Chapter 5: DxD: Tutorial 04

I do one last check of my equipment. Two knives on my hips, rotten leather chest piece and boots, and two moderate health potions ready to be drawn at a moment's notice.

I try to equip more knives but it only lets me equip two. Maybe if I get more sheathes or better armor or something I can hold more knives. Like a boot knife, or just a row of them on my chest. Yeah, that'd be cool.

But fantasizing about better armor can wait. I'm as prepared as I can be for the boss of this dungeon. At least, unless I spend another night grinding. But the XP is starting to not be worth it already. I suppose it's a tutorial dungeon so that's the point, but still.

I'm not too worried though. My combat knife does three times my DEX in damage, my enchanted knife does my DEX plus my INT in a mix of physical and fire damage, and I can simultaneously sneak attack for both for massive damage. There's not an enemy in the whole dungeon I can't overkill. The boss shouldn't be a problem at all.

I make sure to keep [Sneak] activated and make my way to the boss room. The door, as I'm not surprised to find, is a simple fog wall. Because why would the dungeon start being original now? I take a deep breath, double check my equipment again, and slowly step through.

The first thing I do is scan the room for the boss. The room looks like an old dining hall or something of that type. The ceiling is high, there's a fire pit with a spit over it on the left side of the room, though there's only cold ashes now, and all around the room are the splinters of chairs, tables, plates, and tankards.

And in the center of the room, amidst all the devastation, is the hulking form of the boss. A hulking form I recognize from my time spent playing Left 4 Dead.

<------>

Tank

Race: Special Zombie

Level: 50

HP: 10000

MP: 20

SP: 3200

CON: 250

STR: 160

DEX: 23

INT: 2

WIS: 2

CHA: 1

LUK: 1

<------>

So good news and bad news. Good news is that he boss doesn't immediately aggro on me, so I still have stealth. The bad news is that I can't one shot it. I can take out just over half of its health, assuming it doesn't aggro as soon as I get close to it, but that'll leave me with the other half of its HP to burn through without the aid of sneak attacks.

I look behind me, and the fog wall is still there. I try to back up through it, but sure enough, it won't let me through, so no retreating to grind until I can one shot this.

I look through my inventory for something I can use. A vial of Bile, no. It only makes the zombies more frenzied and there were none here to turn against the Tank.. Three more knives, two iron and one steel, that all deal less damage than my main two. At best, I might be able to throw them for a bit of damage.

The only other thing of use I have is the Onyx Dog Figurine. I'm not even sure if it can fight. The description makes it sound more like a mount than anything. But I guess I'll find out. At the very least it might provide a distraction.

I wish I had traps or bombs or poison or something. But I'll have to make do with what I have. Slowly, I creep forward.

I'm not exactly sure how [Sneak] works, but I'm pretty sure what it does is just reduce how noticeable I am. As it leveled up, I realized that one of the biggest effects is that it reduces the sound I make. At level 25, I could walk carefully but at a decent pace and make little to no noise.

So if I walk slowly and carefully, I truly make no noise. I'm not sure if it does anything for how visible I am though, or if zombies just have really bad eyesight. I haven't tried the skill outside of the dungeon yet. I make a mental note to try it at school tomorrow. Assuming I survive tonight.

I slink around the edges of the room, making my way to the side opposite of where the Tank is facing, which is to the left of where I entered. It's technically moving, but only so far as it seems to be breathing and occasionally shifting its weight. Otherwise it seems content to just stare at the wall.

Only when I'm directly behind the Tank do I start creeping towards it. Each step is tense as I mentally prepare for it to suddenly turn on me, [Sneak] or no [Sneak]. My eyes constantly flick between it and the ground, making sure I don't kick a piece of debris or step on something that would make noise.

After what feels like ten minutes but was probably more like thirty seconds, I'm within striking distance. It's then that I realize an issue with my plan. A critical hit. I've mostly been getting critical hits by going for the upper spine and brain. But that won't work here. The Tank's back is so covered in muscle and putrid skin that I don't think my knife can even reach the spine.

There's only one spot that I can think of that can probably get a critical hit on, which is its head. The one that is so surrounded by muscles that it can't even be seen from behind.

I want to grumble in frustration but restrain myself. There's no time for that right now. I need to come up with a plan.

