You have entered a Safe Room.
The safe room appeared, to Ranma, to be some random fried chicken restaurant. It seemed that it came from Japan since all of the original wording on advertisements and posters that lined parts of the walls were in japanese. The store itself looked like it was meant to be two stories high but the stairs leading up only led into a solid panel of brick. The windows that were supposed to show the outside instead showed nothing but solid walls.
A small collection of tables and chairs that were most likely part of the original restaurant sat scattered throughout most of the dining area. A pair of doors that led into the bathrooms stood next to two other doors that were attached to the opposite wall of the entrance. These doors were not too far from the serving counter of the restaurant and didn’t seem like they were originally a part of the building. One had an X on its surface while the other door just looked like a plain old door. Behind the counter stood a very short hairy creature.
Ranma blinked as he took in the sight of the alien in front of him. It was hairy, very hairy, about the height of the old ghoul or the old letch, had a green tint to just about every part of its body, and even from the smell of the safe room and the distance between the two Ranma still noticed that it-he- smelled like moss. The alien was also standing on something that barely managed to make its chest show over the counter. On top of its head was a ridiculous-looking baseball cap that had a cartoonish chicken attached to its rim, most likely part of the uniform this place had when it was still on the surface.
“Welcome to Safe Room,” the alien said as Ranma and Shampoo walked closer, neither could quite place his accent. “Do you wish for food, I can have some ready for you. Also, will you be renting room?”
“Uh, sure buddy, to all of that,” Ranma replied. He took a moment to examine the alien.
Nick - Bopca Protector. Level 55.
Caretaker of this Safe Room.
This is a non-combatant NPC.
Bopca Protectors are magical, gnome-like creatures who exist solely to watch over Safe Rooms. Yes, that is their entire existence. These creatures have no other purpose in this dungeon other than to be glorified waitstaff for you crawlers.
“What?” Ranma couldn’t help but question that odd description at the end. He shook his head and figured that it’d be best if he just ignored it. The alien, Nick, just nodded his head and hopped off the stool he was standing on and then disappeared into the kitchen area of the safe room.
The two glanced up at the three screens that hung on a nearby wall. The first screen had a countdown until the level collapsed in 4 days and 11 hours, a countdown until the premiere of the Dungeon Crawler World show which was in 18 hours, and the remaining crawlers in the dungeon which was currently at 5,667,211 and still ticking down. Over five million people had died since Ranma had last looked at the number. Ranma couldn't help but agree that Maxwell was right; watching these numbers go down really was too depressing.
The second screen just had the phrase:
Leaderboard will populate upon collapse of the third level.
The third screen had details about the current safe room:
Welcome to the Safe Room.
You are on the First Level.
Rental Rooms currently available: 12
Rental Room price: 0 gold.
Personal spaces will become available for purchase on the fourth level.
Food is available at this location.
Ranma and Shampoo took a seat at one of the tables in the room. The two nearly collapsed in their chairs as they did so. Ranma sucked in a breath and let it out then turned towards his companion and said, “Hell of a day, right Shampoo?”
Shampoo nodded, “I just want a nice bath and then sleep for a whole day.”
Ranma agreed with the sentiment of a hot bath as he opened his missed notifications, barely paying much attention to them. Most of them were skill upgrades but he got a couple of achievements. They weren’t anything special as he only got a couple of bronze adventurer boxes and one silver one which he received the moment he stepped into this place. The boxes themselves didn’t contain anything new either, just more general loot like torches, potions, and bandages.
As the last box that Ranma and Shampoo opened disappeared Nick the Bopca Protector returned with a couple trays of food. Both were filled with fried chicken and the two eyed the trays hungrily. Ranma was even willing to brave Akane’s cooking right now; he was so hungry.
The sudden thought of Akane made his mood deflate but he knew he still needed to eat. Shampoo glanced over to Ranma as if she suddenly sensed his lowered mood and gave him a worried look as he slowly picked at his food.
Once they were done eating the Bopca took the trays away and they got ready to sleep. The sleeping spaces were behind the plain door next to the one with the X on it which was for personal spaces later on. When they had opened the door it revealed a small hallway with twelve doors inside of it, six on each side. They were each also about the size of closets though Ranma didn’t find it claustrophobic as he had slept in worse places. Ranma just took the closest one and practically fell down on top of the bed inside. It was ridiculously comfortable, the most comfortable bed he had ever slept in.
