Gacha Leveling

Chapter 207 - 68 – Deep Backcountry 2

When night fell, the dungeon became much more violent. Gone was the desolation of the scorching sun and empty almost dead fields. The heat was still there, but much more bearable. The moon was high in the sky. And ghosts came out from every direction.Luckily for them, those were weak creatures. Not the ones the first adventurers faced when they gave their report.

They were weak enough to be defeated easily with mana infused weapons.

Faralynn and Vanessa had holy mana imbued on their weapons as they cleaved through the spectral beings.

Men and women wearing nothing but rags. Their skin was glued to their bones. Their eyes were hollow and their skin burned by the sun. Their visage was very much solid and they moved slowly as if tired.

When they attacked, they mostly tried to bite them down.

Their bodies became a black miasma when hit by physical objects and were soon reconstructed back to their ghoulish appearance.

Mia’s laser beams pierced them effortlessly, making them vanish in clouds of miasma much like the dead that were destroyed back in Dagda’s Logh.

Matthew used Aym’s sword and his gun to take down the horde of the dead that surrounded them. He imbues the bullets and the blade with mana. Without Ffyr near him, he couldn’t use her fire spells with his Spirit Magic skill.

Eric’s large sword, also imbued with mana, dealt with scores of undead easily.

"Something is wrong here." Matthew noticed, covering his face with his arm.

"The miasma isn’t going away." Vanessa agreed.

"Are these real ghosts?" Faralynn pondered while looking at a sad girl who desperately tried to bite her arms.

A sadness took over the elf after stabbing the girl in the guts and making her turn into miasma. The hunger was so clear in their faces. Destroying desperate souls didn’t feel good at all.

"So many..." Mia complained as she pierced the last one with a laser beam.

"I leveled up." Vanessa announced.

"Is this really a dungeon?" Matthew asked while fanning the miasma away from him with his hands.

"I’ll get another level in Sense Treasure. Perhaps that will help us find the sword." Vanessa said while moving her fingers through the air.

"I hate miasma." Eric said, also fanning the dark cloud away.

"Come here, let me purify everyone." Matthew said using a spell to purify the cloud of miasma from around them.

He then purified each one of them.

"This can’t be good for your kidneys." Mia joked.

"You know about that?" Matthew asked, surprised.

"You know we girls talk about everything." Mia smiled at him, while giving Faralynn a hug who just looked away pretending it didn’t affect her. But her ears blushed a little embarrassed by the comment.

"I don’t think this is a dungeon." Eric said, kicking the ground and changing the subject.

"We did see miasma inside a dungeon before." Matthew protested.

"I know. It’s not because of it." Eric explained. "It’s just a feeling."

At this moment, Vanessa raised her hand asking for silence.

"I sense people nearby." She whispered.

Then she sneaked around the darkness leading them to the source of the presence she felt.

From a distance they saw Kaoru’s party. The samurai woman had two karana, one in each hand. She moved with fast and decisive movement. She moved as fast as Vanessa.

They were fighting a 6 feet (2 meters) tall monster that was half a goat and half a man.

"The jumping goat." Mia whispered. "This is the first creature the survey met inside the dungeon." She explained.

Matthew looked at it with Identify. Cabra Cabriola, level 45.

Kaoru traded blows with the beast while her party just sat around cheering on her.

The samurai’s blades stopped against its claws and horns. The intensity of the blades clashing against the beast produced loud noises that could be felt on the ground. Was she as strong as Eric?

The battle didn’t last long. Kaoru dodged the beast’s attacks easily and with a quick swipe of her sword she cut off the goat’s tail. In the next movement, she kicked the monster away and, with a step forward thrusting her katana, she pierced the creature’s heart with precision.

Dark red blood powered on the ground from the beast’s wounds.

The black man in gold armor stepped forward, offering the woman a piece of cloth in which she cleaned the blood out of the blade.

As fast as Vanessa and as strong as Eric. Matthew knew he was right to be scared of her. She wasn’t normal.

"You can come out now." The fat man dressed in jeans and blue robes, carrying a large backpack, shouted to them. "There’s no point in hiding, I can see you."

It’s then that on the corner of Matthew’s eye he saw a little fairy. A female blonde sprite, wearing a blue little dress waved shyly at them.

Matthew sighed, defeated.

They all left their hiding place and walked slowly towards the samurai’s group.

"It’s Mia and her party." Kaoru smiled at them.

"Hey Kaoru!" Mia smiled at her.

