Chapter 14 - Nightmare Mode in Tutorial (This was harder than he thought)

Garrett Gulps after taking a swig of water and a second 1 hour nap. He was beginning to feel the fatigue pile up, but this was the final dungeon, and he was ready for it. It would be a challenge.

Nightmare mode tripled the stats, points, and rewards. He also got a quest.

Clear the Nightmare Dungeon! Rewards: +20k points, +5 to all stats, 50% off voucher for summons below 10 million.

He asked the system about a clear reward for clearing his first hard dungeon and it responded with, You have cleared a hard dungeon before it became a Hard dungeon, as such you didn't get an official reward bonus for Dungeon clears and instead cleared the Hard ranked Police dungeon before it became a Dungeon. So your achievement was recorded through that action.

Clicking his tongue in annoyance Garrett admitted that the system had a point and let it go. After all too much arguing with the very thing giving him and his troops a fighting chance in this world is not a wise thing to do. He shook his head and looked at the Clinic. The doctors office was 5 floors total. And he was told this Nightmare Dungeon is filled with Zombies, Mutants, a whole squad of Variants and one Alpha. He was not looking forward to seeing how strong this thing would be.

He decided to average it out. If a Mutant was 3 times in a base stat. And a Variant was a double of all base physical stats. Then he would play it safe and assume an Alpha would be a minimum of times four compared to a base zombie. Meaning their stats in the wild are 60. But if he considers the Nightmare mode tripling them... He was glad he recently got past 200 in his physical stats. He was nervous but knew he has a decent chance of beating this thing.

Plus if things go south he has his weapons and guns to help. He was going to survive this and make it through!

He enters the Clinic and finds it seal behind him. He wasn't getting out again until he either cleared the dungeon or joined their ranks as another dead soldier. He would rather avoid option number 2.

Seeing the incoming zombies that noticed him, he fires up his sense stat to ensure he isn't back attacked and rushes the oncoming zombies. With his physical stats in the 200s he had little trouble cleaving through at least 10 regular zombies. The problem came when he encountered a Bone plated mutant. He readied his hammer for a swing and made a large crack in the armor covering this mutant. However despite his strength the zombie only lost half its chest armor and its left arm. its right arm swings around and lands a claw strike against his forearm. Thankfully he was still protected by the gloves he found but they were quickly shredded by the serrated claws this mutant had. He kicked upwards and broke the jaw of the bone zombie. Making it gurgle a bit as he brought his hammer down to end its existence by way of hammer smashing its head to bits.

Garrett readied his weapons but endured a sudden kick to his back as he is kicked over the receptionist counter in the office. He looks back with a tumble to his feet and sees a speedster already lunging at him with claws out and jaws open wide. Wondering why his sense stats didn't warn him in time he swings his sword with fast and efficient precision. Bisecting the zombie in two and leaping back over the counter to fight on.

He wipes out at least 25 more regular zombies and even two bulker zombies as he clears the first floor. He wipes some sweat off his brow as he looks around. He is more mentally exhausted than physically. And this is coming from how his sense stat seems to be lacking in this dungeon. Being one of his only two stats below 100. It seems like the stronger the dungeon the higher your mental stats need to be for them to be effective within it.

He clicks his tongue in annoyance at this new discovery and looks at his sense and intelligence stat. he could boost them now. But while it would solve his immediate need, it would also cost him a lot of points he could put elsewhere in the future. He hums in thought while resting in a break room he cleared on the first floor.

Figuring he needs this more to survive and complete the dungeon, and logically thinking about how he will recover those points quickly in a triple reward Dungeon, he spends the points to boost both stats by 100. It costs him a whooping 40k to boost both that much, but it would be worth it to make sure he is in a good range of stats.

Garret Grimsborne (Advanced Human):

Str- 229

Agi- 210

Sta- 210

Int- 93 +100 = 193

Sense- 95 +100 = 195

Store points - 126,100

Nodding to himself that even though that cost him a good chunk of points, he will be better off for it. He resumes his hunt on the second floor.

Now he is able to hear, smell, and even see subtle movements much more clearly now. It was a worthy investment for his survival. He slashes behind him without turning his head, he smashes the head of a zombie that had just turned a corner before it even knew what hit it. Garrett was doing well. And with his sense and intelligence stat now boosted he was able to analyze the weaknesses of the Bulker and Bone plated zombies much more easily.

He noticed that Speedster zombies have the same weak spots as your average joe zombie, they are just harder to track and hit. While Bulkers have their weak spots split into two on their brain and in their chest inside that strange eye mutation. Garrett shrugs as he figures it is just another weak spot to hit and ensure he can take them out faster. But he also knows that if it wasn't for him noticing that weak point then most people would be having a harder time taking them out. For bone plate zombies, the head is still their weak point. But at their current level in this nightmare dungeon their defense has tripled, where even a 9mm bullet glances off their reinforced skull helmet. Even the warhammer is only pulling off small cracks on it. It took Garrett taking out both legs and one of its arms to have a clean chance to smash down right from above to cave in the skull. A nightmare ranked foe is no joke.

Puffing a bit from the extra effort he has had to do to keep ahead of the zombies with their now tripled scores. He manages to hunt the second and third floor with little issue. Wiping out a grand total of 250 regular zombies and maybe around 25 mutants.

