I woke up in the grass patches with Hailey’s head sleeping on my shoulder next to me, with her body on mine and her hand touching my chest. I blushed a bit when I saw that. I forgot that we got sleepy and slept on the grass. As I slowly move my body away from Hailey, hoping to not have her wake up and slap me, I start patting her in the back as she begins to wake up. Thankfully, I was able to move her away. As she woke up, she was surprised and blushed bright red after she learnt that she slept with me all night and had our bodies touching so closely. She then looked up and blushed while asking me: “You didn’t do anything to me right?” I stuttered while blushing bright red: “No no.. I didn’t do anything.”

After that embarrassing moment I had with Hailey, we both headed to her room to cook breakfast. I followed Hailey into her kitchen, and I asked her: “Umm… Mind if I help you to cook?” She blushed and replied: “Sure!” I held up some pots and started mixing different ingredients to create our breakfast. She taught me, which ingredients to mix which to not, and the exact timings of the ingredients. She said to me while smiling: “Cooking here is like real life cooking, there isn’t any cooking skill to determine what you can or can’t cook. All you have to do is mix ingredients together to make a good flavoured food!” I replied: “You’re a great cook! You should, start a restaurant when we escape.” I heard her silently murmur to herself: “When we escape, I wish to be with Jason.” I was confused when she said that, and she clearly saw that so she decided to shut up. We cooked up a magnificent breakfast, which comprised of a bowl of macaroni and sausages with egg. It smelled great as I high fives Hailey, saying: “I never knew I could cook so well, thanks to your instructions I can now!” Hailey replied while blushing: “Well, it wasn’t all me.. You do have talent in cooking after all, Jason Qianbei.”

12 Days have passed since I’ve had that with Hailey. Our relationship returned to normal, we were once again comrades on the battlefield finding our way to the boss room. We have spent 5 days wandering around this forest. We first started off at a beach, strangely the beach was beautiful. Crystal water, and palm trees surrounded the golden sand. Buyable cabin houses, at the side of the beach with a hotel there that costed quite much. Apparently, you could fish here too. After all, there was a merchant here who sold fishing rods. However, my guild and I had no time to fish. We had to level up as fast as we could to prevent the slaughter of more clearers, like the people that were killed during the 4th boss and the fight with the Dark Fist. The 4th boss was the first time, we mourned for our fellow comrades instead of celebrating victory. With half of our comrades gone, I began to question myself if we could survive. But I knew I had to, for my friends and most of all Hailey. I had decided to ask her out by the time we returned to Hong Kong, so I couldn’t let her die. Not here.

While you could enter into the water, a invisible wall blocked you from going further once the water reached your neck. There was no creatures inside the water. The beach led towards a forest, a lush green tropical forest. While on the beach there was crocodiles and giant crabs for mobs, in the lush tropical forest there was more than just that. Enormous Venom Snakes that could give you nightmares and does DOT damage along with direct damage, forest cheetahs and enormous spiders. Meanwhile, inside the dungeon it appears that we encountered Demi humans known as . They were slabs of stone, formed together into a human like shape. However their face had a hole in the middle of it and green smoke leaked from their face. The dungeon door had green algae on it like the 2nd island. However, this one was more scary. Once we entered, there was a thin path and a bottomless chasm on both sides of it. We were first greeted by the Dungeon Dweller’s guard pets, the Bone munchers. Two legged green creatures, with red eyes and no arms. They had a large jaw like raptors, however they were a bit larger. Thank god for our higher levels for if we weren’t this high levelled we wouldn’t have made it to the other side alive. Once we reached the other side we were greeted by dungeon dwellers. As we went further and further inside more and more dungeon dwellers appeared before us. The further we went, the higher level they became. From Elite Dungeon Dwellers, all the way to the enormous Behemoth Dungeon Dwellers. However, this was still much easier to clear than the 3rd island and the 4th. I assumed it was, simply because we were levels ahead of the intended level for this dungeon. However, that didn’t stop us from putting a teleporter pad here so we could rapidly teleport to here at will without needing to go through that thin path.

Today, after the flash of blue light disappeared I saw that I had arrived into the dungeon along with my fellow comrades, the Crimson Vigilante’s. We cleared out the dwellers in our way as we used our map to find our way through each maze part in the dungeon. We had cleared our way up to the 8th maze and mapped it. After we got our way through the 8th maze, there was two cross roads, right and left. So I told everyone to make sure to map down the current path of the maze, then choose a path here. After everyone was done, we went right. After we exited the first corridor and turned left, there was a bunch of white pillars with green leaves on them, and a elegant white path leading towards a bright light. We ran towards the white light, and entered the room. Immediately after we entered the room, a door behind us shut. The room was a room with many pillars surrounding a empty circle in the middle. The roof and walls were decorated with vines. I murmured: “So.. a Mini boss huh, this is gonna be hard.” Everyone else caught on and Searing said: “But, there’s no way the nine of us can take on a mini boss.” Luke said: “Remember the time we rescued you? Well, that time Jason here was doing well against the mini boss on his own so there’s no need to worry. Standard mini bosses in MMORPGs usually only require five players or more to take on. And since this is based on MMORPG logic, it should be easy.” Searing nodded and took out his two long swords. A boss appeared from the hole in the middle of the room, and when I took a look at his name, I was genuinely surprised. His name was: “King of the Dungeon Dwellers, Dhamma the 6th”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

