Dungeon

I groggily regained consciousness.

I was vaguely aware of the metallic taste in my mouth as well as the pressure which pinned me down.

Eyes still closed, I felt my way around my surroundings with shaky hands. I met fierce resistance, as a weight kept me down on the ground and my body hardly able to move. After a bit of elbow grease though, I properly felt the structures around me, and I could now vaguely make out the familiar anatomy of a chair. Actually, scratch that, there were several chairs, and a few desks mixed in.

I was stuck under a pile of chairs. How very inconvenient.

I finally opened my eyes, and the first thing they met was once again another pop up, surprisingly this time, it revealed very useful information.

Although, it was mostly bad news, but still, it was valuable information.

New Dungeon Discovered!

You are among the first to discover the new dungeon, [OakWood High School].

Experience gain will be doubled for a period of one week.

You have entered the Dungeon - OakWood High School!

OakWood High School

An old highschool with a long history. Currently, it is monster infested.

Dungeon Specific Effects

Experience gain is 1.25 times greater than normal.

Monsters drop rate is 75% lower.

All players in the dungeon are temporarily registered as monsters.

Killing a player gives a temporary buff to a random stat for a duration of one hour.

Player kills earn three times the exp.

While in this dungeon, parties cannot be formed.

[Dungeon?]

In typical rpgs, dungeons are usually more dangerous and filled with far stronger monsters than regular areas....

Did this just say my school is a dungeon?

Well, while it's true that sometimes school did feel like a place of torture, but still, actually labeling it a dungeon? I doubt even this hellhole is bad enough to warrant such a dangerous tag…

Ingesting this new, information, I payed particular attention to the last bit under “Dungeon Specific Effects”.

“....”

Reading it over, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on pvp action. Rather, it seems like this [system] is trying to goad players into killing each other….

With such rewards, anybody who had an inkling on what’s going on, and realized how important levels are would probably be more than just inclined to kill a couple people…

...Of course I’d never do that. I mean, no matter how messed up this situation might seem, I doubt I’d have the guts to kill a person. Actually, this just meant more bad news for me. Not only will I have to worry about the monsters, but now other people have more than just an incentive to hunt me down…

Really, quite a troublesome situation, but for now I can’t focus on that. That issue can be dealt with in the future, for now, I need to look at the immediate situation.

Through the various cracks formed by the oddly placed chairs strewn on top of me, I could see a bit of the room, albeit with much obstruction. What I saw was a gruesome scene.

The carefree teacher who I had been talking to only a few minutes ago was dead. Her corpse lay cold and unmoving on the classroom floor. Blood flowed in various directions, covering up half the classroom floor in a foreboding shade of red. If that wasn’t bad enough, the teacher in question was half eaten.

While her arms and limbs were bent in odd positions, indicating that something with an amazing strength had knocked her around, huge bite marks and gashes riddled her body. The marks didn’t sink into her flesh, like a carnivore’s, but rather, they crushed and mangled her muscle and much of her bone.

Something a herbivore might do, well, except herbivores don’t really eat meat or people for that matter.

Forcing myself to look away, I examined the rest of the room.

Unpleasantly, aside from the corpse, there were other large bodies of flesh in the area.

A huge hulking creature, probably about 2 meters in height stood on a pair of hooved hind legs. It had the physique of a well worked lumberjack, even sporting a rustic axe to match. This thing could have passed of perfectly for a friendly tree cutter, had he not have the face he had.

The face was, in short, a cow’s. Or would calling it a bull be more accurate? Well, either way, the creature had two protruding horns, and a snout face that looked like it was stuck in a perpetual scowl.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, there were two of these creatures.

I focused in on one of them, and noticed the blue screen that was also present on top of their heads. While, it was a bit far, I endeavored to read the information.

Minotaur - Level 15

I sighed dejectedly.

Like its appearance suggested, it really was a Minotaur...what's more, it was level 15!

That’s a whooping 13 levels higher than me! And what makes that worse is there’s two of them! Two level 15 monsters…

I barely survived fighting a tiny goblin, what can I possibly do against two minotaurs.

While I began to despair, I noticed an odd event taking place.

In the middle of the wrecked classroom, what I can only describe as a slight distortion in space occurred. The air rippled, as the space ripped itself apart, and a moment later, another hulking beast blinked into life.

It was another minotaur.

[What just….]

I grew anxious, the beast just appeared out of nowhere! It was like this whole room birthed a monster before my eyes!

I continued observing before another odd thing occured.

Once the new minotaur appeared, the other two roared (well, more mooo than anything else), before they, along with the new one in tow, left the classroom rather excitedly.

I lay there stock still. My feelings were very mixed. At first there was the obvious set of confusion. Why did they leave this place? How did that minotaur suddenly appear?

After that, came a sense of realization. Right now I was alone, with no minotaurs guarding the room. If there were any better time to escape, it would be now!

Filled with excitement at this reasoning, I began to shake and shimmy the structure in front of me, all in a vain attempt to knock the chairs out from above me. I ignored much of the muscle fatigue I felt and the throbbing pain in my thigh and mustered as much strength as I could manage. The loose structure gave some leeway, as a bundle of chairs loosened and clattered on to the floor.

As I was about to continue this course of actions with a renewed vigor, something interrupted me. The room once again distorted, and in an instant a new minotaur stood imposingly in the center of the room.

