The Primal Hunter

After the fun bantering with Minaga, they arrived at room number four, and finally, the difficulty seemed to have increased. At least it said this would be hard.

1. Traps (Hard)

2. Collection (Medium)

3. Combat (Medium)

4. Random (Hard)

As they were still following Minaga’s advice of never picking anything that wasn’t of the highest difficulty, the only choice was between Random and Traps. Jake considered for a second, but his gut didn’t really tell him one was better than the other. Maybe because both would be easy for him.

“Let us just pick Traps. The hunter will likely be able to trivialize any challenge and allow us to pass through quickly,” the Fallen King said as he scanned the options.

“I guess,” Jake shrugged as he turned to the others. He did kind of want to pick the Random one just to see if there was some fun category they had yet to even see, but alas, the other three agreed to just go with Traps. Well, Sylphie didn’t particularly care, but she did seem like she wanted to get through these floors fast after the city floor delay, so she just went with whatever she thought was fastest… which often was just to agree with everyone else.

“Let’s do that then,” Jake nodded as he infused energy into the particular rune, with the four others joining in. The rune lit up as the door in front of them began opening, revealing the room that had just been generated. Jake released a Pulse of Perception and saw the entire place was only around ten kilometers long and less than five meters in height and width, which made the place incredibly small for a challenge room. However, he also soon realized why it was so small.

The entire place was utterly packed with stuff. What appeared before them was a massive obstacle course with a web of challenges. The walls looked to be made of some kind of metal, and large panels were placed here and there, forcing whoever tried to go through into small openings reminiscent of doorways.

Jake looked around for a while and quickly noticed one more thing of note. The mist was not entirely gone in this trap room. A small amount of it remained, but its properties seemed slightly different. It did not obstruct sight anymore, but Jake did feel that the movement-restricting effect mostly remained, meaning things like teleporting through were out of the question.

”Odd,” Jake also said. ”I don’t feel any real danger…”

Dina looked at the room a bit before taking out a seed. She tossed it in the air, and before it landed, a vine soldier had grown from it. The one-meter-tall creature began walking into the area with the traps, and the moment it walked just five meters ahead of them, a barrier sprung up, separating the vine soldier from Jake and the others.

It paused slightly, but Dina urged it to keep walking. It did so, and just a few meters later, it activated a formerly invisible formation on the floor, resulting in an explosion of mana spears shooting up from the ground. The vine soldier was hit, but the spears only left small tears in its body… and then it disappeared.

Only to reappear back right beside Dina, the barrier in front of them also fading in the process.

”I believe we may have underestimated these trap rooms,” the Sword Saint voiced his thoughts.

”Ree!” Sylphie said, wanting to give it a go. Jake saw no reason to deny her, and the hawk shot forward as she turned into wind. She got several hundred meters into the room while successfully avoiding all the traps until suddenly, a section of the wall shot out like a piston, hitting the living gust of wind that was Sylphie. The glowing formation at the end of the piston glowed with some kind of energy, and in the very next second, living wind joined them back behind the barrier.

Sylphie turned back into her physical form and screeched in annoyance. But she did learn something.

The piston had managed to do a very small amount of damage to Sylphie, and that had triggered her to teleport away. The prior traps she avoided had failed to do any damage even if they had partly hit her, making Sylphie – the smart bird she was – conclude that only if someone took damage would they be teleported back.

”So, who wants to go next?” the Sword Saint asked.

Jake was about to volunteer when Dina stepped up. ”I can test if it is indeed about taking damage.”

”That sounds like a good idea,” the old man smiled as he motioned her to give it a shot. As she walked forward and passed that invisible threshold, the barrier popped up again, confirming that only one person could do the room at a time.

Dina walked forward while taking out her staff and touching her chest with her one free hand as it glowed with dense life energy. Bobo, her living armor, began to grow as her body was covered, and tapping herself with the staff infused Bobo with even more energy as vines sprung from all over, creating a cocoon of defensive plants.

Then, she jumped forward as she pointed her staff, shooting forward a vine. The vine gripped one of the panels meant to block one’s progress as she dragged herself further into the room, the vines below her functioning as dozens of small legs.

Nearly instantly, she triggered a bunch of traps. Spears shot out from the walls and hit the amalgamation of vines, but they failed to do much. Even as a few vines were cut off or exploded, Dina remained untouched behind all her defenses.

When she reached the piston, her vines took most of the blow, and she ended up using the vines almost as springs as she allowed herself to pounce. She launched herself forward with help from the momentum, and within only a few minutes, she reached the midway point. So far, the only true challenge for her seemed to be the small openings she sometimes had to get through, forcing her to shrink her form momentarily before expanding it again.

”Does not seem hard,” the Fallen King said as he walked over and poked the barrier blocking them in, making sure it was indeed utterly impenetrable.

