Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 99: A proper Dungeon Crawl

The Dungeon in question was located outside the city, its entrance surrounded by heavily reinforced concrete walls and a series of automated weapons that would at the very least slow any monsters that came from within.

Actually, ‘slow down’ was just about all they’d be able to do, sadly. These were Tier 6 monsters and the weapons were barely enhanced.

However, this issue was greatly alleviated by the presence of over fifty Hunters in the fortifications, not-so-patiently guarding the active Dungeon. The big issue was that, right now, no one had the proper formulae to calculate how long it took for a Dungeon at this Tier to ‘break’, and until Professor Kim could figure that out, a heavy guard contingent was needed.

After a short, rapid-fire conversation between Yoo-jin and one of the guards, the door leading into the ‘fortress’ opened, revealing the way inside.

The area outside the Dungeon was nothing but naked dirt, with a small concrete path leading to the entrance itself, and nothing else. It was a killing field out there, designed to allow the guards to obliterate anything that came out. Thankfully, people were taking all the right precautions.

Well, all save not having a Tier 6 Dungeon in the first place, that was. Still, the reason for creating this place was the same as the one the team given for summoning their Tier 6s, they needed to know what was what with those things.

Besides, unlike Germany, Seoul had enough high-Level people to spare some to babysit this place.

“Basic plans is going to be just as we agreed on: Isaac is the scout, Professor Bailey is acting as the healer, Professor Kim and Amy are magical support and I’m playing frontliner.” Yoo-jin summarized the conversation they’d had on the way here and activated his leadership [Skill].

Would you like to join a party with Seon Yoo-Jin, ‘The Shield of Seoul’?

Y/N

Isaac, of course, clicked yes.

You have entered into a party.

Party members:

- Seon Yoo-Jin (Party Leader)

- Isaac Thoma (you)

- Kim Ye-rin

- Adam Bailey

- Amelia Shaw

You are afforded the following buffs:

- Warning Signs: you may highlight object to your party members in a way only members of the party can see

- Tracking: you are aware of your party members’ location so long as they are within one kilometer of your location

- XP Share: you are awarded XP in accordance with your contribution to the fight, monsters slain count towards XP limit in proportion to the contribution

Isaac sighed gladly. He’d missed this. A proper party, with someone who actually had [Party Leader] and arrange for proper cooperation, it felt like returning to the golden age of the [System] from the other timeline, the time before, well, everything had gone to crap.

Still, just having a Party menu wasn’t a great enough boon for him to actively pursue getting the [Leadership] [Skill]. First of all, just that [Skill] alone wasn’t that helpful, you needed others to support it, and at that point, you needed an actual [Class] dedicated to leadership.

Just getting that one [Skill] required a [Class] at least partially focused on leading others, which could be an acceptable deviation from one’s path under certain circumstances, but Isaac wasn’t some great leader of men, someone who could use that [Skill] to its fullest effect. Instead, he’d grabbed a strong combat [Class] and when fighting together, the team used the good old, supremely basic method of communication known as talking.

The biggest advantage of this party interface was XP Share, though. It remediated the issue of how when killing monsters together, each kill counted towards the XP limit as, well, one kill, while only rewarding each individual a partial share of the XP. With this [Skill], though, you could get the maximum available amount of XP.

With how Bailey had dealt with things, though, even that boon wouldn’t have helped much. They fought together against unknown monsters and that cost each of them a small handful of experience, but on subsequent fights, they dealt with the monsters on a one-on-one basis. After all, once it was known that a monster wasn’t insanely powerful or harboring nasty surprises, one could adapt to its abilities and take care of it with comparative ease.

“Everyone ready?” Yoo-jin asked, and upon receiving a series of affirmations, they got going, heading into the Dungeon.

“Trap.” Isaac said flatly, less than thirty seconds after entering.

He highlighted the edge of the pifall bright red in the party menu, clearly marking it for everyone.

“That’s unusually early for a trap.” Kim observed “Most Dungeons wait a bit before putting those in and usually pair them with something else, because naked traps tend to easily available as long as the Hunters take the bare minimum of the needed precautions. How old is this place, exactly?”

“A few days.” Yoo-jin answered “It’s still learning.”