As Ranma rolled onto his back and laid his head on the pillow of the bed he thought over the events of the past day. Truthfully, he had no idea what to do. All of the problems and challenges that he has had to face in the past were so very different from the one right now. Often it was simply someone new that suddenly pops up out of nowhere and he’d find himself getting involved in some new crazy adventure.
The solutions to the problems he’d face were also very simple and typically straightforward. Often it simply involved learning some new technique or martial art style or figuring out the trick he needed to beat his opponent. But the AI thing was right, he couldn’t simply punch his way out of everything. Not here. But he didn’t know what exactly to do about it.
“Ranma?” Shampoo called from behind the door that gave the small bedroom privacy from the rest of the safe room. She opened the door and gave him a concerned look, “You alright?”
Ranma turned on his side and pretended like he was trying to get comfortable, “Yeah, just not used to beds like this.”
Shampoo said nothing but instead closed the door and joined Ranma on the bed, it was a bit of a tight squeeze. Ranma jolted in surprise and glanced over his shoulder at the girl. Said girl made herself comfortable and hugged Ranma from behind.
“Uh, Shampoo?” Ranma said weakly. He has had Shampoo sneak into his bed before but it had always been when he was already asleep or after he had already woken up.
“Go to sleep, belov-Airen,” Shampoo told him, nearly forcing the Chinese out. Still, she snuggled into his back and sighed, “We have a lot to do tomorrow.”
“I-uh, sure,” Ranma was at a loss for words. He wasn’t exactly the best at dealing with the women in his life.
Suddenly, a voice shouted from inside the attached hallway, “Hey! No hanky-panky inside safe room! This is family establishment!”
Ranma’s cheeks burned at the thought of doing something like that with Shampoo and he shouted back, “We ain’t doin’ stuff like that!”
“You better not! I’d have to kick you out if you did! If you want hanky-panky then wait until you get to fourth floor and buy personal space! Even then, only restrooms are the places where no one can watch! Now sleep!” Nick the Bopca shouted back.
Ranma just groaned and did his best to relax, he wasn’t in the mood to argue right now. He was out like a light a minute later.
----------------------------------------
Time until level collapse 4 days, 3 hours.
Ranma woke up exactly eight hours later, it was a longer sleep than normal as he didn’t have his father to wake him up for early training. Not that ‘early morning’ meant anything right now, Ranma wasn’t even aware if the outside world was day or night. Shampoo was still sleeping at his side though she was now resting her head over his chest, Ranma figured he had moved around a bit sometime in the night. She mumbled something under her breath that he couldn’t catch and sighed as she shifted into a more comfortable position.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
For just a moment Ranma tensed up as this sort of situation would normally have someone, usually Akane, enter the room and see them like this. After several moments of doing nothing but listening to Shampoo’s breathing, Ranma relaxed as he remembered that nobody is likely going to do anything. The events of the past day replayed back in his mind and he breathed in deeply and let out a long breath as he stared up at the ceiling.
“Right, stuck in a weird dungeon and an alien takeover,” he summarized in his head. He looked down at Shampoo’s sleeping face and in that moment was reminded that she was still as cute as she had always been. Ranma’s mind went back to when she had first kissed him as a guy and didn’t know about his curse, then it went to all the things that happened after ever since he came to Nerima, Tokyo. He never hated the girl even when she did stupid stuff that made his life a bit more hectic than a normal person’s. Sure, he got annoyed at her but it never went further than that.
Shampoo groaned and stirred, slowly waking up on Ranma’s chest, and he pushed those thoughts to the side.
Later, when they were both awake and ready, the two spent some time in the main area of the safe room practicing their martial arts. They didn’t spar as that would count as attacking each other in a safe room, and that wasn’t something that was tolerated, but they did go through individual katas and specific techniques. This was a good chance for Ranma as he wasn’t able to do many of the moves he had available on the mobs in the dungeon and he could check out how his body moved in a more controlled environment now.
Once their morning practicing was over and they had a meal provided by Nick the Bopca, not fried chicken but actually something he invented himself which quickly prompted Shampoo into asking the alien how he made the dish, Ranma and Shampoo spent time asking the alien some questions about safe rooms. He couldn’t answer everything but he was helpful and was willing to answer any that he could. Eventually, the two left the safe room and headed out into the dungeon.
