The Dungeon Slayer: A LitRPG Level-Up Adventure (The Dungeon Slayer Series Book 1)

by Konrad Ryan

  There was a permanent double stat bonus for a quest reward right in front of his eyes, but Tad knew this was the end of the line. Continuing was suicide. Wraithford hadn’t even been a miniboss. Just a regular monster, albeit a gross one. If the plethora of video games Tad played were any indication, the miniboss would have an immense life pool and be challenging even to someone on the right level.

  Not to mention that Tad was practically a cripple right now. He could barely move. Maybe he should have accepted his quest reward. A powerful weapon could have helped him go further. But he still wasn’t sure what he wanted. What would be useful? He didn’t want to regret his choice.

  But he was sure he needed over ten minutes to get back into battle condition.

  He didn’t want to quit, but he didn’t see any way he could continue. But next time. His next trial… he would prepare for it. He would earn that two times stat bonus, if it was offered again. Next trial, Tad would be ready.

  With a heavy heart, Tad reached out to press yes. Then he paused. With monumental effort, Tad got to his feet. The crowd that cheered so enthusiastically during the fight now exited the stands in an orderly fashion. Just what was this place? Were these things in the stands people? Was this a world? Why would they be leaving in an orderly fashion if they were created for Tad’s trial?

  His legs nearly buckled as he hobbled toward Wraithford’s giant axe that had crushed the fingerteeth wall. He put one hand on the giant axe head, and it puffed into black mist. Then he walked over to the giant corpse of King Wraithford the Third. His jaw was open, even in death, but Fangblender was nowhere to be found. It must have traveled down Wraithford’s throat and into his guts. Somehow it didn’t seem worth it to cut the massive humanoid open to retrieve his weapon.

  The black cloak with golden symbols, however, was a different matter. Tad untied the cloak from around Wraithford’s neck. Instantly, it dissolved between his fingers.

  *Congratulations! You have learned the recipe for ‘Shadow Cloak’

  Shadow Cloak:

  Physical Darkness 0/1

  Monster essence 0/100*

  Great. All Tad needed was one physical darkness and one hundred monster essence. Whatever physical darkness was. A hundred monster essence also seemed like a lot. They only collected a couple dozen from the slime dungeon. Not to mention that his party members wanted to sell them for profit. Maybe he could buy them on the market with the money he earned from dungeons. Surely crafters did the same. Tad did his best to not be disappointed; the cloak had been too big for him anyway.

  Tad brought up the menu and clicked the ‘Yes’ button. He wished to quit.

  *Congratulations! You have passed your Soldier Trial! Maximum level is now 50! See you at your ‘Warrior Trial.’*

  No window asked if he was sure this time. Maybe that meant the reward would be offered again. Tad gave a relieved sigh at the thought.

  As quickly as the arena had appeared before his eyes, it was gone. Tad stood in the familiar furnishings of his room. He crawled into bed, causing another fit of coughing, this time with less blood. He was exhausted. He’d beaten a dungeon. Reached level eight. Then fought a series of battles by himself, all in under twenty-four hours. But now he was a soldier rank slayer. The same rank as Gruff. Tad would grow stronger still.

  He should probably stay awake and heal as his mana trickled back in, but at the moment, sleep felt like the best healing.

  Chapter 14

  Throughout the night, Tad awoke choking on blood clots, he’d healed himself before drifting back to sleep. The night had been long and painful. The healing was more painful than the coughing fits had been. He could feel his internal organs rejecting bone shards and his ribs reforming. The entire process was excruciatingly painful. It was difficult to go back to sleep.

  Tad awoke the next morning to the sound of alerts on his phone. It had been the worst sleep of his life.

  But now he was healed. Fully healed, but still exhausted. His explanation was still nowhere to be found. It seemed unfair to have earned it, but not received it. What if he died in the next dungeon? Then he’d never receive it!

  Tad stared at the message on his phone for a good five minutes, trying to make sense of what he was reading. It was hard to concentrate. Finally, he got the gist of it on the fifth time.