“Should we be talking about this in the Dungeon?” Amy asked “Aren’t we teaching it how to kill us more effectively?”

“Not really.” Kim said “Dungeons have a way of sharing information. We’ve been able to determine that they can’t share the patterns for creatures and they seem to have real trouble adequately communicating trap blueprints, but basic information can be shared quite readily, once the Core has figured out how. Us talking in here will only speed up its proper trap placement by a few days at most.”

“Is there any difference between Dungeon types, or can different kinds of cores communicate with each other?” Isaac asked. If that hadn’t been investigated so far, hopefully, it would be soon, because otherwise, there were all sorts of ways that could go wrong. History told him that things shouldn’t go that badly, but he still hoped to create the best possible outcome.

In essence, there were three kinds of Dungeon Cores that could be summoned.

The first was a normal, completely unbound and unrestricted ‘free’ Dungeon. They did whatever they wanted, got to choose their type when they were first spawned and started out with appropriate monsters, but could gain more if humans decided to feed it bits from others monsters. That being said, though, it was possible to influence the original choice by giving them the right materials immediately after summoning them.

These kinds of Dungeons were also the most problematic ones, which would eventually ‘break’ if not cleared often enough, or simply cleared to shallowly, they could not be controlled and might even end up doing something really dangerous, like create creatures that carried diseases and the like.

Then there were the ‘bound’ Dungeons. They were summoned under the control of the summoner, who could direct it to create itself in whatever way they saw fit.

They were considerably safer, but also far less useful. They couldn’t kill anyone the controller didn’t want to hurt, even subconsciously, but it would also not give out loot or XP to said people. So, if the controller was a decent person, they were pretty much useless.

Usually, they were built as training centers. You might not get any [Skill] Levels of XP from them, but practice was still useful. That being said, they were hardly safe, as monsters could easily end up killing someone without meaning to, and at the end of the day, summoning with a high Level person nearby to keep a close eye on things was far more useful. Besides, monsters that were trying to avoid killing you fought differently and training against them could easily lead to acquiring bad habits.

There was another use for them, though, and that was to keep something safe. Dungeons were great at that, and what’s more, the controller’s ill will towards would-be thieves usually overrode the ‘I don’t want to kill people’ shackle.

However, if the controller ended up dying, the Dungeon would become a free one, and if no one noticed, well, that could end really, really badly.

And that just left the third of the summonable Dungeon types, the limited Dungeon. It was, like the name suggested, incredibly limited in what it could do, but also highly controllable. You could make it do whatever you wanted, and even flick the safeguards on and off at a moment’s notice, giving you incredible flexibility when it came to using it ‘safely’, and it even wouldn’t go wild if you died, but all that came a cost.

A financial cost, to be sure, but one that was large enough to seriously bite for all but the richest of people.

Basically, whatever you wanted in your Dungeon, you had to add yourself. Rocks and the like were cheap enough, sure, but you couldn’t just use bodies for monsters, no, you needed Aspects. And not just one Aspect per monster type, oh no, that would have been far too easy, but one for every single individual monster you wanted to have in the Dungeon at the same time. Even for Isaac, those kinds of numbers were difficult to raise.

But in addition to the three summonable types, there was one more. Well, technically it was just an upgraded version of the standard Dungeon, but that was just semantics. A bonded Dungeon, one which had a human servant, who’d been sworn to service in exchange for a few special [Skills] that couldn’t be obtained otherwise.

The issue was that, whenever someone was stupid enough to offer such a deal, a Dungeon would be able to affect the real world in a far more immediate and direct manner, possibly gaining access to unusual materials, such as nasty chemicals or even bioweapons. Hell, just a few of the right, commonly available tools and reagents for genetic research could be used to create terrifying plagues.

… well, you didn’t need a Dungeon for that, a regular truck and a reasonably knowledgeable person were enough, but it certainly made things easier.

As dangerous as both a regular, free Dungeon and a freed ‘bound’ Dungeon could be, bonded Dungeons were infinitely worse and were usually destroyed the instant someone found out about them.

There weren’t any around at the moment, at least none that Isaac was aware of, so there were none on the ‘naughty list’ that was about to be published, but that didn’t matter. Professor Kim had already figured out the issue with the bonded Dungeons and there was already a taboo against bonding with Cores in place.

