9 Chapter Eight: Den

Even as Raidishier finally laid his eyes upon the Shrine of Rebirth--a large crystalline statue of one of Aff's gods that sat within a clearing--he couldn't be sure that eating the raw hippo flesh was worth the nigh incapacitating nausea and pain that came after. Sure, the Golden Maned Tamarin had stayed with him through most of his journey through the dangerous jungle, but the odds still remained that without his beastly bodyguard he would have made it. Besides tasting godawful, the raw flesh gave him the Food Poisoning debuff, lowering his passive regeneration and inflicting him with painful nausea, which slowed him down quite a bit for several hours. Had he been without those debuffs he would have recovered from his injuries faster and might have arrived at the Shrine sooner…

But he definitely would have had to continue marching through the night and tire himself out without the monkey bodyguard, so for it letting him rest, he was eternally grateful. If his plans panned out he would attempt to tame that beast.

Raidishier checked the time on his phone as he placed his hand onto the Shrine of Rebirth and accepted the prompt that came after, resetting his spawn point to that spot. He'd been within Authority Fought For for almost 24 hours in-game--about 6 IRL. He could continue playing for another 8 in-game hours before he'd need to take a break. Though he'd explained his goals to them, his parents would worry if he didn't regularly exit the capsule to take care of his bodily functions.

"Anyway, first objective complete," the Monster Tamer said to himself as much as to his empty stream, checking the map on his phone with a smile to confirm what he already knew. "I have arrived at Beginner Continent's strongest Dungeon!"

Tempted to try his hand at evilly laughing, Raidishier looked up from the large clearing he stood within to gaze at the mountain that sat due north of him--its peak miles ahead and above. That mountain, which was situated in the exact center of the continent, was the Tiger Den Dungeon. And Raid planned to conquer it.

The teen began making his way toward the mountain's main entrance while pulling up a second map on his phone that displayed the layout of its ground floor. Normally, no game would allow such a thing as players below Level 10 safely exploring a level 30 Dungeon. However, the combination of the Monster Tamer Class's unique trait and the game's flexibility on exploration--or rather, lack of any physical barriers to keep low-level people out--made it very possible. In the Tiger Den Dungeon's case, exploration-focused Monster Tamers had long since discovered and mapped out much of the surrounding area and hidden cave floors as investments, since future Dungeon-diving Guilds would want to buy them. However, disputes arose between two of the best explorers and one of them threatened to just give away what he'd mapped of the Dungeon so far, making the other guy's maps useless. His bluff was called, and the dude posted a few floors worth of maps in the forums.

Raidishier didn't know or care about what happened between the explorers after that because he was just ecstatic about having the maps!

When he arrived at the mouth of a large cavern he took in the sight of stalactites, hanging vines, and various types of glowing flora as he mentally worded how he was going to explain his plans to his stream--which was only empty because he had yet to make it public, choosing to use the streaming service as a memory bank for his footage so he could edit and upload it later.

Raidishier spent a few minutes in front of the Dungeon entrance clearing his mind, reading the script he'd written on his phone, and taking deep breaths, preparing himself to perform the opening of his first video. When he felt calm enough, the boy enabled the stream feature that produced an ephemeral drone-like camera in the form of an androgynous pixie that he could control with his mind. So that it couldn't be used for reconnaissance he couldn't see its perspective or check the footage while in-game, and it could only move within a few meters of him while being unable to pass through walls.

He maneuvered himself and the pixie-cam so that he stood facing the cavern with his arms crossed and the camera facing his back. He would begin monologuing--explaining who he was and what his goal was--as the pixie-cam slowly floated forward until it was within arm's reach. Then, he'd turn around, flash his best smile, and…

"Ah, shit." He facepalmed, remembering that his in-game face was also his real one, and that if he actually became an e-celeb like he planned...nothing good would come of having his face known.

