Chapter Twelve
A Legendary Vision
[Entering Dungeon]
[Twisting Woods]
Twisting Woods was another one of the super easy, straightforward dungeons. To classify them a little while excluding unlockable, higher-level routes:
Level 1 – 5 dungeons were the tutorial dungeons, basically.
There was only a single path that led to a single boss.
They only had one normal spawn and one rare spawn outside of the boss.
They were meant to be completed in under fifteen minutes at most. They sometimes had treasure chests that spawned.
Level 4 – 9 dungeons were only a step above the tutorial dungeons. They had optional paths that led to more mob variety and more potential treasure chests, but still only one boss. They were also meant to be completed in around fifteen minutes.
Level 9 – 15 dungeons were another small step up in difficulty.
They had more paths, an optional mini boss, and two main bosses that had to be defeated in order.
There were always at least a couple of treasure chests around, and traps started spawning in these dungeons.
A quick run would take around fifteen minutes still, but a full run would take around thirty.
They didn’t change too much from one another after that aside from getting longer and more complex which also meant their level ranges became wider. For example, the next range after 9 – 15 was 15 – 25, then 25 – 40, then 40 – 60, and the ranges pretty much stayed in increments of 20 until endgame.
But once the 25 – 40 range was reached, those dungeons were the size of five dungeons from the 9 – 15 range, and doing a single route without anything optional took around 45 minutes on average.
Full clears took multiple hours unless the player was over-leveled and overgeared, or using cheese or speedrun strategies.
And again, that wasn’t counting anything like secret, higher-level areas that could be unlocked in those dungeons for each tier.
I couldn’t really refute the people who claimed that the beginning dungeons were a bit too simple and easy.
However, in the game, it only took an hour to get to level 15, choose a class, and to start going into more interesting dungeons.
Then people got hooked on just how perfect of a dungeon crawler Custom Dungeon World was.
One hour of kind of slow gameplay led to hundreds to thousands of hours of incredible dungeon crawling.
The same could be said about the class and skill system. There really wasn’t much in the way of skills before acquiring a class. But once a class was acquired, there was a ton of fun, depth, and variety there.
Ah, I couldn’t wait.
“This is what I call his ‘dungeon fanboy mode,’” Rosie said as her and Lupa stood in front of me staring at my face.
“Cute,” Lupa said.
“See? Now he’s blushing a little which proves I’m right. He was lost in thought about dungeons. Again.”
I stepped between them and onto the natural path in front of us so that they couldn’t see my face anymore. “It’s only natural to get lost in thought when it comes to a dungeon. How could anyone look at all of this and not appreciate how amazing it is?!”
We were in a forest full of old, beautiful trees that reached higher than most buildings in the city!
I could barely even see the sky peeking through the canopy!
And there was so much life! Insects, birds, scurrying critters, and the occasional sound of wind brushing through the trees was an orchestra to the ears!
And then there was the scent! The scent of nature!
“It’s amazing!” I declared, spinning around to face the girls with my arms dramatically held out past my sides.
Lupa looked around for a bit before saying, “It’s a forest.”
Rosie nodded. “I played in a forest like this with my sister all the time as a kid.”
“Mm. Forests are fun.”
I sighed and said, “Well, sorry for being the loner who spent his whole life stuck in bed.” I kicked one of the rocks on the ground to playfully pout and act a little immature, but then I saw a stick and picked it up.
“This is the first time I’ve ever held a stick.
I used to see so many guys post things on the internet about finding and collecting awesome sticks, but here I am, almost in my thirties and I’m only touching a stick for the first time.
” I turned the stick around and saw a spider on it, and that spider was quick to climb onto my finger.
Rosie stepped back when she saw it.
“Sorry, did I disturb you?” I asked the spider before putting the stick back in front of it. Once the spider climbed back onto the stick, I placed it back on the ground next to the path. “There you go.”
“You—you’re not afraid of spiders?” Rosie asked.
“I love spiders. Didn’t always, though. I used to be terrified of them.”
“What… how’d you get over that fear?”
“One time, I was on this new medication that reacted weird with something else I was on, and so my limbs were all numb—more than usual, and I couldn’t move anything.
