“Master, you are a genius!” Vampy shouted.

“I told you, the umbrella had a purpose.”

“But to think we could go to the market in broad daylight….”

“Hey! wait, don’t get too excited.” I said, “If you walk too fast, you might walk past the shadow.”

She only grunted in response. After fetching dozens of runes from the market, I stuffed them into her backpack. It was no lie when I said she was my favorite mule. With her as a companion, I could carry an extra 90 pounds.

Which I wisely utilized to stuff her slots with mana potions.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Master, wait!”

“What now?”

“Look!”

One of the merchants was selling a shiny heirloom. “Interesting.”

While I read the item’s status information, Vampy looked at it with her eyes filled with greed.

‘Of course, this woman is unable to think of anything but vanity and cheap self-gratification.’

“Wouldn’t it look good on me?”

I did not respond.

[Necklace of The Everian Blessing]

[While wearing this item, ignore any and all status debuffs]

The merchant was about to regurgitate his sale pitch, but I spoke first.

“I am taking the Necklace, how much?”

“100 silver p-”

I dropped a bag with around 160 pounds' worth of silver on his wooden counter. The bag was so heavy that the table made a cracking noise. Upon peeking at the bag, merchant realized the futility in disputing the content of the bag.

“Keep the rest.”

His greed kept him from responding.

Now I could stand underneath the sunlight without dying outright. Vampy grunted when she saw it was me, the one who had the necklace on their neck. But that was just a mundanity. Without further delay, we made our way to the treasonous swamp. Where we were met by the smell of rotten fish.

Upon sighting the first Dragon, I pulled two wind runes from my own bag.

[Icicles]

The poor green-skinned dragon dropped dead. Upon clearing the area, I stretched a bit and made sure to allocate my points to maximize my DPS. Then I equipped a basic shield to protect myself against fireballs.

“Master, why am I here?”

The vampire underneath the umbrella truly had no idea. But it was not her fault, she was an NPC after all.

“Because if there is no one in the upper grounds of the swamp, the green dragons will re-spawn while I am underneath hunting the red dragons, and then I will immediately get aggro by both as soon as I go up.”

She didn’t understand anything I said. But I didn’t blame her, her INT stats were low.

“Aggro?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just whatever you do, do not move.”

The gig was simple. I descended into the dark cave within the swamp and upon seeing a Dragon lord I would activate two levitation runes. This allowed me to drag him into the swamp grounds.

This is because I was no noob. After slaying the first Dragon Lord, Inexperienced players would get cocky and advance further into the cave. Then they would slay another one further down the now expanding underground installations. But little did the players knew that the Dragon Lord re-spawn was thirty seconds. Half a minute shorter than a regular spawn. Most would get caught by surprise on their way out of the cave, only to be eviscerated by the cruel flames of fate.

Dragon after Dragon was slain, almost like an XP and loot engine, I kept systematically slaying the dragons. When I entered the swamp, I needed to restock my mana potions from every three red dragons I slew. But after a few hours this number increased to ten.

The longer the grind went on, the more bored the vampire underneath the umbrella became.

“Master, I am hungry! Let’s go home!”

“You stay there.”

She only responded with grunts.

I kept luring the dragon lords for another two hours until I leveled up. “Let’s see, what skills should I pick now?”

[Will of Fire: +2% Fire Resistance]

Seems good enough.

“Master, what about me?”

That’s true, as a member of my party, she gained some exp too. I picked a cooking skill for her.

[Second Chance: Whenever you fail a cooking roll, re-roll and keep the highest number.]

Hopefully, my food will not be half-cooked this time.

Having upgraded my skills, I felt confident of going deeper into the cave. After replenishing my mana, I began my sortie inside the cave.

The cave’s temperature was really high, but as a player, this shouldn’t hurt me due to the world’s gamey logic. Upon stepping on the soil, I was attacked by two red dragons at the same time. They threw their Crowd Control at me and the surrounding ground turned into fire. “Hell.”

I blocked their attack with my shield but still took a whooping 500 HP worth of damage, which was nearly half my health. But it was nothing my healing spells couldn’t fix.

