Chapter 17 - Episode 17: Pit Of Hell.

We both walk towards a small farm and a guy is standing in the middle of the field. He's listening to the wind and the sound of the river. His ear flinches and he turns around. He smiles and approaches us.

"Welcome to the town. I heard from Poe that you came here from Sarkh Village. I would like to listen to your journey. But first, can you both tell me why you came here?"

I lift my hand for a handshake.

"It's nice to meet you, Hacal."

Hacal smirks and shakes his head.

"Can you tell me who told you my name?"

I just realized recently that all the NPCs that should know me from before the game got released didn't recognize me at all. It seemed that all of their memories were reset. But why Sev and Kalman still remember me? Are those two NPCs are different from the others?

"Trev?"

Emma startled me and I look at her.

"I'm sorry, I was thinking about something."

I look at Hacal and smile.

"Sadly I can't tell you that. Whoever told me that, I believe that person is one of your allies."

Hacal is scratching his head with confusion.

"Ugh... don't bother. I will not ask you about it ever again. So? What business do you have with me?"

Emma grabs her weapon.

"We want to learn weapon mastery."

Hacal is rubbing his chin while looking at us. Then he nods. A quest screen appears in front of us.

[Weapon Mastery! (In progress)]

[Objective: Kill 100 monsters]

[Do you accept his quest? Y/N]

Emma looks at me and nods. We both accept the quest.

"Now go and come back to me when you're done."

Hacal walks away and sits on a wooden chair in front of a small cabin.

"Let's kill some monsters, Em. Follow me."

Emma nods.

We went to the south part of Fjel. There's a place with many types of monsters that live there, from insects, giants, and wyverns. Since Emma's level is too low, I protected her from the monsters. She followed me carefully and killed the monsters that were dying from my attacks. We killed a hundred of them and Emma leveled up five times while I only leveled up one time. We went back and reported it back to Hacal.

"That took you long enough to kill a hundred monsters, what was the problem?"

I show him the loots from the monsters we killed. He laughs so hard.

"Amazing. I never thought that you would go there to do the quest."

Hacal stands up and he grins.

[Weapon Mastery! (Completed)]

[Skill tab is now available! Use the "Open Skill" command to open the skill tab. You are now able to learn skills!]

[Weapon Skill tab is now available! Use the "Open Skill" command to open the weapon skill tab. You are now able to raise your weapon mastery!]

[Congratulations! Exclusive Passive Skill: [Vigor Lv.1] has been learned.]

[Congratulations! Exclusive Passive Skill: [Zeal Lv.1] has been learned.]

[Vigor Lv.1: Reduce stamina usage by 5%. Increase stamina by 1%.]

[Zeal Lv.1: Reduce the requirements to increase weapon mastery by 10%. Increase skill damage percentage based on weapon mastery level (x*1).]

Emma looks at me with confusion. She seems doesn't understand and I explain it to her.

"Are you guys done talking?"

We both look at Hacal then a quest screen appears in front of us.

[Hacal's special training. (In progress)]

[Hacal "Jack of all trades master of none". For the next five days, you will be under his watch. Try to meet with expectations and you will be granted an amazing reward by him.]

[Objective: Kill 1000 monsters daily for the next 5 days. Report to him daily or you will fail the quest and cannot retake the quest!]

[Do you accept the quest? Y/N]

Emma's eyes are wide open and grab my arm.

"A thousand kills a day?! How are we supposed to do that? It's impossible!"

Hacal is chuckling mischievously. I shake my head.

"It's possible. To be honest, it's not that hard. The problem is..."

Emma is staring at me and waiting for me to finish my sentence.

"What? What is the problem?"

I shake my head and look at Hacal.

"Can you give us a few minutes? We need to get prepared first."

Hacal nods. He sits down on the wooden chair.

"Sure, I will be waiting here."

I nod and look at Emma.

"Let's go to the town and buy equipment for both of us. I also need to buy something for the quest."

Emma tilts her head.

"What? Yeah, sure. But you haven't answered my question!"

I chuckle.

"I'll tell you about it when we arrived at the place we are planning to go to, but one thing that I can tell you is that we can kill 5000 monsters in a single day and completed the quest if you agreed with this. What do you say?"

Emma is shocked and grabs my torso.

"Seriously? Then I'm in!"

We both went to the blacksmith and bought decent equipment. I bought a lantern and different types of oils. I also bought a lot of health potion for Emma. After we prepared everything we went back to see Hacal and accepted his quest.

We are in the middle of a damp forest. Muds on our shoes and Emma is annoyed by it.

"Ugh... I hate this kind of place. It's hot and humid. How long until we get there?"

I look at the map and show it to her.

"Here, look. We are almost there."

Emma groans and walks lazily.

We arrived at the place that is perfect for this quest. A field is as big as a football field with a big hole in the middle and surrounded by woods. Emme stood beside me and looked down.

"What is this hole? It looks like a mouth with teeth and fangs..."

The hole is pulsating. Emma grabs my arm so tightly.

"Trev... that thing is alive... what the f*ck is that?! That's not a hole! It really is a mouth!"

I'm about to approach the hole but Emma pulls me away from that hole. She shakes her head repeatedly. I grab her hand and nod.

"It's called Pit of Hell. But it's fine, trust me."

I approach the hole and grab the thing that looks like a fang. I wobble it up and nothing happened.

