Blinking the brightness from my eyes, I found myself on a small hill overlooking a ruined city. The world seemed to be in grayscale, the buildings all the same shade of dying grey, the sky dark as if the sun and moon didn’t exist. Looking to my left, I saw Rebecca standing there, also looking around. I glanced down at the ruins once more as a thought came to my mind.
“Bek, is this…another world?!”
Looking at the sky, it wasn’t hard to come to this conclusion. The stars above, while few, were completely different from the Prime World or our world. The constellations were different, the positioning of the stars was different. Looking out at the horizon, I found it hard to look out and using Hawkeye I didn’t see anything at all, as if my vision were being blocked from seeing outside of the city ruins.
Making sure the Lotus necklace was securely around my neck, I turned my attention once more back to the city. A road led from the small hill we were on that ran straight through the ruins, directly into the centre of the city itself. While it may have been called a city before, right now it’s less than the size of a country town, with the majority of the buildings in ruins, with one or two standing. From our point of view, there were no enemies to be seen.
Glancing behind me, I could see a large window that showed the surroundings where we had found the Dimension. Instinctively I knew if I were to walk through this window we would leave the Dimension. Turning my attention to the window that came up from the System, I read it carefully.
Dimension: Ruined City of Delict.
A world brought to a halt by the forces of Destruction. They now gather here, intending to build their power before invading their next target: The Prime World. While this world may be dead, there might be opportunities for you.
Objectives:
Kill 250 Demonic Enemies: 0/250
Defeat the Demonic Chimera
Destroy the Dimensional Totem
Bonus Objectives:
Discover the inheritance left behind by this world.
Rewards will be provided upon completion.
“So this is basically like an RPG dungeon?” Turning my head towards Rebecca at her words, I looked around once more before nodding.
“It seems so, but the objective of destroying the Dimensional Totem means that it’s a one and done…at least, in theory. It also seems like we’re not dealing with Husks here but something else. Want to continue? Even if we retreat now, we’ve still gotten a lot of information just from coming in.”
Rebecca crossed her arms in thought for a moment before shrugging. “Let’s check it out at least. Like I said, let’s shoot some stuff.”
Deciding to stick together with Rebecca leading while I followed with my bow, we slowly walked down the main road while keeping ourselves alert. There weren’t any buildings that were still standing that I could use to snipe. Keeping an arrow notched, I stayed at least ten metres behind Rebecca as we walked for several hundred metres before stopping.
Slowly approaching the ruins of a building, I tried to make out what type of building it was but found it impossible. It’s all been degraded, burnt and the pieces were barely together. Seeing no sign of any bodies, whether monster or human, I signalled to Rebecca and we continued.
We used to do duo missions like this frequently in cooperative games, whether it was Player versus Player or Environment. It felt refreshing to be doing something like this with her, even though it’s life or death I felt happy to be doing this with her.
We continued down the road, slowly checking our surroundings, the silence of the ruins giving me a chill down my spine. Just as we approached the centre, I caught movement from the corner of my eye and quickly locking onto the source I saw a four legged creature that came up to my hip in size. Resembling a Rottweiler, it had jet-black fur, bloodshot eyes, its muscles were huge compared to its counterpart and there was smoke coming out of its mouth.
Without a word, Rebecca moved first, a shield appearing in front of her as she raised her shotgun. She was too fast for the dog, her shotgun blasting before it could react. The second shot from Repeater resounded out as the monster’s upper body was torn to pieces from the shots. The sounds of the shots rang out loudly and without a word Rebecca dropped back towards me and the two of us took cover behind what ruins we could.
It didn’t take long until half a dozen more of those demonic dogs appeared, looking at the corpse of the one Rebecca had killed. With a nod to her, I drew my bow and aimed at a dog about a hundred metres from us and fired. Watching as half its head exploded, Rebecca then stepped out and while crouching ran up to the pack.
Fast enough to fool my eyes, she created a copy and disappeared before appearing behind the pack, easily killing another as I shot down another.
With another two bow and shotgun shots, we easily killed the pack. One of the dogs had turned and aimed at Rebecca’s clone out of confusion and shot out a torrent of flame at it, not enough to harm us if it hit but it would’ve done damage either way.
You have killed a Demonic Hound.
+50 Class Points.
This is your first kill on an enemy of this type!
+100 Class Points.
We didn’t require Class Points alone to get to Lvl 4, it’s only one objective now. Looking at the list required, I couldn’t help but shake my head at the amount of objectives needed.
Required for Lvl 4:
Completion of:
Class Points: 550/20,000
Advanced Survival Quest: 0/4
The Machinist Queen: 2/6
Awaken Link with Entity Winter: 5% Complete
Enemies Killed: 185/20,000
Clear Dimensions: 0/20
Bonus Objectives:
Furthest Shot that Hit an Enemy: 1,252 Metres
???
???
???
???
