Chapter 38 – Difficulty Change.

[You have slain: Tree Made Witch – Level 108.]

[Level Up! You have reached level 99!]

"Boom! 5 levels! We manage to level 5 times today! I told you we will do it!" – said Shri.

"Yea! BUT WE ALMOST ALL DIED!" – said ClownFrog.

"Don't sweat the small details man." – said Shri.

"All of my undeads are dead and you literally got impaled by a tree root attack, didn't you? How much HP do you have left?"

"…"

"Though so."

"Anyway, why are you still hanging upside down Oron?" – asked ClownFrog.

Oron was held by his leg by a giant tree root.

"I don't know. I thought it would disappear after the boss- "

Before Oron could finish his sentence, the tree root began disappearing, making Oron fall on the ground face flat.

"…."

"Ow." – said Oron.

"…"

"Fuck me…." – said ClownFrog.

"Maybe taking on the monster boss monster at our current state wasn't brightest idea."

Days passed after we got to this place and pretty much, all we do is just straight up hunting and only that.

Honestly speaking, there isn't anything else we can do besides hunting in here. We tried looking for the quest and see what they have to offer as the reward, however pretty much almost every single one of these were disappointing. 

GreyHunt did tell us that most of them completely sucked, but when I went to the adventurer guild to see for myself, I found out he wasn't kidding. The bloody hell were those quests?!

And I got to say. WOW, they really sucked ass! I mean for example the reward from one of this quest was about getting materials, but the problem with that quest was the rewards money was less that when you would normally sell it to anybody. The reward didn't made sense at all. Normally the quest would offer more money than when selling to the merchants and all. 

Honestly, I thought it was some kind of mistake or something, so I went and asked the staff worker about it and apparently, it wasn't mistake. Apparently, there is a lot of merchants that are trying to scam people and those very same scammer bastards were the ones who posseted a quests in the adventurer guild, hoping to scam the adventures since the apparently there were a lot of rumors going out that the adventures like us are taking the quest from the guild left and right.

Well, the rumor is true. We even ourselves were doing that with taking the quest left and right, but fuck me.

The fuckers wanted to scam us!

I wasn't expecting for something like a scam quest to appear or even exists, but by the look of things, they are real. Fuck me. 

Honestly, besides those scam quest, there were only about 3 quest worth doing for us and everything else, was not even worth our time.

Anyway, now we have no choice but just to hunt instead of trying to do quests.

Right now, we are using the method from before, involving the hunting the monsters much higher level than us.

Honestly, this strategy is going surprisingly well. Normally we level up 2 times or 3 times a day, but now we are leveling up noticeable faster than before.

However, after we started hunting monsters with level 100 and above, things ended up being way harder. I'm talking right now about the monster and not the boss monster. Each monster was way stronger that the monsters below level 100, I mean like the difference in strength between level 99 monster and 100 was very big.

These monsters were no longer "Easy" opponent to us.

The boss monster we just fought kind of roughed up us all by a lot, to the point we almost got whipped out if we screwed up. Maybe it wasn't very bright idea to go after the boss monster right now. 

By the look of things, the difficult got much higher after level 100.

However now I wonder.

Since monsters got much stronger after level 100, does that mean that the players get stronger as well after level 100?

"Fuck me. I think it's time for us to head back, I'm running out of potions." – said GreyHunt.

"Agree. My armor is running low on the durability after getting tossed around like a ragdoll by that witch." – said Oron.

"Yea. It think this is enough fighting for today, we are heading back now." – said ClownFrog.

After we returned back to the city, we decided to call it a day and log off.

[You have logged out.]

"Fuck me. Maybe we should slow down with that or something. Monsters are way stronger now. Maybe we should hunt some monsters with lower level difference or something." – said the man while taking off the device from his head.

"We are stronger that average player, but we are not something like extremely overpowered."

(We are making good progress with leveling up, but we still couldn't find any dungeons or special quest or anything.)

