The Primal Hunter

Jake and company had visited many city floors before and knew what to expect. Except, this was not a normal city floor. This one was made by Minaga, and the Unique Lifeform had already warned them this place would be special. A special floor made by a special guy.

Upon their immediate arrival, Jake did not see what was so different. At first glance, it looked just like a usual city. As long as you ignored the fact that Jake spotted at least a dozen statues of Minaga just from where they entered, and the general architecture reminded him a bit of that mage area he had visited to buy his current bracers.

As usual, the system messages also appeared, inviting them to the floor.

You have arrived on Minaga’s City Floor of Nevermore.

All violence outside of the arenas is strictly prohibited on all city floors, including this unique City Floor. Challenge Dungeon(s) can be found in the central square. If Nevermore is left and reentered, you will automatically be taken to the latest city floor unlocked.

Nothing really seemed off… but then he saw the next part.

Due to the nature of Minaga’s City Floor, you cannot proceed to floor thirty-six immediately. In order to proceed, you must pay the toll at the city gates. Minaga’s City Floor uses the currency known as Minaga Coins. Minaga Coins can be earned by selling items through brokers in the many stores spread throughout the city. Normal Credits can be used to pay for other goods through the stores or between non-residents of the floor. Minaga Coins cannot be traded between dungeoneers. All party members must pay their own toll.

The toll to enter the next floor is determined based on your level upon entering this floor the first time.

“Hm, this is quite the curveball,” the Sword Saint muttered as he read the description.

“Yeah…” Dina nodded.

“This is definitely something,” Jake commented. “But what exactly is the point of this? It wants us to sell items to some stores? And we can only buy stuff using Credits… is this some kind of money sink created to battle Credit inflation by forcing us to spend money on getting a currency that is useless to us outside of paying some toll?”

“I find the lack of trade-ability of these coins a severe oversight. What exactly is one meant to sell? I can see the hunter sell his potions, and perhaps the Dryad sell her herbs and such, but why would the Sylphian or I have any goods these brokers are willing to buy?” the Fallen King complained.

Jake was about to propose maybe someone could just leave Nevermore and bring a bunch of valuable stuff to sell… but then he saw the next message.

Main objective: Pay the toll to move onto the thirty-sixth floor.

Bonus objectives: Do not leave Nevermore before paying the toll.

Current progress: Pay the Toll. Do not leave Nevermore.

Note: This floor has no hidden objectives, achievements, or events.

Current Nevermore Points: 28473

Reading it, Jake saw the bonus objective. They were not allowed to leave this place, so even if one wanted to get help from outside, it wouldn’t work. Jake thought for a second before sighing.

“Worst comes to worst; I am sure we can scrounge stuff together. I quite frankly have a shitload of valuable stuff hidden away from the ceremony,” Jake shook his head.

“Hm, I guess that is an option,” the Sword Saint nodded.

“Won’t work,” a voice spoke from ahead of them as a figure teleported in from outside of Jake’s Sphere of Perception. Instantly, he was put on guard as Jake felt the aura of the person in front of them, and he used Identify, going for a full scan.

[Human – lvl 349 – Minor Blessing of Alcradia]

He was at the peak of C-grade… nearly B-grade. Jake knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if it came down to a fight, he would not stand a chance. Luckily, a fight was not even on the table. They were on a city floor, and the guy showed no hostility.

“What do you mean it won’t work?” Jake asked. “And who are you? Sorry, but I do find it a bit suspicious when a random person just teleports right in front of me after listening in on my conversations.”

“Apologies,” the man said as he bowed. “I am but a mere worker from a subsidiary of the Golden Road Emporium, and I serve the merchant god Alcradia. As for why it won’t work… anything that the brokers here buy must be from Nevermore.”

“Huh,” Jake nodded. “And why did you feel the need to teleport over to volunteer this information?”

“My job here is to keep track of individuals of note entering the floor, and I teleported over because I was informed of a change on the central Leaderboards. Seeing as your party had just appeared, I put two and two together,” the man said, bowing once more. “Congratulations on taking the point lead.”

“Ree!” Sylphie screeched.

“I agree with her,” Jake said. “Spoilers aren’t nice. We wanted to go and see that ourselves.”

“I apolo-“

“Rather than apologies, divulge the real reason you are here,” Jake shook his head. “Actually, let me guess. Seeing as everything you can trade for Minaga Coins has to be from Nevermore, you are here to buy some valuable items we have that can be exchanged.”

