Within The Dungeon

It was morning and the sun haven't even risen yet. The only sign it was morning was the distant cloud in the horizon having a yellow hue.

But the streets were already busy, specially the market.. hundreds are lining up to many of the stall that are selling essentials, like smoked food that last long, jugs of water, herbs, bandages, and more.

The stalls that have the most customers tho are the ones related to the smiths, the armor shop, weapon shop, a stall that sells arrows, and a shop that sells traps.

While some of the big time shops are the ones selling all kinds of potion. Though in the commoners market there's a shop that sells diluted health potion that have a less potent effect but also cheaper. It's also known as lesser potion.

While there's hundreds of people in the market area there's even more people in the plaza who already have what they needed and were only waiting for the portal to open up.

Though there's lesser people than what came out of the portal yesterday. Mostly because most of them are either in the infirmary recovering from their wounds.. especially those who cant afford a potion.

And currently Zarius is one of the people waiting for the portal. And once again he's getting stared at by the adventurers around him.

Mostly because he's the only one that is carrying nothing but an umbrella. And his looks were also eye catching, not because he's good looking.. i mean yes, he is, but that's not the reason they are looking at him.

It's because he's wearing clothing that are not really suitable for combat unless you know your thing, he was wearing a black leather trench coat, a black pants, a black leather boots. The only thing that was a good choice of equipment was his boots.

Some people just assumed he's one of the desperate guys that are planning to risk it all and die trying.. while only a few people thinks he's being serious.

On his left breast pocket were a small thin copper bar could be seen embedded with "Sunless" as his adventurers name.

And yes, he's already an official adventurer.. because unlike the Horizon Chaser.. the Dungeon Divers experience quite a lot of casualties at daily and they found that placing a entrance test are not only expensive but also quite useless.

Immagine hiring a physical tester, manager, practical knowledge tester and many more only for the adventurer you hired died the day after.

Whats more test usually take more than day and more days to be processed and approved. The rate that they gain a new member is lower than the rate they are losing them.

So in turn, they removed the entrance test so that the members could keep up to the demand. And even with that they're barely managing to do it.

The casualties are just that high.. it's estimated that the casualty rates are around 50-70% on the 1st - 5th floors. And 75-90% beyond those.

'Back in the game I found out that many of the people that enters the dungeon mostly stays on the first and second floors as it's considered mostly safe.' he thought as he looks back at the previous amount of divers he saw when the dungeon closed.

'But thats still a bit too much.. how are there so many surviving? I mean.. im glad they're alive.. but how?' he thought as he once again casually look around.

Seeing him looking around the people who have been checking him out looked away.. though they did not escape his sense. Still he ignored them. And kept observing and taking note of what the people around him are talking about..

"I heard Jhon died yesterday.. damn h-

"Yo I killed a goblin last night.. i think I'l-

"Y-you think we can survive this?"

"We can do this!"

"Remember our plan!"

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Then he finally heard something useful.

"You think those people will be on the second floor again?" A guy's voice said it sounded raspy and a bit deep.

"Probably.. I heard they didn't found what they were searching for last night" another said. This time it sounded a rough.

"What are they even searching for on the second floor anyway? Shouldn't they be at the 5th floor and above?" The raspy voice asked.

And they began talking about useless conspiracy theory and rumors.

'...people? Did a higher floor clan regressed back to lower floor to search for something? But which one? And for what are they searching for?' he wondered.. but then again he realized it doesn't really concern him so he just ignored it completely.

And since he found out that there's a higher level guys in the lower floor he now has an idea as to how such a lot of people survived yesterday..

'They probably got carried.. and in exchange that clan can take what they were looking for when a monster drops it..' he guessed base on the evidence he found.

And since his questions have been answered he no longer give a fuck about it.

And at that moment the sun finally rised. Its first ray landing on the tower of the huge castles on the norther part of the kingdom where the nobles lives.

And just like yesterday he felt the ground trembles and vibrates.. he paid this no heed and instead opened his umbrella leaning a bit to the right which is the east to block the sun completely for him.

Doing this a few people gave him a side eye.

"What A weirdo"

"Lmao is he allergic to the sun?"

"Maybe he's a vampire?"

"Wait that symbol..... Oh nevermind"

And once they cought a glimpse of the symbol of his religion their suspicious looks have lowered.. tho not completely gone.

*PWAAAAAAAHHHH*

A bright blue flash suddenly envelope the entire plaza and when it faded, the previously faint presence of the portal within the ring were replaced by a aggressively active ripple in spacetime.

"WWOOOOOO!!!"

And seeing this those who are in the very front quickly ran forward with boiling enthusiasm, disappearing as they step through the bluish portal.

'Finally!' with an excited feeling Zarius too began hurrying forward. Though he have a little part of him feeling a bit scared to see or experience what lies ahead.

