Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 182: Freedom!

The following days were… largely as we expected. In the morning, we were ordered to prepare for the day’s battles, where our unit found themselves specifically targeted as soon as they were identified. Of the remaining fourteen members, not including myself and Diane, nine of them were killed and sent to the Light prison before the reinforcements came.

Similarly, because the reinforcements were so late, the second rescue attempt failed, whereas the Light side managed to recover their own units. This caused the lower-tier battle to immediately flip in favor of the Light army.

On the next day, Diane found herself targeted by the grandmaster that she had previously defeated from the very start of the battle. As soon as he found her, he swept in and didn’t give her a single chance to resist, burning her away with his meteor hammer. This led to the battle ending early with the rest of the grandmasters stepping in…

This pattern continued day by day, with the lower units having less and less presence on the battlefield. Until finally, when Sunday came around, we were not even called to prepare to fight. Instead, we were told to take the day off and prepare for later. A later which I knew would never come, as this would be the last full day of the dungeon.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to send messages to the players that had been imprisoned, so I couldn’t keep in contact with Diane. Instead, I just met up with Bella and discussed how things had been going on her end. Given that she was a rear unit, she had not been threatened much throughout the entire dungeon, so she didn’t have many special stories to share.

Finally, on Monday, everyone in the dungeon breathed a sigh of relief when the end of the dungeon was announced. Personally, I had spent the majority of the time doing simulated training when I wasn’t talking to Bella, but this must have been a rather unproductive week for most.

When the announcement rang out, the rest of the dungeon seemed to freeze. All of the wandering soldiers stood like statues, the wind coming to an abrupt halt. In front of myself, I could see a window displaying my total amount of war credits, which could be converted into rewards for this dungeon.

There was a note that I could save these credits for future dungeon attempts to stockpile for greater rewards, but I saw no need for that. Instead, I looked through the skills and traits first, seeing what I could afford.

My final balance at the end of the run was one thousand, five hundred and eighty. I wasn’t sure if that was high or low, but I was seeing novice skills selling for between twenty and fifty points, so I was satisfied with it. Meanwhile, the master ranked skills that I had created in the dungeon appeared for four hundred credits each.

First, I purchased the Shadow-Blessed trait that Diane had mentioned before, priced at six hundred credits. With this, my few darkness skills would receive a notable improvement. Hopefully, this trait would stack with Diane’s Child of Darkness, which had the same effect.

With my remaining nine hundred and eighty points, I purchased a full set of the Dark Dragon equipment, planning to feed it to my mimic gear, and a single Skill Synthesis Book. Most likely, this was a reward exclusive to the Instructor role, so I was curious what it would do.

After that, my points had dwindled to less than a hundred, so I just left the rest and chose to exit the dungeon. Along with myself, a stream of players soon departed from the dungeon’s split gate. Some of them walked over to the Light camp to one side, some to the Dark camp to the other side, while many more simply continued walking ahead towards the nearest city.

“Ugh

, finally…” I heard Diane mutter to herself, clearly disgruntled from having to spend half of the week in a prison cell. “I was starting to think that I’d never get out of there.”“Were you still able to claim your reward properly?” Bella asked hopefully, to which Diane quickly confirmed.

“I did. Also, I think it was because I spent so much time in the prison, but there was even a special lockpicking set listed as a reward.” From the way her eyes gleamed, I could tell that she clearly purchased that, no matter what it cost.

“Did you get the trait and skills you were looking for?” I asked, and she nodded her head again.

“That’s right. I had over two thousand points, so I was able to get everything I wanted, including your little dark magic skill. Do we still have any demotion books?” 

Blinking, I checked my inventory, only to chuckle slightly and pull two of them out. “Yeah, we haven’t used much from the last batch you got, so feel free.” She eagerly accepted the books, demoting the skill to its novice level as I continued. “By the way, there was what I assume to be a special Instructor reward on the list, so I bought it as an experiment.”

Diane and Bella both looked over at me as I pulled the car out. “Let’s go somewhere more private to talk, shall we?” I asked, looking around. There were quite a few people whose gazes had turned towards us. Some of these gazes held clear hostility, likely due in no small part to the fact that our actions had essentially ruined most of a week of gameplay for them.

The two quickly got into the car, and I drove up into the air, only parking once I had created a wide platform and covered it with my Ghost Zone. Then, I pulled the Skill Synthesis Book out of my inventory and appraised it. “This book functions just like the Skill Synthesis system I had in the dungeon. However, I can have one additional person contribute skills during the creation process.”

Bella arched a brow, before shrugging her shoulders. “That just sounds like a slightly more convenient enchantment book, doesn’t it?” she asked, and Diane seemed to agree.

