Who Designed This Underworld Dungeon?
Chapter 118 - 114: The Soul-sucking Ghost must be a rare and powerful being, right?

Chapter 118: Chapter 114: The Soul-sucking Ghost must be a rare and powerful being, right?

The strategy for conquering the Sain Dungeon continues fervently.

Many adventurers from other regions hurried over upon receiving the news, a good opportunity for those who wanted to inscribe their names in history—after the dungeon’s anomaly, the title of First Passer could be recalculated.

Of course, the contributions of Leon and his team won’t be erased; a new First Clear Stele will be erected beside theirs.

Merchant caravans also acted upon the news, and the inns within Bed City were all fully booked, forcing latecomers to set up temporary camps outside the city.

This time, however, the current Count Bed, Charon, didn’t take much action, aside from simply dispatching some guards to help maintain order.

Oddly enough, the influx of merchant caravans should have been a source of wealth for him—why was he so passive?

To put it simply...

He had delegated the related interests to Val City.

Count Philip left behind a mess, and to quell the situation, Charon had been bleeding resources, carving away at the Bed Family’s assets to satiate the ravenous hyenas eyeing him eagerly.

With Val City being the closest and bearing the deepest grudge, Charon, for safety’s sake, had no choice but to transfer some assets to the opposition, cutting here and there, until all that remained firmly in the Bed Family’s clutches were Blood Essence mining and Blood Healing Potions.

On the surface, Charon was all smiles toward Val City, but internally he entertained thoughts of slaughtering the entire family.

Digressing aside, just understand that Bed City is very lively at the moment.

As three to four days passed, the adventurers’ strategies began to diverge.

Everyone gained a rough understanding of the anomaly in the Sain Dungeon and also gathered some intelligence on each region.

At this point, adventurers began to consider what they are good at, which areas they are suited to explore, and voluntarily ventured to areas where they had a high affinity.

Within the adventurer’s guild, it was common to see people recruiting teammates, clearly stating the area to be explored and the skills required of potential teammates.

The professional qualities of everyone were gradually improving; novices turned seasoned, seasoned turned elite, and as for those who were already elite—

For example, Dal, he challenged the Sain Dungeon every day.

Without regular teammates, he would pick up random passersby to explore with on his way to the dungeon and wouldn’t refuse invitations to team up; if he couldn’t find teammates, he didn’t mind soloing as a lone wolf.

Facing the diversified map, he only ever went to one region, undoubtedly Fran Fort.

But, oddly enough, having previously fled from the Ancient Wolf of Fran, why would he return to this place that reminds him of unpleasant memories?

Surely he couldn’t be a masochist.

"Grrr!"

The Gollums let out ferocious cries, wielding weapons as they charged towards Dal.

But he was already familiar with the Gollums’ attack patterns, and with agile dodges, he surprisingly breached the monsters’ defenses, arriving at the top of the mound.

"Bang!"

Dal, like a parkour veteran, reached the location of the first Beacon Tower and extinguished the flames in front of the Gwyn statue with a heavy slap.

The familiar sight of the loosening gate animation appeared before him; annoyingly, he couldn’t skip it, despite being quite fed up with it.

While waiting for the cutscene, Dal pondered the recent progresses of the raid.

As adventurers swarmed to the fort, despite the difficulty of Fran Fort having stepped up from the swamp area, the progression still rose bit by bit each day.

Correspondingly, the story of Fran slowly became known, with people inferring the rough plotline through snippets of descriptions about Green Flower Grass, Black Worm Pills, and weapons dropped by monsters, all thanks to the Hunting Manual.

With a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers, although the Fran Fort story has many versions, and each person’s vision of the fort’s story differs, one plot point is universally accepted—

Extinguishing the three Beacon Towers is a trial to join the Undead Team; upon successfully accepting the Wolf Blood, one becomes a member of the team.

Adventurers believe that Fran Fort’s ultimate boss must be all the members of the Undead Team—a vast army!

An army from an unknown era sounds extremely exciting, and people were already planning ahead, trying to figure out how to efficiently confront a whole corps.

However, even if they worked it out, it probably wouldn’t be of any use because...

To this day, nobody had truly entered the gates of the fort.

In the Sain Dungeon version of Fran Fort, extinguishing the three Beacon Towers allowed deeper access into the fort and an encounter with the Ancient Wolf of Fran, leading to the final boss battle at the deepest part.

Dal was possibly the only adventurer who had seen the Ancient Wolf of Fran to date, at least no second witness of the wolf had emerged.

A hidden rule was discovered: with each Beacon Tower extinguished, Fran Fort’s difficulty increased.

Manifested by stronger monsters, new traps on familiar paths, and even minor but fatal terrain changes.

For instance, a section of the path would collapse upon revisiting after extinguishing a fire, revealing a pack of wild dogs below.

Basically, no one could survive the onslaught of the Dog Ember King; no one!

Dal’s best record so far was reaching the third Beacon Tower’s edge, but he couldn’t extinguish it before being caught and killed by the pursuing monsters.

