Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 217: What That Dog Do?

Kelly clapped her hands once, a satisfied look on her face as she left the training dojo where she had taken me. Meanwhile, I lay on the ground, letting out a deep groan while I worked on healing my injuries. Because she used the duel skill, she hadn’t actually killed me this time. Though, part of me wished that she hadn’t used that skill, for no other reason than the fact that it would have been over more quickly.

Instead, I was treated as a sandbag for more than an hour. Once again, I was reminded just how strong Kelly was. Although I wasn’t able to use my dragon form within the training hall, doing so would have primarily made me a larger target for her.

Not only did Kelly have a plethora of highly powerful skills, but she was extremely proficient in their usage. I could only wonder when I would be able to turn the tables against her and defeat her in one of these spars.

Once I had finished healing myself, I got up and left the dojo, a long sigh escaping my lips. Diane had still not gotten back to me about the explorer woman, so I wasn’t sure if she was still looking for help. That said, it could just be a matter of it being delayed due to the explorer being busy. Without any additional information, all that I could do was wait.

I walked through the city, taking a few minutes to stretch my legs when they weren’t being crushed beneath the weight of a projected palm. At the very least, this had taught me a valuable lesson: don’t annoy the martial grandmaster.

As I walked through the city, I spotted numerous Players that seemed to be here for the first time, looking around at the place in fascination. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about Fallcry, as far as I was aware, so I didn’t really know what they were so impressed by. Now, if it were the Sunset Isles, that would be a different story. That city really did look like a tourist attraction, with countless colorful buildings that looked as if they were grown from coral reefs.

Lost in thought, I barely noticed when I bumped into a small dog beastfolk, knocking her down to the ground. “Ah, sorry about that,” I said as I helped her to her feet. She had matching brown hair and eyes, wearing a yellow jacket over a short white dress. I noticed that she held a pile of books in her arms, though I couldn’t make out their titles.

“That’s fine!” she said, shaking her head. “I wasn’t exactly watching where I was going either. Do you know where I can find the library here?”

I hesitated for a moment at that question. When I originally built Fallcry, I hadn’t placed a library in at all. I was in a hurry, and hadn’t even considered making a building like that. “Give me just a second,” I told her, before projecting my senses upwards to look around and scan the city. If the residents had constructed a library, it shouldn’t have been too hard to spot.

Sure enough, after searching around for just a few seconds, I spotted an unfamiliar building near the center of town, larger than the houses that had originally been placed at that location. On the front of the building was a sign showing an open book. “It’s just this way,” I told the dogfolk girl, turning to lead the way for her.

“Oh, thank you! Sorry, I always end up getting lost when I wander around on my own,” she laughed, rubbing the back of her head with one hand. “I just came to the city today, so it shouldn’t take me too long to learn the layout. It has a pretty straightforward design.”

I silently agreed, being the one who made that design in the first place. Still, I led her through the streets, briefly stopping when we passed by a food stand selling grilled squid that had been hunted near the Sunset Isles.

I was surprised that Players had gotten to the level where they could hunt these monsters, so I bought a skewer for myself and the dogfolk girl. She looked at it with wide eyes, but still bit into it, an appreciative smile on her face. “This is actually really good!”

Chuckling, I led her the rest of the way to the library while we finished the seafood snack. Once there, she bowed repeatedly to thank me before heading inside. With that small distraction out of the way, I turned to leave, only to hear Bella calling out to me.

“There you are, Drake!” she called, and I turned to face her curiously. “Where’ve you been? Hammerhead said you left his place hours ago.”

“Kelly caught up to me and wanted to… talk,” I explained, looking at Bella. “Why, what’s the matter? I didn’t see any messages from the two of you.”

“We thought you might have been doing more practice again with your forging, so we didn’t want to call you,” Bella answered with a long sigh. “Anyways, Diane said that she sent the message to the explorer, so it’s just a matter of waiting for her to get back to us. Given how active she is on the forums, Diane thinks that she regularly logs off to talk with other Players.”

Well, at least I hadn’t missed anything too urgent. “Sounds good. What are you planning to do in the meantime?”

Bella opened her mouth to speak, before pausing as she glanced to the corner of her vision. “Apparently nothing. Diane just sent me a message. You should be getting one, too.”

Moments after Bella said this, a message indeed appeared in the corner of my vision from Diane. Marron just got back to me. She said that she’s free to meet anytime, and has already come to the city to wait for us. I’ve arranged for us to meet at the palace.

I let out a small sigh when I read that message, holding my hand out for Bella. “Well, looks like our next plan’s been decided.”

