The Primal Hunter

”I rate this floor nine out of ten when it comes to combat but a solid negative one out of ten when it comes to creativity. You just copy-pasted rooms over and over again. Downright shameful,” Jake admonished Minaga out loud as he stood atop a tower identical to four other towers in prior rooms.

“Oh, well, thank you for your expert review of my labyrinth! Do tell me, for how many years have you been making dungeons since you are such a master at it?” Minaga fired back with plenty of snark.

“I don’t need to be an expert in feces to know when I see a piece of crap,” Jake grinned.

“See, while you think you like constant diversity in encounters, you actually don’t. This was meant to be a gauntlet of rooms where you would take breaks in between, strategize, and get better and better at dealing with the demons as time went on. So they have to be similar for your prior experiences in all the earlier rooms to matter.”

“Didn’t I say I rate it nine out of ten for combat? Combat was good,” Jake smiled as he looked at his party members finishing off the last demons in the distance.

The thirty-third floor proved to be far longer than any of the earlier ones. Granted, it was probably meant to take around the same time for the average party, but considering Jake could cheese every single labyrinth they had entered so far, this one became the big time sink.

A total of fifteen rooms had been in their way, with the first five looking like outside areas with camps and villages housing prisoners. As Minaga said, then these five rooms had all been pretty much identical, which meant that their strategy, which had worked perfectly the first two times around, could easily be applied three more times.

This naturally resulted in some damn good points through all the achievements they earned.

Current progress: Prisoners freed (100%).

Achievement earned: Free at least half (50%) of the prisoners. 100 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Free at three-quarters (75%) of the prisoners. 200 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Free all (100%) of the prisoners. 400 Nevermore Points earned.

900 Nevermore Points total if you include the 200 from just completing the objective of saving twenty-five percent. This was already a massive windfall, but Jake could see how these achievements – especially the last one – could be difficult. An E-grade could easily die from some random shockwave or explosion during a fight, making a 100% completion impossible. It was only because of Dina that they managed to do it perfectly, as she protected them thoroughly with her vine shells.

After the prisoner rooms, there were no more bonus objectives. Just ten more rooms of pure fighting as it thematically was like they entered deeper and deeper into demon territory. The environment began to change from room to room, with lava pits appearing everywhere and more demonic structures popping up. The last five rooms had all been large military cities that all had a big tower in the center, which was the one Jake was currently standing on as his party finished off demons beneath. Could he help them with ranged support? Sure, but when he did that on the last floor, the Fallen King complained, so he didn’t. Besides, splitting up like this rewarded more experience. He had helped right after killing the boss as he could get kills without ruining someone else’s fight, but at this point, it was just cleanup work.

And on the topic of experience… Jake had managed to convince his party to leave the bosses in each room to him. This was not only due to his own vanity but also because he was truly the best person in their party at killing these bosses. Jake had to admit that when it came to killing foes of equal level, the Fallen King had him beat, and the Sword Saint was a close third after him, but against foes 40 to 50 levels above them?

Jake was by far the strongest. He had so many skills that scaled off level disparity between him and his foe, with Big Game Hunter being the biggest one. This meant that Jake had finally gotten in some good fights, but more importantly… he had gotten levels.

*’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 212 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points*

…

*’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 216 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 211 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points*

…

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 213 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points*

Five class levels didn’t seem like a lot, but it had only taken them a week to clear their way to the final room. Jake getting three race levels meant he was the one who had gotten the most over this week, including Sylphie. He knew he had a lot of experience to catch up on and plenty of Records, so he was sure as hell prepared to finally pick up some momentum while he had it. His primary reason for going to Nevermore was to gain levels, after all.

“Well, I guess you did like the fights and even did these rooms the most legitimate way, not abusing your Bloodline or anything like that,” Minaga commented. “However, I feel like giving me nine out of ten feels almost insulting. Eight out of ten I would get, but nine just feels like you are rubbing it in that I didn’t get top marks, but I was still damn close.”

“I can downgrade it to an eight?”