“We’re not entirely sure whether or not the various Dungeon types can communicate between each other, but in general, we set clear limits on what Dungeon Masters can teach their pet Dungeons, just to be on the safe side.” Kim said.

“What about a range limit?” Isaac asked “If some idiot hillbilly decides to tell his Dungeon how to build a fertilizer bombs, will one of your Dungeons gain the same capability?”

“None that we’ve been able to detect, but then again, there is only so far we can get from Seoul to check.” Kim said.

“Well, if we ever get the go-ahead on our own Dungeon experiments, we’d love to help.” Bailey said.

“Another trap, blades in the wall, to many triggers to avoid easily, disarming.” Isaac rattled off a quick explanation while he threw out his right arm, a glowing yellow Zweihänder flashing out and slicing through the wall. It still penetrated rather easily, but nowhere near the ease of a hot knife through butter it usually did when striking rock. Dungeons were tough.

Still, it went through the rock and obliterated the trigger mechanism, then vanished and was flung through another section of wall, and another, until all the traps were disabled. Simply making sure not to step on the pressure plates would have been a viable alternative, to be sure, but a hell of a lot harder to do in the midst of combat and Isaac wasn’t liking the sounds coming from further down the hall.

“That could have really hurt.” Yoo-jin commented as they carefully made their way through the field of triggers. Sure, the traps had been disabled, but that didn’t mean that anyone wanted to actually step on the things that would, a few scant seconds ago, caused them to be skewered.

“Still, the next room is free of traps, and we should start to see some monsters in there.” Isaac said, his voice appearing seemingly from out of nowhere as he deactivated [Stealth] near the front of the group “They’re hiding in the walls right now, but those tunnels are only connected to the next room over.”

The trapped corridor opened up into a large chamber, the rock of walls, floor and ceiling kept in the same dirt brown as the rest of the dungeon and the barren space outside. It was a very boring color, but no one had commented on that thus far, insulting a Dungeon you were actively diving wasn’t a good idea.

“Incoming!” Yoo-jin warned as the first monsters began to leap from holes in every surface, each visible only long enough to spit out a dog sized insect, granting no chance to flood the tunnels these things used to get around with fire.

Each beastie covered in a dark green carapace, with a series of legs located all around their bodies, much like a centipede where every second segment was upside down, sharp claws that dripped with poison topping each leg, while a pair of scythe-like appendages, reminiscent of a Praying Mantis’.

In other words, they were butt ugly and damn terrifying to boot.

Yoo-jin’s [Aura] immediately flared to life, hitting full power after a mere fraction of a seconds, drastically slowing all creatures that entered it. With his position in the mouth of the tunnel, it covered any and all paths the bugs could take to get at the squishier party members behind him.

His gear might just be a buckler, arming sword and clothes he could move well in, far more basic than one might expect from the Guildmaster, but he was much like Isaac in the sense that he summoned most of his actual combat equipment. A bug smashed into a tower shield of deep blue ice, legs stabbing deeply into the surface, and then, it died, more ice having manifested and completely encased it.

The sword, meanwhile, had grown to be larger than even Old Reliable in its largest form, the ice blade shattering with each swing, sending razor sharp shards into the besties behind the one that was actually hit, drastically slowing down the hoard.

Even then, only a handful of creatures actually died to him, but killing wasn’t his job, he was the tank.

The actual damage dealing fell to Kim and Amy, who stood in the tunnel, unleashing hell upon the insectile hoard. Mana shaped into a dozen arrows, each perfectly guided into a dozen different foes hammered home at a rate of a salvo every two seconds, each lethally wounding a monster upon hit. The wounds weren’t immediately fatal, but they still hurt them badly enough that they usually died by the time Yoo-jin’s frost field slowed them down.

Amy, meanwhile, had gone for area denial, two literal whirlwinds, each of which generated [Windblades] within itself, chopping up anything that got caught inside, appearing in the middle of the horde.

And when monster, usually seconds from death, got anywhere close the mages, they ran right into the guarding that was Bailey. He’d blown himself up to the size that usually promoted ‘hey, did you eat a grizzly’ comments, reinforced himself to the nines, added razor sharp claws and lastly, a combination of Bombardier Beetle glands, Porcupine Quills and Cone Shell poison to give himself the ability to shoot neurotoxic projectiles.

