Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 199: The Land of Assassins

After we had breakfast, I followed Bella’s directions to send the car to the south. Since the dungeon that we were looking for was on an entirely different continent, it was going to take nearly a full day of driving to get there. I could naturally go faster if I were to switch to my dragon form, but I was hesitant to do so.

Although my ‘Glancing Steps’ dragon had been by far my fastest mode of travel, I had not yet tested what the ‘World Walker’ dragon would be like. Until I had done the proper round of tests, I was more than happy taking the slightly slower method of driving through the air.

“By the way, Bella,” I spoke while driving, using the chance to fill the silence. My eyes glanced over to the passenger seat where Bella was sitting next to me. “Did you find any other dungeons that could help Diane’s ‘ninja’ training?”

Diane leaned forward in the back seat, clearly eager to hear about this as well. However, Bella hesitated to answer. “I’m… not really sure? I don’t know just what Diane has in mind as a ‘ninja’. I knew stealth assassination techniques were part of it, which was why I paid special attention to this dungeon. But, I read about quite a few dungeons, so if you tell me what you’re looking for, I might know something.”

Diane thought about it for a long moment. “Definitely, stealth and assassination is a big part of it. For mobility, Glancing Steps is probably the best that I’ll be able to get. I also need techniques that work with throwing knives, short swords, wires, daggers, and hopefully kusarigama. Those are basically small scythes attached to a chain.”

“Other than that, I want trap skills, skills to disorient an opponent like illusions, and cloning skills.” As she listed off each type of skill, she counted off on her fingers, trying to think of anything else she might want.

Bella listened intently, taking a while to process the requests. “I think a lot of your weapon skills will be available from the Archetype dungeon, along with the Trapper skill. I don’t remember anything about this dungeon helping with wires or ‘kusarigama’, though.”

“As for what this dungeon doesn’t cover… I can’t immediately think of any dungeon that handles more than one of your requests. The closest one to where we’re going is probably the Puppeteer’s Playground, a dungeon where you fight hordes of puppets controlled by the final boss.”

“This boss has the chance to drop one of two skills on death, either Puppeteering to control puppet minions or Steel Thread, which lets you release and control steel threads to attack an enemy.”

Diane blinked at this, tilting her head. “What kind of things can you do with puppet minions?” she asked curiously, seeming to think of something.

“There’s a brief description of the skill’s progression in the book I read. At the novice level, you can only make the physical body of the puppet move as you wish. At the intermediate level, you can start casting your other skills through the puppet. Then, at the master level, the number of puppets you can command at once increases.”

“Of course, it’s not all so easy,” Bella continued, shaking her head with a sigh. “The skill doesn’t summon puppets. You need to provide your own, and the mobility and durability of the puppet is largely limited by its construction. That’s why it is listed as a great skill for defending a workshop, where the crafter can store a large number of puppets to use whenever they want.”

“Yeah, that might be a problem for me,” Diane responded, muttering under her breath. Then, she turned her gaze towards me, an interested gleam in her eyes. “Unless Drake can make puppets with his Shadow Forge skill? That would solve a lot of the problems I’d face, since you could mass produce them if so.”

I hesitated, unsure what to say. “Honestly, I’m not sure. Even if I theoretically could create a puppet with Shadow Forge, I don’t know enough about puppet construction to make a good one. I’d at least need a base model to study.”

“Well, thankfully it sounds like there are plenty of puppets to study in that dungeon,” Diane cheered with upturned eyes, clearly happy. “I need a good wire control skill, anyway. Snaring Serpents is great for tying people up, but it’s not good as an offensive skill.”

I let out a small sigh at this. “Alright, we’ll go to the puppet dungeon after you’re done with the Archetype one. But, in exchange, I want you to be looking for any gun-themed dungeons whenever you’re offline for Bella. She needs her own special skills, too. And there might even be equipment suited for her.”

Diane quickly nodded her head in agreement. “You got it, boss! I’ll look around for whatever I can find when I’m logged out. By now, I’m sure that people will have found quite a few interesting dungeons.”

After she said that, she hesitated and turned to look at me. “Though, that would mean spending a lot more time in populated dungeons. You usually prefer to go around and grab what hasn’t been discovered yet.”

“That ship has sailed as of yesterday,” I said with a reluctant sigh. “I need to be a more common face among players now to get their attention. By the way, it looks like people have been flocking in to Fallcry. Enough that our noble slots have increased. I have two Count slots available, so I can increase both of your mana discounts.”

The two widened their eyes at that, but I didn’t hesitate. With a quick manipulation of the menu, I assigned both of them the Count rank. Previously, their discounts had reached up to thirty percent, so I was quite looking forward to how much easier it would be for them to fight now.”

Seeing that the titles were applied before they could even say anything, the two shared a knowing smile. I knew that they had been wanting to wait until the highest level of slots were available, but I felt like that wasn’t much of an option anymore. Now that we had a great target on our backs, and were encountering grandmasters more and more frequently, they needed to be able to fight on a higher level.

More importantly, Diane had been relying so much on her shadow skills for months now, She could still use most of those skills without her dragon transformation, but certainly not as freely as she had before. Hopefully, this would ease the burden of her transitioning back to a more ‘ninja’ fighting style.