(It was already quiet sometime since the last time we did the dungeon, it was that ant dungeon.)

(Apparently, there was the dungeon in the Brown Boar town area, but we ended up missing it completely. Apparently, it was found around the time where we left that town. Unlucky.)

"Hm… That city kind of sucks completely. I think we should relocate to the capital city, but the problem is with the monsters, now that we know how strong the monsters above level 100 are."

(Maybe we should level up few more times, at least getting to 110 or maybe 120 before trying to get to the capital.)

(There is also a chance that the leveling speed will drop again, considering that after getting to the level 50 last time, the amount of EXP required to level up got way higher.)

"Well, we will find soon anyway, since we are just one level away from getting the 100."

(There is also the fact that maybe tomorrow or later the players start appearing in the city, since it would be about damn time. There is also a good chance that there are already some players in the city or are already on their way and we just don't know about them.)

(We should get ready to fight the others players just in case, we already run into some random bastards in the previous place that tried taking the boss away from us.)

(On top of that, we don't know when somebody skilled, strong or both will appear among the players that may be able to catch up to us or even outrun us. For example, that guy that used the skills that made that grey glow.)

(My undeads are weak compare to the average player, BUT NOT THAT WEAK! He just killed them without much problem. He even wreaked my barrier without much problem.)

(I don't know how strong he really is, but based on our short battle, I can definitely say he was strong and it wouldn't surprise me if he got to the city before we knew it.)

(Sooner or later we will end up running into players that are above the average or even "Above the people that are above the average.". Then, we may run into a real trouble and we still don't know how they would react to us. Would they decide to troll us by trying to kill us and trying to slow our growth so they can overtake us or maybe they are just straight up PK players.)

(Honestly, we don't have much experience fighting a players, besides the GreyHunt who was previously playing as PK players since the day one.)

(The rest of us didn't fought other people much. I fought the GreyHunt back then and his PK party members, but after that there wasn't anything noteworthy. The last guys we even fought back then were just straight up greedy idiots that were all talk.)

"Maybe we should practice fighting between ourselves or something. Sooner or later, we will fight others players, since are the bad guys and all…. I guess I should discuss this with others."

[Next Day.]

[Level Up! You have reached level 100!]

"Finaly! Man! Getting to the level 100 took way longer than I though." – said ClownFrog.

"So, I guess you were correct with that theory of yours, with leveling up speed dropping." – said Oron.

"Unfortunately, by the look of things, I was right." – replied ClownFrog.

"Anyway, any good stuff or anything? Does something special happens after getting level 100?" – asked Shri.

"Let me check."

[Level Up! You have reached level 100!]

[From now on, you will receive 11 skill points and 11 stat points whenever you level up.]

[You have received 11 skill points.]

[You have received 11 stat points.]

[You have received bonus 100 stat points and 100 skill points for reaching level 100.]

"Oh? The amount of skill and stat points I get per level got increases by 1. I got 11 points instead of 10 and I even got another 100 skill points and stat points as the bonus for getting level 100." – said ClownFrog.

"Oh! That nice!" – said Shri.

"So, that means the players will grow slight stronger after reaching level 100 huh? Well, even though it would only 1 skill and stat points more, it still an increase." – said GreyHunt.

"Yea. So, I guess, after we reach level 200, would it got increases again or something?" – said Shri.

"I think so? There is a good chance of that happening and all, but we will have to see ourselves after getting the level 200." – said GreyHunt.

"Anyway, we also have a problem. The amount of EXP we need got noticeable increased, just like when we got to the level 50. So, our leveling speed would get slower again." – said ClownFrog.

"…"

"…Anyway, we couldn't find any good quest or dungeons, so I was thinking about relocating to the capital city ASAP, but maybe a good idea that we get to at least level 110 or even 120, since the monsters are now harder to deal with." – said ClownFrog.

"Hm… Agree. It maybe a good idea to level some more before finally leaving this stupid place." – said GreyHunt.