In other words, they were all perfectly fine and well protected.

Isaac, meanwhile, was in the middle of the room, fighting in accordance with his role as the party’s [Rogue]. That way, neither his mobility nor sneakiness landed him in the path of everyone else’s attacks, and he wasn’t impeded by having to dodge around his teammates, just the way he liked it.

A monster dove for his face, its own momentum impaling it on his Zweihänder. Isaac phased, letting both the dead body and a few live ones flash through him. He then dropped to his knees, crouching and swinging his blade around him in a full circle, several beasts falling apart in two pieces.

Moments later, one more monster leaped at the back of his head, but he straightened, ramming a construct from the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] right through the body. All the blood and gore around him began to sizzle and spark as it was absorbed by the [Aura], not only fueling it in place of his mana, but also empowering it.

Finally, it had hit the level of power where Isaac could fully unleash it fully without using any mana.

A dozen broad wedged of crimson energy flashed around him just like his normal floating swords, smashing and knocking away any bug in range as he flitted over the battlefield, breaking up any groups that looked like they weren’t going to get smashed by the others’ AOE attacks.

Also, there was a new trick he’d figured out that was perfect for this situation. Recharging Old Reliable’s mana pool using the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] and the mana it drew from shed blood. A person couldn’t absorb it without badly damaging their own spiritual body and thus, their ability to use mana, but the blade was not only designed to absorb environmental mana, but it was also a hell of a lot sturdier than him.

This freed him up to use the blade’s abilities freely, creating as many blades as he could, three of each shape, lighting them on fire and lobbing them into the crowd, then pulling them back towards him, shredding and burning anything they touched.

All in all, though, there wasn’t much for him to do, with most of the beasts going after the main body of the party and getting obliterated.

Your Party has slain 57 Reaping Centipedes (Lv. 18-24). 4617 XP (27% XP share) awarded

“… wow.” Amy said in a small voice “That’s a lot of XP.”

“Is this where we get the …” Bailey began to ask, but was cut off by a loud fluttering noise as every body in the room suddenly vanished, filling the entire chamber with fluttering pieces of paper.

“Is that money?” Yoo-jin asked in a disgusted tone.

“You really need to talk to your people and tell them to be more polite to their Dungeons, Guildmaster Seon.” Kim said, and a split second later, every note in the room was shredded to pieces.

“Uh, what’s going on?” Amy asked “Didn’t you just destroy a literal fortune?”

“No. Any Dungeon-made money is, per definition, a forgery, and can’t be legally spent. If it is, then not only does the person who spends it get in a whole lot of trouble, but I get to repeat the same meeting with the Bank of Korea for the dozenth time, explaining why we can’t just prevent the Dungeons from dropping cash. It’s usually used by the Dungeon as a means of expressing displeasure over insults and the like, which is why I’m going to have some stern words with the guys outside later.” Yoo-jin said.

“Does that mean that Dungeons are smart enough to understand the basic ideas behind the economy?” Bailey asked.

“A cat does not need all the information about what your laptop is, what it does and how it works to know you’ll get upset if it takes a dump on the keyboard or throws the whole thing off a high shelf.” Yoo-jin said “It’s the same thing here. Someone once ranted about getting money as a drop early on, that information got spread around and then some joker started feeding cash to all Dungeons so they had a way of retaliating for real or perceived slights.”

“So, how does that work, then? Don’t insult the Dungeon, get good loot, insult the Dungeon, get forged money that needs to be destroyed. But what happens when Dungeons don’t play ball, and just give crap loot as a matter of course?” Amy asked.

Kim just gave her a flat look that, under any circumstances, might have been interpreted as displeasure. Here, though, it was very clearly a ‘we kill those, don’t talk about it here’. Amy just nodded in reply.

“Generally, though, there are a few things that piss of Dungeons.” Yoo-jin said “Going in with parties larger than five people, insulting the Dungeon, graffiti, using the Dungeon as a trash heap, and so on. Common courtesy is generally enough to avoid the Dungeon’s ire, though. Anyway, that’s floor one done, there’s the staircase. Care to continue?”