“The nest or whatever of those elf guys is what we’re hitting next, then I guess we can head over that way and check out what mobs are over there,” Ranma said, looking over his map and planning out where they were going next.. The area revealed by his map showed a large room not far from where they had stopped their exploring and Ranma was certain that this was where those annoying elf guys came from.
Shampoo just shrugged and they began heading towards where they knew the nest was going to be. As they walked and neared the area where they found the sign pointing towards the nest they found that some new enemies were stalking the halls. It was a pair of trash elves but they were a higher level than the ones from before.
The first was level five and was dubbed a Trash Elf Junkie. This one, while its name being redundant given the description of the Trash Elf race, seemed a lot more feral compared to the others of its kind. It constantly scratched at itself while its head twitched erratically as if it was trying to see everything at the same time. It was tweaking out nonstop and it growled as soon as it saw the two of them.
The second, a level four Trash Elf Dealer, glanced their way when the junkie began growling. It scrambled to get behind the junkie as Ranma and Shampoo charged towards them with their fists raised. As they neared it the junkie elf began to glow and a syringe symbol with a 1 minute timer appeared over its head then, just as quickly, it charged back at the two.
It grunted as Ranma’s fist met its stomach but it seemed to not feel pain like normal living beings as its health only went down by an eighth and it quickly struck back at his chest. Ranma groaned as he instinctually moved enough to lessen the impact but the mob’s strength was greater than its thin form suggested and he stumbled back a step. It was about to follow through with its attack until Shampoo smashed her fist into its cheek and sent it reeling, it had obviously felt that attack and its health plummeted down to a third.
It staggered for a moment until something hit it on its neck. It came from the other elf and was some type of spell that looked like a magical syringe that injected something into something else without needing to get near them. Suddenly, the junkie elf was back to full health and it recovered fast enough to charge back at them.
Ranma had now gotten a good feeling for how the mob fought and simply shouted to Shampoo, “I got this guy, go take care of that jerk!”
“Got it!” Shampoo shouted back as she rolled under the junkie elf’s clumsy swing and bolted straight for the dealer elf who now stared wide-eyed at the charging Chinese amazon in fear. The mob scrambled to try and get something out of its pocket but Ranma wasn’t able to see what as he was soon busy dealing with the elf in front of him.
The next round in their fight didn’t last very long. Ranma ducked under a swing from the elf and replied with several hits to its face, having learned his lesson to avoid hitting it where it could mostly shrug off his hits. The elf staggered back as the blows rocked its face and a dazed debuff appeared over its head. Ranma wasted no more time and used his Tenshin Amaguriken skill. His entire body sped up with the increase of his dexterity and blow after blow from his fists rained down on the elf in front of him.
Its health plummeted down to zero just as his skill ran out and suddenly the body was launched into the wall with a loud splat of blood. The blood ringed around the body leaning against the wall like a morbid and gorey halo. Briefly, Ranma wondered why it hadn’t been launched as he was hitting it but figured that was the doing of the AI or something. A system notification flashed in front of his face as he noted that Shampoo had quickly taken care of her own mob by slamming its head against the tunnel wall.
New Achievement! Fists of Fury!
You used the entire duration of a limited per fight speed-increasing skill to single mindedly punch a mob to death even when there are other available targets! Wow, now that’s some dedication to killing one, very minor, mob right there. Overkill much? But, you know what, this still deserves something fitting.
Reward: Your fists will now come with amazing sound effects! They will also sometimes catch on fire if enough are thrown or if a punch is just that fast! Note: These flames will not burn your targets nor catch anything on fire.
Ranma blinked as the achievement went away. He stared disbelieving for a moment before he experimentally punched the air in front of him. Sure enough, a light yet dramatic whooshing sound that didn’t fit with the speed he used to punch came from his striking fist as well as a small spark of flame. Ranma immediately glared up at the ceiling and shouted, “Oh, c’mon! I know martial arts can be weird sometimes but can’t ya take it even a little bit more seriously and not turn this into some anime?!”
The AI running the system didn’t respond and Ranma just sighed in defeat. He refused to admit out loud that he did find it kinda cool.
