Universe Tales: Virtual Log of the Fallen One

Chapter 21: Discovery

Since they were her friends, Maria decided to show them her [Status] window and just like Lizzy, they were shocked to see such absurd stats.

"W-what's with that exp number?! That's totally overkill!" Milly exclaimed.

"But even then...based on her skills and other factors, you could say that she rivals people who are 2 or 3 times her level, right?"

"Y-yeah...but that racial exp requirement is pretty steep!"

"However, her racial stats multiplier makes up for that!" Amanda argued.

"Humu..."

While Amanda and Milly were having their debate, Zack was just expressing his heartfelt admiration for his crush. Of course, he still felt a little worried about the traumatic experience that Maria went through to acquire the race she currently had.

"Well, now that everyone knows how amazing Maria's luck is to acquire such a race...since it clearly shows a 10 on her LCK stat..." Lizzy mumbled out the last part before continuing, "Let's go and grind our levels now!"

"Yeah!"

The party members replied in unison and they began searching the nearby area for monsters. Well, it was mostly Maria who was looking around and scoping out the area in the air. Once she found a sizeable group of monsters, she flew back down and led her friends over.

"Sure is convenient to be able to fly around like that~" Amanda wistfully said as she stared up at her airborne friend.

"I wanna fly too~"

"As a dwarf...go create rocket-propelled shoes or something."

"Huh? That's like, kinda impossible?"

"Dwarves are inventors so do something about it."

"We're blacksmiths!"

The group quickly encountered the monster group that Maria had found. It was a large pack of 10-15 Dire Wolves.

The party had already agreed on a battle plan beforehand. Maria would open up the battle with her sky-diving cleave attack. After that, Milly and Lizzy would quickly rush forward with their [Charge] skills to attract aggro. Then, Maria and Zack will be the DPS and slowly grind away at the monsters' health while Amanda will be in charge of support and healing.

As a druid, Amanda did not only having healing spells, but she had some buffs as well. She buffed the party with a [Nature's Blessing Lv.1] and [Strength of the Wild Lv.1]. [Nature's Blessing] gave the party a 5% increase in DEF and HP regeneration while in combat. [Strength of the Wild] gave a 5% increase in ATK. Each of buff lasted for 5 minutes.

For now these were her only buffs, but it was much better than the skills that the normal priest class could use. Of course, as a druid she had a lower amount of healing spells than her counterpart, but it was a class more suited for a party that already had 2 healers anyways.

Maria was the second healer despite not having even learnt any class skills yet...and despite the fact that the girl was happily swinging and cleaving away at the monsters while engaged in a melee, not something a healer class would normally do.

The party was able to take down the entire pack of wolves and each gained a sizeable amount of exp that raised their bars by at least 5-10%, with the exception of Maria of course. Now that the party had grown in size, the split was now not just 2-ways like before, but rather 5-ways.

Maria was only able to raise her bar by 0.5-2% with each pack of level 15 Dire Wolves they encountered.

It was after a dozen or so monster packs that the party dispatched that Maria soon grew bored of it.

"Hey~ let's go to the forest, yeah?" Maria suddenly suggested.

"Eh? W-what're you saying Mary?" Milly asked.

"Well...the highest level monsters around us are only Lv.15 Dire Wolves...they're way too weak if you ask me..."

"Geez, that's because you have absurd stats and skills. Also, you have the [Wolf Slayer] title! Actually, how did you even get that?"

"Well...I dunno? I killed a lot of wolves and got it?"

Lizzy, who was contemplating her friend's earlier suggestion suddenly spoke up.

"Hrmmm...What Mary said is right...with us 5 we can totally take on higher leveled monsters. Let's just go to the forests and scout things out!"

"You have a point...and if they're only at levels 20 at the periphery, we can grind the monsters there and slowly make our way inwards to hunt higher leveled monsters!" Milly immediately agreed after taking a look at the system messages.

The exp gained was pretty high for a party of 5, but she felt that they could definitely do better.

"Alright, let's go! There's a forest not far from us in the north!"

Maria quickly led her friends to the place she discovered earlier.

[Congratulations, you have found the Almer Forest Dungeon! Rewarded: 2x Drop rate and 2x exp rate for the next week]

Once the notification sounded off, Lizzy and Milly immediately burst out in excitement.

"WOAH! We actually found an open-field dungeon!"

"We even got the 2x drop and exp rate for a week! Sweet!"

"With this, we might even be able to raise our levels higher than what we needed to do to complete Mary's quest!" Zack added.

"...I guess 10 LCK really does have some kinda influence in the game." Amanda chuckled lightly. Maria was pretty lucky to suggest going to a forest and inadvertently coming across a dungeon.

Lizzy and Milly were both excited. As gamers, being able to raise their levels very fast was super attractive to them.

"Let's go, let's go!"

"Since there's a dungeon, then there's bound to be a boss!"

"A Boss..."

"Loot...gold...exp...uehehehe~"

Amanda could no longer bear to look at her 2 friends' unsightly behavior.

"Hey...you two are drooling and acting creepy...stop scaring Mary."

The party quickly readjusted their formation. Since this was in a forest, they obviously couldn't take advantage of Maria's flight capabilities any longer. Who knows if there are any monsters hiding in the treetops?

They had Zack scout out ahead of them, as it was a proper thing to do for a Thief class player, and had Maria, Milly, and Lizzy as the vanguards. As usual, Amanda was in charge of healing and support.

"Alright, let's go! We'll extract every last drop of juicy exp and loot from this place in 2 days! Then we'll go help with Mary's quest after that!"

The party quickly rushed into the forest and they encountered a group of monsters right off the bat.

"[Inspect]!"

[Forest Goblin Scout Lv. 20]

[Forest Goblin Warrior Lv. 22]

[Forest Goblin Mage Lv. 25]