“Of course.” Bailey nodded “Do you know how far in the Tier 6s are?”

“Floor three and four.” Yoo-jin said “We’ll see different monster types on each one.”

Thankfully, the second floor looked considerably better than the first, with proper, grey rock on the walls, torches in sconces casting beautifully flickering lights all over the place. Oh, and the foes here were nasty as fuck lizard-things.

The closest comparison Isaac could make was an oversized Basilisk Lizard, also known as a Jesus Lizard, blown up to the size of a person, given poisonous breath in line with its namesake, and a body adapted to use the ability to run on two legs it already possessed as a deadly charge.

“Behind me!” Yoo-jin ordered, projecting his [Aura] as far forward as it would go, royally fucking with the cold-blooded monsters’ metabolism while his Isaac retreated to his side, the two of them preventing any lizards from passing.

And then, Amy’s [Aura of Mystic Union] flowed into the fray, seamlessly combining with the frost [Aura], which was instantly followed by Isaac unleashing the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] and full blast. The supporting [Aura] not only increased the other [Auras’] range, it also allowed both of their effects to take effect.

Blood boiled away and cured party members of the lizards’ poison, crimson shards of ice manifesting and tearing through the monsters’ bodies, with the full force of two legendary [Auras], controlled by some of the world’s strongest people, behind them.

The second floor was just a long series of hallways that turned at odd angles, perfect for lizards to come charging in from either side, with more creatures emerging from hidden tunnels to attack from the back.

It was a nasty setup against most parties, but Isaac and Yoo-jin shredded anything that came from the front, and the two world-class spellcasters in the back demolished the small handful of creatures that came from the back. And as for the loot …

“I don’t suppose you have an [Alchemist] or two here who could make use of those?” Bailey asked, looking down at the odd assortment of poison bladders at their feet.

“No. A few people dabble and have the [Alchemy] [Skill], but no one with that [Class]. I’ll let you keep ‘em in exchange for all uses you discover being shared with us and some a few hours of your [Alchemist’s] time, though.” Kim suggested and Bailey readily agreed. This deal would make Professor Chandler really happy, and not really cost them much of anything. The modern day mad scientist was always sharing information with others, and convincing him to speak with someone who had access to a million different ingredients he wasn’t allowed to access in Germany would hardly be difficult.

Your Party has slain 56 Runner Basilisk Lizards (Lv. 22-25). 6,664 XP (34% XP share) awarded

“Okay, those are some incredible XP gains.” Amy nodded “Serious question: How come you’re not all at an insanely high Level?”

“Dungeons are very dangerous, far more so than it would seem with a party this experienced.” Kim said “Also, [Skill] Level gains from easy Dungeon runs tend to be very low, so a lot of remedial training to get those up is needed to get combat power in line with one’s Level.”

“There are a few who don’t do that, and it tends to be very obvious when that happens. High Stats can carry you far, but a 5% overall increase doesn’t make nearly as much of a difference as evolving a core [Skill] of your fighting style.” Yoo-jin added “So, third floor? That’s when we should be seeing the first Tier 6 monsters.”

He got a round of affirmations, and off they were.

This time, the staircase was trapped, though. Collapsing steps, darts tipped in the toxin from the last floor’s lizards in one section of the wall to be triggered by a tripwire, etc. Nothing that could get past Isaac’s sensory [Aura], but still annoying.

As he set the first foot onto the sandy ground of the third floor, a massive [Aura] that felt like a sandblaster slammed into Isaac. After switching over to his combat [Aura] and batting away the onrushing force of will, Isaac lunged.

“I’ll get the one on the far side, you handle these three!” he yelled, intercepting the furthest sand and rock serpent. He sidestepped the first strike, throwing the Zweihänder into the body, triplicating it using one of its abilities and lighting it on fire.

Roaring in pain, the elemental serpent plunged into the ground, erupting from underneath his feet.

Isaac sidestepped, slashed through it with a flaming, [Power-Piercing-Sundering-Sweeping-Far Strike] to take a massive chunk out of it, two more copies of the Kriegsmesser manifesting, flying along the same arc the original weapon had taken.

