First Dungeon

New Barrier Created
Type: Woods
Enemy type: Rose Guardians
Population: 20

As John glanced at the environment around him, he took note of the five MP that had been used up when he cast Create Barrier.

Hmm, my current mana is at 85 MP right now, and using the scythe costs 20 MP to summon and 0.5 MP per second to maintain, and my mana regen is 2.6 per minute. So I can use it for about two minutes and 22 seconds after I cast it, John thought to himself as his eyes scanned the foliage for any signs of the Rose Guardians that should be somewhere within the Barrier. After a few moments, John began to consider the possibility that he had somehow messed up the creation of the Barrier. Suddenly, John was pulled out of his inner thoughts when he felt a sting in the back of his leg.

-2 HP

He turned around, and saw that there was a thumb sized thorn now embedded in his calf. John **** himself to hold in a groan of pain as he pulled out the thorn and threw it aside. Even as he felt Gamer’s Body heal the wound itself, he felt a dull pain spread along his leg.

Warning!
You have been afflicted with a toxin.
State: Mild
One point of damage every 30 seconds.
Time remaining until status effect ends: five minutes

He backed up against the fountain, so that there wouldn’t be anymore surprise attacks from behind. He looked around, and his focus was particularly directed towards where the thorn had come from. As he continued to stare, he saw a flurry of movement inside one of the bushes. John considered his options: he could either sit here and continue to wait, or he could rush towards the Guardians and be on the offensive.

Screw it, the best defense is a good offense, so might as well go on the attack myself, John thought to himself as he summoned his scythe and charged at the creatures within the bushes. He swung the scythe through the bushes, and felt the strike hit home as it cleaved through one of the creatures.

15 dmg
+20 Exp

John took a quick glance at the creature that had been cleaved in two by his swing. It was humanoid in shape and would be about a quarter of a meter in height when standing. Its body was made out of vines that had thorns attached to its limbs. Where its head was supposed to be was instead a now dried up red flower. John tore his eyes away from it, for he knew he didn’t have much time until his scythe drained all his mana.

John had little time to waste and he didn’t know where the other Rose Guardians were located. So he got busy and began to hack and slash his way through every bush that they could possibly hide inside. Within the next minute, John had killed four more, now their total population was three fourths of what it had been at the start. Within that time he had lost six more HP, four from thorns and two from the toxin that was already inside him, but he also gained 60 more Exp from the kills.

John had decimated all the bushes that were near him. With not enough time to efficiently continue his hunt, he retreated back to the fountain and hopped inside for cover. He still fully intended to be on the offensive, but a tactical retreat was the best option at this time. Now that he was fairly sure that he was safe for now, he relaxed as best he could within the fountain and used Meditation to help his mana regenerate faster. He also unsummoned his scythe to let the process go even faster.

Meditation can not be used at this time due to you being still in combat.
Time remaining until considered out of combat
9:57

Well, that makes sense I guess, even if it makes things a little more annoying, John thought to
himself as he sat in the fountain and waited.

10 minutes later

Since he had about half of his MP left, it took John about four minutes of Meditation to get his mana back to full. Once it had, John jumped out of the fountain, his clothes now thoroughly drenched from the water.

Mediation lvl up!
Lvl 1 → lvl 2
Meditation now increases mana and health regen by 200% when not in combat.

Hmm, better hold off on summoning my scythe until I actually find more of the Guardians, John thought to himself as he continued his search. After about two minutes, John saw movement behind a tree and watched as Guardian jumped out from behind it and shot two thorns at his face. Luckily for John, his reflexes were just fast enough to allow him to barely dodge the thorns.

As soon as he did, John immediately summoned his scythe and charged the plant creature to retaliate in kind. It tried to jump back, but because of the range of his scythe, John was still able to cleave through it.

+20 Exp

“Idiot, I should use Observe on them to give me a better idea about their weakness. As far as I know, I might actually not even need the scythe to kill them,” John muttered to himself as he did just that on the Guardian's corpse.

Rose Guardian
Lvl 2
HP:-5/10
A humanoid shaped rose creature that’s extremely hostile to all within their territory. Despite their aggressive nature, they are quite fragile themselves and can be killed easily.

Alrighty then, next time my mana runs out, might as well see if I can kill them with a rock or something, John thought as he looked around the area for more Guardians. As he strolled around, he checked his phone to see how much time he had left before the one hour deadline. Currently, he had about 38 minutes left to clear the Barrier in order to get the optional reward.

Two minutes later

John felt his scythe disappear as he killed the tenth Rose Guardian, which made it so that he had now effectively cleared half of the Barrier’s population. In that time he had lost eight HP from some careless moves and had gained 50 more Exp. He looked around for a decently sized stone that he felt he could use to finish the last half off. After a few seconds, he saw one that seemed like a good enough size to use. He walked over to it and pulled it out of the ground, and felt its weight in his hands.

It was a fairly heavy stone, with enough weight that he needed both hands to actually carry it. John nodded to himself as he approved of it as his latest tool to clear the Barrier and its inhabitants. With the rock now in his hands, he searched around for more Rose Guardians to defeat.

He actually found them quicker than he had expected, for they were all huddled up together in a hole inside one of the trees. As he was about to swing the rock directly into the hole to kill them all in one move, John noticed that there was something different about them. They were all significantly smaller than the Guardians he had seen so far. Also, instead of a red flower at the top of their bodies, there were small pink ones instead. John swallowed as he realised that these were not fully grown, but were instead still only babies. John cast Observe on them to make sure, and he silently hoped that his theory was wrong.

Rose Guardian (Newborn)
Smaller than its fully grown kin, it’s as helpless as a newborn human baby, maybe even more so.**

“Shit, is it right for me to kill some newborns, even if they aren’t actually real? At least with the other ones they had attacked me first and were able to retaliate when I attacked, but these guys can’t do either of those things,” John muttered to himself as he questioned his own moral compass. Suddenly, he remembered when he was pinned against the lockers by Frank, and how then he had seriously considered and, heck, even wanted to just kill Frank right there and then.

“What the hell is wrong with me?! I was inches away from actually murdering another human being in cold blood, and yet here I am feeling bad for some monsters that aren’t even real and were only made for the sole purpose of me killing them!” John yelled to nobody as he dropped the stone and sat on the ground.

He lay still there for several seconds, until suddenly he began to giggle to himself. The giggle then turned into a loud chuckle, then that turned into full blown hysterical laughter that filled the entirety of the Barrier. He rolled around the dirt and continued to laugh until his sides hurt. After a few minutes of this, his laughter began to quiet down, until eventually it stopped completely. The eerie quiet from the lack of laughter was soon replaced by a new sound. For John now lay on the floor and began to sob and weep to himself, for what, who, or why he did so, not even he knew.

25 minutes later

John quietly rose off the ground, his tears now dried. Solemnly he looked around, but of course, nothing had changed. He picked the stone back up from the ground and looked at the newborn Guardians that were still inside the tree trunk. As he reminded himself that they weren’t real, John slammed the stone as hard as he could into the hole, his quest now completed.