"This is my party. Raphael." Kaoru pointed at the black man. "Miroslav." She pointed at the blond man carrying a guitar encrusted with blue crystals. "And Charles." The fat man. "These are Mia, Faralynn, Matthew, Vanessa and Eric." Kaoru introduced them.

"Nice to meet you." They all said to each other in their own way.

"How’s your diving?" Charles asked them while stroking his beard.

"Strange." Matthew answered. "Almost nothing happened all day. But we just faced a horde of ghosts as soon as night was out."

"The same with us." Raphael said, kneeling near the goat man and examining its body. "As soon as night was out, this thing came running out of nowhere."

"And its body isn’t disappearing." Mia noted.

"Yeah. It’s not a simulacrum." Kaoru agreed.

"The survey was wrong? This is not a dungeon, then?" Miroslav asked.

"It seems it isn’t." Eric said, breaking a nearby tree branch. "Everything seems too real."

"I feel the same." Charles said.

"But how could the survey team miss this?" Mia asked.

"Well. The goat man is level 45. They said they met monsters from level 30 up to 50. That Carranca thing was level 60." Matthew pondered. "I guess they just didn’t fight anything and assumed it was a dungeon? I mean, how many people can fight level 30 creatures unscathed?"

"This is very likely." Vanessa said.

"Then we are either on another planet or in a pocket dimension." Raphael concluded.

"It doesn’t really matter." Kaoru shrugged. "We need to find that sword. If the survey team didn’t kill anything in here, that picture must’ve been taken near the entrance. So the sword must be nearby."

"Or something already moved it." Matthew interjected. "Why do you want that sword anyway?"

Kaoru smiled and patted the two katana she had on her waist.

"I collect them!" She said with a wide smile.

Matthew took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes.

Faralynn gently placed her hand on his shoulder encouraging him to say what he wanted.

"Could I ask you not to keep it for yourself?" Matthew pleaded.

Miroslav laughed loudly.

Kaoru just turned her head to the side trying to understand his request.

"Why?" It was Raphael who asked.

"I believe that sword belongs to a friend. He disappeared two years ago. It is the only clue we have about him." Matthew explained.

Kaoru stood still in silence for a couple of seconds thinking.

"What makes you think it is his sword?" Charles asked.

"The sword guard is the same." Matthew replied.

"It’s a sword made by the Great Three." Faralynn revealed.

The Great Three was how the Saintess, the Sage and the Northern Star were known. All three legendary adventurers were old party members of professor Orpheu.

"The Great Three?" Charles exclaimed.

"If you look closely at the guard you will see their symbols. The Black Tower, the Cross and the Axe." Faralynn explained. "And you know that they went missing last year. This sword could help us find them as well."

Kaoru’s face contorted into a huge smile. She started giggling, hiding her teeth behind her hand.

Raphael sighed after she started giggling and said:

"Sorry. But dungeon items are for the taking." He bowed. "We will help you with whatever we can to find your friend and the Great Three. But as you can see..." He pointed at Kaoru. "She’s really into katanas."

Kaoru took a big breath and stopped herself from smiling.

"I’m sorry. I got a bit excited." She bowed.

"I understand." Matthew said, shaking his head and taking a step back.

"Wait kid." Charles said getting up from the stone he was sitting on, sensing that Matthew didn’t have good intentions. "You don’t want to solve this with violence." He stomped his staff on the floor, which had a unicorn head with a green horn at the end.

Matthew looked at Kaoru’s party. Miroslav was level 33, clearly aiming for the Bard class. Raphael was level 41, a Paladin. Kaoru was level 46, a Samurai focused build. But Charles made his blood chill. If Kaoru was a monster, Charles was a calamity. Level 51 Druid.

Matthew thought about stopping them there, before they reached the sword. But seeing their levels, he knew he couldn’t.

"Sorry." Matthew apologised. "But I can’t let you have his sword." He added.

"Then let’s race for it." Charles smiled gently at him. "We don’t need to fight each other."

"Matthew." Vanessa called him. "I know you feel responsible for Orpheu missing. But this isn’t the way to deal with this."

Matthew looked again at the 4 of them. None of them had the Thief class, like Vanessa. They didn’t have the Sense Treasure skill.

"Alright. Sorry about that." Matthew conceded. "We should go our way then."

They said their goodbyes and each party went separate ways.

"That’s a dangerous young man." Charles said.

"I took a look at him after we met yesterday." Kaoru said "He’s indeed dangerous." She smiled excitedly.