Chapter 284: Dungeon (4)

In Gorontalo, Indonesia.

It felt empty and lonely as soon as I arrived there.

Of course, I didn’t find it uncomfortable because I had been to this kind of place many times.

When I moved further into the region with guild leader Maulama, I arrived at the entrance to the small cave that I saw in the investigation report that Director Sok gave me.

“It is over there.”

“Got it.”

“I really hope you can come back with my people trapped there!”

“Sure, I will do so.”

Since I was briefed by Director Sok again yesterday, I moved naturally to the front of the cave without any hesitation.

And as expected, a message rang.

[This is the Dungeon of Ordeal.

– The Dungeon of Ordeal is only available for those who have achieved at least 1% reality actualization rate.

: Currently, you have a 33% reality actualization rate, so you can enter the dungeon.]

This was the message that I heard first, namely, the one that announced that only those who achieved a required reality actualization rate could enter the dungeon.

After passing the first test, the next message rang immediately after.

[Currently, the quest ‘Break through the Dungeon of Ordeal’ is in progress.

– You will be given the following rewards if you clear the quest by breaking through the last room of the Dungeon of Ordeal.

: 1 billion golden rings.

: 60,000 coins.

: 800 remaining stat points.

: The title ‘One Who Overcomes Trials’.

– There is a time limit for you to destroy the current Dungeon of Ordeal.

: 122 hours 48 minutes.

: If you do not clear the Dungeon of Ordeal within the time limit, the quest ends and the Dungeon of Ordeal will self-destruct immediately, killing everyone inside.]

[Do you wish to challenge the quest ‘Break through the Dungeon of Ordeal?’]

Originally, it was a quest that awarded 500 million golden rings and 30,000 coins and 400 remaining stat points. However, all of them doubled, along with a new title that was not there before

Although I didn’t intend to challenge it at first, the current rewards really tempted me.

So I quietly opened my mouth.

“Challenge.”

[You have decided to challenge the quest.

-You are now being moved into the Dungeon of Ordeal.]

Shuuuuuung-

Soon I felt myself being pulled by something inside the cave, so I immediately prepared for combat because I didn’t know what was going to happen.

[….]

However, all that greeted me was a huge vacant area.

Of course, it wasn’t that strange. There was no law that there should be monsters there.

“Safety Zone?”

There was a safety zone that existed at the entrance of each city or hunting ground.

It was there for the convenience of users.

And the safety zone in this dungeon was quite large.

Tramp- Tramp-

I started moving slowly through the safety zone where there were no monsters or even a single ant. And once I reached the end, I could easily enter another area.

The problem was that the safety zone continued into the next area as well.

“Obviously, the condition for clearing the quest is to break through the last room…”

The condition had nothing to do with killing or blocking the monsters. I just needed to break through the last room. Somehow the areas here seemed to be the rooms mentioned in the message. As a matter of fact, they were clearly partitioned from each other, so they could be called rooms. All I could do was move forward, so I kept moving forward.

A little later I passed through the areas, or the so-called rooms, and soon I faced a huge area which was different from all the previous ones. I instinctively felt that this was the last room.

“I wonder if this place is still a safety zone.”

All the 19 spaces that I passed by were in the safety zone. So I could not see any monsters.

So, I moved on, hoping I would encounter monsters in the next space.

At that moment, I heard lots of noise echoing in the area.

“Wow!”

“Someone is here!”

“Yeah, somebody is here!”

There were quite a number of people. But they were just ordinary people.

At a glance, I knew who they were because I heard from the Novo Guild that lots of ordinary people in Gorontalo disappeared after they were allegedly attacked by the monsters.

But there was something more striking than them.

[Safety Zone.]

This place was still a safety zone. And there was no path to move to the next area. As expected, this was the last room.

In the center of this large area, there was an eye-catching crystal tower surrounded by exactly eighty men.

One of them asked, “Who are you? You do not seem to be a member of the Novo Guild.”

I realized that they were different from the ordinary people from before. They were the people that Maulama, the leader of the Novo Guild, had been searching for.

But I didn’t reveal my identity to them.

“I have been dispatched here to investigate.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then who else will come here?”

“No, nobody else will come here. As written on the crystal tower over there, there are only five days left before you have to get out of here.”

On the crystal tower was written the time remaining before the quest ended, which was decreasing little by little. In other words, they also knew how much time was left.

“Then is it really time for us to decide?”

“No way! I don’t like it!”

“Damn it! I don’t want to die!”

“Didn’t he tell us he would send more if we waited a little more?”

At that moment, they began to shout and complain about their leader outside the cave.

So, I waited until they calmed down because they knew more than me right now.

A little later, the man who first spoke to me opened his mouth.

“Then, the fact that you have come here means that you have also raised your reality actualization rate, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Whew! Then, did the odds increase a little bit?”

I still was not sure what he was talking about.

But I soon found out when I moved closer to the crystal tower.

[Congratulations!

– You have arrived at the last room in the Dungeon of Ordeal.

-If you destroy the crystal tower, you will succeed in clearing the quest.]

At that moment, I thought that the crystal tower was incredibly solid. Then a message rang under the tower, and I came to understand why they talked about probability.

[The crystal tower can only be destroyed by one who has increased his reality actualization rate by at least 1%.

-When you destroy the crystal tower, you will immediately suffer damage as much as 100 times your health, regardless of your physical and magic defense. As a result, due to your inevitable death, the rewards for clearing the quest will be equally distributed to those here who have raised even 1% of the reality actualization rate.]

“…”

Suffer damage as much as 100 times one’s health, regardless of one’s physical defense or magic defense? In other words, this meant that whoever destroyed the crystal tower would die. And the rewards for the man who would die would be equally distributed among the survivors here.

Now I seemed to understand why all these places were safety zones.

In other words, they needed someone who would volunteer to die for the others and let them receive the rewards. And that’s why they complained about the probability.