The head is more accessible from the front, but I can't envision a way to not lose the stealth bonus by coming from the front. The sides are even more inaccessible than the back, with its massive shoulders and arms putting the head far away from the edges of its body.

So if all sides are out, that only leaves above and below. Below is out for obvious reasons, which just leaves above. I look up, and spot a large iron chandelier suspended by a rope positioned in the center of the room right above the tank. Perfect.

Now, the problem is getting up there. The Tank is maybe seven feet tall, give or take a few inches. The chandelier is at least another seven feet above its head. Far too high for me to jump. I haven't tried jumping with my improved stats, but that distance feels like far too much for a STR that was still below 50.

As I'm eyeing the distance, I spot something. The rope that suspends the chandelier runs across the ceiling. I track it across the ceiling to another hook, then down the wall where it's tied to a post. Presumably it's meant to be used to adjust the height of the chandelier. But what I see is an easy way to climb to the chandelier.

Not seeing a better option, I enact my plan. Just as slowly as I creeped towards the Tank, I now creep away, heading back for the wall behind the boss. Once there I continue along the wall to the opposite side of the room from the fog entrance, which is where the rope is.

I pause and look at the Tank. It hasn't noticed me. Slowly, each motion done with painstaking caution, I grab the rope and start to pull myself up.

If this was the me from before the Game, I would never be able to pull myself up a rope using only my arm strength. Now, with more than triple the STR of the average person….well it wasn't easy but I was managing it. I could feel my muscles straining, and I could see my stamina bar slowly decreasing. I still had time, but I couldn't afford to dally.

I lift myself up the rope as fast as I can without making noise, but it still takes nearly a minute for me to reach the top. And it's not over yet, because I still have to make my way across. My stamina seems to drain slower as I hang from the rope and make my way across the ceiling of the room, but not by as much as I would like.

I make it to the chandelier with maybe a fifth of my stamina bar left. I softly step onto the sturdiest looking part of the chandelier and allow myself a silent gasp of relief. I stand there, the chandelier swaying slightly, waiting for my stamina to recover.

Though with [Sneak] still active my stamina regenerates at a whopping 0.1 a second. Doing some quick math in my head, that would take more than forty minutes to recharge to full….no. Not happening. Ten minutes was probably my limit. So I do my best to remain utterly still, cross my fingers, and deactivate [Sneak].

Eighty seconds. That's how long I stood there, barely breathing, my eyes never leaving the Tank, waiting for it to move. But it doesn't, and when my stamina finishes refilling, I immediately reactivate [Sneak].

I relax for a moment, but I realize that there's no more procrastinating to be done. I have full stamina, the Tank is below me with it's head an easy target. It's time to start this fight.

I angle myself, and pull out my knives. In my right hand the dark metal of the Ka-Bar knife is poised and ready, and in my left my enchanted iron dagger flickers with more than just candlelight. I take a deep breath before I plunge downwards and sink both knives into the massive undead's skull.

<3001 damage dealt>

<1757 damage dealt>

The Tank roars in pain. I pull my knives out and stab it again, but without the multipliers I only deal 390 more damage. Before I can do it again, it throws me off of it's shoulders. I hit the ground and slide into the wall before I get my feet under me. Which I do just in time to dodge a thrown piece of debris, one of the larger scraps of table left in the room. It shatters into even more pieces when it hits the wall, showering me with small bits of wood.

I [Observe] the Tank while I move. It's down to 4840 health. Now it's at 4834 health. The burning seems to be dealing a decent amount of damage per second. I focus on dodging for now, running in a circle around the room. It continues to throw things at me for a short time, during which it's health drops down to 4648. But then it stops going down, and the Tank runs out of nearby debris.

It roars again and rushes at me and I'm forced to leap to the side to dodge. I scramble to get up, but by the time I get up it's on top of me. I see its fist swinging at me and all I can do is brace myself.

I've never been hit by a train before, but that's all I can think of as I'm sent hurtling into the far wall. The breath is knocked out of me, and the only reason I land on my feet is that most of my weight is on the wall I was just thrown into.

<150 damage taken!>

Nearly half of my health in a single hit. I quickly pull out a health potion and down it, restoring the lost health. I do so just in time to dodge out of the way of the Tank rushing me again.

This time I dodge more carefully, remaining close enough that can dash in to stab him again for another 390 damage. It's still at over a third of its health though. I dodge another punch, stab him again, and then I'm forced to back off.

