You have entered Level 1 – Extermination Level Enemy Count: 26 Time Limit: 2 hours
Koji stepped out of the portal and opened his eyes. He was in a cave-like environment with stone walls and stalactites all around. Only this time there were 2 more humans with him. One of them was a blonde 40-something man who was on the floor trying to lift his torso up, like he was trying to sit down. He was wearing a black shirt and a suit and on the bottom, he had sweat pants and slippers on. The mismatch was very strange. He had a full beard and was wearing glasses.
The other person was a 1,80m tall woman that appeared to be latin and around her 30s. She had shoulder-length black hair tied back in ponytail and was wearing gym clothing, with a tight top that displayed her incredible abs and grey spandex. Her entire body was shredded. Her shoulders were larger than most men and her thighs and butt looked like those of a horse. But most of all, those abs were a realm above. They had even surpassed the 6-pack level and had rose to the 8-pack level. She had a serious expression that matched her imposing body. Perceiving Koji’s gaze, who at this point was open-mouthedly staring at the woman, she glared angrily at him.
“What you looking at chicken limbs? Did you lose a Pokemon on my face or something?”
“Ehh… Sorry, I thought you were a Machamp. But then I realized you only have two arms.” He replied with a devilish smile.
“I have no idea what that means, but I feel like you are mocking me.”
“How could I mock a lady such as yourself?”
As the two were exchanging “greetings”, the blonde man suddenly got lifted up and a wheelchair appeared beneath him. It was a sports wheelchair that looked like it was painted by an angry teenager with Skulls designed all-around it. The man adjusted himself a little on the chair.
“Ok, you two. Stop with the flirting. You forgot this is a time trial? Any second wasted decreases our chances of survival. Since it looks like we are a team, let’s briefly introduce ourselves and give a short briefing about our Skills and Equipments. I’ll start. My name is Dr. Ferdinand Chester. I’m a professor and researcher in the field of Sports Science. I have a Monster Taming skill that allows me to form a pact with a monster and use it in combat. I made a pact with a Hellhound that came in a capsule with the starter kit. His name is Musky and he is a dog-like creature that can use a Fire Area Attack and has exceptional speed. For Equipments I have a common Iron Dagger and this special wheelchair that allows me to move rather well. Ah yes, I’m paraplegic, so I can’t move my lower limbs. Lady, you go next.”
“Ahh. Right. I’m Lucia Herrera. I’m a kickboxing instructor and professional bodybuilder. I have a Spartan Shield that has the special option of creating a projectile-deflecting barrier in a 180º degree in front of it. My skill is Dragon Kick. Basically, I can throw a high power, super fast flying kick every 10 minutes. It’s very exhausting to use though. I also have an Iron Club and some Leather Boots.”
“I’m Koji Kawamura. I’m a…. professional… poker… player, I guess. Not that it matters now anyway. For skills, I have Gambler’s Pride, which allows me to use items as gambling material to maybe get better stuff or jack shit. I also have Chaotic Barrier. It creates a barrier that defends from attacks and randomly shoots out bolts of energy. For equipment I have a Rabbit Foot Necklace that increases my drop rates, a Crazy Dagger, that makes me strong as fuck but also insane, a common Short Spear, a Sledgehammer and this cool Crossbow, along with Darts to use with.”
“Well, fuck me… You are one luck SOB aren’t you?” Lucia protested after hearing the amount of stuff Koji had gotten on Level 0. Dr. Ferdinand acted cool but internally was also surprised by it.
“We can talk about that later. So, Miss Herrera is a Close-Range Warrior-type. You are going to be our frontline. My Musky is good at flanking targets and dishing out Area damage with his Fire Spray. But you... Mister Kawamura… what is your style of fighting? I can’t deduce too much based on what you told me.”
“Call me Koji, it’s weird to hear my last name like that. Anyways… so… style… it’s Hit-and-Run, probably? And then using Crazy Dagger when I can’t.”
“I see, so you use the Crossbow and the Barrier to injure the opponents from a distance and then we that fails you use the so-called Crazy Dagger ability. What about the spear and sledgehammer?”
“I only used the spear once on Floor 0, most of the goblins I killed with the tactic you so eloquently described. The Sledgehammer is too heavy for me to use in combat.”
“Wait, what do you mean Goblin”S”. We only had one Goblin and one Kobold to fight on Level 0 right?” Lucia asked in surprise.
