Gacha Leveling

The Castle of Novak was a generative dungeon. Unlike normal dungeons that had a perpetual environment and spawned monster simulacrums, generative dungeons created a scenario, a story, an adventure specific for each party. It was generative dungeons that gave way for the name adventurers to be given to people who awakened.

The Castle of Novak always put the party that went in inside a castle controlled by a powerful vampire named Novak. Sometimes the party needed to storm the castle to kill the vampire, other times they had to escape the castle dungeons, or even rescue the simulacrum of a person from the vampire.

When Matthew arrived at the gate, Professor Orpheu was already there. He was wearing his usual red joggers with a matching jacket and a white t-shirt. All equipment he had on him was his trusted katana that Matthew used against the Dullahan.

Matthew greeted him with a formal greeting to which Orpheu replied equally formally.

"The girls are late?" Orpheu asked Matthew.

"Seems, so. They didn't tell me anything." Matthew answered looking at his phone checking if they sent any message, but there was none.

"Let's sit down and wait for them." The professor said pointing at a bench.

"Professor. Can I ask you a question?" Matthew asked while following him to the bench.

"Sure, Matthew. What is it?"

"Aren't you a bit under prepared?" Matthew asked pointing at Orpheu's attire.

"Yeah. A bit." He answered with a chuckle. "But you used my katana once, didn't you? It was a present from a very powerful friend of mine. It has all kinds of enhancements and magical protections on it. It's all the equipment I need." He explained. "It's the only reason you survived that fight with the Dullahan." He added.

"Really? I knew it was a powerful weapon, but I didn't know it was also a protective instrument." Matthew got surprised and examined the katana from a distance while it hanged from Orpheu's hip.

"I have really worrisome friends." Orpheu laughed. "It's far more powerful than anything I should be wielding at my level. Might be the most powerful weapon in the country right now."

"Really?" Matthew asked with genuine surprise.

"Sadly, yes. But tell no one this. It looks like an ordinary katana precisely to keep it hidden from other people." The professor said with a wink.

"You don't seem too happy on having such a powerful weapon." Matthew commented.

"The stress of walking around with it is digging a hole on my stomach." Orpheu laughed.

Matthew laughed with him.

After a moment of silence, Matthew decided to ask Orpheu:

"Professor, what level are you? Isn't this dungeon too low level for you?"

"Not at all. I'm only level 16." Orpheu said with a sad smile. "Barely above the recommended level here."

"Wait, really?" Matthew was surprised again.

"Yeah. I have a… Difficult unique skill." He explained. "It takes me a very long time to level up. I'm hoping that it will pay off in the future, but as things are now…"

"Oh… I thought I had a bad unique skill." Matthew said.

"There is no bad unique skill, Matthew. But unique skill like yours and mine take a long time to really pay off. Yours by luck, mine by hard work." Orpheu said.

"What's your unique skill?" Matthew asked without thinking that he would prefer to keep that a secret.

Orpheu looked at Matthew in silence for a while weighing if he should tell his student his secret. He knew Matthew had problems with his unique skill, even though, compared to his own, it sounded like a great skill. Orpheu decided to share. That might help his student.

"I have Double Class." He gave Matthew a sad smile. "But don't tell anyone. My real level is 8, but I can pick two classes every time I level up. So I actually am a level 8 Warrior, level 4 Scout and level 4 Worker. The problem with my skill is that it gave me an experience penalty. I'm not really sure how much, but while all my party was leveling up, I was stuck behind. They were all level 16 when I finally leveled up to level 2, with 4 class levels. That was when I decided to leave the party because I was holding them back. After that I kept adventuring on my own and, in almost 20 years, all I could come up to was level 8, or 16 class levels."

"That's horrible." Matthew sympathized with him.

"By my calculations, I should be level 23 or 25 considering all the monsters I've killed. But I'm still level 8. I tell people I'm level 16 because I don't really want to explain my unique skill." Orpheu said with a sigh. "I'm telling you because I know about your unique skill. Therefore I thought it would be fair you'd know mine. But, please, keep it a secret."

"Of course. I won't tell anyone." Matthew said thinking to himself that he got lucky with his unique skill if there were unique skills like that out there.

Shortly after, Faralynn and the other girls arrived together. They apologized for their tardiness, Helen had some personal problems on the way, but they were all well now and ready to go inside.

There was no timer for the Castle of Novak, but once a party got in, they could only leave after completing the scenario created for them. They could also give up and be teleported out of the dungeon, but that came with a penalty of never being able to return to the dungeon again.

After debating a bit strategies between the 7 of them, they finally entered the gate.

As soon as they entered, Matthew saw himself in a dark room, everyone around him had disappeared. Before he could call out to them, a huge screen appeared, much similar to the system screen adventurers used to level up and check their stats.

"Initiating Castle of Novak

Calculating party size and strength…

Calculation complete.

Generating dungeon…

Generation complete.

Setting up scenario…

Scenario set up.

Attributing roles…

Congratulations!

Your role is Hero.

Mission: Save the Maidens trapped inside the castle.

Good Luck."

And with that last message, Matthew saw himself being surrounded by a flash of light. When the light faded, he saw himself in a clearing in a forest. A small camp with 3 tents was armed in the clearing. Beside him, he saw Orpheu and Tina. The other girls were nowhere to be seen.

"I hate these type of scenarios." Orpheu cursed. "You two got the Hero role as well?"

"Yes." Tina confirmed while Matthew nodded. "I assume we must save the others from the castle?"

"Most likely." Orpheu said.

"Matt, can you ask Ffyr to do some scouting for us?" Tina asked. "We should get to know the terrain. Professor, do you know the castle?"

"Every time the castle is generated differently. It's never the same layout." Orpheu explained.

"That complicates things." Tina muttered to herself.

"Ffyr said that the forest doesn't go on for long before vanishing in mist. But there is a castle in that direction surrounded by a moat." Matthew said pointing to where he was talking about.

"Remember what I told you all outside. If you think you're about to die, yell 'I surrender' and the dungeon will kick you out safely." Orpheu reminded them. "There are a lot of different dungeons around, being banned from this one is not a problem."

"We should take a better look at the castle and come up with a plan." Tina said looking at the sky. "It seems it's getting dark. Since Novak should be a vampire, I don't know if it's a good or bad thing."

"It's a good thing. Inside his castle, Novak is not affected by sunlight." Orpheu explained. "We'll benefit form the darkness against his minions."

"Then let's move." Tina said taking leadership of the trio.

Faralynn saw herself inside a luxurious room. Her own clothes and weapons were nowhere to be seen. Instead, she was wearing a lavish silk purple dress that matched her eyes. Her hair was tied up with a silver tiara holding it together.

She tried to open the door, but it was locked. The window was open, but, when she looked outside, she saw herself on top of a high tower, she could not leave through there.

Her role was Maiden, her mission was to escape the castle. She wondered if all the girls got the maiden role or if she was the only one. However, that was not relevant for now. First, she should find herself a weapon.

She broke a chair and grabbed one of its legs to use as a club. And with her new club, she tried bashing down the door lock.

Each blow sent loud noises all over the castle and, before the door ceded to her brutality, it opened inside hitting her and sending her tumbling back a few steps.

A tall man wearing elaborate noble clothes from medieval times walked in with a playful smile. He had red eyes and pale skin. His hair was black and long and his mouth had two long canines.

"No, no, no, my dear." Novak said looking down at Faralynn while she steadied her feet on the floor. "You can't go nowhere before the ball."