Chapter 183 Ever-present Trap

Jay handed the other tablets to Anya. She didn’t seem to understand them but he didn’t feel like explaining it to her, so before she could finish reading them he unsummoned his skeletons and gathered all their hammers, daggers and bones.

“Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know about tomorrow.” he waved as the dungeon exit emerged nearby.

“O- oh. Okay. Thanks, looking forward to it.” Anya said, holding two tablets.

[Party Disbanded]

Jay made sure to disband the party before he left the dungeon – he knew there was an exp bonus waiting for him when he left from his necrotic helminth in wolf’s quarry dungeon.

~Outside of Mist Keep Dungeon~

Night time. Few adventurers were around, chatting about how the dungeon went and giving either other pointers and tips – suddenly, the dungeon door opened and out stepped a grinning adventurer wearing a green coat with some strange light-grey armour, but they suddenly the smiling adventurer disappeared right back into the door again, leaving as quickly as they appeared.

“What the? Who was that? I thought we would be the last ones? Did anyone analyse them?”

“No clue. Weird… where’s the rest of their party?”

Suddenly, the dungeon door opened again and out stepped Anya who was now level nine. Unlike Jay, she had a very placid look on her face as she exited.

“Hey, she’s level nine now,” an adventurer pointed.

“Wow, someone finally caught up to that loner guy. I wonder if he says anything.” another added.

“Heh, we’ll be level nine soon too. I actually don’t think it’s that impressive anymore.” one shrugged.

“Pff, you’re still level six though.” another grinned back.

“Yeah, well, I’m just… having fun.” the level six adventurer shrugged.

Anya ignored them as she headed home, back up the mountain trail..

–

[2400 Exp]

Even as he re-entered the dungeon he was still smiling.

“Ah, so much exp.” Jay grinned broadly, “the helminth is so awesome.”

“Now… here we are again.” he looked around, remembering how he first crafted his first bone hammers here.

Jay was back at the very start of the dungeon since he couldn’t enter into the first pyramid. Technically it wasn’t conquered, so this was the quickest way to get to Sedulus and complete his quest.

Since he brought his skeletons out, all the enemies had respawned, meaning he could easily get the soul stones from the weaker level three statues at the starting zones.

“Alright. Let’s do this.” he said as he pulled out his bone hammers, daggers, and formed a large bone pile.

The five skeletons were brought back to their former glory and were quickly rearmed with their bone weapons.

“Now, Red, you will be staying with me for a moment.” Jay said while gesturing for the other skeletons to leave. They sprinted away to hunt more statues – with Blue in command of course.

Next, he analysed Red.

<[Germinating Skeleton Level 4 – Red]>

[Type – Undead]

[Role – Unclear]

HP – 75/75 (+20,equipment)

MP – 10/10

<[Skills]>

[Bone Eater]

[Scrimshaw Level 1] (Passive)

[Undeath] (Passive)

[Fear] (Weak) (Passive)

[Shade Vision] (Passive)

<[Description]>

[An abomination, its existence spits in the face of life and death – and they spit back. Stop it before it’s too late. Execute with extreme prejudice. Burn the bones.]

[Please choose a role from available categories – Available categories are based on the skeleton’s qualitative experience. If no choice is made, a random role will be assigned once the skeleton levels up.]

[Warrior]

[Guard]

[Zweihander]

[Commander] (1)

“Hmm, similar to Blue… except with four choices? Huh? And what the hell is a zweihander?” Jay wondered, raising a brow.

He began retracing all the weapons that Red had used and the roles it had taken, but to his surprise, it really wasn’t given many special assignments or weapons – neither did it ever command other skeletons.

“Red had used a bone dagger, then an arming sword, and a bone hammer which it… huh… It has been dual-wielding the bone hammer…”

“I’m guessing the guard class would be a standard one-handed soldier with higher health, and the warrior will probably be one-handed with higher strength, so the zweihander must be a two-handed weapon class with high strength. Like a heavy hitter I’m guessing.”

“It makes no sense that the commander role is there though. Perhaps since I already unlocked it with Blue?”

Jay paused for a moment as he considered his options.

“Do I even need a heavy hitter though?” he scratched his chin, “Well, without Anya around it would actually be great, but even with her around I have been attacked and even forced to go on the defensive.” he pursed his lips.