“According to what Drake said, the synthesis system is more forgiving. There’s no chance of complete failure, and you have options when choosing the final result. Still, I don’t see it being something worth going out of your way to acquire.” After she said that, she looked up at me curiously. “What sort of skill were you planning to make for it?”

I pursed my lips, considering the possibilities. My eyes glanced over towards Bella, and a thought occurred to me. “I want Bella to use this book herself,” I said in a confident tone, earning a confused look from the other two.

“Me? What kind of skill do I need?”

“Diane and I both have dragon forms, and we can both use those forms to spam our abilities. Meanwhile, your bullets, while effective, can’t benefit from the same rapid fire when you start using your skills. So, I want to do a little experiment. If you put a downgraded version of your Chaos Firearms Expertise on this and then relearn it, training it up with the dragon skills, will you unlock a type of gun dragon?”

“A… gun dragon?” Bella blinked in astonishment, her eyes widening. “T-that’s crazy. There’s no way something like that could be a thing.”

“No, it’s possible,” Diane muttered under her breath. “I’ve played games focused around various types of dragons before. One type was known as the Cannon Dragon, with a rifle barrel-like horn. Instead of a normal breath weapon, it condensed its flames and lowered its head, firing a superheated bullet from its horn.”

Bella’s eye twitched at this information, bringing a hand up to massage her forehead. “Okay, I admit, that sounds kind of neat. But… I don’t think I really want to transform into something like that, even if it does give me greater combat power. Firing bullets out of a horn on my head… that does not sound as fun as holding my rifle or pistols.”

Diane offered a small nod of understanding. “In that case, why not go a different route? Instead of aiming to create a ‘gun dragon’, try to convert your arrow skills into gun skills, that way you have more than just your basic attack.”

That time, Bella’s eyes lit up, clearly pleased with the idea. “Yes, I would much rather do that!” Finally, she accepted the book, focusing on it. The cover flipped open, showing her Chaos Firearms Expertise, Multi-Shot, and Sundering Shot skills on individual pages.

She looked at an invisible window for a moment, before flipping the page a few times. Each time she did, a different skill was presented to her. The first skill was Chaos Arrow Expertise, which was the bow equivalent of her gun skill. The second was Trick Bullet, which could shatter into multiple rounds after landing. The final skill that she showed was Bullet Projection, which made my eyes widen slightly.

This was a skill that allowed her to create fully customized bullets within her gun prior to firing. Meaning that she could create the previous Trick Bullet, a net bullet, homing rounds, or whatever else she wanted. It was basically the gun equivalent of my various projection skills.

Even Bella seemed tempted by this skill, looking at it with eager eyes. However, she let out a sigh, shaking her head and pulling her gaze back to the Trick Bullet skill instead.

“Are you sure?” Diane asked, clearly seeing the potential of Bullet Projection. “We’ve seen what those types of skills can turn into.”

However, Bella simply nodded, confident in her decision. “Rather than a skill that I’ll only be able to use once per battle, I’d prefer to get a skill that I can use repeatedly. I don’t have the mana capacity of you two, and the only way I’d get it is if I turned into some freaky rifle-horned dragon. I like being a cute elf!”” Her cheeks flushed red as she said that, her head dipping low. “So, for me, I think this is a better fit.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her self-inflicted embarrassment, but Diane looked at her with an understanding smile. “Got it. You’ll need another demotion book to train it from the ground up. Drake?”

Naturally, I produced the book as requested, handing it over as the synthesis book in Bella’s hand began to glow. After a moment, it turned into the Trick Bullet skill book, which she then learned and immediately demoted to Ricochet Bullet.

“What do you two think?” I looked at the duo. “Want to find a normal dungeon to practice your new skills in?”

The two girls looked at each other, nodding their heads in agreement. “Know any other good dungeons around here then, Diane?” I asked, and she pursed her lips.

“I had a lot of free time to do research over the last few days. All of the dungeons with really good skills are already claimed by major guilds. However, there is another option that might work for us…”

Seeing my and Bella’s interested gaze, Diane smiled mischievously. “Head back to town first. I’ll need to buy it from another craftsman guild. They’ve created a prototype dungeon radar. It won’t tell us the rewards, or even the level of the dungeon, but it will help us find dungeons in unexplored territory. I’ll get the long-range version, so it’ll be a bit pricier, but with how fast you drive, we’ll need it.”

My eyes widened slightly when I heard that. “Got it, so we’ll be able to find dungeons while we’re just driving around. That will be very helpful.”

“Yup. And if we find a good one, once we’re done raiding it, we can sell its coordinates to an interested guild,” Diane added on with a smile as I began to drive the car forward.