The roared at him, a cataclysm of rock shards and stone bursting from its mouth and descending upon him … or at least the place he’d been standing. Instead, Isaac had teleported to its other side, drawing the flaming blades towards him, through the body of the monster, shattering even more of the vital mana links that held it together. It was still alive, but badly weakened, letting him easily disengage.

The rest had been holding off the other three serpents with ease, but he could help that further along.

“Engaging the left one. Your left.” He called out a warning to avoid friendly fire and lunged, [Wave Charge] flinging him forward, blade leading and skewering one of the last vital mana locations.

The rock serpent collapsed instantly. Sure, it began to reform, but at an incredibly slow pace, giving Isaac the chance to go at the middle snake, once again calling out a warning to ensure he didn’t get zapped. That snake turned to face him, but in the process, it revealed its weak spots to the others and got blasted to bits.

Meanwhile, the final snake tried to heave itself on top of the party, but only ended up bellyflopping onto an igluthat hadn’t been there a split second later, where it was frozen in place, superchilled, and finally shattered like glass when a thrown rock smacked into it.

The first snake he’d struck here with the team was swiftly dispatched, followed by the original snake he’d attacked.

“Was that it?” Amy wondered.

Something rumbled in the distance.

“Do these Dungeons, mayhaps, have a sense of dramatic timing?” she asked sourly.

“Some do. Regardless, tempting fate is a bad idea.” Yoo-jin said.

“Actually, can I try something with this one and take it on my own?” Isaac asked, getting an affirmative in response.

With a wry grin on his face, he sped onwards, activating [Compounded Impact] for the first time in real combat.

On the far side of the room, a large golem appeared, humanoid with a squat neck and massive fists. Seemingly, this floor had a mini boss, and it was perfect for trying out that [Skill].

Isaac slid under the fist that flew at his head, blade scraping against the underside of the arm, spun, and chopped at the leg. He kicked off the far wall, slamming against its back, blade digging deeply into the rock.

Then, with the fourth, fifth and sixthblows, his mana began to plummet precipitously but the blade began to hammer home like a giant’s mace, blasting massive rents into the golem’s body.

He leaped skywards, [Wave Charge] flinging him all the way up to the ceiling. Isaac planted both feet against the rock, bent his knees to absorb the momentum, and ‘jumped’ upside down, blade first.

The seventh blow, empowered by a [Skill] whose costs doubled with every hit, hit like a godsdamned meteor, the body shattering to pieces beneath him.

“What kinds of [Skill] does that?” Yoo-jin asked, thoughtfully. He’d been able to tell that all that damage had come down to a single [Skill] that showed an extremely weird damage pattern.

“An anti-boss one I wanted to try out.” Isaac shrugged “Combo damage, basically. So, last floor? Well, after a small strategy session?”

***

The boss of the world’s first Tier 6 Dungeon was a great hulking beast, with a corrosive, toxic [Aura] that dripped with hate for all things ‘outside world’.

It was a hybrid of all monster types that populated the Dungeon, with four great big mantis scythes that could attack from any direction, rocky carapace automatically regenerated while the broken shards could be telekinetically controlled and made to extrude toxins.

In other words, a true monster.

It also died in under a second. A massive, motorbike-sized icicle, enchanted and dripping with toxins specifically concocted to kill the insects from the first floor, whose flesh made up the majority of its biomass, empowered with all of Yoo-jin’s and Isaac’s [Skills] that could be used, hammered through its center at a third of the speed of sound, destroying 90% percent of its vital organs in one shot and fatally damaging the rest.

Still, the Dungeon couldn’t have been too mad, given that the boss’ loot chest contained a fancy, shapeshifting sword that could wreathe itself with Starflame and a pair of bracers that could transform to gain the properties of whatever monster hide they were fed. The bracers went to Isaac, the sword went to Yoo-jin, while the various valuable minerals and gemstones were shared among Kim, Bailey and Amy.

“Do you know what comes after the creation and first successful clearing of a Dungeon?” Yoo-jin asked Isaac.

“A party?” he guessed.

“Actually, a thorough debrief.” Yoo-jin shook his head sadly “But on an unofficial basis, people tend to plan them whenever they discover a new Dungeon with great loot.”

Isaac just rolled his eyes, but he was laughing on the inside.