"But just in case, we should try bit harder for any quest or dungeons before we decide to leave, since we maybe miss something just like last time." – said ClownFrog.

"Hm… Then how about we split up? We are normally together when searching for the dungeon, so maybe we should go in pairs and look around?" – suggested Shri.

"…. Bit risky with those monsters, but let's do it. We aren't that easy to kill so if something really bad happens we can just run away or hold out until others help out." – said GreyHunt.

"Then how about I go with Shri and Oron with ClownFrog?"

"?"

"Why like this?" – asked Shri.

"Well, usually you two are together and that leaves me and him, so just let's make a little change." – said GreyHunt.

"…. I think I'm with that. What about you?" – asked Oron.

"Same. Let's do it." – said Shri.

After we hunted some more monsters and got everybody to a level 102, we decided to split up in order to search around, but we couldn't find anything that day as well as we couldn't find anything worth doing in the city.

However, there was a small change, we spotted a players entering a city, we don't know how much time we have left now.

The same results were the next day, still nothing came up and we manage to level up to level 104.

Then the third day came and once again, after bit of hunting the monsters, we once again decided to look around, hoping to finally find something.

"Do you think we will find anything today?" – asked Oron to ClownFrog.

"Well, last time we missed the dungeon, since we didn't searched hard enough. The problem here is that there is a lot of terrains everywhere! Maybe there is dungeon, but could not even be near the city or any other settlements. Honestly, I like to increases our search even further, but then we maybe end up encountering higher level monsters that can fuck us for good before we can do anything." – said ClownFrog. 

"So, should we stay even longer in the city than planned? So we would get a higher level and explore this possible more dangerous areas?" – asked Oron.

"I don't know. We may not even find a dungeon even if we expand our search. What if the dungeon is something like hidden where you have to complete a puzzle or something to make it reveal itself. Its bit annoying situation since we only know basic stuff about dungeon, what if there is something more that we don't know and have yet to discover something about them? I don't have a clue if we have to do something special or not. Maybe we should discuss it with others if we should expand our stay here or not." – said ClownFrog.

"But overall, our situation kind of sucks. There are already players in the city and their number is keep increasing, probably sooner or later the speed of the new players getting here would get increases, meaning that we would end up with a lot of competition. There is a good chance that they will discover the quest or dungeon before us."

"Then should we temporarily became PK players and hinders the others?" – said Oron.

"Bad idea. We maybe strong, but we are not strong enough to take a huge number of players by ourselves. For example, like that Land Pirate guild, they needed to be sneaky and careful with their actions so they could fuck over people, but after getting found out, they got stomped and couldn't do anything. Its we make a stupid mistake like this, we maybe end up getting stomped as well."

"Remember those trash bastards from before or when we fought the villagers guards and hunters? They were weaker than us, but they put up a fight. What if we fought a group of players above the average like us? Or what if we get ambushed and catched complete off guard."

"Oh…. Yea, that kind of sucks. So, we have no option but to find a way to get even stronger that our current selves?" – said Oron.

"Pretty much. There is good chance if we complete the Amaran quest we will get a nice reward that can make us stronger, but we don't even know when we will finish this. It would be a good idea if we got something NOW that can make us just even a little bit stronger, that is the reason we are looking for the dungeon or anything." – explained ClownFrog.

"Well, we may not even find anything today and that is the annoying part."

"?"

"Shri messenge me." – said Oron.

"What is it?"

"She said that they maybe found a dungeon." 

"?!"

"Wait, really?! Holy shit! I honestly losing hope and started to think that there wasn't even any single one in here in first place! Where are they?" – said ClownFrog.

After receiving the messenge from the Shri, the party meet up in the city before heading out back while being led by Shri and GreyHunt.

GreyHunt and Shri lead the Oron and ClownFrog through the dense forest.

"…"

"!"

"We here!" – said Shri after entering an open space.

After being led by the two, the entire party found themselves in front of an old mine.

"Is this a mine?" – asked ClownFrog.

