The doors opened wide thanks to the blood-fueled flames. Jack and wolf warily glanced at the next room. This was another challenge for sure!
It appeared to be a spooky library. It was dark, smelled of mold, and there were books all over the place. There were shelves, but they weren't exactly used that much.
"Now, where's the catch?" Jack softly mumbled.
As if on cue, there was suddenly a tremor as a pile of books was sent flying. That's when five pillars rose from the ground in a line. They were engraved with the same reading chickens as one could see on the door.
What was that about?
A second later, the pillars began to vibrate with a humming sound. As ghostly clucks resounded, light radiated from the posts forming large colorful barriers. Then a few dozen skeletal chickens began to spawn inside.
Their empty eye socket stared straight at the two, seemingly expecting the meal to come. Their bones chattered as they kept clucking non-stop, even without any lungs; they sure were motivated!
"Woo?!" (Confused!)
What was up with these small chickens? They were numerous, but they didn't seem like much of a threat— Not compared to the flying bones or the really big bone mountains. Why?
Moon Moon took the stance of the apex predator it totally was as it pounced at the nearest enemy! It instantly went down! It never stood a chance in the first place!
The proud wolf towered over the remains of its defeated foe, already turning toward the others.
The rest was quite simple. It was as if one had released a wolf into a chicken coop. It was a massacre! Jack just stood back and gave an appreciative glance, even humming a fun song about stabbing in the dark.
He quickly followed inside the barrier, faintly noticing a faint pressure. As soon as he realized what it was, he couldn't but sigh in relief.
"Oh, this is gonna be so damn easy!" He chuckled.
"Woo?!" (Puzzled!)
Before they had had to wrestle their way through, they had died a couple of times to the flying bones and had to suffer the harassment from the flying bones.
Why did it seem like this hurdle was especially simple?!
"Before, we were struggling because of our low AGI and SPI, but now this is a test of INT. Without high INT, we'd be struggling to even walk in here." Jack patiently explained.
"Woo!" (Sudden realization!)
The now reassured Moon Moon happily went on a dismembering spree! It would take care of this alone and let its master rest! After all, he had been carrying them all this time.
What even were Moon Moon stats? If Jack had to evaluate them, he'd have to say:
STR: Low
AGIL: Medium
INT: Medium
SPI: Low
One thing for sure: its stats were unbelievable for a Tutorial pet. This was 100% thanks to it awakening an excellent bloodline.
Anyway, Moon Moon was really going at it: claws, maw, even straight-up bitch-slapping some undead chicks at times.
Once all the monsters were cleared, they finally had access to the pillar. Destroying it made the entire barrier disappear.
Afterward, they just had to repeat the same process of slaughter and destruction. It soon turned out that every new barrier meant increased pressure. This challenge was as simple as potentially awkward.
Thanks to the FML, the mages would only be able to use a few spells, if any, before running out of mana. The other players would only be sitting ducks if they entered the last barriers.
This meant that the chickens would have to be defeated by a poor mage who would likely be forced to use a melee weapon.
Then again, it would probably be possible to clear this place with ranged attacks from outside the barrier. But, such weapons were hard to come by, and it wasn't like the pillars lacked skeletal shields either.
They just happened to perfectly counter it since they both had a relatively high INT and were used to fighting at close range.
Actually, considering Moon Moon's stats, he would have made a great ranged guerrilla mage.
But, it had unconsciously followed its master's style. Why bother keeping your distance when you can avoid at point-blank range and punish the enemy with both magic and attacks!
With every new barrier, Moon Moon would slow down slightly. All until the poor wolf was finally stumped at the fourth one.
"Woo?!" (Panicked!)
It yelped in shock. Why were the chickens suddenly going so fast?! They were even faster than that one teleporting shadow fox (That guy was already freaking fast!). But then it realized that it was the one that was slower.
"Woo…." (Sad!)
It was now even weaker than chickens. They charged at it with their sharp bony talons. They were intent on devouring him! But luckily, its master was there!
"Fuck off!" Jack cursed, turning the enemies into dust.
Even now, he still wasn't showing any sign of discomfort! He was just destroying chicken after chicken almost as quickly as a slaughterhouse! How glorious!
Jack quickly did short work of the two last remaining pillars, the room returning to peace.
"Woo!" (Impressed!)
There was another door on the other side. The wolf quickly rushed toward it, eager to keep progressing. Wait…its master wasn't coming?! For some reason, he was rummaging through the paper square things on the ground.
"Woo?" (Questioning!)
"These are books. They contain the wisdom of the ancients on various topics." He grabbed a few random ones at his feet.
"This one over there teaches how to craft a spear. This one is about how to trim unibrows. The last one teaches how to cook street rats."
"Woo?!" (Cooking?!)
Cooking was delicious! Cooking was great! This would have been so helpful in that one village with the bully rats!
"There can be books about plenty of topics. Then, from time to time, one actually gets lucky and gets a grimoire or a doujin." Jack explained with a straight face.
"Woo!" (Nodding thoughtfully!)
"Oh!" Jack suddenly tried to open one of the books only to gasp in surprise.
[Unlocked Secret Undead Library Reward!]
[You Can Only Bring Along One Book Each!]
[Once Opened, Book Will Be Selected!]
[Choose Wisely!]
"This sure makes it interesting." He gazed at the rest of the library with interest. It was time for a hunt!…
The logical thing to do was to separate to cover more ground. But that's when the poor wolf realized in horror that it didn't know how to read! Only a few had pictures as covers! How was it supposed to guess which books were interesting?!
"Don't worry too much and just bring any book that seems different from the others. Grimoires usually feel different. You'll understand if you find one." Jack instructed.
Thus began their quest. They were akin to diligent explorers looking for great content in a wasteland of boring books.
Before long, they had found some engaging titles:
– Becoming a Badass Necromancer: A Million Steps Process
– Necromancy 101 a Historical Perspective
– A Death Knight's Struggles With Literacy
– Experiments of a Very Sane Lich
– Bone Summoning for Dummies
– A Slaughter on Elm Street
– Thick and Hard bone
– Left plenty of Deads
– Pecked to Death
What were they supposed to pick?! Should they keep looking for something else? This sudden reward sure was attractive….
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[A/N] Thoughts on the books? Comment here if you want a book title cameo.. I will pick a few ones for the next chapter. 😉