Chapter Four
The Right Choice
Rest assured, I did make sure to loot the scorpion’s corpse and its tail before catching up with Rosie.
From the main body, I got:
//Blind Cave Scorpion Claw
//Type: Ingredient (Uncommon)
//The exterior might be covered in stone, but the interior is packed full of meat.
Some pretty decent early-game food could be made using the claw, but that wasn’t what I was looking forward to.
Some NPCs mentioned how the meat in the claw tasted like crab.
I only ever got to eat real crab once before and I loved it, so I was really looked forward to seeing how the claw meat tasted now that it was real.
Really, I was looking forward to how everything from the game tasted. Including a certain type of milk.
As for the drop from the tail:
//Blind Cave Scorpion Stinger
//Type: Material (Rare)
//The stinger of a Blind Cave Scorpion is loaded with potent venom.
The stinger was great to have since it could be used for a few different crafts. The most common option was to turn it into a special dagger, but I was never the dagger type, so that didn’t interest me for this run—this life. Making some high-quality antivenom potions was more appealing to me.
Selling it for an early boost of money was also an option.
That aside.
Rosie and I made our way through the dungeon after I caught up with her, and I made sure to interview her whenever we weren’t bullying some monsters together.
I wanted to know just how much of the world I could expect to be like it was in the game.
And, from what I gathered, most of it was the same.
The world of Custom Dungeon World was one that threw most people off if they didn’t know about it beforehand.
It was mostly a fantasy world in terms of aesthetics and abilities, but also pretty modern.
It was a hybrid that didn’t really care about committing to one or the other and instead just had whatever elements of both the developer liked.
That meant some things were fantasy, some things were modern.
Cellphones, video games, the internet, streaming, modern bathrooms and kitchens, and bikes all existed.
But horses and wagons still existed in place of cars, airships dominated the skies rather than planes, and ships still looked like they were from the 1800s at best rather than resemble anything modern.
Cities also looked more classical fantasy instead of modern, there were adventurer guilds, doctors didn’t exist since there were healers, very little labor was automated, and there weren’t any grocery stores.
That also meant there wasn’t anything like microwavable dinners or premade meals in general.
If someone wanted food that was already prepared, they had to go to a restaurant.
There were, however, outdoor markets, blacksmiths, magic academies, alchemist shops, and so on.
Fashion was also a pretty strong hybrid of fantasy and modern, and fashion prioritized aesthetics rather than function. This meant lots of characters and armor sets were dressed up in ways that didn’t really make any sense… but looked cool.
Some people thought it was the developer’s excuse for being bad at designing characters, but I saw the vision.
Aesthetics were more important than functionality.
Rosie’s outfit didn’t really make much sense, especially for being an adventurer putting her life in danger, but she looked great. That was how most people operated.
By the way, RPGs also existed in this world and were incredibly popular. Some of the most popular adventurers were even sponsored by such games.
As for adventurers… there was one notable thing not adding up.
“Nobody has even cleared The Sunken Temple of Lehyr yet?” I asked.
Rosie sighed since that was at least the tenth dungeon I asked about. “No way.”
“But that’s only a lower-mid-tier dungeon!
Sure, it’s full of level sixty monsters, but you could clear it with a party of level forties if you have the right build!
I mean, everything in there is weak to electric damage!
And as long as you take some accessories or have someone with magic to help with resisting mental debuffs, even the bosses are easy! ”
“I don’t see what’s so surprising about the fact that nobody is suicidal enough to tackle those crazy dangerous dungeons.”
“Oh, right. I can’t believe I haven’t asked this yet, but respawning—if someone dies, are they dead dead or do they respawn?”
“Dead dead. This isn’t a game, remember?”
“Alright, so permadeath is enabled. I’m fine with that. Anyways, those dungeons aren’t crazy dangerous at all. It’s not like I’m surprised people haven’t tackled The Fortress of Undying Flame or anything like that.”
“… The Fortress of Undying Flame?”
“It’s one of the coolest dungeons, in my opinion, plus I love the boss fight at the end. The boss is Azala the Dread Dragon of Corrupted Flames, by the way. Dragons are already cool, but demonic dragons with black fire are even cooler.”
“Azala?!” Rosie shouted, spinning around to grab me by my shoulders. “That dragon?! The one that burned down an entire continent?!”
“That’s part of her lore, yeah.”
“That isn’t just lore here! Parents still tell their children stories about her! But she’s supposed to be dead!”
