster? Now that I think about it, players can use monster races, so maybe the same goes for NPCs?

While thinking that I would just return even if killed, I pushed the yes button and walked towards this Red Rage Spider.

“GOOD. TURNS OUT THAT I DROPPED THE KEY FOR THE STORAGE ROOM HERE, PROBABLY WHEN I WENT TO INSPECT THE CORRIDOR THAT LEADS TO THAT OL’ AND ABANDONED TREASURE CHEST, AND I CAN’T LEAVE MY POST WITHOUT THAT ON ME. MIND HELPIN’ OUT AN OL’ ARACHNID?” – Red Rage Spider

The aged guard for the storage of old items has lost his key and cannot leave his post to find it. Give the old arachnid a hand and bring him the key. In return, you may be allowed to take some items from the storage.

O-oh, my first Quest…and it’s from a monster. Yay?

“O-okay…I’ll look for it…” – Garami

“GREAT! IT HAS A SMALL GEM ON ITS HANDLE, SO YOU SHOULD RECOGNIZE IT WHEN YOU FIND IT.” – Red Rage Spider

And with that, the big spider shifted its attention to guarding the door again. I left, not wanting to pick a fight with it, and noticed that the marker above its head, which usually comes up when you’ve noticed a creature, had changed colors from orange to blue. Time to keep an eye out for things above others’ heads?