Solo Cultivation in The Apocalypse

He turned his eyes back to his magic screen. When he heard a message click, he looked up at the message which had popped up on his screen.

['I am Darkness' is inviting you to join a part]

Hitori did not reply, he clicked on the chat button and joined the chat instead. It was booming with messages, of course.

[how will we divide the loot]

[sir, what are our chances of conquering the lair?]

Hitori kept staring at them without typing a text till the host of the group chat entered and muted all of them.

[My name, as you can see, is 'I am Darkness'. Because indeed, I am. But the reason I have invited a few players from the Tokyo server is… because I need your help]

Everyone wanted to talk but no one could. Meanwhile, Hitori had found something interesting.

[My team has spotted a high-level lair far in the northeast. Very little is known about this lair, but I can say one thing for sure… the loot will be worth it]

[so those of you, who want to join me, please join my part and we will conquer this lair! Further information after joining the party]

Hitori thought for a while and kept staring at the screen. Many people had started to leave the group chat but a few had joined the party.

After a few more seconds, Hitori clicked on the join button. He closed his eyes, then transmigrated to the game.

He was spawned at the starting point with a few players around him. He saw a few more people appearing around him and a man who was dressed in dark gladiator armor.

"Hi, I am 'I am darkness'!" that person raised his hand and people who had signed up for his party started to gather around him.

Hitori glanced around him before reaching out to the darkness.

On his way to the leader, Hitori's eyes fell on a woman standing in the corner of the group.

She was wearing a mini skirt with a lab coat over a T-shirt. Her class was scientists. A science user.

Hitori was not sure about the situation between a science and magic user inside the game, although he guessed it might not be too different from the real-life situation.

In the group of eleven to fourteen people, she was the only one wearing a scientist's outfit. There were mages, samurais, bandits, archers, etc. but she was the only scientist.

Hitori looked straight in her direction. A window that displayed her profile popped up.

[Name: Leonine Level eighteen]

[Class: Scientist]

Hitori got curious about this woman who dared to join a no-scientist group alone.

In that process, he did not realize how hard he stared at her, although it was out of curiosity.

The girl could feel a piercing stare but she was hesitant about checking it out. She feared that if she turned her head, the person staring at her will make a move when their eyes meet.

But after a few more seconds of that stare, she could not hold it anymore. A frown appeared on her face and she turned her eyes to her left.

With hesitation, Hitori pulled his eyes down. Hitori realized what he did, he gawked at a girl who seemed to be in her twenties.

"Scary woman," he muttered under his breath.

"Attention please!" a loud voice of the leader gained everybody's attention, "I will be your party leader for this conquest of conquering a Level twenty-eight ghost lair!"

No one spoke anything, "Yes. A ghost lair. You know, you can not enter a ghost lair unless you are above level twenty-three but thankfully, I, your leader am level twenty-four, so you may enter the lair with me!"

He took a pause, and smiled at the audience before continuing, "It will be my pleasure to go on this conquest with you all," obviously, more than half of the players were below his level. No high-level player would join a person like him, "And… I will be happy to share the loot with you all, so tell me, are you ready?!"

Most of them shouted back 'yes' as a reply to the leader. Hitori stayed silent.

Hitori first encountered a ghost lair in a game that was THE bestselling game of that time. He got it for his twelfth birthday. He was pretty scared of the ghosts at the start though.

Hitori had faced and conquered a few ghost dungeons and lairs, he still was not sure what this game's ghost lair will be like.

Every time he had encountered a ghost lair or a dungeon, it has always been a surprise to him. It became a pain to clear the ghost lairs because they lurk everywhere and you have to find their haunted object or exorcise the ghost to clear the lair.

This process takes a lot of time and the paranormal things happening in the middle make it even longer to clear the dungeon.

It consumes a lot of time to clear a ghost lair and the rewards are not worth it.

So after three years, when he turned fourteen and he received his first full-dive VRMMORPG game, and a magic console [the one resting in his room] as his birthday present, Hitori dropped the idea of entering a ghost dungeon ever again.

And since then, he had never entered a ghost dungeon once. But right now, he was about to enter a ghost lair.

Not because he wanted to waste his time but because he was curious about what this game's ghost lair could be like.

"The players who stick with me till the end will get sixty-five percent of the loot with thirty-five percent for my team. And of course, sorry but the lair will belong to my team of three."

Not many had any problem with that. Most of the players here were for loot it seemed. Cause no one raised a voice. But that was not the same case with Hitori.

Hitori did not know if the players were too dumb to realize that a ghost lair does not drop useful drops and even if it does, they get used inside the dungeon or else you die and lose the drops.

"I will be using the teleporter, so please gather around and stay inside the radius," he ordered. Hitori was surprised to hear that the leader had his hands on a teleporter.

Hitori took a step forward to step inside the radius of the teleporter. A pink circle had been drawn around to show the teleporter's radius.

Hitori dropped his head and took another step to step inside the teleporter when he saw another foot of a player stepping right beside him. He lifted his head to see who it was.

