NOVEL NEXT B1 | Intermission 1
Somewhere in Tutorial Block #1
Lucas stares blankly out at the vast ocean in front of him, pondering over the meaning of life now that he’s finally gotten out of the dungeon only to realize he’s ended up on an island out in the middle of nowhere.
He glances at a strange stone obelisk next to him alongside an arch that looks suspiciously like a portal arch with the portal deactivated.
Please tell me my suspicion is wrong…
The man places his hand on the obelisk, making the portal flare up before he walks through it and finds himself on another island out in the middle of the ocean. Then he runs around the beach-covered edge of the island he’s now on to eventually find another obelisk and portal arch that he takes to another island where he repeats the process once more.
Damnit, this is a fucking ocean world, isn’t it?
A world filled with nothing but ocean and a few islands with no major continents to be found.
Why is the first Dimensional Block a damned ocean world? Couldn’t Block #1 have ended up a nice and regular world or something?
Lucas grits his teeth at the thought before blinking at the feeling of a water droplet hitting the top of his head. So he looks up, only to find it beginning to rain, the clouds covering the sun enough to make the ocean world seem a little dark but still bright enough to see without much issue.
“That’s it…” he mutters out loud, his eyebrow twitching in irritation. “I’m gonna murder the League of Ascendants for causing this Reset and leaving me in a damned ocean world.”
“Now why would you do that?” a voice suddenly asks out of nowhere, making Lucas spin around towards it while pulling a shadow knife out, only to pause when he sees the face of someone he recognizes.
{Selene Rosenfort – Species: Vampire – Class: Blood Crowned – Level 96}
And right after he identifies the owner of the voice, she does the same back to him.
“What do you want, Empress of Roses?” he asks with an exasperated frown on his face while relaxing ever so slightly to the point that he’s still ready to fight, but not expecting one to come about. Because the woman in front of him is just walking up to him with her arms held behind her head in a relaxed manner.
“Oh, great Hound, forgive this impertinent one for… actually, never mind that,” she begins making her usual grandiose and sarcastic spiel only to cut off to his surprise. “I’m kinda surprised to find you here, ya know? Not as surprised as I was by the first finisher of their dungeon, but meh. Still surprising.”
Lucas looks the woman up and down for a moment, searching for weapons, but just like always, he doesn’t find any.
Something he has learned from dealing with her in the past is that anyone dealing with her will only see her weapons right before she’s about to kill them, the assassin empress not having any interest in showing them otherwise. And the very fact that he can’t see any weapons on her is what sets his nerves ablaze even though he knows that fact.
Because he used to be able to find them even if she had them hidden thanks to the massive power gap between them.
“It’s rather ironic to find you now though, considering our past,” the woman says, stopping in front of him. She has long silver hair with red eyes fitting her status as a vampire – a Class A species of humanoid vampire and the most powerful of the various different species of vampire. And the woman is wearing the same basic armor as he is, her eyes drifting to his sword – one that was sealed during his fight with the goblin king until the king was slain. Then she meets his gaze again with a grin and comments, “Not so scary now are ya?”
He narrows his eyes on her and palms his sword for a moment, making her grin fade back to a relaxed expression as she says, “Nah, no need for that. Why don’t we just be friends?”
Lucas starts with surprise before narrowing his eyes even further and asking, “Why?”
She just shrugs and answers, “Why not? Even if you’re level 98, having another person working with you will always help. Especially in a place like this new dimension.” And when Lucas just continues staring, she finally rolls her eyes and says, “Because with you here I know I won’t be able to get the Champion position for this Block and want to at least tag along with the Champion. Let’s face it, you’re going to be going after the strongest opponents you can find, and I want in on it. Even if it just means fighting the monsters in the area while you face the big bosses. That good enough for you?”
He stares for a few seconds before removing his hand from his pommel and saying, “You can come with me until the Tutorial ends.” Then he grimaces after opening the leaderboards.
[#1 Alexia Knight – 3,672 points]
[#2 Lucas Nightshade – 1954 points]
[#3 Leif Eriksson – 1839 points]
[#4 Aurora Frost – 1819 points]
[#5 Isabella d'Aragon – 1779 points]
[#6 Alexander Frost – 1699 points]
[#7 Leonidas Silver – 1684 points]
[#8 Noah Kowalski – 1598 points]
[#9 Nathan Briar – 1498 points]
[#10 Damien Black – 1395 points]
“There’s no way for me to catch up to that girl now anyways,” he says, feeling disgruntled by that fact.
Did she really just go and slaughter dozens of people after getting out of her dungeon? Or is there some other circumstance that led to her killing people besides the points? If there isn’t, then this girl might be dangerous.
He frowns at that thought.
Nevermind. She’s dangerous either way. Makes me wonder what Block she’s in.
“Say, why did you say what you said to yourself earlier?” Selene asks walking up to him and sticking her hips out behind her as she looks up at his face, her head tilted upwards with her back bent downwards in a slightly playful but still relaxed manner.
He frowns at her before looking at the ocean and muttering, “I just… don’t like the ocean. It brings back bad memories.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her straightening up again and tilting her head slightly. But then she just shrugs.
The ocean was the last thing I remember before it happened after all. And the first thing I remembered afterwards.