  “Hey, Kid, here’s your cut from the dungeon last night. Bunta gets 80% of the earnings since he’s warrior rank and because he usually solos the boss, but he insisted we split this dungeon evenly between the five of us. Also, the essence we harvested was a top quality for a soldier rank dungeon. So don’t expect this much from every dungeon. I deposited it straight into your official rebirth bank account.

  “Enjoy, Kid, you earned it. Maybe get some gear. We took another job for Saturday; I know it’s not much time, but let me know if you can make it. Looks like another five-man dungeon, so we have to find a fifth if you can’t. Also, I know a shop for some equipment, I’ll send you the details. I’ll be there today at 4:00PM if you want some help picking out gear. If not, just make sure you get some yourself - Can’t borrow our stuff forever.”

  Bank account? Tad didn’t remember setting that up. His mom must’ve done it after they returned from the Bureau. He swiped the text away to find an email from the Bureau of Rebirth stating $41,000 had been deposited into his account, with a message that stated he could withdraw the funds at any major financial institution. Tad’s jaw dropped. He’d never had much spending money, besides birthday money. But now he’d made forty-one thousand dollars in one night!

  Tad let out a whoop of exhilaration as he replied to Gruff’s text. He would be there Saturday.

  Saturday. Tomorrow. Two dungeons in just three days, three if you counted his rank up trial. Life had gotten busy since his rebirth.

  Tad looked at his shirtless figure in the mirror hanging on the back of his door. New pink skin covered a plethora of freshly healed wounds. He was bald, except in the places where the hair had somehow miraculously avoided various fires, slimes, spells, and acid sprays. His hair looked awful. Worse than bad. That’s what Tad needed first. A haircut. Hopefully, they could do something with this mess.

  His phone chimed again. The text from Gruff had the meeting place. Grimoire’s Gear and Goods. Tad knew the store but could never go inside before. The store wouldn’t let anyone without a slayer’s license inside. But now he had one. He was excited at the prospect of being able to shop there.

  Tad looked up the bus schedule and ran out the door. He’d get there a few hours early to do some other shopping.

  * * *

  Tad stood outside of the barbershop ‘Slay’. Already down almost a thousand dollars. Tad’s head spun at the vast sum of money he’d already spent. All of it on a haircut. He’d never spent this much in his entire life. Maybe he’d gone a little overboard. The haircut cost him eight hundred dollars. A drop in the bucket, but he couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t worth it. Wouldn’t his hair just get messed up in the next dungeon, anyway?

  The haircut itself had been a strange experience. The barber was a champion rank healer who fixed slayers’ hair all the time. First, he’d buzzed Tad’s hair completely, finishing it with a smooth shave. Tad had never been bald before and didn’t like how his naked scalp looked, but it felt incredible. Smooth and glossy. The barber then used a rejuvenation spell which grew Tad’s hair down past his shoulders.

  Tad was glad he’d learned useful spells, unlike the one the barber used. Imagine! If he learned a spell for growing hair when he’d raised his magic to twenty! Sorry Bunta, you’ll suffocate inside the ice sphere, but at least we can grow your hair as long as you want.

  The hairstyle the barber chose was a little too trendy for Tad’s liking, but he didn’t know a better hairstyle, so he paid and left.

  He then went window shopping. He bought a school backpack to replace his lost one. His suspension wouldn’t end before school got out for summer, but he would need one next year. Plus, he didn’t
want his mom asking where his other backpack had gone. The sales lady tried to get him to buy extra clothes, but Tad hadn’t seen the need for it. His clothes worked fine, even if they were a little stained. He had never seen the point in people purchasing new clothes all the time. Dressing and smelling like flowers. Clothes should be practical.

  With more time to kill, Tad watched a television up in a corner of the shopping mall. Brad, humanity’s great hope flashed across the screen. Brad was to enter his first dungeon on Saturday. His party, specially curated, held some of America’s strongest warlords. Household names. Brad was being babied. Coddled. The reporter announced the time when Brad would enter the dungeon. It was roughly the same time as Tad’s party. Brad and Tad couldn’t be more different. Tad wouldn’t be coddled. He smiled at that. He’d already been through a dungeon and ranked up. He had already accomplished so much, where Brad hadn’t even started yet. Brad might be more powerful, but Tad was more experienced at least.

