Dark Abyss

[Mission: Eliminate the assassin Slitstar

Completion: 100%

Reward: 20 coins & +1 level

Client Satisfaction: 100%

Satisfaction Reward: 15 coins

Items Retrieved: 4 Manuals, 1000 Skyrise dollars

Overall Performance: Flawless]

Roran checked his status panel. Now, it said:

[Level: 2

Health: 140

Strength: 8

Agility: 11

Mana: 60

Mana Regeneration: 10/hr

Spirit & Soul: 38

Coins: 120]

Turns out that his strength and Spirit & Soul had each improved by one. Roran was satisfied. His wealth had grown by another large margin, and his Mana stat improved by five.

[Player finished all beginner quests]

[Now you can exit your space]

[Outside are other Players, selling anything they don't need]

[There are also places to buy daily necessities]

[You can stay in this world for only a day (Dungeon and Contract time not included)]

[Every extra day will cost twenty coins]

[Enjoy your stay]

Roran was very curious about the other Players. He spoke out loud, whishing to exit his system space.

He was instantly teleported to outside. Funnily enough, he discovered that it looked like as if he had just come out of a house. He was standing on the porch of a house.

"Hey yo newbie. How's it going?" A buffalo spoke to Roran.

"Hey," Roran said, baffled by the speaking buffalo.

"Don't look at me like that. Everyone here is from a different dimension. I'm one of the more normal creatures," The buffalo said, seemingly offended. However, one could hear from his tone that he was just joking around.

"Sure," Roran said.

"What's your name? I can add you as a friend. We can message each other then."

"Roran Lurelin Tarrey Avarenthis."

The buffalo stood, completely silent. Roran didn't know what to do.

"There," The buffalo said suddenly. At that exact moment, Roran saw a small screen pop up in front of him.

[Buffy has sent you a friend request]

"Don't even start," the buffalo, Buffy, warned.

Roran couldn't resist. He laughed so hard that he rolled on the ground.

It was a minute afterwards that Roran had barely stood up again.

"I'll friend you."

"Okay," Buffy was extremely exasperated "So, what's your profession?"

"I'm a Dungeon Keeper and a Mercenary."

Buffy tugged Roran heavily.

"What was that for?!"

"Do not go around saying that you have two professions. You don't want that sort of trouble," Buffy said.

Roran saw from the serious look that Buffy wasn't lying.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Seriously. You will get murdered for that."

Roran laughed awkwardly. He tried to change the topic of the conversation, "Where can I go and buy things?"

"Right there," Buffy pointed in front of them.

"Thanks! See you later," Roran said.

"Bye," Buffy waved one of his hooves.

Roran started walking towards the place that Buffy was pointing to. He followed the road for five minutes, and then he reached a large open space. Many different creatures were sitting on the ground, supposedly owning stalls.

The place was bustling with activity, with people bartering and trading.

"Hey! Plate mail armor for only thirty coins!" An owner shouted towards Roran.

Roran was thinking about getting some armor. He wished to go inside a dungeon after buying some necessities.

"Show me the stats," Roran demanded.

[Simple Plate Mail Armor

Level: 3

Defense: 25

Durability: 500/500]

"I'll take it."

Thirty coins were instantly deducted from Roran's account. He only had 90 coins left.

Roran looked around for some healing items. Bandages, herbs, medicinal paste, anything. It was extremely difficult to do so, being in the insufferably loud market. Roran ambled around, searching silently. Then something caught his eye. It was a Magical Crystal.

He walked to the owner of the stall, "How much for that?"

"Four hundred coins."

"Never mind," Roran didn't have that much money.

He continued on. After half an hour, he finally reached a stall that sold medicinal supplies.

"I would like to buy a roll of bandages, and some of that medicinal paste over there, however many I can buy with twenty coins."

"The bandages are five coins. I can get you a kilogram of paste for twenty coins."

"I'll just take half a kilo."

"Sure," The owner squirted the paste into some tubes, and then sealed them, "Here you go."

"Thanks," Roran went back to his system space.

**********

"I'll enter this one, Dark Abyss," Roran made his choice. This dungeon seemed like it would contain Dark elemental monsters.

[Teleporting Player to Dark Abyss]

"Damn… the creator is rich…" Roran found himself straight on the bottom of a ravine. Wind howled and roared, sending shivers down Roran's spine. The whole area was very dimly lit, with torches placed only every twenty meters. The darkness seemed to shuffle, poised like a snake, ready to instantly uncoil and lash out, embedding its fangs deep in the victim.

Roran couldn't help but feel scared. He knew that the atmosphere was created to give an advantage to the monsters.

Roran opened up his shield. Its mana infused steel seemed to glow, providing little, but reassuring light.

"Maybe its time for me to change things up a little," Roran said. The darkness would only be disadvantageous to him.

"Solaris Crescere!" Roran sent parts of his Mana into the torches.

Almost unnoticeably, the light on the torches grew. The circumference of lit area grown, the light from the torches slowly connecting. Then, built up to a majestic crescendo, the light grew by a huge margin, filling up every single nook and cranny of the ravine.

It was at that exact moment that the monster spawned. It was hideous, but not as revolting as the mutant spider. Its silhouette approximated Sylvian's, but much, much, bigger.

"Shadowcrawler," Roran muttered to himself. Shadowcrawlers could hide themselves inside shadows, and then unknowingly, crawl to their victim. Then they would leap out of their shadow, strike, and then hide again in the blink of an eye.

However, there was not a single shadow left in the ravine, except for Roran. Shadowcrawlers are complete trash without shadows. Roran checked its stats.

[Shadowcrawler (Weakened)

Health: 300 (Halved)

Strength: 4 (Halved)

Agility: 6 (Halved)

Spirit & Soul: 3

Element: Dark]

"Piece of cake," Roran rushed towards the Shadowcrawler, holding his shield in front of him. He didn't want to get injured.

The Shadowcrawler wanted to run, but its agility after being weakened is nearly half of Roran's.

When Roran almost caught up to the Shadowcrawler, it suddenly turned, and then swiped one of its claws, desperately trying to hit a blow.

Roran didn't expect it at all. The claw grazed Roran's side, ripping his clothes. The foul energy instantly affected Roran. He felt his strength gradually seeping away.

He gritted his teeth and then sliced the Shadowcrawler in half.

[Player has captured Shadowcrawler]

Roran took some of Demon Slayer's mana and regenerated his own. He unsealed one of the tubed of medicinal paste and applied it gingerly on the injury.

A cool feeling enveloped his side. The foul energy slowly receded, getting absorbed by the paste. The paste slowly turned gray, and then it turned into dust, falling on the ground.

The effect was amazing and almost instantaneous. Roran had never seen anything like it.

A humongous spike shot straight towards Roran.

"Sh*t!" Roran flicked his shield, blocking the spike just in time. However, the spike still pressed on, grinding into the shield.

Roran injected the element of Earth into the shield. That did the job. The spike fell to the ground.

Roran looked at where the spike had come from. Nothing was there. It might have been a trap designed by the creator.

Roran looked at the spike. It pulsed with some sort of rhythm. Roran sliced towards it, hoping to get a hint on what it was.

Surprisingly, the blade went cleanly through. The spike was sliced in half. Blue blood splattered all over Roran, and then the system gave a notification.

[Player has captured Ironeater]

"Seems like it was a monster."

[Exiting Dungeon Dark Abyss…]