“That’s the requirement to clear the Level. But you could have used the remaining time to practice and hunt more Goblins on the first room. We can discuss that later… we are being timed, don’t forget.” Dr. Ferdinand hurried the team. He was a very efficient person that hated wasting time on pointless banter even back on the previous world. On this one, where time was even more valuable, he hated it even more.
“So, our standard tactic is: Ms. Herrera will hold the frontline, I was thinking of having you use the Sledgehammer, but it would be inefficient, so just use your club. I’ll be in the back controlling Musky, who will try and pick enemies from the sides and blast with his Fire. I can’t do too much directly, but I have a few tricks with this wheelchair if they get past her. Koji, you flank from the sides too, using your Hit and Run tactic as much as possible. Please refrain from using your Dagger unless you are alone. I don’t want to have to deal with a crazy teammate. You should probably use the spear whenever enemies get close to you. Are we all on the same page here?”
“Yeah, let’s do this.” Lucia said equipping her items. The shield had the color of bronze and an inverted V carved in the middle of it. Her iron club was very much like a Baseball Bat. She gripped them tightly and gave the club a few practice swings in the air.
Koji equipped his Crossbow on the left arm and the Spear on the Right. He suddenly realized something. His Gambler’s Pride was off Cooldown, so he should probably use it. Thinking about the items he had we didn’t want to use It on the sledgehammer since it could be used to train Strength. He then remembered Lucia’s items. If he could get her to trade her boots for the sledgehammer, it wouldn’t be too much of a loss, since he could just borrow it to practice. Apart from defending against the stray arrow to the foot, those boots weren’t much better than the running shoes she was wearing before anyway.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Hey Supergirl, trade items with me. Your boots for my Sledgehammer.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind, since they are pretty worthless but…”
“Yeah, I can’t use them anyway right now. Deal?”
“Deal”
Koji retrieved the Sledgehammer and struggling lifted the weapon to hand it to Lucia. A notification popped.
Are you sure you wish to transfer [Crude Sledgehammer] to [Lucia]?
He mentally said Yes. Lucia stored the item and pulled out the boots, handing them to Koji and doing the same thing with the notification.
You received [Leather Boots] from [Lucia].
As soon as he mentally dismissed the notification, he activated Gambler’s Pride. Upon reaching LVL 2 of the skill the Chance Table had changed, making the rates more favorable.
Chance Table Nothing:50%Japtem15% Lesser Equip:10%Equal Equip:13% Better Equip:11%JACKPOT:1%
Equipment Lottery Activated. Determining results.... Congratulations! You Got... Japtem! x10 Small Darts have been added to your inventory.
“So that’s how it works huh? What was the result?” Asked Dr. Ferdinand.
“I got japtem… a few darts. The chances to drop something good is actually only 12%.”
“I see. Enough of that, we have to move!” As he said that he made gesture. Suddenly, a black circle with red drawings of weird symbols appeared on the floor. After a few moments, a black vulture pounced forward and landed by Ferdinand’s side. It’s speed was indeed astonishing. The Hellhound looked like a Black German Shephard but with a slightly more feral look with fangs protruding out of his mouth. Another detail was that his tail had a purple flame burning along the top of it.
Without uttering a single more word, the group began moving towards the corridor that likely led to their first battle. After walking a bit, they reached the entrance of another chamber of this cave complex they were in. It had no outstanding features other than a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling. In the middle of the room were 6 goblins similar to the ones present in Level 0, except they were a bit more muscular and were carrying swords instead of clubs. Two of them were also had small shields.
“They have no ranged weaponry, by the looks of it. Koji, begin the fight by shooting darts from maximum distance, we will stay close together to draw them in so that Musky can maximize his Fire Spray. After that we reset to basic formation, everybody clear?” Ferdinand said with a confident voice. The professor was also a coach for his university’s Rugby team, so he had experience commanding squads like this. His clear thinking and eloquent speech also contributed to the point where Koji and Lucia had not even thought about doing anything differently. Of course, that was only because the plan made sense. If the professor proposed something absurd they wouldn’t hesitate to question him.
The two nodded silently and Koji began moving in position to shoot. He aimed at the Goblin without a shield closest to him, in order to increase his chances at hitting accurately. The creature was standing 10m away. He held his breath and aimed for the head.