  Eventually, Tad found his way to Grimoire’s Gear and Goods, earlier than their meeting time, but Tad didn’t think it would hurt to look around. Money burned a hole in his pocket and he knew at least one item he wanted to buy.

  “You can’t come in without a slayer license.”

  The lady at the front of the store sounded bored, like she said that same phrase a thousand times a day. Tad rummaged through his wallet and pulled out his slayer license. On the front it showed his fake power score of ten.

  The lady grunted and scanned the license with a gadget on her hip and then let Tad past.

  Tad walked through the stone-worked door and into an extraordinary place. Unlike the rest of the mall, this space was disconnected from reality. Tad blinked as he realized what it was. It was the same as the car dungeon Gerald from the Department of Dungeon Defense had, a man-made dungeon.

  Instead of a small study, however, this store was at the bottom of a huge ravine between two cliffs. The sky above was an ominous purple color, like twilight. Except the sun was directly above. Strange violet light spilled down the sheer walls of the ravine. The light on Tad’s skin was warm, but not like earth’s sun. Instead, it made his skin tingle and itch. Tad’s heart beat wildly, as if in anticipation of an upcoming battle.

  “First time in Grimoire’s Gear and Goods?” A well-geared salesman wore a polished steel breastplate that gleamed in the reflected purple sunlight. The blonde man flashed a charming smile. Tad didn’t like him.

  “Is it dangerous here?” Tad felt a little silly asking, but the hair on his arms stood erect. It felt dangerous.

  The salesman gave a small warm laugh, shaking his head. “Of course not. The management at Grimoire’s just found a battle-like atmosphere helped slayers purchase more… appropriate gear.”

  Tad was sure the word he’d meant to say had been ‘expensive.’ The atmosphere of the store felt oppressive. Violent. It was like how Tad felt during both the mosquito fight and during the fight against King Wraithford.

  “Has Grimoire’s always been in a dungeon?” Tad remembered seeing items through the window as a kid, but it looked nothing like this.

  “No. It’s a recent upgrade. Dungeon tech was approved commercially earlier this year by the government. About time. Our Chinese branches have been using dungeon tech for years.” The salesman flashed another smile before he left to polish various armor pieces.

  The dangerous atmosphere definitely worked. Tad spent his first six-thousand dollars on a light sphere. Ten-thousand dollars spent on a small magic pouch like Gruff used. Its official name was a ‘dungeon pouch.’ Apparently it was similar technology to the man-made dungeons, but used for items only. Living things couldn’t enter it.

  Tad spent another seven-thousand dollars on a resurrection vial. The description said it would revive an incapacitated ally and heal them to ten percent. There were stronger resurrection vials that healed you fifty or even one-hundred percent, but the cost was astronomical. Two-hundred thousand for the one, and eight-million dollars for the other. Tad’s head spun at how fast his money was disappearing, and he hadn’t even bought gear yet.

  Tad put some distance between himself and the overly charismatic salesman and moved toward racks of gear. The store had laid the items by class. Healer’s crooks, robes, rings, holy pendants, and other items were the first section he came across. Thoughts of waiting for Gruff were long forgotten. Tad touched item after item, for each item touched, a window would pop up showing stats. They were all identified. Tad was glad for that. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself trying to identify an item in the middle of the store with light shooting everywhere around a floating object.

  Tad lingered on the healer items for only a second before he passed on to the section where sharp, dangerous blades stood in rack after rack. Bunta’s impressive speedy form replayed in his mind. Tad heard the sales associate welcome someone else to the store. Tad looked expectantly for Gruff.

  There stood the barrel-chested man, fresh growth just started on his previously burnt-bald head and face. He hadn’t visited the fancy barber, but looked like he buzzed the rest of his hair clean off. Gruff’s health bar sat over 80%. Gruff’s eyes scanned the violet chasm. His eyes met with Tad’s for a second, then passed on before his neck snapped back to Tad.

  “Oh, Kid, it’s you! Didn’t recognize you with the haircut. You visited the regrower, eh? Didn’t peg you for a vain one.”

  Tad felt a surge of embarrassment. “I just wanted it fixed, they kind of talked me into it.”

