[The Party has reached Level 5!] Exp: 0/30

[All HP and MP has been restored due to levelups]

[Player Garett: Dexterity +1, Strength +2, Intelligence +1]

[Hidden crafting trees have been unlocked. Experiment with blueprints to discover new items]

Current Stats:

[Strength: 4]

[Dexterity: 2]

[Perception: 1]

[Charisma: 1]

[Intelligence: 4]

[HP: 16/16 MP: 16/16]

[Player Trevor: Dexterity +3, Perception +2, Charisma +1]

Current Stats:

[Strength: 1]

[Dexterity: 7] (-1 For Suit)

[Perception: 7]

[Charisma: 4]

[Intelligence: 4]

[HP: 11/11 MP: 16/16]

[Player Samantha: Intelligence +1, Charisma +1, Strength +2, Perception +2]

Current Stats:

[Strength: 3]

[Dexterity: 0]

[Perception: 5]

[Charisma: 7]

[Intelligence: 6]

[HP: 14/14 MP: 19/19]

[Player Ashley: Intelligence +3, Dexterity +2, Perception +2]

Current Stats:

[Strength: 2]

[Dexterity: 4]

[Perception: 6]

[Charisma: 1]

[Intelligence: 11]

[HP: 13/13 MP: 26/26]

[Tutorial Boss has been defeated. Congratulations!]

[Outside interference detected. State is indeterminant. Recalculating]

[Entering Nightmare Mode]

These messages flew past the eyes of the exhausted party members.

"Eh?"

"Nightmare mode?"

The wounds of the party had all been healed, as the green healing glow engulfed each member, and they all felt reinvigorated as their wounds closed and their pains dissipated.

The messages continued though.

[Note: Many system changes have occurred due to the enabling of nightmare mode]

[Displaying changelog]

Changes:

1. When a noncombat event occurs, if there is a check requiring a roll, a number between 1 and 100 is to be generated. Based on the player who is being checked, their stat for the given check will determine the chance they have to succeed.

For example, if an intelligence roll is performed on [Player Ashley], she would have an 11% chance to succeed, given that her intelligence is 11

2. If an attack is made in combat, the damage value of the attack will be based on a given statistic. A number between 1 and the players stat will be rolled, and this will give the damage value.

For example, if [Player Ashley] uses [Fireball], an intelligence based attack, the damage will then be determined by a roll from 1-11, given that her intelligence is 11

3. Turn based mode has been disabled. The players will have to decide and act in real time to the given situation, nor will they be given time to analyze the results of a roll.

Suddenly... a glitchy message appeared on the screen. It was flashing eerily, and certainly didn't seem to be a regular function of the system.

[Good luck, losers. Try as hard as you can not to die on this mode.]

[-The indeterminant]

Garett, Trevor, Ashley, and Samantha, all stood their quietly.

Not even the drop of a pin could be heard.

They held their breath for a few seconds as they read and processed these messages.

Finally, Garett spoke up.

"This... could be a problem"

"Indeed", Trevor replied.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

So wrong, in fact, that their very lives were essentially forfeit.

To explain in broad terms, their position in this world had just been flipped completely upside down from "If we face an enemy we might be able to do something about it so long as we are careful" to "Encountering an enemy will likely be fatal, and everything we do will likely result in a negative outcome"

Why was this the case?

Because of the low statistics that each party member held.

For any given stat, each party member had a value of somewhere between 1 and 10 roughly.

With the new system, this implied that there would only be -at best- a 10% chance of succeeding in ANY GIVEN ACTION.

Garett recalled bumping his head and triggering traps as a result of low rolls and bad decisions.

If he was not careful, there would be little to no chance of survival under these conditions.

On top of that, there was a new damage value system during combat which made it more difficult to do damage to enemies. To make things worse, there was no longer any time stop to strategize or make decisions.

To put things simply, they were no longer playing a game.

They were fighting for their lives with every action.

Even Samantha, who was new to these types of things, seemed to understand just how bad their situation was.

However... at that moment, something interesting happened.

Samantha watched the faces of Garett, Ashley, and Trevor as they all twisted with wicked smiles.

At first, the three started to quietly chuckle.

And then, they began to laugh out loud.

Until finally, the three were laughing hysterically like maniacs, rolling about on the floor.

"The indeterminant, you say!? AHAHA!!! You sure got us!!! It doesn't even take one wrong move- one unlucky bump and were all dead!!!", Garett shouted.

Samantha looked in horror at the scene in front of her.

Three people who had clearly lost it, and gone mad.

"What the hell are you all doing!?!? If you understand how bad the situation is, then why don't you get your ass up and do something about it, eh!?"

Trevor looked up to Samantha with eyes of pity, while still laughing.

"Ah. You don't get it. You don't understand how bad the situation is!!! With odds like these, all I can do is laugh and say, 'Well, we had a good run!'"

Samantha stuck her foot in Trevor's mouth.

Thud

"Oof!"

Trevor continued laughing even after being kicked.