“Rather tell me what a ten out of ten is.”

“A fight where all five of us have to come together and fight in order to win. Maybe the rematch with the Demon King will be a ten out of ten?” Jake teased. He was even being nice to give it a nine, to begin with. Though perhaps he only felt it had been so fun due to how starved of a good fight he had been. Even if he said the fights had been good, he had yet to truly be pushed to his limits.

“Let’s hope for that then,”Minaga said just as Jake got a notification.

Achievement earned: Kill every single demon on the thirty-third floor. 150 Nevermore Points earned.

“A bit stingy on the points here?” Jake asked with a raised eyebrow.

“To be fair, killing everything isn’t actually that big of an achievement, considering they don’t really hide or anything. It just rewards you for not rushing to the end after killing the boss without cleaning up. Most people do stay behind to grind levels, and it isn’t like you can “fail” this achievement like how the prisoners can die,”Minaga countered.

“Aight, guess I shouldn’t complain too much,” Jake smiled. He looked towards the place where the entrance to the next hallway would usually be and instead saw the gateway leading to the in-between room. After a quick mental confirmation from the others, Jake flew down as they regrouped in front of the gate before promptly walking through.

“How refreshing,” the Sword Saint instantly commented once they entered the cozy lounge. “The atmosphere was beginning to get to me at times.”

“Yeah... I didn’t like it either,” Dina concurred.

“Could have been more comfortable for sure,” Jake agreed. The fire affinity floors had been a bit suffocating due to the high heat and constant smoke in the air, and while it hadn’t really impacted their fighting power, it had still been a bother.

A second or so later, the usual notifications popped up too.

Thirty-third floor completed. 330 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-third floor in less than a week (7 days). 200 Nevermore Points earned.

“Fewer points than on any prior floors… though I guess we did do the bonus objective achievements related to the prisoners,” Jake said.

“And you did miss some other stuff, too, like finding out more information about the Demon Lord from the demons there and thus learning a few interesting titbits of lore,” Minaga came in. “It wouldn’t have given that many points, but I am sure you would have enjoyed the details. Want some insight now? Totally free.”

Jake looked at the others and knew that they would need some time to fully recover anyway, so he shrugged as he went over to the bar. “Go right ahead.”

“Great! So, the Demon Lord was originally spawned a long time ago in…”

The group split up as the Sword Saint went to the open-air bath to cool off. Dina decided to stay with Jake to have some drinks while taking care of the garden she had hidden in her spatial storage, Sylphie decided to take a nap on the counter, and the Fallen King floated into one of the bedrooms to meditate.

They spent a few hours relaxing as Jake heard Minaga go all out with his story about how the Demon Lord was summoned through a mad sacrifice by some second-born prince who wanted to get power so he worked with the demonic cult, but the Demon Lord couldn’t be controlled and ended up breaking free and summoned an army of demons to accompany it. These demons ended up eventually being pushed out of the kingdom and now controlled their own land while waiting for the Demon Lord to return. The area of the labyrinth they were now entering was the demon’s domain.

How exactly all this made sense considering they were within a labyrinth in a dungeon, Jake wasn’t entirely sure of, but Minaga excused it with them only seeing set areas of each kingdom and such. Jake guessed it was a bit like how one couldn’t exactly explore all the areas of a kingdom in video games but only had set instances.

After their time of relaxation, they moved onto the thirty-fourth floor, not at all sure what to expect. Thematically, they had now entered the inner walls of the Demon Lord’s compound, but Jake assumed they would not meet the boss before the thirty-fifth floor, so he wondered what would be there.

“Say, will this floor also be completely and utterly uncheeseable?” Jake asked.

“I don’t think uncheeseable is even a word.”

“What a nice attempt to avoid answering my question,” Jake grinned.

“Fine, sure, you probably can cheese a bunch of stuff and cheat a lot, but it won’t be as easy as you think it will! This floor is even more special than any of those prior, and I am not lying when I say I am interested in seeing how you will handle it. So good luck!”