"Fuck it," he said, closing the tab with his script and replacing it with the Tiger Den's ground floor map. He didn't need a fancy monologuing opening for his video. It'd be better to just clickbait his encounter with the stone hippo… Though he wouldn't include the Golden Maned Tamarin who saved him. He likely wouldn't be in a position to bind it for a long time considering how it just shrugged off his every cast of Taming and he wasn't prompted with any Quests that'd lead to him taming it, so he didn't want any high-level Tamers beating him to it. Not only would he benefit from being the only one to know about the friendly creature, but the tamarin would be safer because some higher-level jackasses might hunt it for easy XP. Sure, it had a superduper strong attack, but using it left it wide open, so it'd be easy pickings for a party.

"Anyway, focus!" Raidishier hyped himself up, smacking his cheeks on both sides--slightly bruising his face, ouch--to get his head in the game. His resource pools were all full. It was time to enter the level 30 Dungeon.

He didn't dismiss the pixie-cam, leaving it to record him from over the shoulder in a kind of third-person so he'd have more angles of his fights to choose from for the videos...then dropped onto all fours and crept into the Dungeon's entrance. Immediately, Raidishier was uncomfortable. Not only because the dim lighting--provided by glowing flora--of the cavern sent chills down his spine, but because his spine was parallel to the rocky, uneven ground. When on all fours the boy's range of motion and vision were severely limited. He had trouble craning his neck to look up at the ceiling or to either side, causing him to be paranoid that something he'd normally spot coming at him would strike unseen.

But why was he on all fours when there was plenty of space to stand upright? The Monster Tamer suspected that he had to be on all fours, or else he wouldn't be accepted as easily by the Dungeon monsters, which was his goal.

'Dungeon monsters that are hopefully not too close to my Level and also don't see me as direct competition.''

The young adult's mind wandered in an attempt to distract himself from how unnatural walking on both his feet and hands through a damp, dark cave felt, turning his thoughts toward one of the details that made his plans plausible--the fact that, despite being a "Level 30 Dungeon", the place spawned a wide range of Levels. Aff used what the gaming community commonly called "living ecosystems", which meant that most entities and variables within an area affected each other. To put it simply, players weren't the only ones with agency. Though monsters were programmed to stay within the general area they spawned, that didn't mean they just sat around waiting for players to appear. As previously mentioned: monsters competed with each other. However, it wasn't a pointless detail added only for the wow-factor, because monsters gained EXP from kills just like players and NPCs, and eventually leveled up and learned more skills.

The Dungeon wasn't just a big room full of inanimate Level 30 monsters waiting for Dungeon divers, but a constantly shifting ecosystem covering a lot of land--most of it underground--where even monsters struggled to survive.

What all of that meant for Raidishier was that he might be able to defend himself against the low-level beasts around and within the lower floors of the mountain, then sneak past the stronger ones by posing as harmless… But even fending off another Level 2 beast could be incredibly difficult if he didn't spot it, first!

'Damned darkness! I know I couldn't be bothered to earn money to buy torches before I departed, but damn...'

Unfortunately, Raidishier's virtual phone lacked any flashlight features and its screen was only an illusion in his head, preventing him from using the device to light up his surroundings...allowing a monster to immediately sneak up on him just as he was complaining about how difficult it was to see.

"Ugghh!"

Unable to keep himself on all fours, the teen shot to his feet upon his back being scratched by a talon, trying especially hard to keep his cries of pain as silent as possible now that he was within a place where sound echoed. His whip in hand, he scanned the cavern whose size rivaled that of a cathedral and spotted the little bastard who took a swipe at him.

It was a Level 4 gray bird a little bit bigger than his closed fist, and while Raidishier would normally curse the fact that he encountered a creature so mobile as a bird, things were different within Authority Fought For and within enclosed spaces. Aff kept things fair, which meant that if a monster wanted to be speedy in the air so that it held a huge mobility advantage over all grounded creatures, it would cost the monster most of its attribute points. For Raidishier, this meant his attacker was neither very strong nor hardy. It dealt way below-average damage for a Level 4 creature, had even less health, and wasted tons of stamina for any bursts of speed.

'I only need to land one or two Concussive Cracks because the damage I can deal while it's stunned should be enough to kill it.'

