Chapter 40 Role Mission Begins

Players are no strangers to dungeon themes.

Civilizations in the interstellar age have begun to leave the planets on which their species depend for survival, just like children who have grown up and are able to pack their bags and travel away from home for long periods of time, but most of the resources still come from these vast lands that are full of life.

There may be precious minerals and strange races underground in the desolate and uninhabited planet.

There may be ancient and mysterious cities with ancient history beneath the planets that are not worth mentioning on the star map.

Even on those garbage planets, there might be a large portion of the wealth secretly left behind by a great thief. Of course, in order to prevent it from being taken away by someone other than the chosen heir, he had to build a castle and set up many checkpoints.

The universe is so vast that all kinds of wonderful things can happen in it, and gaining unexpected rewards through adventure is definitely a timeless theme.

The holographic remake team of the scientific world seems to be extremely wealthy in the game, and players can't help but look forward to what kind of dungeon game this will be.

Cyberpunk? Ruins exploration? Fortress attack and defense? Mine monster fighting?

Since there aren't many dungeon games that players have played, they can't think of more.

But it seemed that his expectations were met. When he stepped into the dungeon portal after his resurrection, the game played a story PV for him that was extremely magnificent from the music to the pictures.

In the PV, a great prophet saw the appearance of a dead planet in the future during his last prophecy in his life.

This prophecy is irrelevant to them now, but there are still magicians who believe that magic may not exist in the future. They gather together and decide to do something for the future with their current power.

Thus, the construction of one hundred underground cities, which took nearly a hundred years, began.

Countless robed men held up staffs, drawing down lightning that shook the earth and dug out giant pits across the continent that seemed to go deep into the heart of the planet.

Countless people worked diligently like ants to transport various materials. As the construction and magic arrays gradually took shape, the construction of underground cities like inverted towers was completed.

Not everyone supports this behavior, some covet such a huge amount of resources, while others simply think that they should obey fate. The former are mostly greedy lords, while the latter are magicians who call themselves naturalists.

Fights broke out one after another.

After the dungeon was built, some dying people remained in it forever and were sealed along with the dungeon.

Time flows to the future.

Due to the large-scale forgetfulness magic cast by the magicians with all their might and the operation of the magic circle hiding the dungeon, the few records about the dungeon found in later generations have become legends.

But the planet is dying.

Its land has turned into yellow sand, and there is almost no green plant to be found at a glance. In some places, the rainfall is so heavy that it can submerge small cities into the sea, while in some places, there is no rain for several years.

This kind of death is not a quick one. It is like a huge meteorite falling from outer space and smashing the planet, and all living things are annihilated in an instant without any resistance.

It is a slow process, causing people to go from a life of self-sufficiency through hard work to a life of hunger and cold and having to constantly migrate to struggle for survival.

At this time, the dungeon's concealment magic began to gradually fail.

This is the escape route that ancient magicians prepared for the future. There is an endless supply of slimes that can be used as both a source of water and food, as well as monsters that have somehow gotten in over the past few hundred years. It is rumored that there are also countless treasures.

The young people put on light and sturdy clothes, matched with one or two pieces of leather armor to protect their waists, abdomens or knees, took up swords, guns, bows and arrows, and became adventurers, pouring into the excavated dungeons like a tide.

One, two, three...until the hundredth.

The 100th dungeon is different from all the previous dungeons. It has no slime supplies, but it contains a lot of monsters and traps.

The adventurers believed that it was the dungeon that hid countless treasures, but their meager magic power that could only release a small fireball and their strong bodies from years of training did not seem to give them any advantage in a battle with insufficient supplies and almost no breathing space.

So far, the deepest level of this dungeon has only been explored to the twentieth floor, but judging from other dungeons, the total number of floors should be fifty.

It is waiting for an adventurer who can completely open it. Countless adventurers are also waiting, and the whole world is waiting.

Treasures have never been found in other dungeons. If all the treasures are buried here...

Next, the Adventurers Association extended an invitation to adventurers and offered a huge reward.

——Want to be the best adventurer? Come here, challenge the unknown, and win the future!

After the PV ended, a quest box popped up with a lit dungeon at the bottom.