“Hmm… The zweihander role sounds cool, but what I need right now is a guard.” Jay nodded.

“Still, I can always make some zweihander skeletons in the future when I have more of them – as long as the roles I unlock stay unlocked.”

[Choice: Guard]

With his choice decided, all Jay had to do now was level his skeletons up; he was excited to see what would happen once they hit level five, but he decided to not do anything too drastic; he still didn’t know the mechanism behind the skeleton levelling either.

“Since the other skeletons are gone, you might as well continue to guard me” he said, as Red stood by his side and started looking for any threats.

“Good old Red.” he nodded as he began to walk up the desolate hill towards the first pyramid.

As Jay reached the top of the hill, he was pleased to see his other four skeletons already having engaged the two stone statues at the gate ruins, and as he walked down towards them they were reduced to rubble.

[35 Exp][35 Exp]

The enemies here were only level three, so the skeletons made short work of them.

Jay recalled when he first fought these two statues. Back then, they seemed like powerful, threatening warriors. Each of them was like a veteran and he even was wounded by them.

At this stage, some adventurers were still having trouble with these two gate guards; few could solo them without taking any damage.

But now? Well in Jay’s eyes, they were nothing more than a few walking soul stones waiting to be collected; their size didn’t matter either, they would be reduced to rubble whether they were giants or not.

Dark scrambled back to Jay with two more soul stones while the other skeletons ran off into the city, finding more targets.

After dropping them off, Dark rushed back into the ruins too.

[Soul stone] (Empty) x 2

“This won’t take long.” Jay smiled as he casually strolled through the gates towards the pyramid.

A sense of relaxation came over him as he walked and he began to wonder why he received a necromancer class in the first place.

All this time he had been focusing on survival; It was like there was an ever-present background fear driving him forward to learn about dungeons, slaying monsters, growing his skeletons, and learning more about his power.

He thought it made sense to become a necromancer after his life as a butcher, but now that he had a relaxed mind with some time to think, he couldn’t help but start to question everything.

– Why is there a rumour about not getting a class if you don’t touch a mana conduit? He still got a class.

– Why is it a law that you have to touch one? Why enforce it if it’s such a good thing to do? That doesn’t make sense.

– Did he actually meet anyone who didn’t touch one? He wouldn’t know, analysing others doesn’t show their class – but he had never heard of anyone he knew who didn’t get one.

– Why don’t they teach younger people anything about classes or dungeons until they actually get registered at a guild?

Jay was still strolling slowly through the city as his skeletons did all the work, but despite the relative calmness of the dungeon his head was starting to swirl, a sense of dread building in his chest.

“What the fuck is actually going on…” he stopped walking.

Jay simply had no answers, but the questions still bothered him as they swirled in his mind.

Now that he had some time to slow down and let his thoughts drift, he realised something wasn’t right. He felt like he was in a trap designed for him since before he had been born into this world; all that had to happen was for it to spring.

“Shit… what have I been doing this whole time…” Jay paused and looked at his hands. He took in a deep breath of air, “I need to get a grip. This isn’t meant to be a fucking stroll in the woods.” his hands gripped tightly into fists.

“My life is in danger and always has been… and what have I been doing? Just running around dungeons at my own leisure.”

“Pathetic.” he told himself with a bitter sneer.

“Even other adventurers with normal classes work harder than me, and their life isn’t even on the line… I need to wake up to myself.” he bit his lip.

“I have to focus on my own strength, then when I am powerful enough, and the time is right, I will reveal my strength to the world.”

“I will find every single answer that I need until I’m satisfied; I will scour the cracks of every mountain, I will walk in the depths, I will ascend into the skies if need be, and I will tear this whole world down if I have to.”

*** ~~~Chapter Mass releases is coming on 6/8/22 (Saturday) and 8/8/22 (Monday)~~~

Each should be 5 chapters long.

I’m also slowly re-writing earlier chapters in the book too.

I appreciate all your reviews, comments, tickets and soul stones.

I will absolutely continue to write the book! I’m writing this book with the people who love it in mind (including myself), so I am going to mostly listen to the comments you leave on the chapters ????

The support you give me is amazing, so sincerely, I thank you ????

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