Fear is only human — especially when what's standing in front of you is a subterranean spider the size of two grown men. The players had been so busy hyping themselves up for the coming adventure that they'd completely forgotten one little detail: this game is one hundred percent real. If a spider showed up in front of you — one twice your size — the mere thought was enough to make your hair stand on end...
"Guys, I just realized... this might actually be a horror game too..."
"It'll be fine once there's more of us, right? Hurry up and grind those coins! Let's group up and head out together in a bit! Get like forty or fifty people, dial the pain sync down to zero — what's there to be scared of then!"
"Yeah, safety in numbers! Grind those coins! GRIND!"
In the blink of an eye, the players from another world were back to chatting away — but even mid-chat, their hands never stopped working. Man, these guys REALLY loved to talk!
Looked like they weren't planning on pushing into the Spider Nest anytime soon — after all, five of them had just come back from a full wipe, minus their gear. Plus, the subterranean spiders seemed like a genuinely terrifying creature to them. Aesthetically speaking, at least.
But they seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that warmed Sharlock's heart — at least the amusement park he'd built was doing its job. As for how these otherworldly players chose to play, that was their business. Nor did he have to worry about nobody mining and expanding the dungeon: if they wanted to buy weapons and armor and go adventuring, they'd have to grind coins like their lives depended on it. Sharlock figured most of them would die a few times to the subterranean spiders on every trip out, and if they dropped some gear on top of that, well, that just meant coming back to grind more coins, didn't it? A truly perfect loop.
Of course, no other dungeon could pull off a scheme like this, because goblins in other dungeons could never, EVER respawn this easily or this often! The moment a goblin or any other dungeon servant died, their soul got yanked back to the Realm of the Dead, and if you wanted them revived, you had to go to the Realm of the Dead and buy the soul back first — a hassle so outrageous it bordered on criminal. Sharlock's dungeon, though, was another story. Thanks to the core, "Bru," these players from another world didn't get collected by the Realm of the Dead when they died; instead they lingered right there in the dungeon core, which made resurrecting them a breeze.
Sharlock used to be pretty bummed that the dungeon he'd bought came with a junked, abandoned core — but looking at it now? He'd basically scored a treasure.
Leaving the players to keep sweating it out in the dungeon, shedding their light and heat for the great cause of dungeon construction, Sharlock decided to go retrieve the gear those five players had dropped in the Spider Nest. Sharlock was a very thrifty Dungeon Lord — his dungeon had only just gotten off the ground, and he couldn't just leave that equipment lying around. What a waste that would be. At the very least it could arm five goblins.
Sharlock left the dungeon, arrived at the Spider Nest in short order, and had no trouble at all finding the weapons and armor those five otherworldly players had left behind — subterranean spiders don't eat metal, so naturally they'd dumped the iron lumps in the nest's tunnels.
Besides the discarded gear, Sharlock also found nearby the subterranean spider that 【Arthur】 had stabbed in the head earlier. It was lying dead in the tunnel now, pale-green blood pooled all over the floor.
Just as Sharlock was wondering why the other subterranean spiders had left this corpse lying around, he sensed a faint ripple of mana inside the thing. Had this spider swallowed a magic item?
After a moment's thought, Sharlock decided to haul the subterranean spider back to the dungeon and have Simba the blacksmith cut it open for a look. What if there was a valuable magic item in there? Sharlock was seriously strapped for magic stones right now — if he'd lucked into a sellable magic item, that'd cover at least a little of Simba the blacksmith's wages.
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When Sharlock returned to the dungeon hauling gear and a subterranean spider, it caused a sensation all over again. Aside from those five, none of the players had ever seen a subterranean spider, and the moment they spotted Lord Sharlock dragging home a dead one, they all came swarming over. You are reading on NovelPing, the official source.
"So THAT's a subterranean spider?"
"Yeah, that's legit terrifying. My legs are going noodly and it's a DEAD one."
"I know it's a game, but this is way too scary. How did this thing pass the ratings board?"
"Dude, this game runs on straight-up black-box super-tech, and you're out here worried about ratings?"