【Hopeless Journey】

[After arriving at another time fragment that was distorted by will due to time mutation, you became an adventurer. Just as the eyes of the world are focused on this most dangerous dungeon, you realize that the key to saving the world may be here. Please go deeper into this dungeon (0/50)]

[Mission Rewards: Sands of Time*200, Japanese Yen*200,000, Advanced Experience Books*16, Refined Ore*60]

The double reward really looks particularly pleasing to the eye.

Thinking of the previous PV that had a very blockbuster feel, players can't help but look forward to it even more.

then.

The player was forced to exit the holographic mode. No, it should be said that he exited the state of being in the game.

A virtual screen hung in front of him, and a controller appeared in his hand. On the screen was an old 2D game screen and an even older pixel style.

The player who was looking down at the controller silently asked a question.

On the screen, there seemed to be a three-headed pixelated man representing him, who looked like a black bean at first glance. He was standing on the yellow-brown sand. Surrounding him were villages gathered in the underground city, and many shops with signs hanging on them.

The player controlled the direction with his left hand, and unskillfully made the character turn in a circle, and then again.

He had been playing holographic games recently and gradually found the feeling. After clicking on the task tracking, he followed the shining golden dotted line on the ground.

First, go to the largest building adventurer association nearby to sign up - the receptionist is not Catherine.

The other party gave him a backpack and a floating lamp that could be equipped in the small props list. The receptionist introduced that these two items are necessary in the dungeon, and other supplies need to be purchased by the adventurer himself, such as medicine and equipment.

The subsequent mission instructs the player to go to the pharmacy and weapon shop. The pharmacy sells small bottles of red medicine that restore health points and small bottles of blue medicine that restore energy points.

Although there is no blue bar, players who can use the Japanese yen as the currency of this world still buy out all the goods in the store, including the broken copper and iron novice swords in the weapon shop.

After completing the habitual operation and about to enter the dungeon to officially begin the adventure, the player finally came back to his senses from this speechless shock.

He wanted to pull the production team out to let them see what this was all about!

Where is the funding? !

Have you used up the big world and the first copy?

Or is it that he ran out of money while completing the copy, but he was unlucky and drew out the poor money first?

But this is too poor!

Any StarNet user who registers as a producer on the game platform can use the free software and materials to create such a poor game!

Can't you use the money you have to make PVs to deceive people to make games properly? !

In anger, the player shook the controller until it creaked, and the three-headed pixel man in black on the screen sometimes moved forward, sometimes spun in place, and sometimes bumped into the wall, until it crashed into the entrance to the dungeon.

The scene suddenly changed from a village in the desert to an underground city that was completely dark and only a small section of the road could be seen by the floating lights beside.

But there were no monsters. Instead, there were pixelated people coming and going all around, with nothing on their heads, no names, no health bars, and no titles.

The (0/50) in the mission instantly became (1/50).

Players who are not very accustomed to the pixel style will find that these pixelated people seem to blend into the background, and they can hardly distinguish the things on the screen. They may even walk directly past the fork in the road or mistake the wall for an intersection under the light and shadow and bump into it.

The first three levels are tutorial levels.

After entering the dungeon, the items in the original backpack will be temporarily banned, and he can only use the backpack given to him by the Adventurer Association.

Although this backpack has unlimited capacity, it can only hold things related to the dungeon, such as the red and blue medicines and weapons he just bought.

The difference is that his gun is still usable and his skills are the same.

The monsters in the dungeon are created by magic circles. Starting from the second level, each adventurer will be divided into different spaces by the magic circle after entering, and fight these monsters alone. Only a team of adventurers with a contract scroll can act together.

But every five floors, you will enter a fixed rest room, and adventurers who are still on the current floor will also appear here, which can be regarded as a supply point.

However, there are only supply points like this up to the tenth floor, and few adventurers can enter beyond the tenth floor, let alone trade. Therefore, the deeper you go, the less supplies you will have.

Monsters will not drop items, but you can pick up items left behind by previous adventurers in the areas where monsters are guarding, which can be used as supplies.

Each door leading to the next level requires a key to open, and the key is usually on the strongest monster.

Here, slime is not edible, it is a monster.

