The monster muttered, “Was it…you? It was you. But h…how did you get in?”
It stared at me while it struggled against the pain and pressure in its chest. As expected, stories about me had spread throughout the monsters as I had destroyed dungeons that belonged to all kinds of corps and clans. Although all of the places were at the lowest difficulty class, the monsters still must have been shocked at this time.
Its arm floundered as if it wanted to grab my ankle with its nasty furry hand. I plunged Youxia’s Scimitar into its hand and it screamed. Meanwhile, there were some other rats coming this way.
Bang!
Dirt flew everywhere. When blood spread through the dust, the last bit of hope in its eyes had died down. On the other hand, its pupils quickly moved as if it was trying to painfully calculate its chances for survival. Higher ranked members of the Barba Corps were more astute.
I deliberately put more weight on my foot before it started rolling its three-inch tongue. Then, it coughed up blood and made a creaking noise.
“Open the plague laboratory. You can ignore me and die here, or you do as I say and save your life. Choose one,” I commanded.
Two streaks of lightning began dancing in front of its face, and it was engulfed in fear as it knew exactly how those streaks would tear it to pieces. Lastly, I dropped the bone necklace on its body. When I touched its face with the tip of one lightning streak, the light from his eyes and bone necklace fused together. A corner of the wall was torn down.
“Ki…kieuuuk….”
It sounded like it was telling to spare its life as I promised, but I had no faith in rats.
Crunch!
I flattened its chest under my foot.
***
When I entered the corridor to the lab, a hidden quest took place.
[Stop the Plague Research (Hidden Quest)
Mission: Exterminate all the plague sorcerers in the laboratory.]
The plague sorcerers were always in a group, so the difficulty of the quest was considerable compared to the dungeon’s difficulty level. Parties and attackers with clumsy firepower often died by trying to complete these types of hidden quests even though they had been lucky enough to find one.
[You have used the Assassin’s Ring.]
[You are now in a hidden state.]
The space expanded as I walked along the corridor. The laboratory was small, and there were a total of six plague sorcerers. Three of them were injecting fluid into slaves, one was rummaging through research books, and the other two were making drugs. The rat soldiers were busy clearing up the bodies of slaves who had died while being tied. Bodies were piled up randomly on one side, and the stench of poison flowing from them was unbearable.
I couldn’t even calculate the trajectory of my sword as the drug storage containers were hanging everywhere from the ceiling like chandeliers. High-density pollutants would pour out as soon as the containers broke, and the entire dungeon would turn into the worst contaminated zone ever.
Therefore, I waited for the opportunity. Meanwhile, the slaves, the test specimens, died, and new ones replaced them. The timing was bad as the sorcerer who was rummaging through the books didn’t come into my calculated attack range. It didn’t move at all as it was focused on the research. Moreover, the drug containers were assembled around him. I was worried about the pollutants, not the sorcerers themselves.
The sorcerer finally finished reading the book. When it headed to another bookshelf on the wall, every plague sorcerer came into my sword’s trajectory.
[Your hidden state has been terminated.]
I threw Devi’s Sword, and it flew in a slightly bent curve. Things happened in a split second, so there was no time for the sorcerers to use their magic.
Sheeek-
[You have fulfilled the conditions required to complete the quest ‘Stop the Plague Research.’ Please decide on the first and second person to finish the quest by agreement.]
“Intruder!” the rat soldiers cried.
They dropped the corpses and slaves they were dragging, then sprinted toward me. I quickly skimmed through, and no one had touched a single container.
The area that was contaminated with their blood was tolerable, so I quickly swept away the rats in the lab and was about to head to the bookshelf.
Then, one guy from the famous slave tribe called ‘Moong’ approached me. It was destined to be the Barba’s experiment specimen, and its body was already in the process of contamination. From a distance, it screamed in a frightened voice. I couldn’t understand what it was trying to say, but I knew it was asking to help it escape from this dungeon. I tsked inwardly as I had to neglect those desperate faces and kill them.
I moved to the area across from the lab and quickly slew all the slaves. Every one of them was polluted, so if I left them here, they would turn into biological weapons for the Barba and attack us. Their fate had already been determined as soon as they were captured by the Barba Corps.
Unfortunately, the only thing I could do was to give them a painless death.
Painless death…
I turned around. The bookshelf attached to the wall was filled with research books, and we called these ‘skill books’ and ‘runes.’