It's slow going, but I'm making progress. I just have to avoid getting hit again and I'm golden. I check its health again. 3868. It's stamina is also getting low, it's just below half. Maybe I can tire it out?

I dash in for more attacks. I stab it again, but I'm too slow in backing off, and it backhands me, dealing 150 damage. I hesitate, but then curse and use my second and last potion, topping me off again. I can only afford to take one more of those hits. On the bright side, it's burning again. I'm not sure what the chances are of that happening, as this is the first fight where it's happened at all.

I can't keep this up. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the plan I come up with on the fly is certainly desperate. I reach into my inventory for the Onyx Dog Figurine and throw it out. In a blink, it grows to the size of a pony and launches itself at the tank.

I run to one side of the room and wait for the two to move into the right position. Looking at the health of the tank, the figurine doesn't seem to be doing any damage, but it is distracting the Tank. The tank is punching it while the figurine grapples the Tank in return. Cracks run through the figurines body, and I know that I won't be getting it back. The two move around the room in their fight, and just as the burning stops, they're in the right position.

I whistle, and the figurine immediately breaks off from the Tank and runs for me. Pieces of it fall off, but it outpaces the monstrosity chasing it. I wait for the timing, and then cut the rope holding the chandelier up.

The heavy metal chandelier crashes down directly on top of the Tank, forcing it into the ground. Not wasting a moment, I rush forward. It's health is at 3268, and while my onyx figurine didn't do much damage, it seems like it drained it's stamina significantly, because it's almost out.

Sure enough, the Tank is struggling to get out from under the heavy chandelier. I don't plan on giving it a chance. I lay into the prone monstrosity with my knives, stabbing it repeatedly. Just as it manages to start sliding off the chandelier crushing it, it bellows out in pain before slumping over, dead.

More windows appear, but I ignore them as I fall to the ground, slumping over as the tension seeps out of me, and I just laugh. The fight hadn't lasted long, maybe two minutes. But it was far too close for comfort, especially after breezing through the rest of the dungeon.

As I catch my breath, I look over to where I had called the figurine to. Sure enough, it's broken beyond repair, little more than a pile of onyx shards. I get to my feet and walk over to them. [Observe] confirms that they are just pieces of Onyx now. I sigh. I had only gotten to use it once, but it had saved me. I silently thank it and then grab the onyx. Maybe I could do something with it.

Finally, I turn to all the notifications I got from defeating the boss.

<[Sneak] is now Level 30>

<[Sleight of Hand] is now Level 16>

<[Backstab] is now Level 25>

<[Disguise] - Level 1(0%)>

<[Eavesdrop] - Level 1(0%)>

<[Dead Eye] - If you have time to aim a shot, you don't miss. Ever.>

--<Loot Gained!>--

100k Yen

1 Gacha Token

Crafting Skill Token

Ring of Burn Protection

--<>--

Some very good level ups, two Rogue skills of questionable usefulness, a Perk that would be nice if I had a gun or a bow or something, cold hard cash, a gacha, whatever a crafting skill token was, and a ring that prevented burns.

All in all a pretty good haul, but it still feels underwhelming. Then again, I haven't used the gacha token yet. I use dungeon traversal to go back to my room.

"Congrats on finishing the tutorial," I hear Kyu say immediately. I look around and see her on my pillow, looking sleepy.

"I thought you'd be asleep by now," I say.

"I was, but the Game woke me up when you cleared the dungeon. Figured I might have to explain something."

"Just one thing," I assure her. "This Crafting Skill Token. What is it?"

She rolls her eyes. "You always ask about shit that the name tells you everything you need to know. Use it, and you get a free crafting skill. Yes you get to choose. Seriously, you could've just used it and it would be apparent."

I raise my hands in surrender. "Alright alright. Geez. Just didn't wanna fuck it up somehow and waste it or something. I'll use that in a second. But first things first. Wanna see me roll the gacha before you go back to sleep?"

"Sure, you got something pretty nice last time. Maybe you'll get lucky twice in a row."

I feel like I had been pretty lucky twice in a row already, with the Hornet Ring being just as useful as [Erotic Pierrot], but whatever. I open my inventory and use the gacha token.

A bit underwhelming compared to my last two items, but I'm sure it'll definitely be very useful at least once. Being able to appear fair but cheat a coin flip can be useful. Kyu loses interest when she sees what I got. I pull it out of my inventory, changing it's form from Yen coins to a quarter to a doubloon, and any other coin I can think of. A question occurs to me.