Its eyes darted back and forth, as if looking for its opponents or allies. Seeing none, its tense muscles loosened as it went to stand in a corner opposite to me.

I stopped anymore reckless actions after that, afraid that the creature might notice. Instead, I decided to just sit and wait and go back to quietly observing the room.

Truth be told, the current events gave off a hint as to what was happening in this particular room. I just needed to confirm it.

A few minutes later, another minotaur blinked into life. It roared at its waiting companion and moved over into another corner of the room. Shortly after the second one’s sudden appearance, a third minotaur came. It roared mightily at its two predecessors.

Before I could finish my incomplete thoughts, the minotaurs moved. Much like the first group, they left the classroom in droves of three.

And once again, I was left alone in a quiet classroom.

Unlike last time, I decided to wait, counting out silently each second that past by. Once I reached the one minute and thirty second mark, another minotaur blinked into life.

From here on out, I observed the situation quietly from my hiding spot. I kept track of all my findings within my head and came to the conclusion that, there was indeed a pattern.

Minotaurs would blink into life within this room, and once three had gathered, they’d all set out into the hallways together, leaving the room empty for a short period of time. This time span was about 1 minute 30 seconds (give or take).

Once the allotted time passed, another minotaur would be blinked into life.

In short, I could call this room a spawn point, an area where monsters typically come to life. In a typical rpg dungeon, spawn points aren’t all that rare, rather, it makes sense to have spawn points. While the whole concept of a creature just appearing into existence was weird, it kinda fit the whole context of the situation.

It was at least very rpg-esque if that’s any consolation.

Probably, the bathroom I was previously in was also a spawn point. One for goblins instead of minotaurs. Actually, if you think about it, I might have been lucky that the restroom spawned goblins. If it pooped something as huge and dangerous as a minotaur, I’d be undoubtedly screwed.

Another thing to, was the movement of the minotaurs. They either moved in groups of three due to an order from a higher up or it’s just in their nature. I’m not really too sure, but for me, this was actually an advantage.

I had 1 minute and 30 second intervals to do what I pleased and I would make sure to utilize that time appropriately.

There was no way I was going to die in a place like this.

Like that, my pseudo plan moved into gear.

At each time when there would be nobody but me in the room, I did my damnedest to thin the stack of chairs that pinned me to the ground. Luckily the structure was already very unstable, so it only took about 5 intervals to thin the mound considerably.

Although I did stop after the 5th interval, since I was afraid that any less and I’d be visible to the creatures.

Still, while I toiled, and inbetween the dreaded period of waiting, where I sat anxiously, I lamented over how unlucky this situation was. To find myself in a spawn point… in an rpg, that would have certainly spelled doom.

Actually, I did have the misfortune of finding myself in two spawn points… are those ten points in luck even working?

rather, how useful will the luck stat be anyway?

My thoughts idled, as I sat there and waited. I had decided to move into action during the next interval. and I needed to utilize all my time wisely. Laying here for long extended periods of time had caused the adrenaline in my system to wear off. I could now feel each throbbing pulse of pain in my leg, and I had to fight through every moment to not scream out in agony.

On the plus side though, the bleeding status did end, so I wasn’t continuously losing health anymore. Rather, I was actually gaining some, which is a good thing since I was down to 12 hit points after I was sent flying by that first minotaur.

During the 7th interval is when I finally decided to move. With preplanned haste, I pushed off the flimsy layer of chairs and desks from above me, and finally freed myself. It was a relief not having that weight pin me down anymore, but I couldn’t really enjoy it right now.

First, I moved through the window. When I got there, my face turned pale at the site before me.

The view outside was a city of flames. Smoking and fire rose from the streets and people were screaming out. It really was a horrid scene, but I kind of figured it was better than staying in this building.

I banged, and banged on the thin glass, desperation leaking through everyone of my blows. I almost broke through when something annoying stopped me.

ding!

Stop!

Oakwood High School is a special dungeon. Leaving through incorrect means will result in severe penalties.

These penalties include but are not limited to:

Death

Go the proper way.

Players are only allowed to leave once they find the correct exit and slay the boss of the dungeon.

“Tch!”

Seeing this, I swelled up with frustration and anger. I held in bitter tears as I turned around from this false hope.

Grimacing through the pain, I hobbled to the doorway.

I counted down each second as it passed, right now I was down to 45 seconds.

When I reached the smashed doorway, I halted. I was at 36 seconds.

Grunting, I managed to peer out into the hallway, carefully making sure that the minotaurs hadn’t stayed near their spawn point, after all, if they did all just congregate in the hallway, my plan would have failed.

Fortunately, they weren’t here. Rather the hallway was pretty empty, save for a random corpse here and there.

The sight was disgusting but I couldn’t really nit pick on those unpleasantries.

Right now I was at 15 seconds.

I hobbled off into the hallway, turning right, I moved as fast as one can move with an injured thigh.

8 seconds.

I half ran, passing the restroom I was at before.

3 seconds.

I didn’t know where I was going, just, the fear of a minotaur was pushing me farther and farther away from this place.

1.5 seconds

I was almost there just turn this upcoming corner and--

BAM!

0 seconds.

I could now hear the roars of the new minotaur as I toppled over somebody… or something.