“Oh, you must be referencing the part of her lore where the Goddess of Justice struck Azala down. That was a lie from the goddess, by the way.”
“The Goddess of Justice would never lie and I don’t even like the gods!”
“Well, she did, but it’s fine. Once I go kill Azala, she’ll become a respawning spirit bound to the dungeon and stop being a risk to the world.”
Rosie’s eyes twitched. “You—you just said you’re going to go kill Azala. The demon dragon who committed genocide against an entire continent. Who wiped out an entire empire and killing millions of people in a single day with her flames.”
“Well, yeah. Defeating her is the start of endgame content. Honestly, no matter how cool she is, she’s the easiest of all the endgame bosses.”
“There… are even stronger monsters than her?”
“Oh, way stronger. She’s like an ant compared to—”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear it! Everything you’re saying breaks my entire worldview! What’s next, you’re going to say we’re all just NPCs in some video game?!”
“…”
“…”
“You’re real to me, Rosie.”
“I hate this.”
I gave her shoulder a friendly pat. “Seriously though, we’re real. Everything here is real. I just have a bit of unfair knowledge, and that’s not even a guarantee. Maybe things are different now.”
Rosie let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Let’s just—ooh! Treasure room!” And just like that, she was off running toward a room in the distance with a glittering treasure chest inside of it.
There weren’t any traps to worry about this early on, and mimics were only in some later dungeons, but—
Yep.
Just as Rosie ran into the room, a snail dropped from the ceiling and hit her right on her head, knocking her over and inflicting the Stunned debuff.
Teaching her to be more careful was an entire part of her questline in the game, so I wasn’t surprised.
“My head hurts,” Rosie said with a pout while I looted the dead snail.
“I’m surprised your horns didn’t crack its shell,” I replied.
“Holstaur horns aren’t weapons.”
“You’re right. They’re handlebars.”
“Handle…bars? What do you mean by that? Handles for what?”
She could be adorably innocent at times. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I’m eighteen!”
“You’re basically a child still.”
“Then what’s that make you for flirting with me and calling me your wife?”
“You got me there. Alright, you’re not basically a child.”
“Hehe. I win. By the way, how old are you?”
“I stopped paying attention years ago, but… at least twenty-five?”
Rosie tilted her head. “You stopped paying attention to your age?”
“That was the last time anyone celebrated my birthday, and I didn’t care about it myself, so.”
“I’m sorry.”
I did a doubletake when I heard the sudden apology. “What’s that for?”
“You look sad. I didn’t mean to bring up something painful.”
“Sad? Nah, I’m fine. It is what it is. Don’t worry about—”
“You’re really bad at lying. I guess that makes it even easier to believe your story about coming here.”
I was lying?
No, I wasn’t.
I wasn’t sad about anything like that. There was no point in getting upset over it. It was just a birthday, after all. It was no different from any other day of the year.
“I’m surprised you haven’t opened that chest yet,” I said.
Rosie watched me for another moment before turning to face the chest. “I call dibs if it’s cool.”
“Be my guest.” Even if it was something I wanted and would use, there was nothing stopping me from grinding the dungeon over and over again on my own until I got it myself.
Rosie opened up the glistening chest and… didn’t seem too impressed. “There’re some healing potions, silver coins, and some weird-looking weapon.”
“A weird-looking weapon? What’s it called?”
“An Iron Sickle.”
Oh, an Iron Sickle. That was one of the basic, random weapon drops obtainable in the dungeon to give players an early opportunity to switch off using a sword or torch.
There wasn’t anything special about it and it could be bought for cheap at any weapon merchant.
I used it a couple of times before, but—
Wait.
A sickle.
Sickles were basically smaller scythes.
Scythes.
A scythe.
That was it.
Was it edgy? Yes. Was it cool? Absolutely.
I didn’t want to be a Knight or Hero. I didn’t want to be a Priest or Magician. I had no interest in using my real life to be a Thief or Assassin.
But there was one exotic class that required annoying unlock conditions that made it one of the rarest used, that primarily used scythes as weapons, that was also just really fucking cool.
I knew what class I wanted to choose for my primary class.
The Reaper.
Clad in black, dancing across the field of death with scythe in hand, a graceful envoy of death—so, so cool!
I was going to need to work on my personality if I wanted to pull a class like that off, though. I’d be bringing shame to it otherwise.
But still.