Chapter 40: <Disaster Zone D-23> (1/2)

[Calculating Difficulty Level, Please Stand By!]

[Difficulty Set to…None! Enjoy Your Stay!]

[Mission: Complete a Challenge! Hidden or System Assigned!]

None was it? Was it truly possible? Either the algorithm made it way harsher for groups or there was something fishy. Wait, was it possible that this was part of the challenge? What if the difficulty level in itself was bait? Also what was with that weird mission? Well, it was pointless to keep thinking about it.

A red glow later, Josh was inside. The first thing he noticed was the rotten egg smell. Then the wetness. Somehow he was in a pond, one that had clearly been stagnant for a long time. The disgusting water came up to his knees, a brown muddy liquid that smelled horrible.

In the middle of the pond, there was a ball of... wet and disgusting fur?! It simply laid there. It was so dirty that it would have made a rotting undead look clean. In fact, only a few spots were cleaner and let Josh see the true nature of the thing he was looking at. Otherwise, he would have believed it to be a piece of soil. It was pretty much entirely covered in a darkish brown crust.

What was that? Where was this?

Josh carefully left, putting some distance between them both. He'd try to understand more of this realm before fighting. The very presence of that creature, whatever it was, felt out of place to Josh. This was a Tower instance, yet there was no nameplate. Perhaps it was hidden quite similarly to the Blind Kobold. Still, Josh had no way to know its level for now.

The environment looked to be some kind of forest. A very quiet and dead one. The trees were vibrant but had a red bloody tint to them. Were they assimilating the ambient mana?

As for the creatures? There were none. Well, except that ball of fur he had seen. That was eery, to say the least.

Josh simply kept walking. Dead forest, more dead forest, even more dead forest…The trees were big enough that they were eclipsing everything else. From time to time there was that same disgusting smell from the pond, but coming from the ground itself.

Came the rustling of leaves. Josh summoned his sword ready to face anything. That is when appeared a monster of metal. Covered from head to toe in metallic armor. It had a shield and a morning star.

Quickly spotting Josh it dashed at him before slamming him violently on the ground. Josh felt his ribs crack, lost his breath, and felt like an ant trying to stop a car on the highway.

"I got something! It looks human! Ah, it's also weak!"

Then appeared a slender man holding a staff: "Dumbass, that is a human! Sorry about my friend. I'm Robert and that brash guy is Louis."

"What if it just looks like one? What if-?" Louis interrupted.

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"Wait! I'm a Climber! I'm Josh, from Metropolis C! What about you guys?"

"See! I told you!"

The metal giant looked awkward "Sorry about that." He quickly helped Josh back on his feet while handing him a small pill. "Here, sorry for the trouble."

As Josh touched it the system showed <E-Rank Healing Dan>. Eating it, Josh could feel his whole body healing quickly. He was as good as new! How magical! Why hadn't <Draconic> told him about such a thing? Was it because he didn't ask? Was it because they assumed he already knew?

"Still, you are the first one we see here, and….wait did you say C?! What are you doing here? It's not that far, but still. We were supposed to have priority for this instance! Also, where are the others?" the wizard asked.

"What do you mean the others? I just came in, alone." Josh shrugged.

"What about all the other guilds? Are they already out? Did they gain anything? This dumbass wanted to camp." While pointing a the warrior.

"Hey, what's the point of having a cool tent if we won't use it! Do you know how lucky we were to get such an item?!"

"Sure, sure.", Robert sighed.

Josh had no clue what they were talking about but they had visibly been here for a while. Yet they hadn't met the other participants? Were there multiple instances? Josh looked seriously at them: "No one has come out of this place as far as I know and you guys are the first I meet too."

"I see. No worries, we may not look it but we are A-Rankers. You can depend on us!", Robert patted his chest.

"I still think we should be careful just in case. I think there is something very wrong with the situation.", Josh warned.

"Why?" they both asked listening intently.

"What level are you guys?"

"38 and 39 why?"

"There is clearly something wrong. Remember the difficulty adjustment? The message when coming inside..."

"What about it?"

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"I'm level 10 and we ended up in the exact same instance. Tell me if there isn't anything wrong." Josh admitted his level honestly, they could probably already guess it anyway.

"What the fuck!"

"What did the system say about your difficulty setting? Mine was set to none." Josh asked.

"Ours was moderate….this doesn't make any sense. Ah, wait what about your objective? Do you only have to survive or something? Ours is something cryptic about accomplishing a challenge and…"

"Either a hidden one or one assigned by the Tower?" Josh completed. "I got that too… It seems to send everyone to the same place with the same mission no matter what. The scaling is either a sham or we are missing some vital info."