Though he doesn't fear the unknown since he know what's exactly is beyond this portal.. what he fears are the things he expected to be there.

But that'll be fine. He's a Vampire.. and a vampire are quite hard to kill, right?...

And before doubt could begin eating into his mind he was already stepping into the portal.

"Shi-

And before he could turn back he felt the pull of the portal tug him forward.

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The journey into the portal felt disorienting, he didn't know which direction is up or down, left or right. He even felt himself spin a few times.

*Swoosh!*

And suddenly he felt gravity return and realized that he was upside down in mid air. But before he could completely fall down the dexterity of his Vampire body nimble twisted in air to rotate his body and gracefully landing spiderman style on his feet like a cat.

'....GOD DAMN! THATS SO COOL' he screamed on his mind as he kept a straight face.

'HOW DID EVEN I DO THAT! SHEESH!' He then got up and stand without breaking into a smile as there's a little hope in his mind that somebody saw him do that as to remain cool.

'Is it this body's ability?' he began wondering as he also looked back to the time he fought the undead back in the wailing graveyard.

'Looking back.. how did I know what to do in those times?' he asked himself. 'it felt normal too.. almost as if I've been doing it for my whole life.'

Accepting that as the most logical and most likely answer he just reasoned that this would probably the ability and skill of Noiren Van Helsing being integrated in his unconscious mind and he's using them unconsciously too.

'though i probably need more and actual training to completely absorb it into my own skills..' he thought before setting it aside for now.

Looking around he found himself in a cave like place, though what's strange was that the floor was smoothly tiled.

The place was also dark with only few crystal like thing illuminating the place, but the light was simply not enough to light up the entire place.

Instead of actually making the area less darker it instead it made it looks like there's a mysterious crystals floating around like some eye watching you within the dark.

Though the thing is.. Zarius could see perfectly fine in the dark.

'oh, right! I'm a vampire' he exclaimed in shock. Then he smiled..

'Lets take advantage of this!' he laughed inwardly. And soon began moving.

He took multiple turns left or right he seems to be particularly not heading to somewhere. Its more like he's just looking around.

After a while he suddenly stopped walking, 'oh so that's where I'm at' he nodded to himself.

What he have been doing was taking notes of all the pathways and all the crystal he came across and tried matching it to the mind map he made when he was memorizing the first floor back when he was still playing the game.

And while walking he would try and overlay the pathways and crystals with the map in his mind and see where it match.

At first it was hard since he doesn't have much data, but the more he walked around the more narrower his possible choices becomes, and he finally found it.

You might be asking how he manage to do this.. well lets just say, a man who cant do anything but play have a lot of time in his hand to do whatever the fuck he wants.

'memorizing this went way easier since I was given the goblin race at that time.. and what i found out that I spawned right into the first floor of the dungeon. And whats unusual is, I have a minimap!'

He also remembers for every 5 days he were given an option to either hibernate or stay awake. If he chose to hibernate he would be able to skip an entire month of ingame time.. and if he chose to stay awake he can roam the dungeon for a whole month without coming across any adventurer.

Yes.. whenever a cycle ends the monsters inside were given a time to respawn once again. Because there's only a limited amount of monsters in each floor with each cycle.. specifically 500 and doubling with each floors.

Like the first floor will have 500 active monsters. The second will have 1000 active monsters and the next is 1500 and so on.

Anyway, with the mini map and an entire in-game month of not being disturbed he finished creating a map of the first floor on his own.

And whats more he did it physically, he even still have that map right in his drawer. And he took time memorizing that.

Zarius then stop day dreaming about the past and the details of the game and took a turn to the left. 'if I'm not right.. there should be two crystals here-.. yup that's it!'

He smiled as he saw two distinct crystal that have grown from the roof of the cave with a close distance to each other.

'now i just have to keep taking right turns and ill reach the portal to the next zone.. though I should probably grind here first and get stro-

And at that moment, his heightened sense of hearing heard something akin to a string get pluck and an object getting lunch in the air with a powerful momentum.

'wha-?

*Twack!*

And before he could even react an arrow hit him straight in the back of his head with the arrow head poking out of his forehead and fleshy sound of flesh getting pierced through echoed out in the darkness

'f-fuck...' he then fell on his knees then dropped to the floor unmoving while a craze high-pitched laughed echoes out.

"Gurururu~"

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[Name: Noiren Van Helsing](Sunless)

| Lvl= 1. Exp( 5/50)

[Race: Vampire]

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[Stats]===|

Str : 12

Spd : 13

Agi : 10

Per : 10

Con : 5

Dex : 12

Cha : 14

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[Skill]

| > [Regeneration]

> [Immortality]

> [Echolocation]

[Blessings]

|> [Blessing of Estas]

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