On the fourth floor he was concerned. This floor seems to be the surgery floor for the office, and inside each of the 10 surgery rooms seems to be a Variant. Now one on their own is no longer much of a threat. But at triple stats? They are now a minimum of 90 in all physical stats. And there are now 10 of them. If they manage to team up against Garrett... well he will walk away with an intact body, but probably bleeding from many cuts, bites, and claw marks. He was hoping to wipe out at least 2 of them before the rest converged on his position. If he got too many wounds he wouldn't be in great shape for fighting off the boss. And the boss was a minimum of over 180. Maybe more. He had to play this safely and carefully.

He enters the first room with his sword out and his hammer ready in his other hand. The variant had its back to him which he thanked his lucky stars for as he approached. The Variant heard his boot clink against something on the ground and turned, just in time for the sword to cleave its huge mutated eye stalk from its shoulders and his hammer to smash down into its shoulder and into its chest cavity. He noticed this one was wearing the remnants of a construction worker but that didn't matter in the end. He had to kill it quickly.

It was now lacking a functioning arm and half its chest was caved, it was also missing the grabbers from its eye stalk and its main method of watching the surroundings. He had an edge. With another one two combo he slams his sword into its chest and bisect it down the middle. With his war hammer he smashes the other lung area and caves that into bloody paste. With a dying gurgle it slams to the floor in two halves.

Garrett curses under his breath as the two closest rooms screech out in curiosity alerting the other rooms on the floor. He rushes out full speed and hits the next room right as a Variant peeks its head out. He pulls out his solid slug shotgun and unleashes round after round into the joints of the Variant. It screeches in pain as he manages to roll and draw both melee weapons while dropping the gun. He smashes and slashes the now mostly immobile enemy as its eye stalk is still able to whip about and try to scratch and claw at him. He cuts it off swiftly and hacks it to pieces.

The second one across the hall comes charging out as Garrett readies his blade and hammer. He throws the hammer this time right into the eye on the stalk. This makes it go blind and whips its clawed arms about trying to get at him. He barely ducks under a wild swipe and avoids losing an eye to another. He gets right inside and kicks his shotgun into his hands again and unloads it all throughout its chest. Shredding its insides and wrecking it beyond further combat as Garrett grabs his hammer handle and brings it down into the body through the damaged eyestalk.

With a roar he smashes the Variant to pulp. He pants a bit at the effort before whipping his head up at the incoming charging 7 other Variants.

He activates sense for keeping an eye out for them all, intelligence to watch for weaknesses and his agility to keep out of their reach, all to their highest parameters to avoid any lasting cuts or gashes. he might be able to buy some potions in the store but he doesn't want to waste a single point to get that summoning companion option in sooner. He will make it happen!

With a roar he charges the green tinted Variants while his veins now have that strange blue glow to them again. Its very faint but it is happening now.

He manages to dive between two Variants and smash/hack them with deep hits into their main bodies rendering them helpless as the one with the smash lost its upper torso, and the one with the slash is suddenly in three pieces and unable to move. Garrett was like a demon out from hell as he hacked and slashed way harder than he ever has before. But he was not letting these things win. He was going to grow, he was going to win, and he was going to ensure he was able to defeat any foe in his way!

After a solid 3 minutes of combat he finally goes out of hyper aware mode. More tired mentally than he was physically. His vision was swimming a bit while he missed the blue glow recede back into his body. he looked around his kills and huffs in disappointment that the stats won't be applied until after he faces down the big bad of the dungeon. The only stat gains he gets are from the shop and the points he gets from the kills. The bonus stats from mutant and Variant kills only apply at the end of each dungeon during Hard and higher tiered dungeons, he learned that tidbit during his dungeon dives into the hard mode ones.

Resting as best he could he prepared for the big bad boss. The Alpha. He had no clue who or what it would be like. But he was reloading his weapons, wiping blood from his armor and his melee tools. And he was making sure he was fully hydrated and ready for the final battle of this Nightmare realm. He wasn't going to falter. He was going to win!

He prepared and ascended the stairs into the boss room, the large round table meeting room of the clinic where the doctors would meet for reports and important updates. As he entered he heard a hissing, "Welcome... survivor... to my den... I hope my soldiers... were appropriate for you... to tire out.... against."

Garrett readied his sword and pistol as he scanned the room for the voice. he answered, "Some coffee would have been fine as a greeting you know."

"Hahahaha always good to know you have... your sense of humor... Colonel Garrett Grimsborne... The hunter of our group."

That sent goosebumps across Garretts body as he tracks the voice down to the head of the table in the biggest chair that was currently turned away from him. He looked hard and was worried as it turned, and there... glowing green across their bodies veins, was a lean and toned zombie, but while its body was pale and decaying, its eyes were full of life and intelligence. And it had a cruel smirk painted on its face while Garrett was locked onto the tattoo it had, it said, La Muerte de Diablo commander. As Garrett noticed this little factor it said, "Well I suppose I should thank you... for exploding my base before... this incident. The Chemicals mutated... my body before the virus hit me. So I must thank you for that... happy accident... when I turned... I was sure I would become a mutant... but I kept evolving... past that imitation phase known as Variant... and into a true Alpha! I must thank you... by making you join my budding army... and the rebirth of our liberation group... after all... we need new BODIES!"

With that the commander of the terrorist group that has plagued most of Garretts life leaped at him and readied its claws for rending his face. Garrett aimed with his pistol. And fired.

Current stats of Garret Grimsborne (Advanced Human):

Str- 229 (+30 Mutant +30 Variant on hold until dungeon clear)

Agi- 210 (+30 Mutant +30 Variant on hold until dungeon clear)

Sta- 210 (+15 Mutant +30 Variant on hold until dungeon clear)

Int- 193 (+30 Variant on hold until dungeon clear)

Sense- 195 (+30 Variant on hold until dungeon clear)

Store points - 150,100

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