That Time I Played A Vrmmorpg. - Volume 1 Chapter 18 16

Solo Under Crypt Dungeon Capture!

[ The Under Crypt of the Shrieker ] As the dungeon name said, is a very unholy place to explore. Different from the earthy walls and floor of the [ Earth Wyvern’s Abode ], the later’s designed with masonry textures walls with uneven flagstones, though it’s holes were filled with magmatic lava flowing naturally in it’s irregular broken pathways.

They saw the unique illumination of one characteristic of a dungeon, it’s when they passed by running towards the north, so they approached the front of the dungeon but at that moment, Risa had a sudden goosebumps before then, they reached the place.

She gulped hard seeing the ominous, shadowy, torchlit illumination of the dark dreary dungeon.

Usually, she didn’t fear dungeons, but seeing the place that had the markings of a ‘ghosty’ feel on it, her skin gathered goosebumps all over her body.

One example is the decoration all over the place, her instinct told her it would be a very ‘graphic’ dungeon that harbored frightening and freakish monsters.

‘It’s just a game..’ Sally repeated in her mind, Kaede looked at her confused and then approached.

“Sally?” Kaede tapped her friend’s shoulder, which made Risa shrieked out in surprise.

“Hii-k! Pew~ Maple~, don’t surprise me like that!” Risa looked at her with slight grievance, Kaede quickly apologized before they looked again to the dungeon front.

As for Kaede, in the start, she didn’t even show any trepidation, and was more curious. Seemingly unaffected by the spooky vibes the dungeon in front of them.

“Sorry~ sorry~… do you have a problem?” Kaede laughed wryly but she looked at her friend with ‘ Hmm~?’

“C-Can we change the dungeon? There’s probably few more in the route towards the place.” Risa looked a little nervous while her hands felt a little shaky.

Gram looked at her, “It’s not really that ghostly.. This dungeon is probably a fire and shadow type although, It’s probable that some can be a little haunted…”

“Ehh..~uhhh… e-to.. Can we please? Uwaaa-aah~!” Risa trembled as she got more scared.

“Don’t worry just stay in the back, there’s no really spooky thing in this place.” Kaede showed a skull she gathered from the dungeon entrance, and it made Risa jump backward with a terrorized expression.

“Wah!!!”

“Ekkk! You’re making me more scared with that! What’s with you two!? Hmmm… Can I just turn back, or I’ll just wait here..” She started sulking on the side, sat on the ground, while cutely playing on the dirt with her blue dagger.

Kaede glanced at the skull on her hand and pressed it’s forehead, she looked at Gram with a slightly confused look, “It’s cute though~? Isn’t it? Neh?”

He wryly laughed before rubbing her head, said whisperingly, “Can you wait here with Sally? Maple? I’ll clear the dungeon so that we can head to the next one.”

He can’t just make Risa wait while she was still spooked out, even though she just saw the dungeon and some scary stuff. It already stopped her from functioning all together.

“Though, I want to explore the dungeon but okay~! I’ll teach her how to draw better on the ground!” Kaede had a bright smile, Risa heard that and she immediately clung towards her very best friend.

“Maple-cchaamaa~! Huhu.” Risa cried out.

“Yosh~ yosh…” Kaede rubbed her back softly like a mother.

“Here’s my apology.” He didn’t force her to remove her fears, though he probably had to help in the future given that it’s a bad trauma for a girl. Kaede also apologized.

“N~nn.. Sckk.. You don’t have any reason to say sorry..” Risa who had tears in her eyes said.

Before he left, he buffed the two with different support spells, of courses, by rubbing their head with a smile.

He didn’t want to leave out a dungeon and as Kaede and Risa would probably explore other dungeons. So the whole plan was to conquer dungeons, gain skills before they headed towards the stage leveling dungeon.

Although it didn’t remove the grievance Risa had as shown on her face, least it made her calm down. She doesn’t want to deal with any horror related stuff at all. It was her shortcoming and although, she’s the type of person that likes challenges, if you start challenging her to a horror game, then she’ll immediately lose and freak out.

Gram didn’t exploit her vulnerability though, and kept fighting her by playing normal or other genre games which did improve her outlook towards him. Both were reflective towards all their things and though he was somewhat lazy but, they both had a similar and a complementing personality, so they quickly amicable towards each other and built a relationship, of a companionship that sometimes can even turn affectionate. Relevant memories couldn’t be counted during their middle-school.