Ashley floated up and began to coil herself around Samantha.

"What's wrong, rich girl? Loosen up a little. This is the last day we get to live after all. Join in on the fun...."

Samantha shoved Ashley off her, and Ashley floated away after being pushed, with a smirk on her face.

"Get the hell away from me you freak!!!"

These words would normally have pissed Ashley off to the point of explosion, given that Samantha was looking down on her, yet this time, Ashley had truly given up all hope.

She merely laughed it off and then laid back down on the stone cold floor to relax.

"Ah well... I tried..."

Samantha found herself backing away from the three, however soon enough she was reminded of another cruel reality as she hit the invisible wall preventing her from leaving the 3 meter radius.

She turned her back, facing this invisible wall with a look of fear in her eyes.

She clawed at the wall as if trying to escape.

And then, accepting her fate, she too began to laugh.

At first just giggling.

This lead to a full laugh.

And eventually, she too was on the floor laughing.

If one were to view this scene as an outsider, they would have truly believed it was a meeting among demons.

----

The parties demise was not guaranteed,

Granted, unlucky events would become a regular occurrence.

If the party did not take care to mind every action and decision they made, it would certainly spell their doom, however it would seem that they were overreacting at how bad things were.

But that was only if one viewed things from the viewpoint of an optimist.

The events that the system had pulled on the party to this point had seemed relatively random, with some general purpose, but what about now that nightmare mode had been enabled?

Could Garett really say that everything would be fine? Of course not.

It seemed to be obvious to Garett that the magnitude of each event and the results would become much more impactful.

For example, say Garett had tried to open the door from earlier.

If the roll was between 1 and 100, since Garett had a Dexterity of 1, then he would have a 99% chance to fail.

This would mean two things.

The first being that he would have to try tens, or perhaps even hundreds of times in order to open the door.

The second would be that- say he rolled a 5, when he needed to roll a 100 in order to open the door.

This number was a whopping 95 away from the required roll.

Garett had assumed that the further away you are from the required roll, the effects became exponentially worse or better. This meant that by getting this roll, instead of simply bumping his head, it would be likely that he would take enough damage then and there to die on the spot.

Even assuming this wasn't the case- he would still have to try somewhere around 50-70 attempts to get a successful roll.

In that time, if he took only 1 or 2 damage each attempt by bumping his head, he would be long dead before he would be able to unlock the door.

Essentially, if he were in that situation, it would be nothing less than a miracle for him to make it out alive.

And this line of reasoning was what Garett, Ashley, and Trevor had all gone through, which had driven them to the point of madness.

----

4 hours passed. Garett awoke to see his three party members lying on the stone cold ground near him, and looked around to see that they were all still in the arena.

"It seems we all lost our minds in worry when we realized that this [nightmare mode] has been enabled. Good grief. I need to get my shit together. I said this before, didn't I? I'm here in this world in order to thrive. I can still become strong, so long as I survive at first."

While their situation could be called desperate, the opposite was also true. If Garett and his party could manage to level up to the point where there stats were all 100, they would essentially be invincible, with every action going exactly as they desired it to.

With this in mind, Garett began to shake Ashley.

She was acting completely different from her normal self after nightmare mode had been enabled, and Garett was deeply concerned for her.

"Hey, wake up!"

Ashley turned over, drooling, and slapped her hand on Garett's face.

"Just five more minutes..."

She grabbed his face as if hitting the snooze button on an alarm.

Garett grabbed her shoulders and took her hand off his face.

"Five more minutes my ass. Get up!"

He shook her translucent body vigorously.

"ABUBUBUBUBUBUB!!!"

Ashley screamed as she was being shaken.

She then looked around, darting her eyes from here to there. The bags under her eyes were just as prominent as always, and her hair was even messier than usual.

"Ah...."

Ashley made a groan of realization.

"AH!!"

"Ugh.... I can't believe I did those things back then... that one bitch is probably judging me in her sleep...", Ashley thought.

Looking at Garett and seeing him awake, she got up slowly.

"Uh... what are we going to do from now on? Is there anything we can do to make our situation better?"

"Were going to do the same thing as before. Were going to survive as a team- the four of us- and become so strong that nobody will be able to harm us. Even on this nightmare mode."

Garett said this with confidence, knowing that he was speaking the impossible.

Nightmare mode on any game was known to kill the players hundreds of times before they managed to beat it

To play a game on that difficulty with a permadeath function was literally asking to be tortured.

And yet, here they were, Garett knew that his party only had one life, and that revival was nothing more than a pipe dream. Even so, he could hope...

Making his resolve to accept his fate, whatever it may be, Garett stood up.

"We won't go down without a fight. Will you be with me when the time to die comes?"

Garett didn't need to ask this, as they were linked together through the system. However, he wasn't asking if she would be with him, but rather, would she be there, supporting his decision to try to live.

A sinister grin appeared on Ashley's face.

"We can't allow the person who has done this to us to get away so easily. Will you stand with me as we destroy anyone who gets in our way?"

