Level 1 Fallen

Naturally, I drove us back to the city, where Diane proceeded to immediately go offline to place the order for the dungeon radar. While we were waiting for her, I looked back at Bella curiously. “Is there anywhere you’d like to go to look for the dungeon? Diane has her new skills that she needs to level up before we worry about getting anything else for her, and I’ve got more skills than I know what to do with.”

I glanced over at Diane’s Chosen for confirmation, and she offered a small nod, leaving the decision to Bella. “I don’t really know,” Bella answered uncertainly. “I mean, I don’t lean towards any particular element. It would be hard to find a region that catered to my abilities specifically.”

“What about Ferrumnis?” Diane offered, looking over at Bella. “From my understanding, that realm is themed around metal, lightning, and magnetism. If we were going to find a dungeon connected to guns, it would probably be there, right?”

Bella pursed her lips, considering the option. “Well, at least it seems like it would be more common than looking somewhere like here. Does that mean that we’ll be driving all the way back to the gate where we came from?”

“It would probably help,” I confirmed, thinking it over. “We can look for any interesting dungeons along the way, but we should probably stick near the rift that we’re familiar with, just in case we all need to go back to Fallcry for any reason.”

As we were discussing, Diane’s brand lit up again, signalling that her Player had come back online. “Okay, I’ve made the order. The shipment should be arriving in my mailbox any minute.”

With that out of the way, we all got out of the car and stowed it away, walking through the city streets towards the local mailbox. In the meantime, we discussed our plans with Diane again, who seemed more than happy to focus on finding skills for Bella for a while. Ever since she switched to using firearms, she had very few skills that properly complimented her fighting style. There was, of course, the new Ricochet Shot, but that was her only active firearm skill.

Once Diane had the radar, we left the city and took off to the skies once more. “See, there was no need for any big betrayal arc,” I teased Diane as we put the city behind us, earning a small huff from the halfling girl.

“It still would have been cool,” she muttered, before pulling the radar out of her inventory. This was a small, circular screen that released regular pulses of light. Whenever a dungeon was detected, a small dot would appear on the screen.

“Are you able to keep that active yourself?” I asked, glancing over at her. “It would be pretty hard for me to use it while I’m driving.”

Diane pursed her lips, looking back to Bella. “The two of us can take turns with it. We might not have complete uptime, but we’ll be able to keep it active most of the time.”

Bella readily agreed to this, so we began driving back towards the rift, with Diane guiding me along. Thankfully, this radar actually had a pretty impressive range, allowing us to see dungeons on the ground as we drove through the air over them. Though… we didn’t really stop for any dungeons as we were heading for the rift, because it looked like most of them were underwater. And personally, I had no intention of trying to conquer an oceanic dungeon in a high-level realm.

A few hours later, we made it back to the rift which connected near our kingdom. Along the way, I had checked in with Nuoda, just confirming that everything was still running smoothly at Fallcry. We had been away for a week, so I wanted to ensure that there had been no major disasters.

According to Nuoda’s report, there had been some discoveries in regards to the dungeon city investigation by the league, but that talk was able to wait until we met in person. Curious, I told her that we had one more area that we wanted to explore before heading back.

Shortly after we arrived at the rift, we witnessed the color of the rift shifting to rusty brown with streaks of white and blue. Taking that as our cue, we drove forward. On the other side, we were treated towards the hum of lightning striking metal towers repeatedly in the distance.

“We should probably drive closer to the ground,” Diane advised, watching the constant magnetic storm. Metal shards flew through the sky like deadly snowflakes, forming crackling clouds of death. I could only imagine how annoying it would be to try to drive the car through those while maintaining a barrier to protect it.

“Right…” I agreed, lowering to drive only a couple meters off the ground. Low enough to avoid the worst of the hazardous weather, but high enough that I wasn’t driving over the jagged, rusty metal spikes jutting out like sinister caltrops.

“How’s the radar looking?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the duo. They shook their heads, both of them watching the machine currently held in Bella’s hands.

“Last time I looked, I didn’t see any kingdoms in this region of Ferrumnis,” Diane explained. “According to the forums, Ferrumnis is one of the top five least hospitable realms to live in, surpassing even the land of demons, Abyssis. Between the weather and the rust monsters, few players are willing to enter this realm unless they are in dire need of a certain skill, even if they have a king trait that could align with the realm.”