However, the true reason I was surprised at his name was because of his appearance. The mini boss looked like a duck man. With a head of a duck and the foot of a duck. Although his hands were human, his skin was as yellow as any new born duck. And, his beak only yelled out one thing: QUACK! It was on the contrary, quite annoying. This duck didn’t specifically have any weapons, so he only used his fist. His punches were slow and we were able to dodge them easily, however the power behind them was another story. Luke and Peaches used their weapons to block one of his fists, while Searing and Rosie used theirs to block the duck’s other fist. Both couples yelled: “We got this, go for the duck’s weakness.” Obediently, I began to attack the duck as it attempted to dodge all our slashes. It’s health barely went down by 15%, and Luke, Searing, Rosie and Peaches’s health were down to 60%. at this rate, they would die. Hoping for the duck to shut up I attacked the beak, I used the in game skill energy slash to slash the duck’s beak. However, the instant I did it instinctively used one of it’s fists to defend the beak. That’s when I realised, the weakness of this mini boss was it’s beak. That annoying, ass beak. It would be my pleasure to slice it off I thought. I yelled out: “AIM FOR THE BEAK!” Everyone nodded, as all of us unleashed our sword skills on the beak. The duck attempted to use it’s two hands to block, however it was no match for the combined power of nine of our sword skills. With that, Hailey successfully got the rare drop, and we were able to exit the room. As Hailey examined her drop she shouted: “OH MY GOD!” We all looked over and I asked: “What’s that?” The item’s name was: “S Class food, Elegant Duck Breast.” She said: “This is a S Class food! They’re rumoured to be so delicious! If I combine it with my cooking skills and the S Class flavour, imagine what kind of flavour could it produce!” We all licked our lips thinking of the flavour of the food.

Since everyone was obviously in no mood to farm, and we had all already reached level 220+, I decided to tell everyone to return home despite the time being 5pm. With my order, everyone was so excited that they were running back, and bouncing around. It was like that S Class ingredient controlled us or made us abnormal. Either way, I was looking forward to it too. We returned towards the town closest to the dungeon after exiting. And using that town’s teleporter we teleported back to our home. We all entered Hailey’s room and into the living room to wait for the meal.

As we were waiting Searing started a conversation by saying: “So Luke, have you and Peaches removed your NSFW restrictions yet?” Peaches and Luke blushed with Luke answering: “No… We haven’t.” I then poked in and said: “You should try it sometimes, you know? Maybe you might die soon as a virgin despite having a girl.” Peaches blushed while saying: “Shut… Up… We’ll do it when we return.” Luke nodded while blushing: “We might do it in the real world.. If Peaches wants to.” Peaches blushed even more while saying: “I’m not that kind of person..” We all laughed as Hailey took out our dinner, perfect timing for the couple to recover. Hailey asked us all: “What’re you all laughing about?” Searing replied to her: “Oh we were just talking about Peaches and Luke’s bed relationship.” Hailey supporting her friend Peaches replied: “Then what about yours and Rosie’s?” Searing and Rosie both blushed and Rosie said: “We haven’t done it since that night.” I laughed, and I said: “Damn that stew sure smells sweet.” Jingxi having learnt from his previous mistake, asked: “Can I dive in now ma’am, I’ve washed my hands.” Hailey laughed, and replied: “Alright, you can dive in.” Jingxi happily took a huge serving of stew into his bowl. After he did, one by one we started diving into the stew. It was finished within minutes, because of it’s delicious flavour. The stew was possibly one of the best things I’ve ever tasted in my life, virtual or real. Despite this being a virtual world, it was very delicious. I could not describe the flavour of the food but I could tell you that it was amazing. After eating I asked Hailey: “What’d you put in it, it’s so good!” She said: “Nothing much really, I put in the usual stuff for a stew and some pepper and other toppings. It’s just that the ingredient tastes good, that’s all.. It’s not just me.” I replied: “But without you, we wouldn’t be able to cook it so deliciously, you’re a great cook Hailey!” She blushed and said: “It’s nothing really.. Anyone can cook that.” Everyone laughed when they saw Hailey blushing, and Luke said: “Since the only possible future couple is Hailey and Jason, let’s talk about them.” I said while drawing my katana at lLuke: “Shut it or else.” Hailey blushed further and everyone didn't talk about it.

Everyone left Hailey’s room soon, and I was the only one left along with Hailey. I asked Hailey: “Do you need help washing the dishes?” She replied: “No, they auto clean themselves once I put them back into inventory, but thanks anyway.” The room suddenly went silent, and after Hailey put all her dishes away I heard her go into the bathroom in her room. After that, I heard crying from the bathroom and I knocked. The bathroom suddenly opened and I saw Hailey crying there in her nightgown. She was wearing a long blue dress, and despite her crying and wearing a nightgown, she was still beautiful. She embraced me and cried out: “I don’t, want to die. I don’t want anyone to die.” I put my arms over her back and said: “I don’t either, and as long as I’m here you won’t.” She replied while sobbing: “You don’t get it, I don’t want us.. To ever seperate.” I hoped that she didn’t get the wrong idea that I wanted to start a relationship now so I said: “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you and everyone else.” She nodded and she released me. I returned to my room, despite hearing Hailey cry that I didn't accept her, but I thought I’ll accept you then this is all over, until then please hold on. I returned to my room, and dropped down on my bed and feel asleep.