There may be items or more that will be beneficial to Lvl 4…
I couldn’t help but wonder just how long it would take to finish all of this. Four of the Bonus Objectives weren’t known and the message at the end heavily implied more could be used for Lvl 4. As Rebecca and I took cover once more, we waited until more of the hounds appeared, this time a dozen of them. Quickly finishing them off, I started to notice what these hounds had that the Husks lacked.
Intelligence.
When we gunned down Husks, their instincts had them just face the sounds of gunfire and stumble or run towards it without a thought of dodging or avoiding us. These hounds however moved to dodge us and used their firebreath in anticipation of where Rebecca would be. Due to her ability to swap with her clone and her high reflexes, she easily dodged any attacks, but it still showed us that these hounds had intelligence.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
After hiding once more, no more hounds came towards us. We concluded that either there were no more hounds or those alive in this area were now being careful of us. Deciding to continue, we get out of cover and start slowly walking towards the twenty corpses, intending to move past them before my eyes catch something. Signalling to Rebecca, I point at what appeared to be a shiny amber rock within a corpse.
With her standing guard, I grab a knife from my belt and with a bit of work cut out the rock from one of the corpses. Holding it up with a tilt of my head, I felt a familiar magic within it. I found myself more surprised that I sensed something rather than the fact this rock had magic.
Tier 1 Fire Monster Core.
Can be absorbed to improve one's Fire Elemental magic.
“Absorbed? Wait, did the Butterfly have one?” After explaining this to Rebecca, she looked over it before taking the knife. With me on watch, she quickly gathered the rest that were undamaged. From what we found, these cores laid next to their heart and were easy to break, a single shotgun shot would be more than enough. After gathering ten cores, we wondered about taking the corpses but decided against it. Storing the cores in my ring, Rebecca and I continued while thoughts tumbled in my mind.
These rocks…cores are used to improve our magic? How does it work? How many elements are there? Do they have any other uses? Pursing my lips as my imagination ran wild with theories, I shook my head to snap out of it as we wiped out another group of hounds. As we got closer to the city centre, a new type of monster appeared.
With the torso of a wingless rooster, it stood on one leg with a long neck and its head…wasn’t a head, but what seemed to be an exhaust pipe, at least it’s in the shape of one. It’s surrounded by a dozen hounds, who were walking or sitting around it. As soon as we stepped within fifty metres of it, its head snapped to us.
With no warning, Rebecca dodge immediately to the left as her shoulder tore open, a golf ball sized hole opening up. We take cover as the howls of the hounds ring through ruins. Looking at Rebecca quickly and seeing the bleeding wound, I quickly handed her a healing potion before notching an arrow onto my bow.
The healing potion wouldn’t just heal the wound, but it would at least help recover her health pool.
Raising out of the cover, I quickly lock onto the wingless chicken monster and fire an arrow as its head snaps to me. Rolling into more cover as soon as I fired, I heard a loud bang and looking back saw a hole in the cover I had just used. Thankfully, it seems my shot had done the trick.
You have killed a Wind Bullet Type: Bird Sentry.
+25 Class Points.
This is your first kill on an enemy of this type!
+50 Class Points.
Signalling to Rebecca to say it’s safe, she emerged with her shotgun in one hand while I notched another arrow and sprung up as a pair of hounds leaped towards me. Quickly shooting an arrow through the skull of one of them, I dodge the hounds' flaming teeth, dropping my bow as I draw the pistol from my hip.
The hound didn’t give me a chance and leapt at me. Guarding with my left arm, the hound sank its teeth into it…or tried. The shield from shooting the Bird Sentry protected me as I fell onto my back. The hound tried to tear into my arm, snarling loudly as the blue shield slowly faded. Putting the pistol up to its skull, I fired and fired until I ran out of bullets.
Pushing the corpse of the hound off me, I dropped the pistol and picked up the bow once again, turning my attention to Rebecca, but my worries were all for naught. Even with one arm, Rebecca mowed the hounds down, the hounds unable to even bite through her skin even without a shield. Assisting her quickly, we soon cleaned up the remains before retreating to a building that was half-intact.
Quickly removing her shirt, I checked the wound and found that it had stopped bleeding already and amazingly I could see the skin and muscle squirming, healing itself slowly.
“Babe, do you have a healing factor?” Cleaning up the blood as I spoke, Rebecca giggled.
“No, at least I don’t think so. But it hurt like hell, if I hadn’t moved in time I might’ve lost my head.” Raising a hand and touching the edge of the hole, she hissed before sitting back against a wall. "Let's rest for a bit and continue."
"Okay." Sitting next to her, she leaned her head against mine while taking my hand. If she felt fine to continue then I wouldn't question it. While the Bird Sentry had been a surprise, especially with the damage it caused Rebecca, now we knew about it we could easily deal with it. The requirement for this Dimension had been one Lvl 2 and one Lvl 3 and judging by the strength of the dogs I could conclude that one Lvl 2 would likely be more than enough, but that same Lvl 2 would've been killed by the Bird Sentry. Rebecca was only slightly quick enough and she still got hit. I moved in anticipation rather than dodging and I nearly got hit us well.
