Just as the core "Bru" had said: these otherworld players treated adventure as recreation. The moment Sharlock formally announced the new quest — clearing the Spider Nest, which meant the dungeon was officially opening the new zone to the otherworld players — all hundred players erupted in a roar of cheers, more than a few of them bellowing things like "For the Eternal Kingdom!" and "For the Demon Lord Sharlock!"
That much raw enthusiasm even startled blacksmith Simba, who was mid-forge right beside them.
Enthusiasm was a good thing, though — high spirits meant they'd work that much harder.
After announcing the new zone, Sharlock opened the great gate leading out of the dungeon. The Spider Nest sat right next door, so there was no worry about players wandering off elsewhere: the passage between the dungeon and the Spider Nest was one-way, and reaching the wider Underworld beyond required crossing the Spider Nest first. As for digging their way to some other region — not happening. Without Sharlock's planning orders, the players couldn't just dig wherever they pleased. Say what you would about how full of personality these players were; all of it existed under Sharlock's tacit permission. Lower-order Underworld creatures had a very hard time defying a high-ranked demon. They could, of course, choose to defect and leave the dungeon.
For now, though, that possibility seemed remote — these otherworld players looked positively delighted.
The moment the gate opened, the players stampeded to buy weapons and armor, tripping over each other to get there first. Sharlock found this deeply reassuring. Weird as they were, they were no idiots — running out bare-handed to clear a spider nest is just suicide.
But Simba's output was still severely limited. Several hours of hammering had produced exactly five longswords and five suits of armor. Forging takes time, folks.
A hundred players obviously couldn't each get a full set. No problem, though — Sharlock had a fix for the supply crunch: raise the prices!
Three hundred copper for a longsword! Three hundred copper for a suit of armor!
Sharlock had run the numbers. Judging by yesterday's quest payouts, no single player was holding more than a hundred coppers. If they wanted gear, they'd have to grind for it — and by the time anyone saved up six hundred coppers for sword-plus-armor, blacksmith Simba would long since have forged enough to supply them.
But just when Sharlock thought everything was going to plan, a positively inconceivable scene unfolded before him: the goblins had started buying copper coins. On the spot.
A player named 【Arthur】 started hollering at the top of his lungs:
"Ten bucks a copper coin! Only buying 550! First come, first served! PayPal or Venmo — search my number, (555)185-XXXX, and add me! I'll pay upfront!"
As 【Arthur】 shouted his buy order, plenty of players who heard it came running over, coins in hand, to sell to him.
And 【Arthur】 wasn't the only one who'd hit on the coin-buying strategy — 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 and several others started loudly buying coppers too. Some matched 【Arthur】's ten bucks a coin; some bid higher; one guy was even offering a hundred dollars per copper.
Sharlock had studied the other world's language, so he knew dollars were the other world's standard currency, worth roughly what magic stones were worth in the Underworld. What he had never imagined was these otherworld players trading their own world's currency for COPPER COINS. Copper coins were worth basically nothing in the Underworld! Was getting your gear one step ahead — getting out there to adventure one step ahead — really THAT important?
Personally speaking, Sharlock would never, EVER trade magic stones for another world's currency.
Sharlock couldn't wrap his head around such shameless money-burning — but the dungeon core "Bru" seemed to understand perfectly, and even chimed in: "See? Didn't I tell you they're whales who drop cash without blinking? Ah, what a shame we can't roll out a top-up channel or a cash shop. If those dollars could convert into our magic stones, we'd shoot straight to being the richest dungeon in the world!"
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Hearing Bru's words, Sharlock instantly got it: if every otherworld player threw money around like this, and their currency converted to magic stones, he'd never have to work another day in his life — he'd be rolling in stones just selling the most basic weapons and armor! The thought made him a little tingly. But it stayed at "tingly," because the whole dollars-to-magic-stones conversion was flat-out impossible. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
The players' trading wrapped up quickly. Five players had scraped together their six hundred coppers; the rest either kept quietly buying coins at low prices or put their heads down and started grinding toward their first set of gear.
The five with full purses quickly kitted out with weapons and armor from Simba. Sharlock checked their names: 【Arthur】, 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】, 【BurningChestHair】, 【Sylvana】, and 【ShrineNeko】.
The five of them suited up in no time, took up their hiltless short swords, and set out under the stares of the other players. A few of the bolder players tried to tag along behind and got firmly rejected — clearly these five had no interest in dragging deadweight, and at that moment the five of them had, for all intents and purposes, formed one party with a united front.