It was said that the Strategy Group once managed to extinguish all three Beacon Towers by chance, yet fell before even entering the gate, taken down by enhanced monsters.

Maru was furious, swearing that once Leon returned, she’d make those monsters rue their existence.

Even the Strategy Group struggled thus, so one can imagine the progress of others; some were tormented to the point of giving up, preferring to enjoy life in the gourmet area instead.

Dal set very high standards for himself; he didn’t allow himself to live too comfortably, intentionally selecting more challenging missions even when taking commissions.

"Gaah!"

The moment the animation finished, Dal swiftly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the relentless Gollum’s lunge, with its head crashing against the wall, letting out a bizarre scream.

Without pausing for a second, Dal ran off.

After some precise calculations, he knew that as long as he reached a certain speed, he could open up a safe distance from the Gollums before leaving the hill and entering the marshland that would slow him down, allowing him to reach the next landmass virtually unscathed and ready to battle with the Gollums there.

As he had the pathway memorized, he thought about the commissions he needed to complete today while on the run.

The tasks mainly involved collecting certain items or Monster materials in the Fran Fort. He might as well pick some up while escaping.

"Pu pu pu—"

Suddenly, a mass of mud-like substance was flung at Dal from behind. He merely showed a disgusted expression but did not dodge because the substance was just mud.

As soon as the Gollums were pulled at a distance, they would dig up lump after lump of mud from the swamp to throw at him. The mud had no lethal effect but was highly insulting.

Wait, it seemed there was a commission that required me to collect marsh matter from the Fran Fort.

Dal immediately took out a bottle, filled a container with swamp water, and shoved it into his waist pack without minding the dirt, thinking to himself:

"This will be an extra meal for the wolf pack."

The wolf pack at the farmhouse were the ones that raised him, at least a portion of them.

As a Silver Rank adventurer, his life should have been quite comfortable, yet he always spent money on buying good food for the wolf pack, even though they could hunt in the forest themselves. He still felt that what he bought was better.

Apart from food, if a wolf was injured or ill, he would also take care of the medical expenses.

Perhaps this was his way of repaying the wolf pack for raising him.

The wolf pack was the sanctuary of his heart and the motivation behind his adventuring.

To protect them, there was nothing Dal wouldn’t do!

"The second Beacon Tower is now in sight,"

After a tough battle with the Monster, Dal hesitated in front of the beacon for a while, but eventually, he decided to extinguish the fire.

This time the Hunter didn’t invade because his setting was not to invade those who already possessed a Hunting Manual.

Naturally, Patch’s Summoning Symbol didn’t appear either, much to the disappointment of those who wanted to beat him up.

Without the appearance of the Hunter, the event of the Monster Tide being attracted by the sound of gunfire would not occur.

So why did Dal’s face appear so tense?

"Huff..."

He took a deep breath, and at this moment, footsteps came from the bottom of the hill.

Different from the sound of the Hunter, these footsteps were stickier, as if the owner’s pus was flowing down, each step sticky and stringy.

Dal’s hand holding the sword trembled slightly.

As soon as the comer finally ascended the summit, we would know their identity.

Soul-sucking Ghost!

As the second Beacon Tower is extinguished, these creatures from the Abyss will appear!

Dal had already died at the hands of Soul-sucking Ghosts multiple times.

After each defeat and resurrection at the Fire Transmission Ceremony, he would immediately traverse 365 miles to battle with the Soul-sucking Ghost again, each time ending in failure.

Today was his last venture into Sain for the week. His spiritual power had reached its limit, and he could only afford to die one more time before taking a few days to rest at home.

No, why am I assuming I’ll die in battle!

He took up a swordsmanship stance, ready for the incoming attack, as cold sweat appeared on his forehead.

Although he had never defeated a Soul-sucking Ghost and the Hunting Manual listed no additional information besides the name, one could guess that this thing must be a part of the Abyss Force.

Dal had witnessed the Soul-sucking Ghost fight with the Gollums. Since the Gollums are described as allies to the Undead Team in their profile, the Soul-sucking Ghost must be the enemy.

"Come on!"

He launched an attack first. However, the Soul-sucking Ghost’s hand lit up with the bright red effect of a Spell.

"Not this move again!"

Once caught by this move, Dal would feel something constantly being extracted from his body, greatly reducing his physical condition and leaving his spirits exceedingly drained.

He had to avoid it!

Seconds later, Dal was pinned to the ground by the Soul-sucking Ghost, the bright red Spell continuously draining his spiritual power.

"Damn it..."

After reviving at the Fire Transmission Ceremony, a trace of worry was evident on Dal’s face.

"I dodged it, why can he still catch me? This shouldn’t be happening..."

He sat disconsolately in front of the bonfire, talking to himself, a true image of dejection.

"So the Undead Team has been fighting this kind of enemy all along; my admiration for them grows."

"The strength of the Soul-sucking Ghost is so formidable; it must be a unique and leading figure amidst the Abyss Force. It makes sense that I would lose,"

Purely because he always died too quickly to encounter a second Soul-sucking Ghost.

Dal sighed, thinking,

I really need to find a teammate.