  Gruff’s laugh boomed off the walls of the store. His echoes repeated Gruff’s amusement. Tad looked around at the other shoppers. He could feel his face flush even more. The staff and other shoppers all stared in their direction. Gruff seemed unaffected by the eyes of others. Tad felt a sharp pang of envy. He’d always been far too aware of when people were paying attention to him. He had to be. Nasty things happened when he attracted the wrong person’s attention.

  “Sorry, Kid, I honestly didn’t recognize you. I was half expecting you to show up in my shirt from last night. You seemed pretty attached to it.”

  Tad was suddenly glad that the toothblender had done a number on Gruff’s shirt, shredding it completely. Otherwise he might have worn it to the mall that day. He’d liked it. Liked what it meant.

  “Oh… no. Your shirt, um. Well, something happened to it. But thanks for letting me wear it last night.”

  “No problem, Kid. Let’s get you equipped, shall we?”

  Gruff led him all over the store, showing him the various goods. Tad marveled at everything. Some items temporarily boosted strength, dexterity, or charisma. Some had unique properties like boosted healing or increased fire damage. The most expensive items, however, all granted unique skills. Clone, duplicate, revive, and obliterate, but those seemed rare and terribly expensive. Unfortunately, the skills didn’t say what they did explicitly. Maybe if Tad equipped them…

  With Gruff’s encouragement, Tad ended up buying a healer’s robe and crook, along with a wand for offense. Tad said he wanted daggers like Bunta and a set of leather armor, Gruff had laughed at him. But that didn’t stop Tad from buying them. Gruff did, however, tell him that with a power score of ten, Tad would never use either, but after a few minutes of insisting, Tad got his way.

  The two scoured item after item looking for ones with the best stats. The robe and crook he finally decided on had been at opposite ends of the healer’s section despite being a set. When worn together they boosted healing by 50%. His ‘heal’ spell would heal seven health and ‘heal other’ would heal six. Tad was sure that if the store knew they held both items of the set that they would have priced them much higher. Being able to see stats directly was super convenient!

  His daggers were less exciting. His twin daggers did a flat eight damage. It wasn’t great, but there wasn’t anything better in his price range.

  When Gruff was busy looking at something, Tad obscured one dagger from Gruff’s view. With a thought Tad pushed on t
he dagger, which poofed into a cloud of black mist. Two of the misted equipment slots were filled by Wraithford’s axes, and in the third was the dagger he hadn’t yet paid for. Tad pressed on the misted slot containing the dagger.

  *Enhanced Dagger: This dagger does 8 points of physical damage.

  This is a stolen item from Grimoire’s Gear and Goods.*

  Tad made the dagger appear in his obscured hand once more. The stolen tag disappeared. Tad wasn’t sure what difference it made if the item was marked as stolen. Maybe if someone checked his items, he could get in trouble for it. Either way, Tad could easily steal gear from this shop if he wanted to. But somehow he didn’t want to use his powers for evil. At least, not over a five-hundred-dollar dagger.

  Gruff ended by buying a pricy new set of armor for $50,000, that boosted his constitution and courage by 25%. Seemingly, Gruff had picked up on Tad’s ability to tell the difference between items. He’d repeatedly asked Tad which of two items was better for the price. Maybe he thought it came with the territory of the ‘identify’ spell. Tad was just glad that Gruff didn’t ask questions about his ability. He still wasn’t sure how to answer.

  Back at the exit, the salesman totaled Tad’s purchases.

  “Including your lightsphere, dungeon pouch, resurrection vial and gear, that will be $39,000.”

  It felt unreal to spend so much money, but Tad happily paid it.

  “Thank you for your patronage. Come back anytime.” The salesman seemed to put the two already out of his mind.

  “Actually…” Tad paused, unsure how to broach the subject. “Do you buy items as well?”

  The salesman had a condescending smile on his face, almost saying that anyone who spent such an insignificant amount couldn’t have anything worth selling. “We do. I can appraise items, but only if identified.”

  Tad gulped, suddenly nervous. He wanted to get the Wraithford axes assessed but couldn’t think of how to summon the gigantic items without getting bombarded with questions. He would have to get them appraised next time.