–

A group of demonic faces have been carved into the walls every now and then. Thankfully, it seems that the dungeon’s isn’t that shadowy in the first place but it’s the aura of the place is fiendish that it could harness the growth of ghostly beings.

He entered the dungeon, not feeling the magma flowing under the steps of his boots.

He spotted the first monster of the dungeon. As always, it would have a scouting monster, moreover it’s alone.

[ Warrior Svirfneblin Lv: 16 ]

The gnome spotted him and started running towards him with it’s rusty bat.

[ Multi-Firebullet ]!

But before it could do any damage, he quickly made his first move, and while raising his hand cooly, several magic circles appeared around his hand with the sleek gauntlet. Like a an accurate firework, four [ Fire Bullet ] heads and punches through the flesh of the lone monsters killing it in an instant.

[ Warrior Svirfneblin had been defeated. ]

With multicast, he could effectively use two casts making his normal [ Fire Bullet ] fire an additional of three, the [ Multi-Casting ] multiplies the spell chosen before attacking.

Although, the MP used half of his maximum MP, as it would quickly regenerate after a minute or so.

He could effectively use 45 beams from [ Fire Flare ] that although had an ordinary individual damage, due to his few debuff’s synergy could still effectively oneshot lower-leveled monsters.

Matters of the term called ‘level gap’ would apply to increase the scale/effectivity of his skills.

After that, his ‘walk’ turns simple, he charges the [ Fire Bullet Barrage ] to max, seeing cool bullets floating around him seems to motivate his ego, with [ Wind Enhancement ] and [ Wind Boost ], he runs towards the enemy while doing a running gun tactic to quickly capture all of their attention.

[ Spider Swarm Lv: 15 ]

[ Spider Swarm Lv: 15 ]… x9

[ Darkmantle Lv: 16 ]… x8

The spider was called swarm but it actually only had 10 of it’s comrade, but each of them is the size of a normal dog. The dark mantle’s though we’re floating robe monsters, to him, it’s just a magical fiendish coat with floating magical ability.

The dark mantles immediately used it’s combination fire/dark attack when they saw him, but he didn’t evade, his barrier absorbed the damage. While at the same time, the spiders had lunged towards him.

[ – 0 LBP ]..

.

[ – 0 LBP ]

“…” He let the [ Fire Bullet Barrage ] auto target the enemy near him, they shoot towards enemies without remorse. Quickly removing some of them, with a shrill cry, the spiders got enraged as they had increased in attack speed/movement speed with their beady newly tinted red eyes.

“[Multi-Chain Lightning]!, [ Multi-Fire Flare ]!” Although seemingly overkill, after he used the skills, countless fires shooted behind him and homed towards the enemies. When the skill hit, although it didn’t kill them on one shot, it would be hit by a zap of lightning that would hit nearby monsters. If they don’t go down with the first spell, as the monsters get zapped, the lightning will bounce toward them again. The monster horde didn’t even feel the true horror of the stacked debuff.

[ Spider Swarm had been defeated. ]

[ Spider Swarm had been defeated. ]… x9

[ Darkmantle had been defeated. ]… x8

Although the monsters were lower-leveled than him while it didn’t give him sufficient experience, it still was one of the best ways of gathering skill mastery.

His stack of MP regeneration skills had already reached the point that he could fill it in a few minutes without [ Transcendental Meditation ]. Adding that every hit to the enemy would give him some MP, if he made a lower MP usage skills, that could mean he would easily gain MP.

After different paths, segments of changing direction, he spotted the next monsters, the walls had also added a new decoration, those skulls with creepy looking faces.

A spectre and ghastly humanoid looking monster dragging a pickaxe walked around the area.

[ Ghoul Lv: 20 ]

Auto Attack [ Fire Bullet Barrage ]!

Quickly, it got obliterated, it was actually much faster as it tried to dodge while dragging it’s heavy pickaxe, but it wasn’t able to dodge the homing [ Fire Flare ] or the auto [Tracking] of [ Fire Bullet Barrage ], that when tagged, his existing stack of [ Fire Bullet ] would quietly head towards it’s enemy when activated.

“It’s actually one of the best things to use to scare girls” Gram saluted towards the developers. As they made the dungeon somewhat scary to the point that vivid ghoulish faces when they get defeated, just their screams alone will freak someone out.