”Let’s see,” the Sword Saint said patiently.

Dina kept going as the traps got harder in the second part. At one point, the walls to both sides grew spikes as they slammed together, but Dina managed to not get crushed as she raised her staff to stop both walls at once. The damn staff didn’t even bend from the impact, and after she infused some energy, it grew in length and pushed back both walls, allowing her to pass safely.

More traps followed. Explosions of mana, spears shooting out, pitfalls, acid getting blasted from the walls, crescent energy waves, and of course, the trap room itself moving physically while trying to stop her. However, against the Dryad druid, nothing managed to penetrate her defenses. Even when the Fallen King pointed out a blast of soul energy, Bobo somehow managed to absorb it instead of Dina, which did look a bit funny as, for a fraction of a second, Jake felt like Bobo had been teleported away but was somehow instantly brought back to Dina again.

In the end, Dina managed to make it to the other side without suffering any injuries. The second she stepped on a small platform at the far end of the room, the barrier in front of Jake and the others faded away.

”Okay, yeah, it is about taking damage. When Bobo took some damage, the room tried to teleport him, but because he is bound to me, he was instantly brought back again. So good defenses do work here,” Dina explained through their telepathic link.

”I believe the real way it was meant to be done was memorizing the safe path… there were places you could go without activating anything,” the Sword Saint sent through the Golden Mark.

”That appears to be like an unnecessary waste of time,”the Fallen King scoffed. Without waiting further, he floated forwards straight into the trap room. His passive barrier was already active, and with a wave of his hand, it turned golden as he casually flew at a relaxed pace.

Traps activated all around, nothing managing to do anything to the barrier, and in a time only slightly slower than Dina – only because he clearly didn’t rush - the Fallen King made it to the other side safely. His defenses were simply too overpowered.

”Now, who is next?” the Fallen King questioned cockily.

”Ree!” Sylphie screeched as she flew up in the air, gladly taking on the challenge as a glowing green branch appeared behind her feet that she perched herself on. Jake felt her confidence and cheered her on as he observed her.

She seemed to levitate on the branch as Jake saw her wiggle in a cute-looking way, like a cat ready to pounce. What was less cute was how her body began to glow with green energy, and the wind picked up around Jake and the Sword Saint. Power accumulated in their surroundings as Sylphie lowered herself a bit and opened her wings. Jake barely saw the familiar Green Shield appear around her body as the entire entrance area of the trap room exploded.

Like a bullet from a railgun, Sylphie blasted through hundreds of traps, narrowly navigating into all the small gaps to make it through the room. Even with the mist limiting her movements, she flew with insane speed. All the spears, pistons, moving walls, and any trap that took even a moment to activate were simply too slow and only fired off in her wake. What did hit her, the Green Shield managed to stop. This resulted in Sylphie safely making it to the other side in record speed.

”Ree! Ree!” she bragged over the Golden Mark as she sounded incredibly proud.

Jake sent a mental thumbs-up as he had honestly expected Sylphie to have trouble with this room after seeing her trying to get through after transforming her body into wind. Luckily that wasn’t an issue. That just left Jake and the Sword Saint.

”You can go first,” Jake motioned to the old man.

The Sword Saint hesitated for a moment before nodding. On guard, he entered the room, and with light steps, he began making his way through. A water barrier surrounded him as he slowly went through, trying not to activate traps as he went. Sometimes he did activate one, but before the attacks could hit him, he either dodged or released a counterattack.

However, less than a kilometer in, he failed to dodge an attack as a mana spear penetrated the water barrier and left a small cut around his ankle. Instantly, the Sword Saint found himself teleported back right next to Jake.

”I shall wait patiently,” Jake smiled teasingly.

The old man just sighed as he went again.

This happened fourteen more times as he got further with every try. In the last two attempts, he used his boosting skill to make his defenses better and speed faster, resulting in him finally passing the room and getting to the other side, a bit worse for wear. It had ended up taking the Sword Saint a bit over an hour to get the room done, which in retrospect, wasn’t that bad. It just felt like a long time due to how fast the others did it.

”Now we only wait for the hunter,” the Fallen King spoke through the Golden Mark. ”I hope you do not disappoint us.”

”That would certainly be embarrassing after being after me so much,” the Sword Saint concurred.

”I am sure he has a plan,” Dina tried to be diplomatic.

”Ree!” Sylphie encouraged him to just smack every trap with his cauldron.

Jake didn’t really think that was necessary as he walked into the trap room and smiled. ”Be there in a jiffy.”

What followed was a nice and casual stroll. Whenever he got close to one of the traps, Jake saw the formation and quickly stepped around the lines that would activate it. Occasionally he did activate one and easily dodged whatever was shot at him. Towards the end, he purposefully just walked in a nearly straight line as he evaded everything the trap room could throw at him. All in all, it was a nice experience, and Jake soon rejoined the others.

