The Primal Hunter

Going through the gateway leading out of the thirty-first floor, Jake wasn’t exactly sure what he had expected. Considering the uniqueness of these next ten floors and Minaga being the one in charge, it wasn’t even sure there would be an in-between room. There was one, but it wasn’t at all what Jake had predicted.

All the prior in-between rooms had consisted of three gates – one they exit from, one leading to the next floor, and one to exit Nevermore. Besides that, there was a place for lockboxes to spawn... and that was it. They were barebones and functional, with it clearly being meant to just be a room you quickly went through.

As for Minaga’s version of an in-between room?

“This is nice,” Dina said just as they arrived, and she looked around.

“Certainly a relaxing atmosphere,” the Sword Saint agreed.

What they had walked into looked like the lounge of a five-star hotel. Red carpets covered the floor, a large open bar, a sitting area with lounge chairs, an elevated platform that looked to be made out of wood already with a lockbox on it, and generally, this entire hall was just a big and welcoming space. In Jake’s sphere, he even saw that there were several more rooms, including five bedrooms with attached bathrooms, with each of these bedrooms also having a “crafting room” attached. Based on the void behind those doors, Jake guessed that the room changed based on who entered. Finally, Jake saw a fucking open-air bath. Did they need an open-air bath? They didn’t, but it was there.

“Minaga is truly an evil mastermind,” Jake said with respect. “Trying to make the parties attempting the labyrinth waste time in these in-between rooms and thus have less time doing the actual dungeon.”

“Now that is just mean,”Minaga said in a fake sulking tone.

“Sure, sure,” Jake smiled. Just then, they also got a bunch of system messages making Jake smile even more.

Thirty-first floor completed. 310 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-first floor in less than a day (24 hours). 500 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-first floor without any party member taking damage from any trap. 300 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-first floor without interacting with any friendly creatures. 200 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-first floor while only entering a maximum of four challenge rooms. 500 Nevermore Points earned.

The achievements were just rolling in as they got far more points than on any floor prior. Jake did find it a bit odd there wasn’t a single mention of the fact they had chosen the Archmage difficulty, but it was also entirely possible that the reward would come at a later point.

“Certainly a lot of points,” the Sword Saint said, satisfied.

“We may have taken the top spot if there was a Leaderboard after the thirty-first floor,” Jake said with a smile.

“Ree!” Sylphie screeched as she flew over to the lockbox in the room.

“Yeah, I guess you can open it,” Jake said, hearing Sylphie excited to see what was inside. Many of the rewards they had gotten had turned out to be natural treasures or even raw materials their party could use, and most of it had thus also been consumed by Sylphie. It was only natural she was excited about opening each and every lockbox now.

Poking the box with her talon, it opened, and from within, a small shield-looking item floated out. It was no more than ten centimeters tall and had a heater shield design with a glowing flame symbol carved into it. The entire thing look to be made of gold, except for the orange glowing flame symbol. Jake used Identify and raised an eyebrow at the description.

[Greater Firebane Talisman (Ancient)] – Infuse power into the talisman and grant significantly increased resistance to all fire affinity attacks for one hour (60 minutes) to you and all nearby party members. Has limited charges, and once the charges are used up, the talisman will break. This item cannot be used outside of Nevermore and will cease to exist if brought out for too long. Charges remaining: 3

“Very clearly an item offered for either a later environment or a rematch with the Demon Lord. Perhaps both, considering it has a total of three charges,” the Fallen King voiced his thoughts.

“It would be good against the Demon Lord,” Dina agreed, having been the one to primarily deal with it. “The passive fire aura was quite powerful even for a level 270 Demon Lord, and if the next time we encounter the demon, it is even stronger, then I am not sure I would be able to properly fight it off.”

“Then we will have to simply deal with it ourselves,” the Fallen King said a bit dismissively.

he used Arcane Awakening at full power, the passive shield from that, so he should be fine. The King was also good, leaving her only with Sylphie and the Sword Saint, but they could also take care

you

she asked, a bit

and you seem good at judging when to use

followed up. “I find it admirable that Jake recognizes he would have forgotten about the item’s existence ten seconds after putting it in his spatial storage, so he gave it to someone

ain’t fair,” Jake fought

was that compass on the twenty-fourth

Sylphie valiantly came

Sylphie is right. We didn’t need it, so who

this Firebane Talisman, but not using it strikes me as wasteful, seeing

to Dina, case closed,” Jake said as he did the number one

have a question. If you are willing to

pretty hard to know if I am going to answer before you ask the question,” Minaga answered

by the way. I wanted to ask about the time-based achievement we got. More accurately, how they work. 500 points seem like a lot, but at the same time, few would have a chance to do it that fast, so is the achievement for doing it within a day the only one?” Jake asked, wanting

a week, 200 points for less than five days, 350 points for less than three days, and finally, 500 points for less than a day. Congratulations, you

see,” Jake nodded. “Just to ask… was it possible to kill the Demon Lord during

so desired. Not saying doing either would have done you any good, but it was an option,” Minaga said in his usual cheerful voice. “Now, enjoy the break room and

and while Jake did want to move on quickly, he kind of got the feeling keeping Minaga happy would do him good. That some eccentric dungeon master was part of Nevermore, a transformed World Wonder, and that you had to keep the weird guy happy to not get fucked over was admittedly a bit weird… but what can you do about it? Seeing as Minaga made the entire thirty-first floor collapse behind them was

that he had done nothing to mess with Jake. He could have easily scrambled the hallways, switched the locations of rooms with keys, reassigned which monsters had keys, and a slew of other things, but he had done none of it.

few that seemed interesting. Dina and the Sword Saint walked over to join him as Jake began just mixing stuff at random, making different drinks. He had about a ninety-percent failure rate, but he did manage to make some stuff that at least didn’t make him reak. His Sense of the Malefic Viper also allowed him to sense the general level

these things?” the Fallen King asked, clearly just jealous he was the only one who couldn’t enjoy

“I could ask you the

were precious gemstones

then,”

planned, thoroughly falling for Minaga’s trick. Then again, perhaps it was good for them to have a mental reset, and Jake had a strong feeling that was what these rooms were designed for. The five of them had not even dealt with the oppressive mist for a full day, but being

could see why someone would need a drink and a nice soak in

and company still only stayed for a few hours as they checked out the local amenities before

through the gateway, they found themselves in a pretty similar room to the one on the thirty-first. A few seconds after they appeared, the description of the floor once more popped

of Nevermore: Minaga’s Labyrinth

objective: Reach the end

Bonus objectives: N/A

End reached

or objectives may be hidden on the

Current Nevermore Points: 16682

part two was honestly lazy, and he

on the central platform of the room, Minaga once more popped into existence, though he didn’t bother with

that blessed you and be the saddest excuse for a Unique Lifeform I have ever seen, or are you

difficulty,” Jake

said in a deadpan

you mentioned that one could increase or decrease the difficulty by one

gave him a mental thumbs up. He hadn’t even

question,” Minaga said with a smile. “But no, there is not. I should probably change

a good

system announcement surprised all of them as Jake stared at the Unique

teasingly. “Can’t take them back,