It was also the middle of the night. Anyways, this huge spider crawled on top of me and I couldn’t get it off, so all I could do was scream for a nurse to come help me, but the nurse on duty was at the opposite end checking on someone else.
Eventually, it climbed up onto my face, so I had to close my mouth so it couldn’t crawl inside, and…
well, I guess spiders stop being scary once they crawl all over your body and face without hurting you.
It stayed on my face for a long time, by the way. ”
“The more I learn about everything you’ve been through… the more sorry I feel for you.”
“It is what it is.”
Lupa looked like she was curious since she still didn’t know about my past, but I planned on telling her soon. She did, however, say, “Sorry, Master.”
“What for?”
“Just because I’m used to the forest doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful. I’ll do my best to appreciate it with you.”
Rosie’s ears twitched when she heard that and then took a downward turn. “I… sorry,” she said. “I downplayed it even though you’re so excited about it. I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to something I was excited about.”
“H-hey,” I said. “Don’t worry, it’s fine. I can’t expect you two to get hyped up with me over every single little thing. I’m the weird one, not you.”
“I don’t care. I want to get excited with you and share your passion. One, because I care about you, and two… I think it’s a beautiful way to live. S-so… I’m not going to downplay anything you like again.”
“It’s fine, seriously. It wasn’t like you insulted me or anything. I was just acting a little immature on purpose for fun.”
Lupa shook her head. “Master’s body language doesn’t lie. We hurt your feelings.”
I looked away and scratched my cheek. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Your body language still isn’t lying.”
“I’m just embarrassed at this point, alright? Let’s focus on the dungeon. Thank you for apologizing even though you didn’t need to.”
Rosie grabbed onto my arm. “What a pain we must be, wanting to make sure you’re happy and apologizing when we hurt you.”
“Mm.” Lupa grabbed onto my other arm. “We’re the worst.”
I squirmed, but there was no escape. “We can’t fight monsters if you’re holding onto me like this.”
Rosie pressed her chest against my arm nice and firmly. “I don’t see any monsters yet. Do you, Lupa?”
Lupa shook her head. “None.”
I had two beautiful women clinging to my arms, purposely pressing their breasts against them, while doing their best to cheer me up after I got just a little hurt over something so immature.
I was far too fortunate to have them.
The clinging came to an end once the first monster came into sight. What we needed were hogs, but what we got was a goblin. A short, green, ugly little thing covered in warts with an elongated head and an even longer nose.
“Fun fact,” I said. “Seth hated goblin rape hentai, but he was also annoyed by everyone obsessed with goblin girls, so he made goblins ugly and genderless so nobody got to win other than his fellow goblin haters. Of course, it was still the internet, so rule 34 demanded that porn existed of them anyways, but yeah. That’s why they look so ugly and killable.
And why they reproduce by their warts. Not sure how that last part works, but it’s what the lore said. ”
Lupa didn’t really have a reply to that, but Rosie said, “So, he made a race of creatures specifically to be killable since he had a grudge against them.”
“… Rosie, you’re great at making him sound like a piece of shit.”
“Good.”
“Well, they still exist regardless of his intentions, and they’re objectively evil...”
“I won’t complain about killing them, I’ll just complain about the god who created them in the first place.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The goblin finally noticed us and wasted no time baring its jagged teeth to snarl at us.
“Master, can I?” Lupa asked.
“It’s level four to your one,” I answered. “Think you can handle it?”
Lupa tilted her head. “It’s only a goblin.”
“But the level difference—”
“Levels aren’t everything.”
“Well, we’re here to back you up if you need it. Don’t hesitate to disengage and let us jump in if you need help.”
“Master is strange.”
Lupa drew her daggers after that. Then, almost too quickly to follow, she charged at the goblin who raised its wooden club to swing at her.
But she was too fast.
She sliced her dagger straight through the side of its neck while dodging from sheer speed. She followed up with another attack before the goblin could even turn around, and then flipped over it to stab again in quick succession with both of her daggers.
Sure, each attack only did a little bit of damage since she was only a level one using basic, un-enhanced weapons… but she was fighting on a level beyond anything I had seen so far.
I was pretty sure just from watching her that she would kick my ass if we dueled.
The goblin dropped dead before long.
“Mm,” Lupa said. “Just a goblin.”
I looked at Rosie and asked, “Did you see that?”