"Yeb. To be specifically, an abandoned one probably. There is sigh here saying that this mine was dried up and it will be closed." – replied Shri.

"So, you are saying that this place maybe a dungeon? Did you went inside?" – asked Oron.

"No, but we saw something interesting." – said GreyHunt.

"?"

"While we were looking around, we ended up spotting a freaking minotaur monster." 

"?"

"Minotaur? You sure?" – asked ClownFrog.

"A giant half man half bull monster? Yea, we are pretty sure it was minitour, if not then what else?" – said GreyHunt.

"…Hm… So, what did you do with it?" – asked ClownFrog.

"Well, at first, we hid because it was acting weird. We fallowed it around a bit without getting found out and after some time the minotaur ended up encountering the giant boar monster, the dense forest boar. The minitour fought and killed the boar before taking the corpse of the boar with him somewhere. At first, we were thinking of ambushing it and fighting it, seeing how strong it was and all, but before we knew it entered this very same old mine that is right in front of us." – said GreyHunt.

"At first, we wanted to pursue him, but then I remember something. Do you remember the story you told us about the first dungeon you beat? Where the ratmans used the dungeon as their base?"

"!"

"Oh. I get it. So you are saying that this place maybe a dungeon that minotaurs uses as the base, just like ratmans. This place MAYBE a real dungeon then!" – said ClownFrog.

"Honestly, it was good idea that you didn't entered. The monsters inside would probably realize that they have intruders."

"Yeb. That why we needed you to come here before we confirm, since we don't know if we will have a fight or not." – said Shri.

"Good call then." – said ClownFrog.

"Anyway, let's go in."

The party entered a mine and began exploring it insides, trying to find the minotaur that went inside the mine. 

"Weird, still nothing. This place is completely empty. No monster or anything. Should we split up?" – asked Oron.

"No. We don't know how strong the enemy is. What if we split up and somebody end up being ambushed. Split up here is worst decision we can make. Stick together." – said GreyHunt.

"But now that you mentioned that Oron, isn't this weird that we still didn't find anything? On top of that, the messenge regarding the dungeon didn't popped up or anything. We are not inside of the dungeon right now?" – said ClownFrog.

"Hm…."

"…."

"!"

"What if this place isn't dungeon but a dungeon is inside of this place?" 

"So, you are saying that the dungeon entrance is somewhere in here and we have to find it?" – said Shri.

"Probably. Look around closely everywhere, maybe there is something hidden clue or tracks." – said ClownFrog.

The party continue searching through the mine shaft toughly for long time until one of the party members finally found something.

"Guys! Here!" – shouted Oron.

"?"

"What is it?" – asked Shri.

"Look! There are hooves marks on the grounds and they are quite big. There is a good chance that they are the tracks left by that minotaur from before."

"Oh finally! Fuck me. We already spend a freaking an hour or two in here. It better be the right thing." – said Shri.

The party fallowed the hooves marks on the ground, but suddenly the party found themselves at the dead end where the hooves mark ended.

"And nothing. Fuck." – said Shri.

"The trail ended here, so by any chance there is a secret passage here or something?" – said Oron.

"Probably, look around people." – said ClownFrog.

The party began searching around, but after a while they couldn't find anything.

"FOR FUCK SAKE! There is really nothing! No hidden buttons or anything! Maybe that trial was a decoy or something?" – said Shri.

"We checked the walls, the ground, roof and even some area behind us, but nothing came up, maybe-….?"

"Hey, what about that flipped over minecart?" – asked ClownFrog.

"?"

Near the wall there was a upside down minecart.

"…"

"Undead pigmans, lift it up."

The undead pigman monsters gathered near the minecart before lifting it up.

"…"

"Well, well, well. Would you look at that, there is a lever." – said ClownFrog while looking underneath the minecart and spotting a lever that was hid beneath the minecart.

ClownFrog got on his knees and reached to the lever before moment later pulling it. Moment later, the solid wall right next to the mine cart began acting strange. The wall began changing shape and moving away, revealing a hidden pathway.