After that first battle they continued down the tunnels once again, killing dozens of these new elves and even more of the weaker ones. After their initial battle Ranma and Shampoo decided that they’d switch targets when it came to fighting the stronger mobs and let the other person distract the tougher junkie elf while they killed its supporter. They also found that by killing the dealers before they got their magic shot off at the junkies the junkies were a whole lot easier to kill. The loot from these new mobs weren’t much better than the loot from the weaker ones, though they were of a barely higher quality.
By the time the two had reached the hallway that led to the large room that their map told them was just behind a shoddy wooden door they had each risen to level 6. They still couldn’t use their new levels and the stats that came with them but they were confident that they could get through this next part.
The door itself had no indication that it held anything strong behind it. In fact, the door looked like it came straight from an old and seedy apartment complex. Parts of it looked a bit rotten and it had water stains running from the top of the frame. At about eye-level was a numbered plate that simply had the number “420” written in bold on it. Various bits of graffiti were written under the label. The door knob looked old and like it could be easily ripped off of the door.
Ranma and Shampoo stared at the door then at each other. Without a word they snuck up to it and Ranma gently opened it just enough that they could peek through the crack. They cringed as it squeaked but still looked into the room.
The room was a massive chamber, about a hundred feet in diameter and looked like it was in a roundish square shape. The ceiling couldn’t be seen as when they looked up all they could see was darkness, but they were certain that the chamber was taller than it should be. Inside the chamber it looked like it was decorated to look like both a trashy apartment and a drug den.
The interior had a few mobs inside. On one end were a few trash elves lazing around on a couch, watching a TV and smoking what looked like blunts. Not too far from there was a table that had a couple of other elves either snorting lines of cocaine on top of it or putting pills into brown paper bags. Nxt to that table were several other ones that weren’t being used yet still had half-finished work scattered across them. The rest of the chamber was filled with piles upon piles of cocaine bricks and various boxes and barrels of different kinds of drugs. All of it was surprisingly well sorted and labeled.
None had seen them yet nor seemingly had heard the squeak of the door. They pulled away from the crack of the door and moved a few feet away to talk.
“Aiya, that was a lot of drugs,” Shampoo said after they were comfortable.
“Yeah, no kiddin’,” Ranma agreed. “Anyway, I want to get those guys out of there before we go inside. It’d be easier to beat them when they gotta run through that door.”
“How do we do that? Just announce ourselves?” Shampoo asked.
Ranma shook his head, “Nah, they probably want to stay in there and protect that stuff. If we want them to come to us we gotta make ‘em not think about anythin’ else.”
At Shampoo’s raised eyebrow Ranma sighed and rubbed the back of his head, “I got a technique my pops taught me a while back that can get those guys to come to us. Thing is, I hate usin’ this technique but I don’t got a choice right now.”
Shampoo’s eyebrows raised, “What kind of technique could he possibly mean? Does that fat panda really have such a good technique? What kind of drawback does it have that can even make my future husband so wary?”
Shampoo scooted back at Ranma’s insistence and patiently waited off to the side of the door. Ranma himself stood up and took in a deep breath as he prepared himself. He hopped from side to side and shook out his wrists as he amped himself up even more. Then he stopped, got into a ready stance, and softly said, “Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts Secret Technique: Howl of the Demon Dog!”
Then Ranma took in a deep breath and rushed forward to fling open the door, causing it to crash loudly against the wall. When the occupants of the chamber had their attention quickly drawn to him he cupped his hand to his face and shouted, “Idiot! Losers! You can’t fight because you’re all so weak and pathetic! Those drugs are nasty and stupid! Come and get me dumbasses! Dumbaaass!”
Then for good measure Ranma turned around and bent over to slap his ass in a mocking gesture, sticking his tongue out and pulling his eyelid down with his middle finger. He stepped back into the tunnel just as shouts of outrage echoed from the chamber. Shampoo was slumped over on the ground in surprise, exasperation, and embarrassment from the ridiculous “technique”.
“Airen,” Shampoo said as she picked herself up and stood next to Ranma.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s seal that technique up for good, it’s too dangerous,” Shampoo said in utter sincerity as she stared hard at Ranma. She didn’t want to ever see Ranma do that again… unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Yeah…” Ranma looked away from Shampoo’s silently judging gaze as the fight drew nearer. Damn his pops!