#026 – Third time’s the charm

#026 – Third time’s the charm

I groaned.

“Not this again...” I grumbled as I stared at the little screen sourly. “Do I have to, chat? Is it even a good idea to activate these? What if I’ve already blocked myself from the boss room because I activated the others?” I tried to bargain with myself.

GonguuH: you probably need to activate all of them to find the boss room

Irid123: the bracelet is supposed to be the key to navigating the place though

Ugh... Stupid reasonable comments...

“It could be a ruse! You know how much this stupid dungeon has been screwing with me!”

GonguuH: but it never lied to you

I sighed.

“Okay, fine... I’m gonna activate it... Just... Let me sit down for a minute.”

I plopped down on a nearby bench and eyed the stupid little screen, getting my thoughts in order, and trying to figure out what to do to prevent aggroing the entire dark room full of monsters again. The first time had been a nightmare and the second time I’d managed to escape, but ideally, I wouldn’t set the whole damn place on fire in the first place.

But then again. Both times, I got a lot of skill points from all the achievements. Although... I could only get the same achievement once, so doing the same thing over and over wouldn’t help very much.

...Wait. Was that on purpose? To prevent people from grinding skill points? To force them to do all sorts of things if they wanted to get stronger? Was that why the monsters didn’t respawn? Could you only clear each dungeon once?

I frowned.

No, but... There were the divine coins. You could literally just buy skill points, in theory. Rich people could ignore the achievements and dungeons altogether and just buy coins off others and hoard them.

Was this entire freaking system pay-to-win? Seriously?

But I couldn’t even access my bank account here! Stupid pay-to-win game wouldn’t even let me give it money!

I shook my head.

Maybe I was jumping to conclusions. There were also the quests, after all. Although, they gave a lot less than the achievements... Whatever. Something to think about later, maybe.

“...Anyway. The first locker made me go around the entrance and the second locker made me go sideways to reach the exit. What do you think the third one is gonna be about?”

GeorgeDoshington: maybe it will just be nrmal lol

I scowled.

“Yeah, the best way to screw with me would be to make me assume there was another trick to it, but have it actually just be linear. Ugh... Stupid dungeon... ”

GonguuH: it might not even open another locker at all

“Also a good point... I guess there’s only one way to find out, huh...?”

A brief moment of silent scowling later, I got up again and gingerly approached the little screen. I raised my wrist, let it scan the bracelet, and got ready to endure the infernal noise again.

The dungeon didn’t disappoint. The countdown started anew and the maze began rearranging itself and I did my best to grit my teeth and endure it while shuffling around to avoid getting crushed.

Once the countdown was done, I huffed out a short sigh of relief and then drew my sword and got ready to fight off whatever might fly at me this time.

I heard a pop of a locker opening to the side and whirled around to face the monster wave.

What flew out of the lockers was something that I felt like I should have already encountered a long time ago considering the theme of this dungeon.

“Swimsuits?!”

Bikinis, one-piece swimsuits, men’s swimsuits, and so on.

This felt even weirder than fighting flying towels or hats.

Nonetheless, I breathed in and began sniping them from afar with Flame bullets. Surprisingly, these freaking swimsuits were more agile and flexible than expected and a lot of them managed to dodge my shots. It definitely had nothing to do with me still getting used to using the sub skill and my aim being off.

I backed up as the survivors closed in on me, spat out regular Fire Breath in front of me to intercept them and ignited my sword to swipe at those who would get through. Luckily, most got stopped by the wall of fire and only a few got made it into slashing range.

Those that did, fell fairly easily to my flaming sword, and when everything was over and they all turned into mist, I just stood there for a moment with a suspicious frown on my face.

“...Chat, I’m either getting better at this, or this was much easier than before.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: good job Nana!

GeorgeDoshington: noice

SunOfABeach: you are definitely getting better

SunOfABeach: you move more confidently and naturally

A small smile tugged on my lips.

“Aww, thanks, Sun. That means a lot, coming from a real sword master.”

Now, I had no way of checking whether they really were one, but I liked to believe it. It made me feel cooler to be praised by them.

“Well, time to check out the third locker, then...”