Remember to protect the floating lights, as they can be damaged. If they are broken, the adventurer will lose their light source. Of course, you can also pick up floating lights left by other adventurers.

The last message was when the player was operating the controller and stumbling down to the third floor. He had just killed two eternally frozen water and ice slimes and smashed the floating lamp.

In fact, players don't like the gameplay of this copy very much.

Whether it was its PV deceiving him, its poverty, or its pixel art style that made him uncomfortable.

Even though he was already familiar with the controller operation, his damage to the small monsters in the first few levels was one shot at a time, which was a bit like the invincible version of mowing the grass, and he still didn't like it very much.

But when his lights went out, everything from the small map to the big map became pitch black, and he could only make out a little bit through the faint light of the pixelated characters' own outlines and the health bar of the monsters in front of him. Suddenly, the game became more difficult and interesting.

The pitch-black pixel man, who was almost blending into the environment, was stumbling around in the dark, and picked up two pitiful gold coins by the way. Finally, after going around a road three times, he successfully turned around and found the monster guarding this level, got the key and entered the next level.

When players reach the fifth floor, the number of NPCs they see in the rest room with floating lights is far less than that of the first floor, but it is also very lively, with many adventurers trading equipment and store branches.

These pixel characters have no voiceovers, and when they speak, text bubbles appear above their heads, which makes players dizzy.

He replenished a wave of red and blue potions, refused the boss who tried to sell him the magic item floating light, and continued to go down.

There were no shops in the rest area on the tenth floor, and there were only a dozen or so adventurers. No one was selling things, but there were some who wanted to buy things from players.

The player did not sell and continued to move on.

There were also lights in the rest room on the fifteenth floor, but there were only two pixelated figures, who looked like two black beans at first glance, with text bubbles gurgling out of their heads.

The player doesn't need to rest, he just wants to climb the tower.

When he was about to leave the lounge, one of the pixel men suddenly ran over and triggered a plot dialogue.

【？ ？ ？】: "Hello, I'm Hagiwara Kenji, and he's Matsuda Jinpei. I've been following you since you entered the dungeon. You're amazing!"

[Kenji Hagiwara]: "Is your goal the Adventurers Association's bounty?"

Pixel games deprive players of the right to speak freely, leaving only dialogue options.

[Yes, I want to be the king of adventurers! ]

[No, my goal is to save the world! ]

The player decisively chose the second one.

A small pink flower appeared on the head of the pixelated man on the opposite side, and he stretched out his striped hands and enthusiastically held the player character's hands.

[Kenji Hagiwara]: "Hero!"

[Kenji Hagiwara]: "To be honest, we also have our own goals. Can we move forward with you?"

[Kenji Hagiwara]: "I'm a magician who knows some healing spells. Jinpei is a very powerful warrior. Neither of us signed up for the Adventurers Association's competition. If we get injured and can't move around, we'll return on our own."

[Kenji Hagiwara]: "Please consider this!"

The player was thoughtful.

An adventure team usually consists of three characters: a ranged melee fighter and a priest. These characters are called teammates, but in fact, they are controllable characters.

He chose to sign a contract to become a teammate.

And then...he was the only controllable character on his interface.

It turns out these two are following NPCs!

Instead, they brought the light! Give him back his dark vision!

Kenji Hagiwara and Jinpei Matsuda had indeed noticed Hisashi Jyouno very early on.

Anyone who sees a person doing a bunch of strange things will probably never forget it.

They just felt that it was too difficult for people who couldn't even control their own bodies to make a living in the dungeon, so they decided to pay more attention and help in any way they could.

Then, their conversation on the first floor was ignored by Hisashi Jyouno.

The dungeon mode is designed to separate people and let them explore and fight individually, so there's nothing you can do even if you're worried.

Then they were surprised to see Hisashi Jyouno on the fifth floor, who had no signs of battle on his body. Seeing that he no longer had a floating light, they wanted to give him a floating light, but were ignored again.

After waiting for a while on the tenth floor, they were not surprised to see Hisashi Tsuchiya again.

This time, they carefully assessed the other party's strength and decided to extend the invitation.

On the fifteenth level, they successfully became teammates.

But why does Hisashi Jouno always want to smash their floating lights?