The first five-man party had set out. Sharlock was plenty curious how these five would perform in the Spider Nest — whether they'd find his playground to their satisfaction. He didn't plan on sneaking along behind them to watch, though: subterranean spiders had no brains to speak of, but they did have the instinct to fear the strong. If Sharlock tailed the party, they probably wouldn't run into a single subterranean spider the whole trip.
Sharlock had his own method for watching the five-man team.
He returned to the dungeon core hall, fed mana into the dungeon core, and a scene wreathed in mist appeared before him — a simple scrying spell, capable of observing people and objects within a certain range. "Simple" by Sharlock's standards, anyway. A surface-world mage would need a special crystal ball to manage anything similar, and only for a very short window.
Sharlock discovered he rather enjoyed watching these otherworld players in action. They were forever doing the unexpected, marveling at everything this world had to offer, lighting up at the smallest discovery — and when it came to adventure, they were beside themselves.
The five left the dungeon with painstaking care, then lit torches in the dark — one hand on the torch, one hand on a hiltless short sword, all five creeping along on high alert. Before long, they entered the Spider Nest.
After a brief huddle, they settled on a formation: 【BurningChestHair】 on point, then 【Arthur】, 【ShrineNeko】, 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】, and 【Sylvana】 stringing out behind in single file.
They hadn't been in the Spider Nest long before they naturally caught the attention of the resident subterranean spiders. One spider soon planted itself in their path — and with zero hesitation, charged the five of them.
On Sharlock's viewing screen, the five froze at the sight of it, every single face wearing pure terror. Understandable, really: when a spider bigger than you are comes scuttling at you with everything spread wide, terror IS the normal response.
The first one to beat down the fear was the goblin called 【Arthur】. He jammed his short sword straight into one of the spider's eyes. The spider reared back in pain, its great maw gnashing wildly as it tried to shake loose the sword lodged in its eye — and the sheer force flung 【Arthur】 through the air. Then the spider bolted at top speed, sword still in its eye.
The other four helped 【Arthur】 up, and the five of them loitered at the Spider Nest's entrance, apparently still debating whether to press on. But the subterranean spiders didn't grant them the luxury of choice. As Sharlock had written in the bestiary: subterranean spiders live in colonies.
A dozen-odd subterranean spiders had already closed in, and from every direction of the nest they descended on the five poor otherworld players. As for the outcome — it ended, naturally enough, in a decisive spider victory.
Sharlock watched the five otherworld players get trussed up tight in spider silk and dragged off into the nest — and before long, all five souls popped up inside the core.
Clearly, the players' first exploration push into the Spider Nest had ended in a full wipe.
Their bodies, Sharlock wasn't going to trouble himself retrieving from the Spider Nest. No time for it anyway — by now the spiders had most likely picked those corpses clean. And in fact, that's exactly what happened. Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
Not long after, a portal opened in the dungeon core hall, and a newborn goblin stepped out of it, the name 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 floating over his head.
The players nearby, seeing that 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 — who'd marched off to push the adventure — had returned to the dungeon in THIS fashion, understood immediately: the guy had died. The no-body-left kind of died.
"So how was it? Are the mobs in that zone hard to fight?"
"How'd you die, man?"
"Did you kill anything? Any drops?"
"Say SOMETHING!"
The crowd closed in from all sides, firing questions at 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 — but 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 stood there like he'd seen a ghost, speechless for the longest time. And right about then, four more portals popped open beside him, and four more goblins stepped out, wearing the names 【Arthur】, 【ShrineNeko】, 【BurningChestHair】, and 【Sylvana】 over their heads.
That's when the otherworld players straight-up lost it:
"That's a full party wipe!"
"THAT hard? This is the first combat zone they've opened, right?"
"Dang — so what about your weapons and armor? Did you leave it all in the Spider Nest?"
"It won't despawn, right? If I go now, can I loot it back?"
"Don't — let's wait till we've got more people and go together!"
And right in the middle of all that back-and-forth, the player called 【Arthur】 suddenly cried out:
"Holy crap! The monsters in this game are way too real! That giant spider was twice my size — I could see its mouthparts in crystal-clear detail. I've never been scared of anything in my life, and I nearly died of fright just now!"
══════════════════════ DUNGEON LORD'S NOTE ═══════════════════════
Arthur is buying copper coins at ten dollars apiece — PayPal or Venmo — while the first five-man party got trussed up in spider silk inside ten minutes flat.
How many players before the spiders go down?
If the players made your day, a 5-star rating and a review make mine — drop 'em if you got 'em!