[Heal]

I plunged forward through the flames as the dragons charged me. I had to circle around the weakest of the two as the other gave chase.

[HAIL STORM]

The dragons lost more than half of their health. I kept spamming my hail storm runes. Until they fell.

Dragons were susceptible to ice and immune to fire. I checked their loot and to my surprise they had 10 pounds of silver.

I keep marching forward through the red tunnels, compromising this underground floor. My only source of light was a magic wand of light, which illuminated everything around me up to a distance of 4 meters. But my Vampire eyes covered the rest.

Slaying the red dragons then got progressively easier. Until I reached a man made construction with a metal door.

I tried the opening to to avail. But the existence of a locked door on the 1st underground floor of the swamp was noted.

I returned to the upper grounds to restock my potions. Only to be sent straight into low red HP after being hit directly by a dragon’s fire ball.

“VAMPYYYYY YOU ALLOWED THEM TO RESPAWN.”

[Heal]

Slaying the green dragons wasn’t an issue, but now Vampy was nowhere to be seen. “Where are you at? Ah there you are”

She was sitting at the top of a small hill. “I didn’t run away! I was just stretching my legs. Then those foul creatures appeared out of nowhere. It’s your fault!”

She was hopeless.

“And the potions?”

“Over there.”

She pointed at one of them, but there was still one more missing.

“The other one, I don’t know where it fell. But I had to fun, and it was the backpack or my life.”

‘Tch.’

“Whatever.... This shall do.”

I grabbed the backpack and headed down the cave, ‘I guess I would just need to clear the floors in one go.’

There was no telling for how long this spawn was to remain free of player interference.

There was no light, other than the magma that erupted occasionally from the wicked floor. A few red dragons attacked me, but they were no match for my level. At this point I was just grinding and farming them. While my victory was assured, I collected more scales and the silver that they dropped.

My backpack was getting heavier. I threw the empty potions out and filled the backpack with loot. Red scales weighted more than what they looked. Almost as heavy as metal.

When I reached the 2nd layer underneath the swamp, I was met by more dragons, this time their tactic was to attack in mass. I evaded their fire attacks and landed a good hit on the ones that tried to run away when their health was low.

Once I kept going down, towards the 3rd layer. Things changed. Not only was the room temperature hotter. But the walls were crimson red. The granite that embedded the hallway seemed to reassemble civilization. When the Dragon lords attacked me, it’s fire melted my shield. I had to use my runes of hailstorm, and after spamming its effects, I was able to slay the foul beast. Dragon lord scales were more expensive than their green dragon counterparts. Having no shield allowed me to carry more pounds.

I kept going through the labyrinth. The temperate despite having no affect on me, began to make me sweat a bit.

Upon descending unto the hell of the 4th layer, I was ambushed by two dragon lords. They stroke fire at me, which I nearly found myself unable to dodge. Having been restrained by the fire, I unloaded more ice spells on the dragons. This managed to scare them away, and I had to give chase. My boots nearly melted after I stepped into a molten rock.

Finally, once in the 5th layer and with still around 60% of my potions left, the test really began. I was ambushed by twenty furious dragons that screeched at me. Just how many dragons I was to defeat today? I did not know, but I panicked and threw all of my ice runes at them, and defeated them with what seemed like a magic storm. The floor was then flooded, for all the ice quickly melted into water.

As the water evaporated, a hidden room appeared at the end of the tunnel. This for some reason begged the player in me to “get out.”

But the adventurer in me wanted to see what was there. But those who are fated to die, die. While those that are fated to live, live.

‘Perhaps a chest filled with treasures? Or an item to quick start a new quest?’

Whichever it was, I knew fully well that this place wasn’t here the last time I played Runa Online, but the decision had already been made. Marching forward, I pulled my sword, ready to confront anything that stood in my way.

As I walked into the new room, a dragon girl appeared. She looked mostly human, covered in full plate armor made out of dark-red scales. Her long red hair reached down to her waist and her glowing red eyes stared at me with killer intent. Her war-hammer did not only look menacing but also of a legendary tier.