***
There were ways to obtain skills and items besides relying on the reward boxes. They could be found in areas where the monster civilization clans were gathered, and the laboratory of the sorcerers, who were considered scholars of the Barba Corps, was one of them. A message popped up every time I picked up a book.
[Would you like to obtain the skill ‘Plague Breath?’]
[Would you like to obtain the skill ‘Plague Whip?’]
[Would you like to obtain the skill ‘Plague Research?’]
[Would you like to obtain the skill ‘Biological Research?’]
The research skills were worth more than their face value. These skills improved automatically every time their classes were upgraded, and they also let users learn the languages of monsters.
However, I was looking for runes that only existed in this type of place. I couldn’t receive them from boxes, so I checked the notification messages and put the skill books in my backpack if they seemed useful.
When I picked up one rune…
[You have completed the quest ‘Rune Acquisition.’]
[You have obtained a ‘gold box’ for being the first one to complete the quest.]
Ah, right. This one, too…
Since this wasn’t considered a dungeon quest, I received the completion message and reward immediately. However, the points from the box couldn’t upgrade my stats as all of mine was in a higher class than a gold box. The gold boxes were mostly useless to me, so I turned my glance toward the books.
[You have used the rune ‘The Plague Sorcerer’s Study.’]
[Your Resistance to the Plague has increased by 10 percent.]
[Your Resistance to Deadly Poison has increased by 5 percent.]
[New categories have been added.
Target: Plague Resistance, Deadly Poison Resistance.]
My Resistance to Plague had increased up to twenty percent, and my Resistance to Deadly Poison had increased up to ten percent after I found one more rune. This was why I had been holding back from entering an E-class dungeon.
I selected a few more decent skill books, then found one that was made with high-quality leather, unlike the others. Most of the books didn’t give me a notification message when I acquired them, but this book looked exceptionally special, so I had high expectations for it.
However, the System was quiet as it seemed to be just an ordinary book, not a skill book or a rune. When I was about to throw it on the ground, a notification message appeared as if it was warning me.
[It’s a book protected by the authority of Doom Entegasto.]
Doom Entegasto!
It was simply a name, but my heart pounded when I saw it. I checked the message again, and one of the Seven Demon Kings’ names was engraved in bold letters so that the reader could never miss reading it.
Doom Entegasto was one of the most powerful demon kings. Even Doom Caso, the lowest-ranked demon king, was so strong that the Eight Evils and the Eight Virtues barely managed to defeat it when they attacked altogether. Therefore, I couldn’t even imagine how frightening Doom Entegasto would be.
[Would you like to use your Accomplishment Reward to remove Doom Entegasto’s authority? (Accomplishment Reward Expenditure: 100)]
Ah, this is when I should use Accomplishment Rewards!
The System that had something protected by the Seven Demon Kings and that allowed them to remove their authority was unfamiliar to me. There was no way the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues had not known about this in the past. I was confident that I understood them well, but I was just a big fish in a small pond.
Anyway, this was the moment when the information that was monopolized by a certain few in the past was about to be revealed. In addition to the Seven Demon Kings’ authority and Accomplishment Points, I believed that there were more concepts that I wasn’t aware of yet.
I commanded, “Remove it.”
A brilliance that would only come out of the challenger box permeated into the book.
[The Barba King’s Enforcement Guidance (Quest start item)
Class: S]
“…Ah, fuck,” I cursed.
I had never seen an S-class quest start item even in my previous life. The class indicated the quality of the reward, which meant that this quest’s reward points were quite high.
Then, how about its difficulty?
[The quest ‘Barba Corps Interrupter’ has occurred.]
[Barba Corps Interrupter (Quest)
The Barba Corps’ plague research is fatal to all species. When they complete the research, they will try to pollute all the land they are aware of, so slow down the speed of their research.
Mission:
Rays of light gathered in my hands.
[A Child Who Hates the Plague (Quest item)
Effect: Allows the user to summon a spirit that guides them to the plague laboratory. It can be used in dungeons where the Barba plague sorcerers exist.]
I would need to kill weak rats for a while, but that was okay! Compared to the quest class, the missions themselves were fairly easy. The System seemed to have already predicted that the entire South America would turn into a land of death as if they were overwhelmed by radiation. Therefore, the System was emphasizing the importance of this quest.
Yes, it was a quest that meant a lot to humanity.