At that point, the player called 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 stepped out of the crowd, pointed at the spider, and hollered:
"Arthur! This is the subterranean spider you stabbed earlier — look, the wound on its head is in the exact same spot!"
Once 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 finished shouting, the player called 【Arthur】 quickly noticed it too, and the surrounding players all turned to stare at 【Arthur】 like he was a hero. In no time, the entire dungeon had once again transformed into a giant chatroom.
Sharlock didn't stop the players from gawking at the subterranean spider. Instead, he ordered 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 and 【Arthur】 to haul the dead thing over to the smithy and assist Simba the blacksmith in dissecting it — dig out whatever was in its belly and take a look. That kind of filthy, backbreaking work was obviously beneath Sharlock personally.
On second thought, Sharlock tossed a couple of the short swords in his hand to 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 and 【Arthur】. He couldn't very well expect the two of them to dissect the thing bare-handed.
"This is a hidden quest trigger, right?"
"Called it! The first mob killed in the game was BOUND to have a special reward!"
"I'm so jealous I could die! If I'd known, I'd have spent real money buying up copper coins too!"
In an instant, the dungeon once again filled with the players' noisy chatter.
【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 and 【Arthur】 froze for a beat, then — under the envious stares of the other players — scrambled to pick up the short swords. Each of them grabbed one furry leg of the subterranean spider and started dragging it toward the smithy, with a few bolder players coming over to help push, even though they hadn't gotten any reward from Sharlock.
Simba the blacksmith was busy forging weapons at that moment, a stack of arms and armor already piled up beside him — though not many people had the coin to buy any of it. When he saw Sharlock show up with a crowd of players and a dead subterranean spider in tow, Simba set down his work and asked respectfully, "Lord Sharlock, what do you need of me?" Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping dot com.
"There seems to be something in this subterranean spider's belly. Get it out for me — and be careful, don't damage it. These are the two helpers I found you."
As he spoke, Sharlock pointed at 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 and 【Arthur】.
Simba agreed at once, grabbed one of the short swords lying nearby, and — directing 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 and 【Arthur】 — began dissecting the subterranean spider. As the dissection went on, gasps of horror rippled through the crowd of players, mostly out of terror or sheer disgust. Watching a spider that big get cut open right in front of you was, frankly, straight-up adults-only territory.
Sharlock stepped back a bit to keep the spider's green blood from splattering his clothes, and before long Simba had the subterranean spider pretty much fully opened up. As for 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 and 【Arthur】, the two of them were drenched head to toe in green spider blood, with an unbearable stench rolling off them. Quite a few players around them started dry-heaving, and some who'd just eaten actually threw everything back up.
【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 was over there retching too, but 【Arthur】? Just a little pale, that's all.
Simba — also splattered in a fair amount of green blood himself — told 【Arthur】 to go through the subterranean spider's corpse carefully. Without a moment's hesitation, 【Arthur】 dove half his body right into the carcass, and a little while later emerged hugging a metal sphere that gave off a faint, dull glow.
Sharlock waved 【Arthur】 over and had 【Arthur】 bring the metal sphere to him. 【Arthur】 hugged the sphere, trotted right up to Sharlock's feet, and hoisted it up over his head. Sharlock pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and, with great disgust, wrapped the sphere in it before raising it to his eyes. A foul stench wafted off the thing.
No doubt about it — the ripple of magic was coming from this little sphere. But what WAS it? Sharlock felt like he'd seen it somewhere, yet couldn't place it. Still, if it gave off magical ripples, it had to be a magic item, and magic items could generally be traded for magic stones. After some thought, Sharlock decided to get the thing appraised first, then sell it off for magic stones!
And if you wanted a magic item appraised, that meant a trip to the neutral city of Frostlake.
══════════════════════ DUNGEON LORD'S NOTE ═══════════════════════
Nothing says live service like a public spider autopsy — players dry-heaving, Arthur elbow-deep in the carcass — and out comes a glowing metal sphere everyone assumes is hidden-quest loot.
What do you think the metal sphere actually is?
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