The merchant smiled. “I will not deny that. The Demon Lord on the highest difficulty offers quite the rewards if a party such as yours beats it.”

“Not interested, but thanks for the info,” Jake shrugged as he motioned for them to keep moving.

“Wait, are you sure you don’t want a guide?” the peak C-grade asked, still acting nice. “There are still some things to learn. If any of you are crafters, you can-“

“I assume everything made on this floor counts as “from Nevermore” even if the creation uses materials from the outside,” Jake interrupted him. “Still not interested, and worst comes to worst, we can just ask Minaga.”

The merchant flashed a small smile as he shook his head. “While that may have been true on prior floors, here, that is not possible. The dungeon master does not appear here or speak, as it is a city floor. He does not have a copy here dedicated to your party, after all. It is only in extremely rare cases he has made his appearance.”

“This guy gets it; I am not some guy just at your beck and call, appearing whenever you want me to,” Minaga agreed wholeheartedly as he stood with his arms crossed beside the merchant.

“I never expect you to,” Jake agreed.

The merchant had frozen in place as the blue dungeon master appeared. He slowly turned his head as if to confirm the Unique Lifeform was truly there before he rapidly bowed.

“This one greets the-“

“Bye,” Minaga waved his hand as the guy was teleported away.

“He was just about to reveal your godly title,” Jake said, pointing at where the guy had disappeared.

“Nah, I don’t think he was,” Minaga disagreed.

“He totally was.”

“I don’t see why you would think that,” Minaga remained steadfast.

“Your attempt at gaslighting will not work,” Jake argued.

“I would never and have never gaslighted anyone, and I find the accusation highly inflammatory,” Minaga said with a sad expression before his mood took a one-eighty, and he grinned as he turned to the Sword Saint. “Ah, sorry about the fire-related expression. You have already gotten roasted enough for one day.”

The Sword Saint just raised an eyebrow before sighing.

“Fine, I have been successfully fooled,” Jake relented. “Now, could you tell me why you decided to make this floor the way you did and got any tips?”

“Alright, alright. You see, I don’t like when people just fly through every single floor – you know, like you do – and that includes the city floors. I wanted this one to at least take some time and give people a good reason to spend longer here than on other city floors. So I introduced the Minaga Coin and the toll, but the coins can also be used for other things than just the toll. Though, I am not going to lie… none of these things matter to your party. I would advise you five to just quickly gather the toll and get out of here,” Minaga explained before sighing. “I can’t believe I am actually advising you not to engage with my creation…”

“Oh, the horror,” Jake smirked. “How would we go about collecting coins, and was my assessment about crafting goods correct?”

“Yep, spot-on,” Minaga nodded. “Lots of merchants around here who want to buy and sell too using normal Credit. Ah, but one warning, even if I told you to rush through, you will probably still spend a bit of time here to get enough to pay the toll. While you do have some stuff to sell from prior floors, none of it gives a lot outside of those ingots from the Demon Lord.”

“Huh,” Jake said before thinking. “If crafted stuff can be traded for coins, can’t we just spend a shitload of Credits, buy a lot of crafted stuff from others, and sell that for coins to move on instantly? You know, steamroll the place with wealth?”

“I may or may not have put a cap on how many coins you can earn monthly from non-self-obtained items...” Minaga said with a cheeky smile.

“So…” Jake said, as he sighed. He had a feeling there really was no easy way around it.

“Yep, you gotta do stuff yourself to get coins! Get that cauldron out and get cooking!” Minaga laughed.

“How about us?” the Fallen King entered the conversation as he referred to himself and Sylphie. “How are we supposed to earn any coins? We are monsters, not crafters.”

“You can do jobs that are non-combat that earn tokens you can exchange for coins. You can also fight in the arena once a day, something I feel like you both would enjoy. The arena is time-limited and will repeatedly send new things out to kill to rack up more points for a better token that you can then exchange for coins. No experience points, though. This is a city floor, after all,” Minaga explained.

“You are awfully forthcoming with information?” Jake questioned. Usually, Minaga liked to be all secretive, but here he just shared stuff willy-nilly.

“Because the impact of what I tell you is negligible. No matter how fast or slow you pass this floor, you get no points for doing it. Only the bonus objective gives any bonus points,” Minaga shrugged. “Me helping you while giving some basic advice will have a minimal effect. Plus, I teleported away the guy who would have said something similar, so in some ways, you can argue I am just setting things right.”