“Human, you will pay for your sins.”

[Lion - The Dragon Sovereign]

I don’t remember there ever being a NPC with her name. But she couldn’t be that strong. The Swamp and subsequent dragon caves were a place for mid-leveled adventurers after all.

“Come at me then!” I yelled.

She activated a spell of haste and dashed towards me in full plate armor. ‘Fuck, I am out of Ice runes. Well, let’s see how well you like-’

I barely managed to dodge as she slashed me. Missing by an inch, she sliced in half the bag in which I kept my runes.

“How dare you!?” I yelled.

[THUNDER STORM]

The resounding trumpets of thunder in such an enclosed space sent a shock wave across the entire dungeon. Then an intense barrage of area-of-effect damage.

In the confusion, I kicked Lion back. But my boot almost ignited. She blew fire from her mouth and I could not dodge. The heavy elemental attack snipped half of my health away in an instant.

I was now furious. I pulled my dragon slicing sword, and we began trading blows. To my luck, she couldn’t slash me because her war hammer was awful.

Then it finally landed a blow and almost broke my ribs. “Is that all you got!?”

“Tch,” She responded. Then, with indignation, she threw her hammer to the ground and adopted a martial art’s stand. ‘What is she doing?’

My question was answered when she lunged forward with her first raised, ready to strike.

[DRAGON FIST]

Her fist ignited in a blinding light. The entire room was a casualty of her strike.

I puffed my chest, ready to tank the blow with a mana shield. But I was wrong.

When my armor tanked the blow, I was sent diving upwards into the upper layers. The system went insane with all the notifications as the granite cracked around me. Upon regaining consciousness, I could see Vampy fighting the Dragon Lord. We were at the top of the swamp. Somehow I had landed ten meters away from where the original entrance to the cave was. But the missing backpack that Vampy lost had softened the blow. ‘So this is where you left it….’

I had zero mana and little to no health. The blow alone was 5k damage points, but each granite floor that I broke incurred a loss of another 2k points. Had I had not paid the price with my mana, I would’ve been sent back to the spawn.

“Ouch.”

While Vampy was busy distracting the Dragon Sovereign, I began drinking all the potions that were still instant.

I was surprised at Vampy’s agility. She was doing her best to dodge every single of the Dragon Lord’s attacks. It was cheer luck that there was no longer daylight.

If I was to win this fight, I needed to act smart. Her DPS was way too high, it vastly outclassed mine. Then it occurred to me, “Aha!”

I picked the staff of tempest from my backpack. Then began the long enchantment. With the staff in my hand, I rallied the sky to my side. Then, I picked all my wind runes, and the sky went dark. Everyone could hear my staff’s wrath. This got the attention of Lion. But it was too late. The rail-gun was fully charged.

“FIRE!”

The blast swallowed the entire place up with the force of a colossal mana cyclone. When the mana dissipated, everything that it touched was gone, including the surrounding ground.

Vampy had lost all her HP and turned into stone. Her petrified face was looking directly at me, as if she had caught wind of the direction of the blast. Her facial expression was half a scream, half a rant. It showed indignation, surprise and panic all at the same time. She was going to have to wait until I defeated the Dragon Sovereign to be re-spawned.

Meanwhile, Lion somehow was still alive. But half-unconscious. Unlike Players or NPC companions, named MOBs did not re-spawn once slain.

“If you want to live, you are going to have to allow yourself to be tamed.”

“I…. I will never-”

Her coughs interrupted her. Her armor was shattered, and likely her skin underneath the scales was roasted. Her HP was quickly approaching zero due to the curses inflicted by my mana strike.

“If you don’t, you will never re-spawn.”

I patted her, and then I closed my eyes. Almost a full minute passed until I got the notification.

*Congratulations, you have obtained a new pet companion.

When I opened my eyes, Lion turned into pixels and disappeared. Then her skill list popped up, along with a collection of ultra-rare items that I had been awarded for defeating her. “Wow, re-spawning Vampy is going to take a lot of mana.”