“If this is only in the top five, I dread to think what else is at the top of that list,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head. “So, dungeons are probably going to be pretty scarce for now, but we have the time to search. Though… rust monsters/”

“Exactly what they sound like,” she explained with a disgruntled sigh. “Monsters made of living rust. Some of them wield lightning powers, but they almost all have a universal trait that causes rust to form on any metal that they touch. Including weapons and armor.”

I was suddenly very thankful that I always created my weapons out of projected energy, though it seemed like I would need to do the same for my armor if we were to encounter one of these monsters. “Any other hazards that we need to be aware of?”

However, Diane only shrugged. “I don’t know. Most exploration teams turn back due to the hazardous environment. That’s why Ferrumnis is considered a forbidden zone among players.”

I couldn’t help but feel like this information would have been great to know before we settled on this area as our destination. Still, I didn’t want to complain because this was one of the few places where we might more consistently find skills related to firearms for Bella. “Let’s go through a few dungeons, just to see if we find anything. If we don’t… I’ll figure out some way to make the skills myself.”

Bella’s eyes widened at that, but I already knew some ways that I could make the skills. Of course, I would need a considerable number of enchantment books for trial and error. Not to mention that I would have to train to get the firearm proficiency skill myself. But, if that was the only way to get Bella the skills that she needed, it was fine.

“Hold that thought,” Diane said as a small beep could be heard from the device. “We’ve got a dungeon. Ten kilometers ahead, eight degrees to the left.”

I turned the car slightly and followed those directions, wrapping multiple layers of projected barriers around the car. If a dungeon had been left unexplored for this long, it was bound to be overflowing. And the last thing that I wanted was for a rust monster to get its sticky little fingers all over this car. I had grown very attached to these comfortable travel conditions!

Sure enough, long before we reached the dungeon, attacks started striking the outermost barrier that I deployed. These attacks seemed to be gunshots, with bullets bouncing off of the barrier to crash into the ground around us. However, between the hectic weather conditions and needed to focus on not driving us into a wall of metal, I wasn’t able to immediately make out the location of the shooters.

“Diane? Bella?” I asked, and the two were carefully observing the surroundings. You’d think with us being under heavy fire, it would be easy to pinpoint the location of the shooters. However, even the two of them working together couldn’t find anything.

Then, Bella’s eyes went wide. “Got it!” she shouted, before her face darkened. “Nobody’s shooting at us.”

“The bullets constantly bouncing against my barrier has a different opinion!” I grunted, and she shook her head.

“N-no, I mean, there’s nobody shooting at us. The bullets are the monsters!” After saying that, she patted Diane on the shoulder. “Look, those bullets that get knocked away. After a few seconds, they just shoot at us from behind.”

Diane narrowed her eyes, soon nodding her head. “She’s right, Drake. We’re dealing with a swarm of living bullet monsters.”

“Because of course we are.” Hearing their conversation, I activated Observe, looking briefly towards the bullets. They were moving so fast that it was hard to properly appraise them, but I managed to catch one just as it bounced off onto the ground. “Level eighty-three… Rust Bullets.”

“I officially hate it here…” Bella muttered, with both Diane and I immediately agreeing with her.

“Still, at least this means that the nearby dungeon has a gun theme,” I pointed out, though that didn’t really seem to lighten the mood much. “Diane, how far to the dungeon?”

“Still two thousand meters. Can your barriers hold up against this?”

“It should be fine. Their damage output isn’t concentrated enough to pierce the barrier. I won’t be able to guarantee the same for any more advanced monsters that might be deeper in the dungeon, but I’m fine against these things.”

Given the fact that both Bella and Diane had passed level two hundred, monsters like this weren’t typically good targets for them to hunt. They were too fast, offered next to no experience, and had the potential to kill them if they were unlucky. After all, neither Bella nor Diane had specialized defensive skills that could resist against bullets.

As I thought about that, I caught sight of what I assumed to be the dungeon entrance. A large arch formed at the center of a jagged landscape, with metal shrapnel and lightning forming a cloud within it. “Diane… am I driving into that?”

Diane hesitated, consulting the radar. “Survey says yes…”

“I’m starting to understand why players consider this realm a forbidden zone,” I sighed, fortifying the barriers around the car yet again and driving straight into the swirling cloud of magnetic death. I could feel the shrapnel shredding into the barrier, piercing through the first layer within an instant before we were on the other side.

That said, the other side was by no means peaceful. The moment that we appeared, hundreds of rust bullets shot out at us from every direction, crashing against the barrier around the car. This time, due to the simultaneous assault, I felt the barrier start to cave in, needing my to stop the car and divert my full focus to defense. “Diane, if you could start killing everything, I would be very thankful…”