[ Ghoul had been defeated. ]

The next few types of monsters weren’t noteworthy, they were similar to ghoul, and the only differentiation was their elemental type. Although, all of them were ghostly and freakish enough to scare young girls or those easily freaked out.

Some of them even planned ambushes like some other ghouls. With their pickaxe attack, but they weren’t even able to damage him, he made use of [ Fire Bullet ] auto attack nearby creatures before they could ambush him, a splendid discovery when dealing with those sneaky type monsters.

With his triple barrier, he saw that he couldn’t get any resistance of some sort, he felt that it was a seemingly bad synergy but he wasn’t disheartened about it. He also learned that debuffs still damage his MP barrier, but even if they manage to consume his MP, he would still have VIT to rely on.

Consecutive long path’s, and so long as there weren’t two path’s leading to other places, he just followed through the path, not even a bit scared at the changing atmosphere.

At some point he saw an out of place golden chest in one of the corners, but as if not caring whether it’s a trap or not he just opened it willy nilly, a clicking noise sounded out.

*Boooom!*

[ -3257 LBP ]

With a blinding light, a large explosion swallowed his whole body before he got knocked back towards the other wall. As soon as he was standing up, arrows flew towards all directions, two effectively hitting him.

[ Status, [ Poison ] debuff, losing 15 HP for 16 seconds. ]

[ -15 MP ]

[ -15 MP ]

[ -15 MP ]… x6

Although without much trouble, he seemed to be fine in the end. “What the Hehe~ I have more barriers than that..” He quickly used up some MP to get his [ Light Barrier ] to its full condition, he saw the hole it made in the place of the chest had devastated 6 meter of its surrounding radius.

It seems the dungeon didn’t want anyone to survive the onslaught, considering that he was exploring the dungeon alone, he thought it must be a special feature when dungeon conquering alone.

When he approached the small hole, another wave of light but this time it was fire that headed towards his forehead.

[ Status, [ Burning ] debuff, losing 40 HP for 3 seconds. ]

[ -40 MP ]

[ -40 MP ]

[ -40 MP ]

“Must’ve been determined to kill me~ too bad.. It’s not enough.. It’ll be a good surprise once I talk about it to the two!” Gram chuckled before putting his hands on his back, sagely.

“Ooh~ What’s this?” He picked up a glowing key from the spot of the chest that tried to kill him three times.

[ Golden Key Piece ]

?????????????

“So this is the reward? This must be a key to another place or something, I hope it’s a chest key of all.. but I still had to find the other two.” Gram ribbed his chin, maybe he only had to do another solo dungeon to see if he would gain them.

He had no leads on it’s description, he shrugged and kept it in his inventory, he moved forward.

The dungeon wasn’t that long and afterwards, when fighting monsters along the way, he found the end of the place.

Gram looked towards the dark obsidian massive double doors in front of him. Both doors had two flaming skulls at its top. He waited for some moment, checked his stats, conditions and MP before going inside. With the echoing vibration and creaking sound, what displayed to him was the same looking place but an evolved creepy place, as the magma was much more relevant and the walls were adorned with weird looking faces that moved around like hallows.

Gram’s felt a little spooked out with some goosebumps on his skin, “Kuhh~ This seems like a horror film or something.. I guess that’s why there’s no people outside challenging it. Sally would probably turn unconscious seeing this…” Without any reason and information about the dungeon’s less gold drop and experience, he at least understood why it’s not being conquered by others normally.

He took another step onward to the place, but he immediately found himself acquiring a debuff.

[ Status [ Mana Leached ] debuff, not recovering any MP. ]

“What?!!!! No MP regen?” Gram suddenly had perspiration but he stopped himself from panicking, he still had many MP pot’s, that should sustain him for a while, and he hoped it would last. Given the level of the monsters here, it should be enough.

A resounding roar echoed out as a hazy figure of mass gathered like mist, but instead, flesh from the walls of the squirming heads was the main ingredient.

After it coalesced, he saw a monster kinda resembling a humanoid feature but ultimately it resembled a scorched tree, a fungus blackish color that had fleshy bits while it had many heads on it’s top, on the top of that, it didn’t have any arms.