“Wait… this entire floor gives no points?” Jake questioned.

“No, of course not. It is a city floor,” Minaga said, waving him off.

“Then… you are legitimately just doing this to waste everyone’s time…” Jake sighed.

“I told you, it is for a better overall experience and allow you all to socialize a bit,” Minaga grinned. “Now, from your point of view, it may seem like a waste of time, which I can totally respect and promptly not care about as I force you to play my game.”

Jake sighed again. The worst part was he couldn’t even get on any ideas that would help him cheese this floor. Minaga seemed to have thought of most things with the limit on things you could sell that you hadn’t made or obtained yourself.

“Anyway, nice to chat with you all. I’m gonna head off and do dungeon master stuff,” Minaga smiled.

“Not even gonna let your title slip before you leave?” Jake teased.

“Alright, alright… as a final treat,” Minaga sighed. “While I am mainly known by you C-grades for creating floors in Nevermore, I go by another name in the wider universe. One echoed throughout existence, as even the most powerful of gods shudder at the mention of my name.”

He’s gonna make another damn joke, Jake had already concluded.

“In the wider world, I am not simply called Minaga… but the Magnificent Minaga!”

“That was bad, and you should feel bad,” Jake said with a deadpan expression, the rest of his party slowly nodding.

“Killjoy,” the Unique Lifeform said, acting offended for a moment before he flashed a slightly more serious smile. “But I didn’t totally lie. They do shudder at the mention of my name.”

With those words, Minaga teleported away, leaving the party there to take in his words. He probably thought he was dramatic, but Jake just chuckled. “For some reason, gods shuddering from us mentioning having to potentially deal with Minaga doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

“Rude,” a voice echoed in their heads, completely ruining any dramatics he may have had going on.

Jake smiled as he turned to the party. “Let’s go check the Leaderboard and stuff anyway?”

“We should. Trusting the words of a stranger seems unwise,” the Sword Saint agreed.

With no one protesting, they went to check out the large Leaderboards in the middle of the city. As they walked, Jake did take notice of one thing different about this floor… outside of the city floor between floors five and six, this was the most populated one. The average levels of those here were quite high, too, with many above level 300.

These were essentially the “boosters” of people from the new universe. They carried them through floor after floor to help them level up, but also for these high-level individuals to explore the later floors on their own. Having a five-man party was optimal, but with a good level advantage, four-man parties also did just fine. “True” parties like Jake’s were still incredibly rare, based on all Jake saw.

Reaching the Leaderboards, their group did confirm that the peak C-grade had been telling the truth before. They did indeed hold the Point Record.

Average Nevermore Points (Floor 1-35): 7582

Current Nevermore Points Record (Floor 1-35): 28473

“Sitting at the peak right now does not mean we can relax or slow down. Only that we have to further strengthen our lead and assure our victory,” the Fallen King said.

“Naturally,” the Sword Saint nodded.

“We’re just getting started,” Jake agreed with a smile.

After they confirmed how great their party was, they went to check out the gate to know how high of a toll they had to pay. There was only one gate leading to the next floor, and in front of it was a toll booth and a barrier. Jake went over and placed his hand on the booth as a system notification popped up.

You must pay 214,000 Minaga Coins (current Minaga Coins: 0) to proceed to the next floor.

Without any reference to know how easy or hard earning two-hundred thousand Minaga Coins was, Jake didn’t know hard it would be. After the others in his party also checked, they concluded the cost was equivalent to your race level times a thousand. That meant Sylphie had to pay the highest toll, which for some reason, made her happy.

“I guess there’s nothing to do but just get to it and figure out the best way for us all to earn our own toll amount,” Jake shrugged as the group briefly began to telepathically discuss what to do. They decided to find a home base first – there were plenty of hotels around – and then make a good plan. Even if the city floor was meant to be a relaxing place, they had no intentions of taking any breaks.

While It was good to be at the top, that didn’t mean they could in any way be satisfied. They had made it there before many of the other top parties and had a lot of competition on their heels. Who knows, maybe they would even meet some of them on this floor if it turned out to take a while to earn those coins.

Something Jake had a strong gut feeling it would… especially after he asked a random guy close to the toll booth.

“How long it usually takes? No idea about the average, but I think the current record is about fourteen months? Or was it fifteen?”

Yeah, they were definitely gonna run into other parties… which did make Jake wonder. How were all his friends doing? Both those in and outside of Nevermore.