The drive to the southern continent took the entire day, with us eating both lunch and dinner over the ocean. However, we did fly through a mountainous area on our original continent, which seemed to be the natural homeland of the dragons. For obvious reasons, we remained in stealth for that entire leg of the journey.

Once we arrived at this new continent, I found an empty meadow and set down one of the houses I had stored in my backpack.

…Okay, even to me, that sounded ridiculous. Anyways, I used the biggest mansion for the time being because it had enough space in the basement for me to use my dragon king form. There wasn’t any particular training that I was focused on at the moment for simulations. Rather, it was my dragon form itself that I wanted to improve.

Dragon Shifter-X was at level ninety-one, meaning that I was so close to reaching the final level of what had become one of my most-used skills of all time. There was no reason not to do a little ‘sleep training’ with this skill while I could.  Even if training it at night would take me more than a week to get those last few levels, it was worthwhile progress.

The next day, we continued our drive to reach the Assassin Archetype Dungeon. As we approached the area, the atmosphere turned more and more gloomy. The landscape was covered with a dense fog, and the sky turned dark. If not for my True Sight, I would be unwilling to drive through this area, even in the sky.

“This is the place,” Bella noted once she saw the changes in the atmosphere. “Each of the Archetype Dungeons has an effect on the surroundings to imitate their specialty. For instance, the Cleric Archetype in Athua’s capital creates a pillar of holy light that rises towards the sky, and you hear angelic singing the closer you get to the dungeon.”

“Thankfully, none of us want to go to that dungeon,” I muttered under my breath, recalling how strict the church was with regards to controlling healing skills. I followed my senses towards a small town where a large number of people gathered. With True Sight, I could see the dungeon already, a cave dug into the side of a mountain. Given how many players were camped around that cave, I had no doubt that this was the place.”

So, I hid us briefly with Wraith Zone to land the car, sticking it into my inventory. Soon after I lifted the stealth skill, I felt several eyes turning towards us, and heard murmurs breaking out through the crowd.

It didn’t take long for one of the men in black robes to stand and walk over. “You are the Martial King, Drake Advent, correct?” 

“Well, that certainly sounds a lot better than ‘Munchkin King’,” I muttered, recalling my original nickname among players.

“And that would make you Diane and Bella, his party members,” the man continued, not minding my comment. “I assume that you are here to let Diane take the trials of the dungeon?”

Diane gave a firm nod of her head. “Is that a problem?”

“No problem,” the man said in an emotionless tone. “I am just here to explain the rules of the area to you. Even if you are a king, it would not be good to violate them. You aren’t the first king to come here, after all.”

I perked a brow at that, knowing far too little about the other kings. Still, I had no intention of starting a fight with all of these assassins. “What are the rules?”

“If you’re here, I assume you understand the framework of the dungeon. Only one may enter at a time, and the dungeon remains locked until the current trial taker either dies or leaves. By default, we observe a queue where people wait to enter in the order that they arrived. This would put Diane as the thirty-ninth in line to enter the dungeon currently.”

“Entry permissions can be traded among those waiting through one of three methods. First, you can directly pay someone to trade slots with you. The price is determined by negotiation, and will conclude when both sides are satisfied.”

“The second method is through a duel. If you want to duel someone for their slot in the queue, you can. However, you must offer a fair price to compensate for their time. Typically, one platinum coin can be used for a duel chance.”

“Finally, if your turn comes up either while you are offline or when your time is running out, you can freely trade your position to the next in line, letting you be at the head of the queue when you log back on.”

Diane nodded her head again as she listened to these rules. “I assume anyone cutting in line would be making an enemy of all of the players waiting for their turn. How long does each trial take?”

The man thought about the question. “It depends. For those attempting it for their first time, the trial can last as little as five minutes. The current contestant has been in there for three hours now, and will probably emerge soon. As for the longest, that would be one day. However, we later discovered that this was someone who was choosing to stay in the dungeon without participating in the trials, so he was hunted down by those waiting here.”

Diane pursed her lips thoughtfully at this, looking around. “I don’t see anyone dueling. I assume nobody wants to show off their skills to prevent others from taking advantage of them in later duels. However, thirty-ninth is a bit long for me to wait if we’re going by how long you said this can take.”

She had a point. It could easily take a full week before it was her turn, and that was only for a single attempt at the dungeon. However, the man was unmoved. “We’re all waiting. The rewards in this dungeon are too good to pass up, so players only leave either when they get the final prize or when they feel it is impossible and give up. I’ve been here the longest, over three months now.”

Diane’s eyes widened when she heard this, seeming impressed by the man’s dedication. “I assume leaving to go explore the area counts as forfeiting your spot in the queue,” she stated, to which the man agreed.

Seeing this, Diane glanced in my direction, seeming to have a plan of her own. “I understand. In that case, since we might be camping here for a while, is it fine if we make a temporary base?”

“That’s fine. Most people visit the nearby village to pick up camping supplies when they first arrive. As long as you don’t interfere with the others waiting, you can set up your camp wherever you want.”