This question was addressed to both Garett, and Trevor and Samantha, who were lying conscious with their eyes closed.

They both sat up, and Samantha smiled cutely as if to say "You caught me"

And with sinister giggling and laughing, the three responded together.

"Hell yeah"

----

The four were lined up, a determined look on each of their faces.

They were ready to defy fate.

Garett stepped in front and lead the party to the golden portcullis, and upon approach a message popped up.

[Roll Unnecessary. Conditions to open treasure room have been cleared]

And with this, a rumbling around the arena sounded. Not only did the gate to the treasure room open, but also the gates that lead elsewhere, and the one they came in. The treasure room aside, a total of 7 pathways opened up.

Trevor stood in front of Samantha as if to protect her, and Garett held back Ashley, who wanted to press on with an excited look in her eyes.

Inside the treasure room, atop a wide rectangular marble pedestal was a large chest. It was a bright blue, with a golden frame, and it began to open on its own as the four came close to it.

[Your desires have been taken into account]

The chest fully opened, and Garett went to peek inside.

Nothing.

Garett let out a chuckle.

Of course things would be like this.

"Roll unnecessary"

Was the system making fun of them?

Was it trying to tell them that even if it rolled the dice that they wouldn't obtain anything?

Or perhaps it was trying to protect them from a more gruesome fate than missing out on loot?

Upon thinking this, Garett began to wonder if the system was really controlled by some sort of human entity, however these thoughts vanished when Samantha spoke up.

"Ah! Whats this!? Does anyone have a mirror? This thing appeared on my head, and I need to see how it looks on me..."

Samantha was wearing a golden halo above her head, as she felt it with her hands and adjusted it.

Ashley let out a 'pfft', and was clearly trying hard to hold in her laughter.

"W... what? Is there something you want to say, ghost girl?"

Ashley's eyes went cold again, and she calmly and quietly stated

"I just found it funny that a demon is wearing a halo"

"Does it look weird on me? I need a mirror... I can't figure out how to adjust my fashion sense in this new body without one..."

Trevor pushed his finger onto his nose piece to adjust his glasses, only to realize that his glasses had become shades.

"Sigh... always causing trouble with your material desires, eh woman? What about those potions you had, Garett? That must be reflective"

Garett found himself feeling much calmer, and even a little happy to be interacting with this group like this.

It seemed that everyone going nuts had broken the ice between all the members of the party, and Garett no longer felt any tension or malice among the four.

Was this what it meant to form the bonds of brotherhood through battle?

As Garett reached into his pocket to take out the bottle of slime venom, he noticed that there were a pair of white gloves covering Ashley's hands.

Taking out the bottle, he felt the herbs and alchemy set which were stored in his inventory.

Don't ask how he fit these things in his pocket, his inventory was an otherworldly dimension.

But when he was feeling around in his pocket, he felt something else as well. Pulling out the poison, his hand had grabbed onto a pen.

"What's this?"

[Player Samantha has acquired Halo. Charisma +5]

[Charisma: 7] (+5 Halo)

[Player Trevor has acquired some smooth looks]

[Sunglasses: Charisma +5 with those cultured enough to recognize his style]

[Charisma: 4] (+5 with cultured beings)

[Player Ashley has acquired white gloves. Noble and Stylish!]

[Charisma +5 with lawful beings]

[Charisma: 1] (+5 with lawful beings)

[Player Garett has received item: Pen. You can now draw blueprints]

"Nice!", Garett exclaimed, excited that he would finally be able to put his abilities to use.

He immediately imagined the recipe he found for the health potion earlier, and the pen began to move on its own. It drew out the image Garett had imagined of the potion, and wrote out various technical notes across the paper. It looked like a legitimate engineering document- as if it was drawn by a professional.

The paper settled in Garett's hand, and Garett couldn't stop himself from smiling.

[Small health potion: Restores 6 HP]

[Materials required: 2 razorpin grass, 1 glass bottle, 10 mL concentrated liquid mana]

[Apparatus: Brewing stand]

After this process completed, Garett handed over the bottle of poison to Samantha, who snatched it from his hand and began quickly adjusting her halo and trying to fix her hair.

"Careful with that! Its full of poison you know!"

"Yeah yeah keep talking... My hair is more important than a little poison..."

Trevor face palmed while letting out a breath of relief that the poison was still intact and not spilled.

And for the first time, he laughed.

Not a sinister, insane laugh like before, but a legitimate, happy laugh.

The tension in the air was gone, and the four seemed to all be on the same track... for the most part.

"Lets get out of the dark"

As Garett said this however, another message appeared.

[I am doing what I can to help you, summoned anti-heroes. Make your way to me, and I will explain more. Whatever you do, do not allow anyone to find out your names. You will be killed if they become common knowledge]

[-The Determined]

[Quest Prioritized: Take over the continent of monsters]

This quest flashed brightly, as if to say, 'come search for me. I will be awaiting your arrival'