I gingerly approached the open locker, already thinking of the ways it could mess with my perception of space like the other two had, while looking around and making sure nothing was trying to sneak up on me.

Unfortunately, I ran into a wall.

“Ow!”

I backed up a step and reached out with my hand to feel the metal walls of this thing that I couldn’t even see in the darkness.

“Well, I guess a good dungeon wouldn’t reuse the same tricks... Props to the designers...? Anyway! Let’s try this again and maybe I can spot the moment it shifts.”

And so I began walking once more, keeping a keen eye on the entrance and squashing my nervousness as much as I could. The further away I got, the harder it became to see stuff outside of the locker besides the light streaming in, but I still did my best.

Jeofffff: heat vision with zoom would be great here

“Yeah... Too bad I don’t have that...” I said into the silent darkness and my voice echoed around me. It made me shut up once more.

About halfway into my trip, when the column of light from the entrance stretched right above me, I noticed the tiniest change in the way it looked. I slowed down and narrowed my eyes to try and see it better.

From one stop to the next, I saw it. It was incredibly hard to see, but the view flickered for a moment and then the entire thing flipped over.

I let out a tiny gasp of surprise and stopped. Then I took a step back and saw it flicker once more and flip right side up again.

I tried taking smaller steps, adjusting my exact position, in hopes of seeing what that flicker was about. I tried craning my head and torso back and forth, but nothing changed. It seemed to be dependent on my feet, for some reason.

It was quite annoying and I had to fiddle with my feet, shuffling them by a few centimeters at some point, but eventually, I managed to stop exactly between where the two mirror entrances changed and in the middle of the ‘flicker’.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to see what it was about, but couldn’t see much more than a hazy fog coming from the entrance.

No. Not the entrance. The exit, probably.

“I think I found the exit,” I murmured. “How do I get all the way up, though...?”

Then I heard shuffling of clothes behind me and stiffened.

I had really hoped there wouldn’t be any more of that...

GeorgeDoshington: jump!

Irid123: try going to the side again?

Without a word, I turned to the left and began walking.

Contrary to what I expected, the column of light changed back to the entrance view and then it began rotating.

“Uh... No. That just made me lost sight of it,” I whispered as something dragged itself over the metallic floor to my right.

My heart began beating faster again but I vehemently ignored it and went back a few steps to find the foggy view again. A minute of shuffling my legs later and I found it once more.

I heard cloth hit the ground right in front of me and flinched, but kept on ignoring it.

“W-What to do, what to do...?” I asked with a trembling voice, failing to sound calm and unperturbed.

Something brushed by my arm and I fought not to scream and burn the offender to ashes.

GeorgeDoshington: juuuump!

Not having any better ideas, I bent my knees – fuck something curled around my ankle! – and jumped in place.

I had no idea what I expected, but being launched toward the exit at terminal velocity was not it.

“Whoaaaaaaaaaaaa?!” I screamed from the top of my lungs as I hurled through the air, barely managing to keep grip on my sword.

Wind whipped by me as I brushed past hundreds of articles of clothing, making me shudder every time. The column of light kept getting closer and closer, bigger and bigger in my field of view, until I finally flew out of the thing straight into a foggy, damp, and hot room.

I had about three seconds to be shocked by this sudden change in scenery before gravity decided to come back from vacation and I began falling right back into the locker again.

I gasped in horror and looked below myself, seeing a locker toppled on the ground with various articles of clothing skittering in the darkness inside it.

And now I was falling right back inside.

It took me a full second of falling to think of my next move.

I breathed in and spat fire to the side at the ground while spewing more fire from my limbs using Flameguard and hoped the knockback from it all would be enough to steer me away from falling back inside.

It was.

Unfortunately, it also meant that I landed on the ground elbow first.

I gasped while stifling a scream of pain as it made a horrible crack sound and my eyes began to tear up. My sword dropped from my shaky hand and clattered on the floor.

I let out a few gasped breaths before I jerkily reached into my backpack and began to grab the potion to alleviate the painpainpain.

That was when the door to this room opened – I hadn’t even registered there was a door behind all the fog – revealing a giant figure about three storeys tall clad in several layers of clothing.

Then the figure spotted me and started toward me.