”Showoff,” the Sword Saint chuckled as Jake walked through the final barrier. He hadn’t used a single skill during his little stroll and only summoned a couple of stable arcane barriers here and there to block stuff he felt too lazy to dodge. Oh, and he did catch one mana spear mid-air after infusing his gauntlet with energy. That one was indeed only to show off.

”Ree?” Sylphie asked why he didn’t use the cauldron.

”A meager trap room like this isn’t worthy of facing my ultimate weapon,” Jake answered in a haughty voice.

”Ree,” Sylphie answered in full understanding.

”You know… I… no, I can’t say that. Sharing information like that is against the rules,” Minaga said as his voice echoed.

Jake and company were already mid-teleport as he spoke, and they appeared before yet another labyrinth.

He saw Dina was about to ask, but he nudged her slightly, and she seemed to understand as she didn’t say anything.

”Truly… truly can I say it?”

All five of them continued to ignore him as they followed Jake and entered the labyrinth.

”Alas… it seems no one can hear me, so perhaps it is safe to disclose…”

Their team cohesion was truly on point, as none of them reacted to a single word the Unique Lifeform said.

”Well, if no one is listening, I guess I can just talk out loud a bit. That trap room was quite well designed if I say so myself. It was made so people who are just incredibly durable can’t just walk through, allowing it to counter certain individuals, forcing them to actually think for a second. It is also interesting to think about how that trap room was partly based on one of the Challenge Dungeons available here in Nevermore, albeit that one is quite a bit different. Thinking about it further, that Challenge Dungeon would surely be easy for someone who can just casually walk through and easily dodge every single thing here. Ah, it is truly good that no one is listening because I am definitely not allowed to disclose that. Also, while I am here talking to myself, I can’t help but meander about one of the funniest things going on right now in one of the other instances of floor thirty-seven right now. I couldn’t possibly have predicted that a trap room made not to damage but teleport people back would completely and utterly screw over some of the people who manage to find methods that make them borderline invincible in their current grades by seemingly giving them infinite health points. Yeah, definitely couldn’t have predicted that.”

Jake and the others casually walked as they listened to the Unique Lifeform sharing information that Jake was pretty sure you couldn’t share according to the rules of Nevermore. Not that he complained. He also instantly put together who Minaga was talking about towards the end of his talk to himself.

”Could you guys imagine if Eron had to do that trap room that we just did?” Jake joked with the others.

”Odd, I just had this weird thought that some trap rooms are harder than others…”

”Or maybe one even harder,” Jake grinned.

”The schadenfreude is palpable,” the Sword Saint chuckled as he shook his head.

”Hey, that’s what he gets for being faster than us on that damn city floor,” Jake shot back.

”Ree…” Sylphie whined softly.

Jake plucked the bird out of the air and patted her head as he walked, holding her in a hug. ”It isn’t your fault the evil creature who designed the city doesn’t like awesome hawks like you.”

”None of my design decisions are ever targeted individuals.”

”He is just jealous,” Jake comforted her more.

”I am definitely never jealous.”

”Yeah, a super jealous guy for sure,” Jake kept comforting Sylphie as she cheered up a bit. Still, Jake couldn’t help but imagine Eron in one of those trap rooms.

Man, do I wish I could see that. He is definitely not having a good time.

Eron was not having a good time as he appeared back at the beginning of the trap room. He did not know how many times he had tried so far. Frustration was obvious on his face as he simply had to try again. He memorized the route he took the last time and managed to get five meters further on the next attempt, taking him to a bit over the twelve-kilometer mark. Only three more to go.

His party members were all meditating at the end of the trap room, having all completed it. All they were waiting for was him.

He kept going, again and again. All methods had been tried. Even if he purposefully did damage to himself during the trap room, the teleportation would activate, making him unable to use his original plan of just blowing up his body and slowly making it to the end.

More days passed as he inched ever closer. Every attempt was identical until the end, adding on just a few more meters every time as he had to make sure he didn’t trigger a single trap. His stats were simply not high enough to allow him to dodge anything. Finally, after who knows how long, he passed through the final barrier and completed the room as his party members all awakened.

They all looked at him and nodded as they prepared to move on. A tacit agreement was reached of never picking trap rooms ever again. At least they would gladly pick the Random option over one.

Eron truly hoped to forever put the experience behind him. To never think about it again, and for no one else to ever-

”Man, that’s a great new record! Ninety-seven days to pass one trap room? Okay, not actually sure it’s a record, but damn, am I saving the recording anyway! Gonna be fun to rewatch. Maybe I should invite some friends over for a watch party?”

Alas, fate could be cruel.