[ Dark Shrieker Lv: 26 ]

As it finished it’s howl, it immediately used it’s attack [ Shriek ], it’s multiple heads, started making hallowed *wahhh* sounds that could truly penetrate any magical barrier or aura barrier directly towards the player status.

Gram had been quickly affected as his vision turned wobbly, while some kind of burden had been placed on his head making him not able to think better.

[ Status [ Dizzy ] debuff, not able to see well for 10 seconds. ]

[ Status [ Dizzy ] debuff, not able to see well for 20 seconds. ]

[ Status [ Dizzy ] debuff, not able to see well for 30 seconds. ]

[ Status [ Stunned ] debuff, prevent from taking action. ]

[ Perception ] !

Subconsciously, he used his scanning ability making him feel slightly better. It luckily removed the [ Stunned ] debuff but it didn’t remove the other debuff he acquired, his vision was still wobbly in all of that. But now, he could move.

[ Multi-Fire Flare ]! [ Fire Bullet Barrage 10X ]! It didn’t wind up to his mind of eating this boss monster. All he wanted was to end it’s abomination by quickly using several spells. He could dodge but he would get hit by [ Dizzy ] debuff.

The Dark Shrieker used another attack after making him dizzy which was extending one of its fleshy bodies making an elongated arm attack towards him. Although it did a tickle damage to his foremost barrier, it would probably kill him if he didn’t have any barrier at all.

[ – 60 LBP ]

[ – 60 LBP ]

[ – 60 LBP ]

[ – 60 LBP ]

[ – 60 LBP ] x12 (AN: He still had a large VIT plus [ Giant Killer ] doesn’t trigger when player had higher level than the monster. If he didn’t have any barriers, he would be dead unlike Kaede who had stack of defense skills XD.. )

Then, it kept on hitting him. He just didn’t dodge at all and just used the spells quickly taking out 50% of its HP in less than 40 seconds of volley. Luckily, [ Fire Flare ] casting time had only 3.9 seconds while he could move while chanting which benefited him greatly as he could somewhat put a distance while fighting against the boss monster.

As if responding towards him, it changed its attack pattern again, it melted parts of its body as gooey dumplings of flesh spurted from it’s back, they dropped towards nearby ground before the goop fused into another smaller monster called [ Magma Shriekers ]. A monster resembling the dark shrieker but they only had one head while all their fleshy bits were ignited like they were burning.

[ Magma Shriekers Lv: 22 ]

The magma shriekers didn’t give him any time as they attacked using their mouth, opening as a magic array appeared. It shown a hellish-magma rock that traveled towards him.

[ – 0 MP ]

[ Status, [ Burning ] debuff, losing 40 HP for 3 seconds. ]

[ – 40 MP ]

[ – 40 MP ]

[ Status, [ Burning ] debuff, losing 40 HP for 3 seconds. ]

[ – 40 MP ]

[ – 40 MP ]

[ Status, [ Burning ] debuff, losing 40 HP for 3 seconds. ]

[ – 40 MP ]

[ – 40 MP ]

He quickly lost 180 MP with just that volley, while the dark shrieker itself had been pummeling him with it’s elongated arm attack. “I skipped the attack pattern so it’s now doing two attack at the same time?” Although he had a buffer of MP, he couldn’t let the small magma shriekers use it’s attack again.

Using three MP potions on one go gulping, he used another [ Multi-Fire Flare ] he won’t be able to keep up if he just let them attack him, so he focused removing them first.

Two waves of many homing fire particles headed towards the small magma shriekers individually. Luckily, it’s attack damage or even the straggles weren’t able to keep up with the consecutive damage.

“Fire elements should be an ordinary damage element but they won’t be able to get away with my massive scaling INT~”

[ Magma Shriekers had been defeated. ]

[ Magma Shriekers had been defeated. ]

[ Magma Shriekers had been defeated. ]…x12

Defeating it’s small compatriots, the Dark Shrieker lost 20 HP instantly, so it only had 30% now. It howled again, it’s fleshy arm attacking him returned to its body.

The dark shrieker, many eyes, emanated a fiendish glow as it again used it’s shrieking attack. But before it could attack, he quickly recovered 600MP wit MP pots and then used a wave of spell again.

[ Multi-Fire Flare ]!