Bella simply smirked, taking my hand and allowing me to teleport the two of us to the gate of the palace, where Diane was already waiting. “We had just run into each other when you messaged,” I explained, earning a nod from the halfling. “How long before she gets here?”

“It should be any time,” Diane answered, looking down the street. “She said that she was on her way before I logged back in just now.”

“Anything that we need to know about her in advance?” Bella asked, wary ever since she heard that this person had a high chance of figuring out her secret.

“Marron is one of the top explorers in this game,” Diane explained. “She often chronicles ruins and dungeons that are far off the beaten path. When I looked into her, it seemed that she had revealed her starting traits. Her positive trait is Peaceful, which makes wild monsters ignore her unless she attacks first. Her negative trait, Poor Memory, prevents her from automatically saving information that she reads in books or from taking screenshots.”

“How does she share her findings from ruins if she can’t take screenshots?” Bella asked, seeming confused.

“I took a look at that myself, and all of her reports include hand-drawn images. Despite the name of her negative trait, her actual memory must be great to be able to draw the ruins with as much detail as she does.”

Listening to Diane’s explanation, I mused aloud on those traits. “With the Peaceful trait, isn’t Marron set up to be a great casual player? She doesn’t need to fight unless it’s against another Player or Fallen, so she can just focus on whatever activities she wants.”

“That’s right,” Diane agreed. “However, it also makes her perfect as an assassin. Because monsters ignore her, she doesn’t have to waste her energy with stealth skills. I read reports from people that teamed up with her that she uses a club to bash in the heads of monsters after getting close to them. As long as she kills them in one hit, they won’t get the chance to fight back.”

My eyes widened slightly at this. That was… certainly one way to make use of the trait. And it also made me understand why it was worth giving up the ability to save information. Still, I looked around, glancing down the street. “She should have been here by now, right? Fallcry isn’t that big.”

The palace was near the center of the city. No matter where you were in Fallcry, it would only take a few minutes to get here if you were in a hurry.

Diane pursed her lips in agreement. “I’ll log off and see if she’s sent me any messages.”

No sooner had Diane said that than we heard a voice calling out down the road. “There it is!” Echoing footsteps approached our location, and I saw a familiar face running towards us.

Sure enough, it was the same brown-haired dogfolk girl that I had bumped into earlier. When she saw me, her smile brightened. “So it was you! I thought it was when I bumped into you before, but I didn’t know that you had accepted the request, so I didn’t say anything. Small world, huh?”

Bella blinked, looking over at me for an explanation. “I ran into her when I was walking around before, and helped her find the library. Apparently, she has a bad sense of direction.”

Marron pouted slightly when she heard this. “It’s not bad, per se. It’s just when I’m not paying attention.”

With an amused tone, Bella pointed into the distance. “We can see the library from here,” she pointed out, causing Marron’s jaw to hang open, trying to formulate a response.

Diane rolled her eyes, stepping forward to mediate. “You said that you wanted us to help you with your exploration, right?”

“Right!” Marron leapt at the chance to change the topic, turning to face Diane. “I have a car, but I can’t exactly drive it through the sky like you guys do. Anything short of a fighter jet would be a lot slower than getting a lift from you, and they haven’t managed to make those yet.”

“You said that you wanted our combat power, too,” I interjected. “According to Diane, your trait should prevent you from needing to fight.”

Marron puffed her cheeks out slightly at that. “Under normal circumstances, it would. However, there are NPCs guarding some of these ruins. They seem like an ancient family, and they want to prevent outsiders from intruding. If they were normal wild monsters, I’d just walk in and be done with it, but since they’re sentient NPCs, they can ignore my trait.”

“But!” she lifted a finger, a bright smile on her face. “One of the dungeons was unguarded, and that’s where I learned about this. From what I could tell, the family guarding that dungeon had been wiped out in a monster attack ages ago, so I was able to walk in and look around normally.”

“When I reached the heart of the ruins and deciphered the text on the walls, I was issued a quest from the system itself. If I can completely decipher the events of the past by exploring the three linked dungeons, I will get the Utility skill, Lost Instance.”

“That sounds like a skill that lets you explore an unpopulated dungeon instance or something, right?” Bella asked, inferring the effect from the name.

However, to all of our surprise, Marron shook her head. “Not quite! The instance that the skill lets me inhabit is one from the past. According to the quest description, this skill will let me step out of time to view past events.”

My eyes went wide when I heard about this. Time skills were said to be one of the truly unreachable skill categories. Was this a genuine time skill, or just an illusion of one? Regardless, for an explorer, I could see just how amazing the skill would be.