The fact remained however that even at Lvl 3, a monster like that existed where one mistake and it could've been game over for both of us. Will these enemies become common in our world? Perhaps it's time to get the armorsmiths to start making armour for everyone, or at least some form of protection. We still had the exoskeleton of the Butterfly too.
It took only two hours for the hole in Rebecca's shoulder to completely heal and for her to regain mobility with it, surprising even her. Chalking it up to our Elven bodies, we got up and made a plan to check out an intact building close by. With Rebbeca leading the way, we both moved to the corpses and removed the magic cores.
The Bird Sentry had a core that was as big as a basketball and heavy. The element it belonged to is 'air'. We were confused by this since we thought for sure it would be wind, but decided to leave it for now, storing it in a ring.
Moving slowly, we kept killing packs of monsters we ran into, this time with me using my sniper from range to dispatch the Bird Sentries before cleaning the rest up. As we hit 104 enemies killed, we reached the first intact building.
"It's a dojo, right?"
"Yea there is no mistaking it. I'll take lead, stay right on my back, Rubes."
In front of us laid a building that we easily could tell is a dojo. Fairly small, it still impressed us as we moved towards the doors. Entering, we both pulled out a torch and looking around found nothing. Clearing each room slowly, we soon returned to the lobby of the building.
"Alright, nothing here. Let's stick together and see if we can find anything." With my words, we moved to the first room.
Rebecca stood on guard just outside the room as I entered. The room looked to be a training room of sorts, styled in the way a dojo training room would be. Slowly walking around the room with a flashlight, my thoughts turned to our recent discovery of the Mana World. If training our magic makes it stronger, then what about training our physical bodies as well?
We hadn’t trained at all, our bodies had become stronger with the help of the System, but now I think about it we very rarely use our full strength. We dodge, run and shoot, but none of us really use our bodies properly. Even Silver, who is a Swordsman, just throws out slices and dices. If this is indeed a dojo, then perhaps there will be training manuals on how to train ourselves? The most we did in our world is go to the gym.
Finding nothing in this room, I noted the layout of the room and the material of the floor. Leaving the room, the two of us then checked each room slowly and at the halfway point, we came across a very large storage room. Rows of shelves ran down the room, all sorted into different sections.
With Rebecca once again on watch, I slowly started walking down the aisles. The first aisle I walked down is filled with scraps of clothing, padded armour, helmets and more, all of which would've been used as protective gear for training. There were even pairs of gloves with padding and making a decision I decided to take as much of it as I could. Our weavers would most likely be able to remake these after Sheep dismantled it all.
Reaching the end of the first aisle, I saw a door that led to another room on the back wall. Leaving it for now, I turned and went down the second aisle. The second aisle had bottles of clear liquid and from what I could see pills.
Expired Bottle of an Unknown Elixir
Could be used for water, and has no effect when you drink it.
Expired Bottle of Body Strengthening Pills
Expired. These were pills one would use regularly to enhance their physical strength. For beings of the Prime World, these would have no effect after Lvl 1.
"Could still be useful…maybe Melody can reverse engineer the recipe?" Mumbling to myself as I stored the bottle of pills, I decided against storing the elixir. We had no hints as to what it is, it could've been poison before it expired.
As the aisle continued, I found more expired pills and elixirs. The pills had different effects like strengthening one's Mana World, targeted strength gain for particular parts of one's body and even one that helped with vision and hearing. Like the first bottle, these pills were only useful for Lvl 1 or below. Arriving at the end of this aisle, I fell into deep thought about what is here and what it could mean for us.
The third and fourth aisle had more or less the same as the previous two, except the pills would work for those at Lvl 2 or lower and the training garbs were made with better quality. Storing it all in my ring, I walked to the back and raised my hand gun, opened the door. Inside is a small room, three bookshelves on each wall. Slowly entering, I reached the first bookshelf and pulled one of the books down.
The cover was surprisingly in English and wiping away the dust, I saw the title of the book. ‘Haymaker of the Giant.’ Opening the book carefully, I found what seemed to be a martial art technique, stances and movement instructions were the contents of the book. Flickering through it, I understood that it used raw mana, rather than elemental, to empower it and make it a technique.
Closing the book and looking at the rest, my thoughts ran deeper. Storing the books one by one, I saw techniques and martial arts for almost anything. Martial arts for the body to strengthen it, techniques for running, punching and much more.
Slowly walking back lost in thought, I soon arrived back at Rebecca’s side, but didn’t continue, standing in thought. She stood there, waiting for me as I closed my eyes and let my thoughts run wild, theorising with all of the information and knowledge I knew about this world, the System and now the new things we were suddenly running into. Opening my eyes, I looked at my wife before leaning against the wall and sliding down onto my butt.
“Rebecca, I think I’m starting to figure out what this System, and possibly the Prime World’s, true purpose is.”