[ Status [ Dizzy ] debuff, not able to see well for 30 seconds. ]

[ Status [ Dizzy ] debuff, not able to see well for 40 seconds. ]

[ Status [ Dizzy ] debuff, not able to see well for 50 seconds. ]

“Kuh~ this is making my head pain a little, being a simulation of a drowsy drunkard is really hard.” With the wobbling effect on his eyes, he felt that he would vomit in any minute.

With that moment, the fire particles homed towards the boss monster chipping again, 20% of its HP.

As he was acclimating with the dizziness, while he did damage it to its lowest HP, the dark shrieker was already going to its last phase, it was coalescing a dark-fleshy butcher’s knife connected to it’s flesh, it pounced towards him.

But he was already on his final casting time of another [ Multi-Fire Flare ] after drinking another three potions. The firework display of the homing fire particles punctured the monster’s body, it lit it’s body up and was defeated with a gruesome sight before it vanished with defeated howls from it’s individual heads.

[ Dark Shrieker had been defeated. ]

[ Skill [ Spell Overkill ] had evolved to [ Spell Overkill EX (Small) ] ] ( Requirements to gain: Use 200 attack to one enemy. )

[ Spell Overkill EX (Small) ]

If spells are consecutively cast towards a single enemy, then its damage is boosted by 1 INT per cast. Stack up to 50 times and the skill owner will gain 50 INT that will disappear after getting disengaged in battle.

“Pew~ there goes my last three MP potion, to think it could even last with my INT and [ Giant Killer ] passive what a defensive boss.” Gram wiped the imaginary sweat on his forehead. The mana regeneration debuff had been lifted off, although, it’s still a little dizzy but he could overcome it with his mentality.

He sighed in relief, seeing his MP regenerating by itself. He knew he could have just won by using [ Power Augmentation ] or [ Earth Wyvern ] but he didn’t like not taking the challenge. He might use it in the worst case scenario though.

“Should I make powerful attacking spells…” Gram mumbled under his breath. Before he looked at the glowing light in the center-most of the room.

Approaching it and immediately putting his hands, he lifted up the cover and saw only one item but many gold coins seemed to have filled up most of the chest. With hexagram pentagons around, an amulet is shown. It had the eye resembling the shrieker adorned in it’s center. He equipped it while reading the descriptions gleefully.

(AN: Let me give a proper example of the tier of weapons. The fanfic would follow this tier: Normal, Rare, Epic, Unique, and Legendary. Epic and Unique kinda had similar stats but Unique items can only be acquired through soloing a dungeon, while Epic had less, skill slot (usually only one) or had a skill already default stats, no scaling. Comparably, Legendary had a similar number of limits with Unique but had or might have a scaling effect as well, it’s on the chance.

[ Soulless Amulet [ Legendary ] ]

MP + 200

[ Bewildering Blow ]

The user can use a hallowed arm that extends towards the enemies when enemies that have been touched would acquire [ Amplify ] and [ Stunned ], the arm could be attacked when it took moderate damage would vanish and would have a cool-down time of 2 minutes. Longer direct contact would lengthen the debuff.

[ Amplify ] – All attacks will deal double damage.

[ Stunned ] – Cannot move or attack.

[ Wave of Despair ]

Places a [Provoke] towards enemies that heard the skill and will give [ Dizzy ] debuff for 20 seconds.

[ Reign of Terror ]

Transform left hand with a large dark-blade that will consume 5% MP per second it is activated. Triple Magical Attack Damage (INT based), ignores defense and gains [ Life-Steal ] that heals the user based on the enemies 20% HP + 5% STR of the user when a successful attack is triggered.

Drawback: Every successful attack will eat out the 20% MP of the user. When in refresh, the user’s MP is reduced by half for a duration of time while natural MP regeneration is reduced.

Cooldown: 1 Day.

“Cool! Three skills at once~ and the last skill is something… or could be my triumph card hehe~ imagine other player’s horrified faces kinda makes me a little excited.” Gram rubbed his hands while imaging him flexing the skill, if he was given a chance, he could ultimately lengthen the duration with his [ Transcendental Meditation ]. (AN: Devs go like brrrrrrr~oo!.. Chotto Matte?!)

“Sadly, there’s no other key as it seems.” Gram looked around for a few minutes and didn’t get any clues over the gold key piece he had gotten earlier.

Gram quickly meets up with the two girls afterwards, hearing his adventures spook out the tender girls after all. Which made him laugh out loud, though he didn’t forget to tell how tricky the dungeon is even with his massive advantages.