Overall even though Dustin was growing in level, it still wasn't as much as he wanted. It may have seem a little greedy of him, but with the advantage he had, one would thing that he would do much better, at least as far as what he thought was concerned.
When Dustin got to the land of the dead, he immediately saw why it was called that. The place looked like the kind of forest where the creepy witch would live in an old Disney cartoon. The trees and vegetation were dead, and the entire place was filled with some kind of purple hue that would best be described as poison looking miasma.
It was quite clear where the problem came from, at least from a surface level, Dustin could quite clearly tell that the reason why the environment looked so depressing and lifeless was because of the miasma, and he could almost immediately tell that it played a huge factor in the deaths of those that went there before.
Nevertheless, Dustin proceeded.
After walking for some time, Dustin was prompted by the system that he was being exposed to a poisonous substance, and no doubt he knew what that was. The good thing however was that his constitution was playing terrific role keeping the poison at bay, and his body was gaining resistance from the poison by the minute.
After wandering deep into the land of the dead, the only monsters he had come across were just some low rank zombies that Ranked at E, nothing special with them except that they were giving off some purple goo from their bodies, which made it extra disgusting. Dustin couldn't tell if the zombies affected the area, or the area was the one that affected the zombies.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtHe could see the monsters in the entire area, but he wanted to leave that aside first and try to go deeper into the land.
After a week of exploring the place, Dustin found nothing special about the place, and most of their monsters also had little strength, the strongest being B rank, and that monster type wasn't even much. Most of the monsters seemed to be some kind of undead, humanoid and others. They all had the poison attribute, and that was really it. Dustin was convince that most of those that died met that fate through poisoning, and that just went to show how powerful the poison was. The moment one enters the land of the dead and takes a breath in the place, that was the start of their doom really.
Even with the beastly constitution, Dustin started feeling some major symptoms after being there for a week only. He could only imagine how pathetic the people who came in there would feel after sometime. The symptoms ranged from nausea to blurry vision and some couple more.
In the end, after two weeks, he gained a resistance to poison. He was expecting it to be counted as a skill, but for whatever reason, it didn't. The system simply relayed to him the change, and that was basically it.
Dustin rounded up his visit there, and this time after defeating the strongest monster there, he place was declared cleared and the rest followed.
The boss monster was some kind of dragon looking monster, that of course, had poison spitting capabilities and some other poison related powers. It looked like a wyvern that couldn't unfold it's wings, but unlike the other monster, this one was just a B rank. It was possible for it to be close to pseudo A rank, but alas, it didn't go that high.
To Dustin's surprise, the points awarded for clearing this area was more than the one he got from the previous area. Maybe it was because of the reputation the land of the dead had, it wasn't clear. After killing the boss monster, the miasma haunting the area cleared, leaving behind lifeless looking trees and vegetation that still exuded the same depressing aura he felt when he first got there, at least it had reduced a bit.
Once again, Dustin had no idea what kind of effects his actions were causing in the realm of Na'ash. He was pretty much an urban legend at this point.
From this expenditure, Dustin saw the need to look for a place with more high rank monsters than the current ones. He no longer got the same value of experience points from D rank monsters down, and that was just telling him to go elsewhere.
The first thought that came to mind was the volcanic region where he saw the dragon and all, plus that day he could count dozens of S rank monsters present. The thing was that Dustin could also remember the kind of creature he met there. He couldn't say if it was still there, and to find out he had to go see by himself... Or maybe he could ask the messenger? That would be good if he could.
Leaving that at the back of his mind, Dustin headed to the last place he was doing to check out before returning to the town and making his final preparations.
While on his way to the place, Dustin couldn't quite get the idea that the entire realm of Na'ash was just one big giant game kind of set up. From the way things were set up to the way the system worked, well, all other systems that were not his, it felt like the gods came to the world they wanted to destroy and copied their technology. It was either that or the gods also had these kind of games, it was utterly surreal.
On getting to the place, Dustin met a group of people that were also about to head into the area. He could have partnered with them, but the entire group seemed to be a bit hostile, so he just minded his business and went his own way. There were a few that were ok and didn't seem to have the same mentality as the others, and there was even a young boy amongst them that would apologise after their leader disrespected Dustin. They were all about some pride of the Genan Guild or something like that, but Dustin couldn't care less. He left them and went his own way.
This place unlike the two before hand was some kind of dungeon that had extended to the outside and somehow made that entire region the dungeon. The idea was weird, but now that Dustin was looking at it, there wasn't anything special really.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmAfter they moved, Dustin made sure to go as far in as he possibly could, and away from the group, so that they wouldn't interfere in his business. In the end he took all the monsters for himself and sent the remaining ones D rank and below towards the group.
After defeating the boss, there was a reward given to the one that killed the dungeon boss and basically cleared the dungeon.
Dustin saw no need for the reward and all, so he left it to the group, who shamelessly took everything. They were lucky to be a good team and that the number of monster below D rank was much.
It wasn't until Dustin left the place and left them behind to take the rewards and all that the rankings updated again, and all their jaws dropped.
The thing was, it said that the same person had just cleared the area they were currently in.
"No shit."
"Yes shit. We just met the legend in the flesh..."
"And we shit on his face the entire time."