"There was a secret passage here." – said ClownFrog while getting up.

"Well then ladies, shall we go in?" 

The party entered the hidden passage way and after a while, a messenge popped up.

[You have discover hidden dungeon: Unknown Mine Base.]

"Nice! We found it! There was really a dungeon here!" – said Shri.

"I know you are excited and all, but keep your guard up. Probably the difficulties of the dungeon got higher as well after level 100. We don't know if there were any special changes or anything." - said GreyHunt.

"Agree, remember the last time we went to the ant dungeon and we got a room filled with monsters? Or when the boss monster had a freaking army of its own besides being freaking powerful?" – said ClownFrog.

"Better safe than sorry.

The party continue walking through the hidden passage, until they ended up entering an open space room.

"…"

As soon as party entered the room, the entire place was filled with giant half bull half man monsters.

[Minotaur – Level 119]

[Minotaur – Level 117]

[Minotaur – Level 124]

[Minotaur– Level 120]

"…."

(OH, HOLY FUKING SHIT!) – though everybody after entering a room filled with minotaurs.

"Go back." – whispered ClownFrog.

"What?" – said Shri in quiet voice.

"Go the fuck back in before-"

"?"

One of the minotaurs turned around and saw the ClownFrog and the rest of the party that just entered the room.

"…"

"…" – the party and the minotaur stared at each other.

"…Hi?" – said ClownFrog while awkwardly waving his hand.

The minotaur that was staring at the party suddenly shouted, getting the instantly the attention of other minotaurs and revealing to them that the intruders entered their base.

"!"

"Get ready for combat!" – said ClownFrog.

The both sides instantly got ready to fight with the minotauros picking their weapons and ClownFrog and Shri putting their monsters at the front.

The first one to make the move were the minotaurs, with one of the minotaurs rushing straight at the party and ready to strike, but it ended up being blocked and confronted by the undead pigman glutton, however when the giant pigman monster tried blocking the minotaur attack with its sword, the force of the blow was so powerful, that the pigman monster ended up on it knee upon blocking the attack.

"!"

"[Blood Bone Arrow]"

ClownFrog fired a projectile made out of the blood at the minotaur, hitting it in the head, but not even managing to kill it or even get close to killing it at all.

"?!"

(Oh shit!) – though ClownFrog.

The rest of the party fallowed up on the ClownFrog attack, unleashing a barrage of the attacks at the minotaur, pushing it away a bit and giving a chance for the undead pigman glutton to attack and land a solid hit.

After landing the hit on the minotaur, the undead pigman tried fallowing up with another attack, but as soon as it tried, another two minotaurs jumped in and attacked the undead, killing it.

"?!"

"Oh fuck. This doesn't look good at all." – said ClownFrog.

(We are level 107 right now and this bustards are at least 10 level higher than us or even 17. Not only that, my strongest undead just got fucked so hard it died literally as soon as the fight started. To make it even worse, they are tough! He survived that barrage of attacks and when he was about to get killed the other minotaurs managed to save him.)

(And there is a freaking lot of them, I mean like a lot!)

WE ARE SO FUCKED.

(There is no even point of discussing it! We have no chance winning this at all! We are running away! Now!)

"Oi. What is the commotion over here?"

"?!"

Suddenly, the minotauros suddenly moved away, opening a path for even bigger minotaur than themselves.

A giant minotaur suddenly emerged among the minotaurs, but unlike the other minotauros, it was very different.

A giant woman with human face with a lower half of an animal and a pair of horns sticking out from her head stepped out from the group of minitours.

[Uruni - The Chieftain Of The Crushing Hooves Tribe – Level 150 – Unique Monster]

"?!"

(Unique monster?! The bloody hell is that?! On top of that, she is level 150?! What kind of bullshit is this?!) – though ClownFrog while panicking.

"Hey, who the hell are you guys? You better start explaining." – said the female minotaur while holding a giant axe.

(I think we fucked up big time!)