“Alright, alright, let’s see what you have cooked up this time,” Jake said as their group went through the gateway and entered the thirty-fourth floor. Once more, they were met with a system message with details of the floor.

Welcome to the Thirty-fourth floor of Nevermore: Minaga’s Labyrinth (Part 4)

Main objective: Reach the end of the Labyrinth.

Bonus objectives: Find the three Secret Scrolls (0/3).

Current progress: Secret Scrolls found (0/3). End reached (0/1)

Note: More hidden events, achievements, or objectives may be hidden on the floor.

Current Nevermore Points: 20783

And as always, Minaga popped in, and they had a nice round of difficult-choosing where they naturally went ahead with the Archmage difficulty before Minaga popped out of existence and they walked through the large gate and into the labyrinth proper.

However… Jake instantly noticed something was off as the gate opened. Rather than a long hallway, it was just a brief walk into a room where, surprisingly enough, a demon was waiting. Something he promptly informed his party of, along with what else he saw ahead.

“It looks like we are walking into some kind of small city room right off the bat, not unlike those we just cleared, but rather than an entire city, it is more like a district. Also, we will appear in a house with a demon that I think is friendly, based on how it seems to be waiting, so don’t blow it up before it can talk,” Jake said.

“Within a city already? Perhaps this layer will not be pure combat,” the Sword Saint muttered.

“Based on what Minaga said, it’s probably not. Also, seeing as we have to find something called Secret Scrolls, their locations are likely hidden, and we need to find them somehow.”

“Rather than theorize needlessly, why not just find out once we enter the room,” the Fallen King said dismissively.

The King had spoken through their telepathic link, and Jake chose to also respond through it too.

“How come you seem to be in such a shitty mood ever since we entered the labyrinth-part of Nevermore?” Jake asked.

“Because we are under the constant gaze of a Unique Lifeform, slaves to its whims and desires,” the Fallen King said, clearly annoyed.

“So, it is down to you, as a Unique Lifeform, just not liking other Unique Lifeforms?” Jake asked. “Man, and I thought you and that Ashen Phantom Devourer having hate-boners for each other was just a unique circumstance, but it is something natural?”

“An apex creature will naturally not desire others to dare approach its station. Unique Lifeforms instinctively compete and are the closest thing to relatives we can have. That we wish to dominate one another and prove our superiority is only to be expected.”

“Not gonna lie, pretty sure Minaga has you thoroughly handled when it comes to being superior,” Jake joked.

“Utter nonsense. This Unique Lifeform is clearly not only a level 275 creature but merely one iteration of something greater, which must mean it is far older than we know. The only true advantage it has over I is time. That does not make this Minaga superior to me, only temporarily ahead,” the Fallen King said very dismissively.

“You sound a bit like me there,” Jake joked. It kind of mirrored his emotions toward any god. Sure, they were far stronger than he was right now, but he would reach their level in due time. “Anyway, I got it now. You are being silent because you feel temporarily inferior to Minaga.”

“… let us just finish these ten floors and move on…”

Jake just grinned as they walked out of the fog and found themselves standing in the cellar of a house where a hooded demon sat waiting for them. It was an older-looking male with old gray horns and a beard, making Jake more sure than ever that Minaga liked to make every damn character that spoke an old bearded man.

“You look like you have been expecting us,” Jake said as he looked at the demon.

The demon man nodded to them as he looked up. “Indeed I have. I had heard rumors you would arrive… finally, we have a chance to fight back. After the return of the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas, we demons that hoped for peace with the other enlightened races found ourselves ostracized and even sacrificed, while the worshippers of the demonic cult have risen in esteem due to the freeing of the Demon Lord. However, with you here now, not all is lost. There are some problems, though. The castle is sealed off, and in order to enter, we must find out how. No… you must find out how…”

“Where exactly are we?” the Sword Saint asked.

Taking out an orb, the old demon showed them a general layout of the city and even several adjacent rooms with hallways leading to them. As Jake looked at it, the demon spoke again.

“Welcome to the Demon Lord’s harem.”

His what now?