"See, this is just how the game designed the hole. I mean, it is alive and you can check the HP bar of this hole, but it can do nothing."

Emma slowly walks towards the hole and as soon as she gets closer to the hole she's making a disgusted face and covering her mouth and nose.

"Ugh... what is that smell? Holy sh*t... it smells so bad..."

I grab the lantern and the oils that I bought in the market.

"It's the smell of insects that are living inside that hole."

I light up the lantern and hold the oils in my other hand. I look at Emma.

"Do you hate insects, Em?"

Emma is glaring at me with confusion.

"No, not really. Why? I mean, it depends on what kind of insect are we talking about."

I throw the lantern and the oils inside the hole. Emma's mouth is wide open and still processing what she just witnessing. Then the ground is shaking lightly and slowly it's getting worse and worse. I back away from the hole and stand beside Emma.

"What about, centipedes and spiders?"

Emma slowly turns her whole body towards me and blinks repeatedly.

"Wh-what? Those are not insects!"

A very loud screeching sound coming from the whole and hundreds of huge centipedes and spiders are coming out from the whole. Emma holds her breath and then screams.

"What the f*ck did you just do!"

I grab my scythe and chained sickles from my inventory.

"Hurry up and grab your weapon! You said you agreed with this."

Emma grabs her whip swords immediately.

"I hate you so much, Trev..."

I laugh so hard and look at Emma.

"Don't worry! Their levels are below 50, so it's easy to kill them. Except for their parents and let's hope that they don't show up."

We started to kill them without hesitation. The more we slew them, the more of them came out from the hole. Emma was screaming in disgust while slashing her swords towards them. Emma was trembling the whole time. Then she saw something that made her knees weak. Every huge centipede and spider that came out from the whole has their hatchlings crawling on their bodies.

"I can't do this anymore!"

I grabbed her wrist and lifted her up. I protected her while she's still trembling from fear. I slew them and their hatchlings for hours. Emma finally managed to stand up and continued slaying them.

[213/1000]

...

...

...

[457/1000]

...

...

...

[894/1000]

...

[Congratulation! Scythe Mastery has increased by 1!]

[Scythe Mastery Lv.2: A new skill acquired! Active skill [Dance of Death]]

[Dance of Death Lv.1: Deals AoE (Area of Effect) damage around the player within 5 meters radius. Deals 120% damage and apply the fear effect to them for 1 second.

Cooldown: 15 seconds.]

[Fear: A debuff to make the enemy unable to attack and reduce armor by half.]

...

[1422/2000]

...

[Congratulation! Exclusive Passive Skill [Vigor] has increased by 1!]

[Vigor Lv.2: Reduce stamina usage by 7.5%. Increase stamina by 2%.]

...

...

[Congratulation! Chained Sickle Mastery has increased by 1!]

[Chained Sickle Mastery Lv.2: A new skill acquired! Passive skill [Sharper Blade]]

[Sharper Blade: Increase Critical Chance by 5%. A small chance to inflict 50% more damage when attacking.]

...

[1956/2000]

...

...

...

[2421/3000]

...

...

...

[Congratulation! Exclusive Passive Skill [Vigor] has increased by 1!]

[Vigor Lv.3: Reduce stamina usage by 9%. Increase stamina by 3%.]

...

...

[Passive skill [Sharped Blade] leveled up by 1!]

[Sharper Blade Lv.2: Increase Critical Chance by 8%. A chance to inflict 50% more damage when attacking.]

...

...

[Active skill [Dance of Death] leveled up by 1!]

[Dance of Death Lv.2: Deals AoE (Area of Effect) damage around the player within 5 meters radius. Deals 170% damage and apply the fear effect to them for 1.25 seconds.

Cooldown: 15 seconds.]

...

...

[4177/5000]

[Congratulation! Chained Sickle Mastery has increased by 1!]

[Chained Sickle Mastery Lv.3: A new skill acquired! Active skill [Blitz Blades]]

[Blitz Blade Lv.1: Consecutively attacks one enemy 10 times in 2 seconds. Deals 50% base damage each attack. Cooldown 20 seconds.]

...

...

...

[Congratulation! Scythe Mastery has increased by 1!]

[Scythe Mastery Lv.3: A new skill acquired! Active skill [Plunge of Death]]

[Plunge of Death: Jump and stab the scythe on the ground. Deals 200% base damage on 15 meters radius. Apply stun to the enemies inside the radius for 1 second.]

[Stun: Unable to move and attack. Received double the damage when attacked.]

...

...

[5000/5000]

[Hacal's special training. (Completed)]

[Report back to Hacal to receive the rewards.]

We both laid down on the ground while groaning.

"I'm done... I'm done for today, Trev..."

I chuckle weakly.

"Yeah, me too. Let's go back. The monsters here only drop trash so don't bother collecting them. The only important drop is their Soul Essence and it automatically went into your inventory."

I opened my inventory.

[Hatchling Spider Soul Essence (11)]

[Hatchling Centipede Soul Essence (13)]

[Lesser Spider Soul Essence (9)]

[Lesser Centipede Soul Essence (5)]

[Greater Spider Soul Essence (2)]

[Greater Centipede Soul Essence (3)]

I look at Emma.

"How many soul essences did you get?"

Emma is checking her inventory.

"Only two Greater Spider Soul Essence. Wow, this is nice. I'm so lucky to get two of them."

I raise my eyebrows and look the other way.

"Are you ****ing kidding me!"