"Anyway, did you see anything out of the ordinary here? We haven't seen a single monster so far. What is going on with this place?"

"That…I think I may have seen one. *Sigh* Follow me, but I won't be fighting." Josh bargained.

"No problem! Anyway, guide the way. Hopefully, we'll get a clue from killing that one monster." Before long they reached the fur-ball once more. "Alright, stay in the back and watch how it's done!" the mage declared.

They both had a very confident air. They clearly knew what they were doing. The mage started gathering mana. He was grinning. "How lucky! It is at the perfect spot for me to kill it!"

Like a maestro, he pointed at the stench-filled water making it rise in the air quickly forming spears. He was so busy focusing on his deadly spell that he totally missed a detail.

"Abort, don't do it!" With the water gone, Josh could see the pond floor. The pond had not seemed too deep, but in fact was. What had felt like the ground to Josh was in fact a pile of bones.

So many rotting bones were stacked up forming a mountain. Said mountain was now crumbling. They had found the missing Climbers. They had been here all along, lying below the water surface.

Happily cackling looking at his deadly spell, the mage didn't hear Josh's warning. Instead, he used the water to violently stab the creature, driving the spears straight into its body. At least, that's how it looked. In fact, the compressed water had simply lost its shape upon ramming into the sturdy skin.

In fact, it barely had even managed to clean a piece of grime from it. Under the brown dirt, there was blood. Lots and lots of dry blood. So much that it looked like another skin layer. In it appeared bone fragments sticking out of it. All of it had been hidden, but now the smell became even worse!

Disturbed, the creature shuddered slightly. Then appeared a lazy head and claws. This was a goddamn giant sloth! Except that instead of the weird cute look it was deformed almost beyond recognition.

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Its mouth was filled with tentacles and sharp teeth. Its claws were sharp, pointy, and covered in disgusting dry flesh. It lazily looked at all three of them before settling its gaze on the mage.

It opened its jaw wide yawning. A yawn that was so big it could seemingly engulf the world. Of course, that was just a feeling. Yet somehow this simple action had disastrous consequences. It made them feel something...primal.

Josh's eyes became glossy...

Why bother? So troublesome. I should just lie down and die. Ah, but lying down is so much work too. Ah, I'll just do that.

All three of them flopped on the ground unmotivated. Meanwhile, the creature slowly approached the mage, ever so lazily.

This is better. I'll just remain here forever. My weary bones will find solace here. Yes, this is good. I only wish she was here to slumber with me. *Sigh* Sadly she….wait….something is wrong….I had something to do. She…she …she ….I was supposed to bring her back…that's right...the Dimensional Tower!

Josh awoke in stupefaction watching the creature that was now busy devouring the mage. Its mouth was stained with the juices overflowing from the upper half of the man it was holding above its mouth and savoring. Licking it as one would a Popsicle, from time to time chomping down on some part of it.

The lower half was just on the ground, right next to the armored warrior. Finally, he too came to his senses. Seeing his dead friend he erupted in a resentful roar "I'LL KILL YOU!"

Then he charged at the creature, smashing it right in the face. All it did was clean some of the mess. It didn't howl in pain. It didn't dodge. It didn't care.

Slowly extending a paw, it grabbed its assailant. The man tried freeing himself, but he couldn't. The yawn attack, whatever it had been, was clearly showing residual effects. He was too slow. He had trouble moving. He then understood that he was done for and stopped struggling.

This creature was stronger than the strongest of Climbers and had that perverse ability. There was no way the difficulty in this place was None!! It was utterly impossible!

Finishing its meal the creature looked at Josh. Then it slowly turned around inspecting its pond, judging the distance it would have to travel. It seemed to finally conclude that it wasn't worth the effort. It simply grabbed the remains of the corpses along with the soil. Then it crawled back to its pond where it simply dropped it all before lying down in the middle and going back to sleep.

Cold sweat trickled down Josh's back.

He had survived. He knew why, simply because the monster hadn't felt him a threat. He had never attacked it and he was far away enough too. All this time no nameplate had ever appeared.

Josh knew it was impossible for him to even think about fighting it. It had just eaten two A-Ranks. Close to the peak rankers couldn't even hurt it…This was madness!

Now he had no choice but to find an alternative. Otherwise, he would perish in the dumbest way possible, from hunger. He had eaten a few snacks on the way here but that was it.

Fuck.

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