*SWOOSH*
The arrow missed and hit the goblin on the left side of his chest. The group was alerted and as the goblin hit shouted in pain they began charging towards the players. Ferdinand’s plan was spot on though. Due to their low intelligence, the goblins all charged close to each other, making themselves a perfect target for Musky’s Fire Spray area attack. However, right as they had closed half the distance, Koji had readied another dart and shot at the same target as before, this time hitting him square in the middle of his head, the effort of his previous training paying off. The goblin fell on the floor and after squirming around a bit, stopped moving. Meanwhile, the rest of the goblins had closed in to a 1m distance to Lucia who was holding position another 2m in front of Ferdinand.
Then, a black figure dashed to the right side of Lucia and drew his breath and sprayed a cone of flame towards the goblins, hitting 3 of the 5 left. The effects of the flame weren’t completely devastating, but dealt enough damage to stop them for a moment. Lucia took the opportunity and jumped, throwing an incredible flying straight kick to one of the goblins who wasn’t hit by the fire.
“DRAGON KICK!!!” Shouting the skill name wasn’t really necessary, but she felt amazing doing it, so it didn’t matter. The shout also somewhat served as a battlecry. Weakening the morale of the goblins a bit.
The creature’s head folded in a weird angle and fell to the floor. The only goblin left who wasn’t burning charged forward and slashed at Lucia with a horizontal attack that Lucia managed to block with her shield. Just as she deflected the attack, a Dart came flying and hit the ground between her and the goblin, almost hitting her left foot. She looked at the source with anger.
“My bad!” Koji shouted a bit farther away. He decided it was best to stop using the darts and unequipped the crossbow, holding the short spear with both hands and advancing to attack the closest enemy. From the other side, Musky did not waste any time as Ferdinand coordinated with him to launch a devastating claw sweep at one of the burning enemies, who tired blocking with his shield. But the attack was too fast, opening a large gash at his neck, killing it instantly. The hellhound then jumped at another one and pounced him to the ground, completely ignoring the flames and taking another neck, this time using his bite. In a blink of an eye, 2 enemies were on the floor bleeding to death. The creature was indeed powerful.
In the meantime, Koji had closed the distance and launched a thrusting attack at the goblin, who defected the blow to the side with the shield. But Lucia noticed the movement and used the opening to hit with her club at the goblin’s exposed abdomen. The impact made it stagger and soon another swing came from Koji who had recuperated. The spearhead penetrated through the left eye of the goblin. As Koji pulled the spear out it fell dead on the floor.
The remaining two were quickly disposed, with Musky claiming another victim and Lucia bashing the head of another. The fight was quick, taking them a little over 5 minutes.
“YEAHHHH!!! SUCK IT BITCHES!!” Lucia was shouting at the dead enemies while flexing her impressive muscles.
‘Goddamn crazy musclehead’
“Well done. We should wait for our Cooldowns to restore before moving on. If I recall correctly, your skill is on a ten minute CD right Ms. Herrera?”
“Yep!” She sounded pretty energetic for someone who just went through a life-or-death battle. But then again, she was used to this. More than that, this was the kind of situation she thrived in. A few years back, she almost became a professional fighter. A knee injury, however, cut her dreams short.
“We move in 10. Rest up and stay sharp, we can’t be sure that more monster won’t appear. By the way, you didn’t use your skill right Koji?”
“Didn’t have to. I wasn’t even targeted in this fight thanks to our effective meatshield.” He glanced sarcastically at Lucia.
“Oh yeah I almost forgot.” She came close to Koji, looked him in the eyes and slapped him mildly in the face with the back of her hand.
“DID YOU JUST PIMP SLAPPED ME? Why?”
“That’s for almost hitting me in the foot with that crossbow. Aim better next time, dumbass!”
“I suppose I deserve that. But your feet are pretty BIG targets, if you know what I mean…”
“Motherfucker, don’t make me choke you to death.”
Although they were cursing and screaming at each other, both clearly had a slight grin on their faces. Koji liked to joke around like that and Lucia was a perfect partner in crime, coming back to him every time. It reminded him of when he used to joke around with his buddies back in college.
Dr. Ferdinand just stayed silently petting Musky who was obediently sitting next to him. And just like that 10 minutes passed.
“Time is up. Let’s go.”
“Yes General!” Koji shouted. Lucia smiled and nodded her head sideways. Even Ferdinand gave a slight smile. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate humor. He knew very well the benefits it had to morale and team synergy. He just wasn’t very talented at it, so he preferred maintaining a serious demeanor.
With that, they walked forward to the next challenge.