"Hey Kyu, how come the gacha puts stuff in my inventory but stuff from the store needs to be delivered?"

"Because the gacha is a core part of the Game, while the store is run by The Mailman."

"Wait, what? That's his store?"

"Yep! He's really just the delivery person. That stuff you bought? It's from other Gamers who put it up on the store to sell. The Mailman owns the store and makes sure everything gets delivered. He managed to get partial integration into the Game somehow, but it's more like an add-on that he manages than a core part of the system."

"You can just do that? Change the Game like that? For everyone?"

She waves her hand in a so-so manner. "The relatively few Gamers who get strong enough usually do so. How widespread their changes are vary though. There's a ton of different offshoots of the Game too. The Mailman is only connected to ones relatively similar to the one I've got you attached to."

"Are all Gamers that strong that...weird?"

"I mean, normally yeah. Or they're terrifying. Or both. Usually both."

Right. That was officially enough for me tonight. "Putting that topic aside, I'm going to pick a crafting skill now." I make good on my word and pull out the token and use it.

--<Please pick a crafting skill>---

Alchemy

Blacksmithing

Construction

Cooking

Fletching

Scribing

Tailoring

--<>--

"Is this it?" I ask out loud, thinking that there'd be more. And there should be. No enchanting, nothing advanced. "Don't tell me I have to unlock more?"

"Finally, he learns," Kyu says in mocking exasperation. "Yep, you do. Though unlocking more is easier than unlocking new classes or whatever. You just have to meet certain requirements, usually stat or skill ones. Like, Alchemy is on there because you have a skill that uses mana. Blacksmithing is on there because your STR is above 25, though you'd have to be a pretty new Gamer to not have at least that much. At base stats and with no skills you'd pretty much only have Cooking, Scribing, and Tailoring."

"What about enchanting?"

"You need a Mage class. And an INT above 50, but you're already good there. Some of the more advanced ones also need other crafting skills. Like if you wanna build automatons, you'll need Blacksmithing and Enchanting at decent levels."

I sigh. Okay, well whatever. I already knew which one I wanted anyways. I pick Alchemy from the list, and the skill appears on my skill list.

<[Alchemy] - Level 1(0%)>

The health potions during the boss right saved my life, but I only had the two of them, and I never wanted to run out again. Plus, there are plenty of other useful things I can make with it, and I need something to use up the crafting materials that are building up in my inventory. The fact that I can make more than just potions is interesting, but something that can be explored later.

I activate the [Alchemy] Skill, but I get the mental equivalent of an error message. Apparently I need to actually prepare the ingredients, put them in water, and then use the skill on that if I wanted to make a potion. Which meant I needed vials and something to crush the ingredients down. Fine, whatever. I open up the Hunie Store and see what it has. I could buy the stuff I need from a normal store, but it was currently 1am at night, and I wanted to spend the rest of the night grinding out this skill.

I don't have a ton of Hunie left, but I have just enough for the "Newbie Alchemist Kit". One hundred standard sized flat bottomed vials, a mortar and pestle that claimed to be unbreakable by anyone with an effective STR under 1000, a beaker for mixing ingredients, and a belt pouch that held 10 potions. All in all, it's a pretty good deal. I buy it immediately.

A few moments later, there's a knock on my door. Sure enough, The Mailman is there with my stuff.

"Thanks. I really appreciate how fast your service is," I say.

"Not a problem mate, it's part of the job." He holds out the stone slab and I put my thumb on it again, allowing it to confirm I was me.

"How much of an overhead do you get on this stuff?"

He grins. "Well, why don't you start selling and find out? Put that alchemy set to good use, sell whatever you make while leveling but don't need. Or hoard it all. Most Gamers do that." He hands me the package.

"How would I do that?"

"Check the store, however you do that. I just added you to the potential seller list, the option should be there now." He tipped his hat. "Now I best be off, got more deliveries to make." With those words he disappears from sight.

I check my phone, and sure enough, I can put stuff up for sale. Looks like I just need to offer whatever I'm selling, package it up, and place it on my doorstep for pickup. There's also an option for selling in bulk, in which case it seems I need to talk to a 'representative' directly in order to set up a process for regular pickups, or pickups up to a certain quantity.

