Chapter 313
“Grrwaaa!”
The Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul let out a beast-like roar as it swung its sword.
“Ack!”
“C-Crazy bastard!”
There was nothing the party members could do as the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul far overpowered them in terms of both power and speed. The monster not only possessed all of its skills while it was still an Adventurer, but it also received a significant buff to all of its stats.
The biggest issue was that it possessed the racial characteristics of undead monsters, which was infinite stamina.
“Grrrwaaa!”
The monster continued its rampage.
“Forget about subduing it! Just kill it!”
In the end, the party leader was forced to give the command to kill their fellow party member, who had turned into a ghoul.
This was the right call to make, as they could not risk losing more of their party members while trying to subdue the rampaging ghoul. Besides, the description specifically mentioned that the player would regain control of his character forty-nine hours after death, while it would roam as a ghoul for thirty days if it didn’t die.
Unfortunately, killing the ghoul was not as easy as the party leader thought it would be.
“Ack!”
“This bastard is too fast!”
They were having difficulty killing the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul. Forget about killing it, the party members were slowly getting pummeled by the ghoul instead.
But the most surprising part was...
“That’s not a skill combo a monster is supposed to use!”
The ghoul’s AI was far superior compared to most monsters, as its movement was extremely fluid, and it also improvised from time to time to get itself out of a pinch.
‘It’s moving like a player-controlled character. Wow... Is Beehive seriously using such an advanced AI only in a game...?’ Siegfried couldn’t help but question what was going on at Hive Games Entertainment.
The artificial intelligence technology employed by Hive was called Doppelganger Algorithm, and it had a database of all gamers’ personalities, ways of speech, mannerisms, movements, combat styles, thought processes, etc.
It used that data to create NPCs within BNW that were as close to a human as possible.
This was the same for the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul. The ghoul was currently an exact copy of the Adventurer that once owned its current body.
In other words, the second party needed someone specializing in PVP rather than monster hunting to defeat the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul.
Why?
It was all because fighting a monster equipped with the AI of a gamer meant that it was basically no different from an Adventurer.
To make matters worse, the arena rank of the Adventurer who had become a ghoul was Hero III, which meant that he was quite a skilled fighter.
‘There’s going to be quite a lot of damage...’ Siegfried thought as he ran to stop the ghoul.
Of course, it didn’t take that long for him to kill the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul, and it was all because Siegfried’s rank was way higher than the Adventurer’s Hero III.
Thud!
The Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul fell to the ground with its head bashed open.
“W-What in the world was that control?”
“Oh, right! He fought one-on-one against Raptor at the World’s Greatest Survival Tournament!” Nnêw n0vel chapters are published at novelhall.com
“He’s good...”
The party members were shocked by Siegfried’s control once again, but their surprise didn’t last that long.
“But how did he get turned into a ghoul?”
“You really can’t drop your guard with this game developer... How does it make sense for a gamer to have his character turned into a monster?”
“Why did he get turned into a ghoul?”
The party members were shocked at how realistic BNW was while wondering why the Adventurer became a ghoul.
“Hold on! Wasn’t that guy bitten by a ghoul? I think I saw him putting potion on his wound after the battle!” one of the party members said while pointing at the remains.
“Huh? I think I saw that, too.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to turn if you get bitten?”
“But we don’t turn into zombies even after getting bit, right?”
BNW was designed with the concept that the Adventurers were the avatars of beings from another world, so they wouldn’t get corrupted even after getting bit by a zombie in most normal dungeons. However, it didn’t seem to be the case for this Raid Dungeon, judging by how one of them turned into one of the undead.
‘A gamer’s character can turn into a ghoul after getting bitten? Hmm... this is a bit scary—wait!’
Siegfried was shocked by the revelation as well, just like the other party members, but...
‘This is pretty scary...’
A chill traveled down his spine when he realized something.
***
Siegfried was quite good at collecting clues from here and there to form a theory, and this was one of those times.
‘A dimensional storm raged as soon as we entered this Raid Dungeon. We couldn’t connect to the game for twenty-four hours. The other parties were nowhere in sight when we entered. A gamer became a ghoul. What if the other raid parties entered this dungeon at different times, and we entered late? That means—heok!’ Siegfried realized that the situation was far worse than it seemed.
“Excuse me! We need to hide right now! We can’t stand around in the open like this. We need to enter a building and hide!” he shouted.
“Grrwaaaaah!”
Suddenly, one of the party members started convulsing and foaming at his mouth.
Mutation.
It turned out that one of the party members hiding in the mansion was bitten as well.
“I... I... sorry... got... bit... while... ago...”
Everyone’s faces turned ghastly pale at those words.
“You crazy bastard! Why did you hide it?!” Siegfried shouted in anger.
He could have killed the Adventurer if he had known earlier, but it was too late now.
Who would have known the Adventurer would only reveal that he had been bitten the moment he started turning into a ghoul?
“Kwuaaaak!”
The party member let out a scream before he fully turned into a flesh-decaying ghoul.
“Ack!”
“Kyah!”
Two of the party members standing near the newly-turned Adventurer were drenched in the blood and flesh of the ghoul.
“Grr...!”
“Kwuoook!”
Then, the two of them started to turn into ghouls as well.
“We need to kill them quickly before we—” the party leader tried to control the situation.
“Nope. It’s too late,” Siegfried interrupted him.
.
“Pardon...?”
“Look over there,” Siegfried said as he pointed outside the window.
“Gwuuuok!”
“Kyak! Kyaaak!”
“Grrr...!”
The Dimensional Adventurer Ghouls were already rushing toward the mansion at scary speeds.
The second party was now stuck between a rock and a hard place.
There were three ghouls running amok inside the mansion while hundreds of them were rushing toward them from the outside.
“W-What should we do?! A-All forces, prepare for...!”
Even the experienced veteran party leader seemed to be at a loss.
“What do you mean, prepare for battle?!” Siegfried snapped. He grabbed a large cabinet and blocked the staircase coming up to the second floor.
That was the best move that they could do at the moment...
“We’re all going to die if we fight!” Siegfried added.
“T-Then what should we do?!” the party leader desperately asked in response.
“Run! Run without looking back!”
“...!”
“RUN! All of you!”
Siegfried was the first to run after shouting.
He ran toward the window at the far end of the corridor.
Crash!
The window shattered into innumerable pieces.
“RUN! RUUUUUN!” Siegfried shouted at the party members after landing.
“Aaaack!”
“D-Don’t come near me!”
“Run! Ruuuun!”
The second party, including Siegfried, ran from the horde of Dimensional Adventurer Ghouls.
They ran, ran, and ran...
“Gwuuu Oooook!”
“GWUOK! GWUOK!”
“Gwuaak!”
...With a horde of ghouls trailing right behind them.