His shoulder bumped into a girl who was wearing a lab coat and stood beside him, "Very sorry,"

"Me too," she replied as she bowed her head once. Hitori stepped away from the woman who still gave scary vibes.

Never had a good relationship with a science user.

As soon as he stepped away from the girl, he saw everybody in front of him disappearing into pixels. Soon he disapparated and left the starting point with everyone else.

Broken wooden logs stood on the borders of a dark cave. The cave had a narrow entrance making it impossible to get a look inside.

"This said to be the Pontianak's Lair." Not a single player knew what a Pontianak lair was. Neither did their leader bother to explain.

A cold wind rustled past the cave just as it would in any horror movie or a horror game scene. Eagles and vultures flew above their heads. Owls stood on the tree and stared at the players with big eyes.

"The monsters inside this liar are unknown. So I would like all of you fifteen players to be focused and not die in the lair." Hitori stayed silent.

"Let us… go!" he shouted. Five players who were behind him charged at the lair. Hitori stayed back and entered the lair last.

Just as expected, this lair did not have any floors. It instead had a map of its own which popped up when Hitori entered the lair.

He constantly glanced around him. Not a single sign of a monster or a ghost.

Hitori watched as some kind of white smoke entered the dungeon and blurred everything for him.

He searched for lights but there were none. Just what you can expect of a ghost lair.

Hitori opened the map in front of him. A snowflake fell in front of Hitori.

The start was named 'The Lair's Entrance'. When he looked up for further areas all he saw were red dots on the map without any labels.

Hitori equipped himself with his katana. To use the map was useless and senseless at this time, he had to do what he had done for nine years… explore on his own.

"Alert! We have monsters!" a player shouted, the leader copied down to the fifteen players. Of course, he was not able to see anything at the front.

"Everyone spread! Take on the ghouls with a duo!" twenty… no, more than twenty-five dark shadows with wavy ends flew high up in the sky.

Their heads were covered with hoods but their mouths were visible. Pitch black darkness without any teeth. These were not ghouls.

"Aaah!!" a player let out a hideous scream. Everybody took a step back and watched as the player got his life force sucked out of him. One of the ghost-like creatures had gone inside the player.

The player's body kept shaking and trembling as if he was being tortured by the creature.

Hitori took a look at his health bar. The health remained green and did not decrease either. But when he looked at the player, whatever the creature did to him, it looked painful.

Hitori did not move, no one did. He stared at the player as he suffered through an immense amount of pain.

But, that did not last for long. Suddenly, from behind, a great sword appeared and chopped off the player's neck. Hitori lifted his wide eyes at the leader of their faction.

"Stay… focused!" he shouted, "they are no ghouls…they are Utsu! If you die, you will lose your avatar!" everybody gasped.

"No way, what shit have you brought us in!?"

"I am leaving the lair–"

"You can not leave while engaged in combat so shut up and fight!" another player shouted.

"Yes, support each other! We can not let this game delete our accounts!"

"Utsu…" Hitori stared at a Utsu that flew right towards him.

He pulled his katana out. Hitori was about to cut the Utsu but suddenly halted.

He concentrated his vision on Utsu, "What is–" but he could not discover what he had spotted.

He felt a strong grip on his shoulders and chest then felt an immense weight on his whole body as someone dived and rolled on the ground alone with Hitori.

He heard a female shout that was not intended for him, "catch it." a girl threw a grenade at Utsu.

Hitori rose from the ground after he rolled to the other side.

Instead of his hood, a white lab coat had covered his head.

Hitori grabbed the piece of cloth and pushed it aside, he heard a loud explosion and saw fire and dust spread all over.

Even he was covered in dust due to… who was it anyway?!

"It did not work!" then his eyes moved to a female sitting beside him.

"Who are you? And… what are you doing?" she glanced at Hitori.

"Do not play dumb, you were about to get eaten by Utsu, I did what the leader told us to… fight in duos,"

Hitori patted himself clean and got up from the ground, "Thanks but I had it under–"

She pulled him down, "sit down, do not act like a stranger after staring at me like an idiot and bumping shoulders with me,"

Hitori gave her a 'what the fuck' stare. But she ignored him and turned her head to look at the Utsu behind her.

"Leonine-san-" Hitori had to explain himself to her and let her know that he is better off solo than pair up with a total stranger and that too… with a scientist girl.

"Rion," she turned her eyes to Hitori, "I am Rion Reonine," Hitori was taken aback by her name.

"Then Rion-san-"

"Just call me Reon."

'Strange names.'

"Reon-san," she sighed, "I want to tell you that I am sorry but-"

"Ah, it is okay," she waved her hand, "no need to be sorry for staring at me,"

"Huh? No, I-"

"We should focus on our survival first,"

'Our?' Hitori frowned.

"My level is eighteen, so let me take the lead," with that, Reon jumped out, took out a high-tech pink gun, and pointed at the Utsu.