Well, I don't plan on selling anything yet, so I put my phone away. Instead, tonight, I'm going to grind out some Alchemy levels.

-x-

I definitely got my Hunie's worth in just this mortar and pestle, because 38 STR or no, human bone should not be this easy to grind into dust. It should also disturb me more but honestly the bones that drop from zombies don't actually look like any specific human bone and just look like high quality halloween decorations. Each one grinds up into about a cup of bone dust. And I ground up a lot of bones.

100 potions and poisons sit on the table in front of me.

<(35) Minor Health Potion>

<(23) Minor XP Potion>

<(1) Minor Protection Potion>

<(1) Minor Metal Detection Potion>

<(31) Minor Poison>

<(4) Minor Paralysis Poison>

<(4) Minor Decay Poison>

All in all, I was pretty satisfied. My Alchemy skill had leveled up to 21, though the description hadn't changed at all, and I could still only make potions with 2 ingredients, and all my potions were Minor ones. I'm not sure if I need more ingredients, better ingredients, or what to make better potions. But I'll figure it out eventually.

There are some very nice potions that I wanted to make more of, but between prioritizing making as many healing potions as I could and the rarity of the ingredients that went into the better potions, I was only able to get a few of some type.

The healing potions actually required me to go out to a 24/7 convenience store, after I realized that ground up bone and any sort of food, like the chicken skewers I bought the other day, was the only way I could make health potions. I bought a bunch of pre prepared food for pretty cheap, though I did get some weird looks at the cash register.

I discovered a few more things about the alchemy skill as well. Like each potion requires exactly 100 mana. Thankfully I regenerate that in just under seven seconds, so that was no problem at all. But also, if you try to mix ingredients that don't make a potion, nothing happens. No mana used, no potion created, the ingredients are still good to use. Though picking scraps of gold out of bone dust infused water was annoying, and a little gross.

I consider draining some of them out, or selling them so I can buy more vials, but in the end I decide not to. With maybe the exception of the Metal Detection potion, which used scrap iron and scrap gold, I could see all of them being useful. Though I'd prefer stronger forms of them.

Especially the Decay Poison. If I could get one of those at 100% effectiveness it would be an effective trump card against a Phenex.

Phenex, huh? The Rating Game between Riser Phenex and Rias Gremory was pretty early in the plot if I remember right. But I'm still in the days before the plot, and I'm not sure how far away it is. Issei- No, Atsuko is still human, so the weekend I arrived was not the weekend of her date with Raynere in disguise...would that even happen still?

Let's say it doesn't. How does that change things? Well, it doesn't I guess, assuming that Rias knows that Atsuko has the Boosted Gear. She'll still try to recruit her, but will have to do it another way. But that might delay things, which means Asia might end up dying, and Rias might not have the Red Dragon Emperor in her Rating Game against Riser.

Which brings me to an important question. What did I want to do? I had vague goals of power and women, but no plan to get them. Did I want to ally with one of the powers? Or all of them? Did I want canon to stay on track, or knock it off the rails?

Ugh, I can't decide. There are pros and cons to all sides. Short term though, I think I want to steal Asia. Cute and devoted nun girl? Yes please.

Asia arrives shortly after canon starts. If we're close to the start of canon, then the Fallen should already be here in Kuoh, holed up in the abandoned church. Wherever that was. Perhaps if I did a bit of spying there, I'll be able to find out when and how she'll be arriving, and intercept her.

There we go. Plan made. Everything else I'll figure out later. I look at the time. It's four in the morning, a few hours before I have to go to school. I could go back in the dungeon, farm some crafting materials, or check out one of the new ones. But honestly I'm just not in the mood.

I take a look at my skill list. Some of them are still at level 1. [Pickpocket] is too risky to train without the right environment. I'll have to figure something out for that. [Disguise] I need makeup or something to properly level it up. [Eavesdrop] I can also level up at school. I suspect I actually need to listen to someone for it to count. I activate it for a few moments. I don't hear anything, and I don't gain a single point of experience for it.

So nothing I can really grind here in my bedroom right now. Screw it, I'm just going to sleep. I don't need to anymore, but honestly I feel like I could use it anyways. I set an alarm on my phone, strip down to just my underwear, and climb under the covers.

I'm asleep within moments, all the thoughts of the previous day gone.

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Chapter 5: DxD: Tutorial 04

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