Chapter 79 - Dungeon Run (7) End

Arthur sat back to rest, grinning at the notification that had just flashed across everyone’s screens.

Last time, other players had cleared the dungeon first, which meant he’d been stuck on the sidelines like everyone else, watching someone else make history. Now the roles were reversed.

Point Blank was practically glowing. Every time she saw her name in a system notification, her face lit up.

"It’s weird, being this famous," she said, sitting with her legs tucked to one side. "Can you believe someone already asked to take a picture with me?"

"I can," Arthur laughed. "It happens to me all the time, so you’d better get used to it. You’re on my team now, after all."

Across the entire server, not just in Aldora Kingdom, players were in complete shock over what had just been revealed. They’d worked out the time between the system announcing the pair’s first entry into the dungeon and the final clear, and the answer terrified them.

"Cinder and Point Blank killed the boss on their first try! How is that even possible?"

"They’ve got to be getting help from outside. It’s the only explanation. Some dev is feeding them inside info... or one of them is a GM!"

GM, short for Game Master, was what the game’s developers were called. A few of them played too, but it was a secret never revealed to the other players, and there weren’t many of them to begin with.

-

In a dark room, several people sat in front of computers. One of the screens showed Cinder and Point Blank in the castle courtyard where they’d killed the boss. The place looked like a house on an island. This was inside the game, not IRL!

"This guy is strange. He seems to know exactly how to deal with the boss, and on top of that, he found a way to start the game in Dragon City, a locked area. Do we have any info on him?"

The man who asked was tall, dressed in leather fishing gear, with a hat on his head and a fishing rod slung across his back.

A woman came down the staircase and walked into the room, wearing silk clothes like the ones people slept in.

"You know we can’t interfere with the game, right? We have to let the players find things out for themselves."

"But he’s clearly different," the fisherman shot back. "Maybe he played the beta, or he’s abusing bugs, or somebody’s passing him information..."

The mood turned tense. The GMs exchanged glances, each wondering whether one of the others was leaking inside information to a player. It was strictly forbidden, and the punishment was severe: death.

"None of us is dumb enough to do that," said the man sitting at the computer, eyes fixed on Arthur. "He must have some other secret. We’ll find out in time."

-

Arthur stood, feeling refreshed.

"Let’s head to the last stage of the dungeon. We’re almost there! And this boss is the dumbest one you could ask for."

He pulled a bottle of bug spray out of his inventory.

Point Blank’s eyes landed on it. She was the one who’d bought that item.

"You talk like the final boss is a giant mosquito or something."

Arthur gave her a closed-mouth smile, and Point Blank couldn’t believe it.

"No freaking way. The boss is a mosquito? Who the hell came up with this crap?"

"Don’t ask me. Let’s go before our time runs out."

He checked the dungeon timer. About thirty minutes left, more than enough to finish the dungeon.

Knowing the way, Arthur took the lead and stepped into the castle. The interior was nothing like the outside. The exterior looked well-kept, but the inside was the complete opposite.

The furniture was old and broken, the paintings on the walls were so thick with dust that it was hard to appreciate the art, and that was before even mentioning the vines creeping into every corner.

"It looks like it’s been abandoned for years," Point Blank said, running her fingers along a piece of furniture and feeling the thick layer of dust.

"Because it has been," Arthur said. "Our objective is the dungeon below. The entrance is just ahead."

Arthur walked on without a care, as if there wasn’t a single danger inside that castle. Point Blank found it strange.

She had her bow in hand, ready to shoot anything that crossed her path.

"Relax," Arthur said. "There are no monsters here. You can relax."

Since he’d been right about everything in the dungeon so far, Point Blank trusted him and slipped the bow back over her shoulder.

The path to the prison wasn’t long. They got there in five minutes, after taking a few turns through the corridors.

"If we didn’t know where to go, finding this place would’ve taken forever," Point Blank pointed out.

She was right. That dungeon, like most of them, had been designed so that players would need more than one attempt to clear it.

If it were as easy as showing up and clearing it on the first run, players would probably find it a little boring, and there was some truth to that. Which was exactly why everyone was so shocked that Arthur had managed to kill the boss in a single attempt.

When they arrived, an old metal door stood between them and the dungeon’s final boss. Arthur took out the key he’d looted from the necromancer, slid it into the lock, and turned it. The door swung open.

"Let’s go," Arthur said. "This fight is going to be easy."

The prison was lined with cells, which had obviously been used to hold criminals. One cell was far bigger than the rest, large enough to hold a whole crowd of prisoners.

But there wasn’t a single prisoner in any of them. Inside the big cell was a giant mosquito, either hibernating or something similar, because it didn’t move at all.

Arthur gave the bug spray another shake and held it up for Point Blank. "All we have to do now is use this, and that’s it. Mission accomplished."

He walked up to the cell, and the moment he got close enough, the mosquito started to stir. The fight had finally begun. Arthur squeezed the nozzle and sprayed it straight at the mosquito.

The mosquito began thrashing, its body slamming into the walls of the cell, every impact echoing like thunder. Point Blank had her bow in hand again.

She’d figured the spray would deal decent damage but wouldn’t kill it that easily. From the looks of it, though, this was practically a hit kill, an attack that took out the boss instantly.

"No way they put a mechanic like this in the game," Point Blank burst out laughing. "This is just stupid."

Arthur nodded.

"Yeah, I think so too, but what can I do? They decided the dungeon would work this way, so that’s how it is. Let’s use this knowledge to clear it over and over again."

He was already thinking about the EXP, the drops, and everything else he could get while monopolizing that dungeon for two weeks.

As soon as the mosquito died, they received the rewards for killing the boss and for clearing the dungeon.

[+50,000 EXP]

[+1 Blueprint: Elven Gloves]

[+20 Gold Coins]

[Special rewards for completing the first dungeon as a duo]

[+1 Level]

[+2 to all attributes permanently]

[Special Title: Dynamic Duo]

[Dynamic Duo (Legendary)]

[Bonus: +5% EXP gain while in a party of 2 players. This title also applies to players with a tamed beast.]

Each dungeon format granted a different title. Arthur remembered that the default title for a full party had something to do with dealing more damage inside dungeons, around 2 or 3%. It sounded small, but it added up in the long run.

What he didn’t remember was the title for clearing a dungeon as a duo, and it turned out to be even stronger than the full-party one! That made sense, though. Clearing a dungeon with only two people was a lot harder.

"This title is amazing!" Point Blank jumped for joy. "But I usually level in bigger parties. How am I supposed to make use of it? Do I have to play as a duo from now on?"

She really would have a harder time taking advantage of it. Arthur, on the other hand, wouldn’t. The title itself said the bonus worked for anyone accompanied by a tamed beast! That meant Arthur could play solo and still get the bonus just by having Yuki at his side. It was perfect. He left that dungeon far happier than he’d expected to be.

As soon as they killed the last boss, the system made an announcement to all players.

[Player Cinder and player Point Blank are the first to clear a dungeon as a duo. Unique rewards have been granted, and their names will remain on the dungeon leaderboard forever.]

Arthur and Point Blank were teleported back to the dungeon entrance, and there, on the board listing the players who had cleared it, their names sat right at the top.

No matter how fast other players cleared that dungeon in the future, Arthur and Point Blank would always be at the top of that ranking.

"Look at my name up there, look!" Point Blank grabbed his arm. "Thank you for this, seriously. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay everything you’ve done for me."

Arthur checked the level rankings, and of course, he was now at the very top after all the EXP and the +1 level from clearing the dungeon for the first time.

’Finally, I made it to the top.’