Raidishier gulped, thankful that the game's sweat mechanics were not too realistic because the grip on his whip would be somewhat compromised, then inched toward his opponent. The bird sat about two meters above the ground on a small ledge in the cavern wall's surface, watching him with its beady little eyes. Before he even entered striking range his foe unfolded its wings and dove at him again, causing him to attack wildly in its vague direction. He missed, but so did the bird, who couldn't execute its talon strike because of his flailing and landed close to the other side of the cavern, about six meters away from him.

'Having that much speed at your disposal is so unfair. What the hell am I--'

The bird charged him again, and Raidishier flailed again, hoping to scare it. However, the bird dove low and clipped his leg, unaffected by his fumbling this time.

'It's fast in a straight line, but not when turning,' he noticed, having seen how the bird slowed down immensely so it could climb back up onto the same ledge, now closer than it was before. 'Not exactly realistic when compared to how the birds around my house IRL fly, but I'll take it! I need to make it dodge before I can land a hit.'

With one smooth motion--eyes locked onto the bird--Raidishier bent his knees so his free arm could swoop down to grab a handful of dirt and pebbles, which he threw. Most creatures could ignore such a trifling attempt at a distraction, but small birds typically couldn't. The dust cloud blocked their view, and if a decent-sized rock actually hit them, their health pools and defense values typically weren't big enough to shrug the damage off.

The gray birdie shot to the side, dodging the distraction, but then made the mistake of attempting a counterattack. Had it just continued in a straight line away from him it would have been too fast for Raidishier to follow...but it hadn't. The avian slowed down to fly in Raidishier's direction only to be met with the end of his whip.

'HA HA! DIE!'

The tiny burst of mana through his whip scrambled the bird's brain, sending it crashing to the ground and allowing Raidishier to easily strike it another few times without any system assistance. Its health dropped to less than half before it recovered and darted away.

'Damn, I really could've killed it right there if the Concussive Crack weren't system-aided!'

The Tamer lamented allowing the game to assist his stunning blow, because if he hadn't, the bonus stun duration would have allowed him to finish it off. Then again, there was no guarantee he could've hit the bird on his own, even if it wasn't at its top speed.

The bird grew more wary after almost dying, but Raidishier didn't worry about it flying away and denying him his rightful EXP--retreating was only something a monster with relatively high Intelligence could do. However, it refused to counterattack when he threw more dirt and dust at it, eating up the boy's time and HP by outmaneuvering him with speed.

'Uhhhh…'

Though its damage output was lower than average for its Level, the bird eventually dropped Raidishier's HP into the red, causing him to panic unhelpfully. His whip cracks began missing by even larger margins as he threw caution to the wind in hopes of landing even just one more hit, until even the little gray bird took notice of his foolishness and also grew more aggressive. At first the boy thought the bird's aggression was to his advantage because its attacks became more predictable, but he just didn't have enough health remaining to tank what hits the bird didn't miss.

[You have died.]

'Fucking hell.'

Just a little over a day within Authority Fought For and Raidishier experienced his first death.

'I'm gonna fuckin' destroy that shitty bird, delete this character to make a Celestial Mage, then bring it back to life as a minion just to stomp it back to death!'

The Monster Tamer found himself angrier than when he thought he'd die to the hippo and would be forced to make the journey again, probably because it seemed as though the bird stood no chance against him after he landed that Concussive Crack, then showed him up.

'Ugggghhhhh… Whatever. Not like I lost anything.'

Not ten seconds passed before the boy respawned at the crystalline Shrine of Rebirth in perfect condition, furiously ran back to the Dungeon's entrance, spent a minute calming himself down, then silently sneaked in. He spotted the bird pruning its feathers on the same ledge he'd first managed to hit it near, and pulled a loaf of bread from his inventory pouch. Hugging the cavern wall, he inched closer, no doubt gaining experience toward the Sneak skill. Before he got close enough to be discovered Raidishier threw the loaf at the bird, then charged, preparing a Concussive Crack.

The little gray avian clearly wasn't expecting an attack by the same individual it had killed not too long ago, and even less knew what to think about the delicious morsel the creature it killed had thrown.

Needless to say, the loaf of bread even bigger than the bird was a wonderful distraction.