It had been over half an hour since GAMI squad E arrived on the battlefield taking care of the remaining elementals and capturing them. After all of the students were healed, they entered the camp and were instructed to remain in their tents for the day.
'Since I have so much free time, let's just use the Dungeon key I got from Viktor.'
Quinn grabbed the Undead Settlement Dungeon key from his inventory and turned it in the air. He deemed it safe to use after further questioning to the System as to whether other people could see the Dungeon portals that the System generates—to which it replied negative.
Upon entering the portal and fighting off the dizziness and discomfort, Quinn stepped on the skeletal remains of what appeared to be a dog.
"Ugh..."
He observed his surroundings and saw a town; obviously enough, it was abandoned, considering the numerous skeletal remains of normal beings just lying about. Everything looked greyish in colour—even the sky.
'Is it Dark Souls? Undead Settlement sure rings a bell...'
The few corpses that still had time to decay were utterly mutilated. The houses: obliterated; all except one big house afar that was suspiciously unscathed and not covered in blood and feces of abominations unknown to god.
After just a few steps, he encountered his first enemy in the dungeon. It looked like a ghastly figure with no form.
[Inspect]
———
[Spectre]
Difficulty Rank: B-
Type: Revenant[Ghost]
A phantom with no fixed form. It devours the dead bodies of any monster or animal, even humans, and takes their form. The vessel will be upgraded to match the rank of the spectre. Once the vessel is destroyed, the spectre will perish with it.
"Phantom... devours dead bodies... and takes their form...? Interesting monster... hmm? Where'd it-"
Quinn was interrupted and alerted by the sound of bones clanking and immediately turned around. He could see that the spectre that disappeared had already entered the body of the dog Quinn had stepped on when he entered the portal.
White aura shrouded the bones and magically assembled them, forming the skeleton of a dog. As it slowly got up, Quinn was already in its face and smashed its body to bits.
[Level up]
"Don't think I'm gonna give you time to get up just so you can fuck me over... B rank...? Fuck that. It's strong enough to give me an instant level up."
'Hopefully, that's not the only enemy in this place. It seems like a pain in the ass if too many surround me.'
[New Quest: Pest Control
Requirements: eliminate all the undead and spectres in the settlement before entering the Duke's mansion
Reward: Skill—Darkness]
"Let's explore this godforsaken town... "
———
Back at the Beast planet that the students were currently confined to, Sen walked around the market of the stronghold, keeping an eye out for good pieces of equipments and such.
'Those two guys are being openly shady,' he thought as two people in black robes and masks walked past him.
"Psst!" Sen heard a voice call out to him. "Boy, over here!"
"Did ya see those two shady lookin' lads walkin around? There was another shady group of four or five people goin in the same direction as them," Sen followed the voice to an equipment store where an old man was working on some sort of round container using essence stones. "The name's Andre. I called out to you cuz it looked like you didn't have a weapon"
"I can probably forge some good stuff fitting your hands," Andre said with a big grin. "I don't need a weapon I can make one with my ability... more importantly, what's that you're making?"
"This?" he asked as he lifted the container with inscriptions on it. "This wasn't what I originally planned on makin but an interesting boy paid me a visit and showed me somethin' that blew my fuse and my bollocks altogether, haha! It's a container for something special. I can't tell you any more than that."
Hmm
"Fine... lets see if I find anything even remotely useful here. What do you say about... maybe a whip or chains? " Sen asked the old man. "Oh, sure! Just made this bad boy yesterday. Take a look!"
Andre pulled out a cloth in which a reddish chain was wrapped. "Chains fed with Hellfire and enhanced with my Ability!"
As Sen reached out to grab the chains, he was burned the moment he made direct contact with them. "They're really hot... how do you expect me to use them?".
"Well, if you care to pay a few thousand extra, I'd give you a cloth that negates the damage the chains might cause your body with their fire resistant effects... . Hmm, I can't really force you into this, though..." Andre grinned slyly "But you'll need it- IF you're buyin' the weapon. It's a two-in-one package, y'see."
"I'll take it. The craftsmanship on this is immaculate. How about becoming my family's go-to blacksmith? I can see a lot of quality equipment here now that I look carefully," Sen proposed, "We can pay you well. I'd get thanks for finding such a gem of a blacksmith on a shitty planet and you'll get good money."
"Oh, shut up! I couldn't care less about Family contracts...! Now cough up and get outta here!"
...
"Rude piece of shit..." Sen mumbled as he walked into the hunting grounds. 'But the craftsmanship of this level is welcomed with open arms even in the top 3 factions... the cloth he gave me doesn't just give me some resistance to fire, it completely negates its damage... . I still wonder where that small fuck-face hides all that load of bullshit up his ass.'
"I can't wait to try out this baby~!" he skipped along.
———
[Level up]
An undead fell to the ground with a dusty groan.
'That takes care of the houses on the left side of the town... I've already leveled up six times. Feels good' Quinn thought as he opened the quest tab.
[Quest completion: 54%]
'Thankfully I haven't run into spectres that already have vessels.'
He crossed the main road separating the town into two sections and entered the first house. Two undead rose in the big room as soon as Quinn entered but they got slaughtered instantly.
Quinn checked each room with caution and made sure to carefully look for undead that could possibly be hiding.
At last, he entered a kid's room. It was decorated way more precisely than other rooms in the house, although the colours were now grey. As he opened the cabinet in the room, he caught a glimpse of something translucent, something white and ghastly. It was a spectre.
Quinn slammed the cabinet door shut and destroyed it with all his strength. Without knowing that physical attacks are useless against spectres unless they have inhabited a body.
The spectre phased through Quinn and possessed a small corpse in the room. The corpse of a once human child. Quinn felt like he was paralyzed when the spectre phased through him. When he finally recovered after a short time, a small humanoid body jumped on his back and attempted to strangle him.
"God damn... SPIDER MONKEY!" Quinn shouted as he grabbed the thing's neck and threw it onto the floor with great strength and speed. The body shattered like glass on the blood-soaked carpet.
[Level up]
...
'Quinn, you had to kill the spectre. Don't think that the things they possess are still...' Quinn interrupted Void and said: "I know, the thing was clearly not human anymore. I feel no regret. I'm not fucking stupid, Void, c'mon."
'Rgh...' Void grunted.
———
[Quest completion: 92%]
'All that's left is the big house and the graveyard which is next to it for some reason... let's go to the grave first'
As Quinn reached the graveyard, he was immediately greeted by a group of spectres scurrying around the yard 'like the little rat-bastards they are' according to him.
———
After a long process of running away and separating and killing each of the six spectres, one by one, he finally completed the quest and the only thing remaining in the town was the Duke's mansion.
[Level up]
[Level up]
[Level up]
[Level up]
[Quest Completed: Pest Control
Reward:- Key to the mansion; Skill—Darkness: Eternal Darkness]
———
[Eternal Darkness] Lvl max
Unique Skill
Overwhelm your allies and foes with eternal and never-ending darkness that renders anyone or anything, completely blind. You may choose to stay visible to a target or blend into the darkness like a master Assassin.
Cost: 40 Mana per Second
Linked skill: [Sight of the Assassin of the Eternal Darkness]Lvl max
You see in the darkness, as bright as day, no matter how hopeless the dark might feel. With the help of this skill, the user can see in eternal darkness.
———
User: Quinn Maw(Quasi-Shadow)
lvl: 45
Job: Assassin
Ability: Shadow/Darkness element
HP: 4900
Mana: 690
Strength: 78 Agility: 83
Intelligence: 64 Sense: 64
Stamina: 71
AP: 18