The Primal Hunter

”Do you believe this individual will be a foe?” the Sword Saint asked as they walked down the newly revealed stairs.

”I doubt it. The dude is in chains and in a sealed room, so unless they are really shitty hosts, then I would assume it is a prisoner,” Jake answered.

Even if he didn’t share it, Jake did have an idea who this person could be based on the stories Minaga had shared. Upon entering the hidden prisoner dungeon, his suspicions were pretty much confirmed as he saw an old disheveled man chained to a wall within a sealed-in red barrier.

[Old Royal Mage – lvl 250]

Again, a very original name from Minaga. At least the Demon Lord had a name based on what the Prime Summoner said.

After they entered the room, the old mage also seemed to notice them, but he didn’t even look up.

”Just kill me already… I will never betray my comrades!” he said in a valiant tone.

Jake wanted to praise Minaga for his wonderful dialogue, but the Sword Saint spoke first. ”We are not with the demonic cult, but those who have come to slay them.”

The old man looked up and laid his eyes on them. ”Truly? I feared all was lost when the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas was released from the seal that we of the Mage Court laid down five hundred years ago. In an attempt to help the citizens, I came here to try and stop the Prime Summoner from assisting the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas regain his former strength, but I was too late and was instead captured. Tell me, did you succeed in stopping her from ascending to a Prime Consort of the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas?”

Who the hell just goes on a tirade like that after one reassurance we are the good guys!? Jake wanted to scream, but the old swordsman stayed in character.

”Her foul ritual was ended by my blade, and the cultists slain for their evil acts,” he said in a serious tone.

”Good, good… did the Knight of Light’s Dawn join you? He was said to have guarded the entrance to this labyrinth, and I fear the worst if he encountered the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas. Even if the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas was weakened… tell me, is he safe?” the Old Royal Mage asked.

Does he really have to refer to the Demon Lord as “evil Demon Lord Gubrothas” every time? Jake questioned as he kept his mouth shut.

“Sadly, the Knight valiantly fought the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas but failed to stop him. With his dying breath, he tasked us with stopping the Prime Summoner. That we found you here is simply a blessed happenstance,” the Sword Saint said in a comforting tone. “Please, allow us to free you.”

The Royal Mage nodded, and Jake and the others proceeded to dismantle the barrier and free the mage from his chains. Jake was primarily interested in the magic circle they had used for the prison. The chains served as energy-sappers and made the person too weak to use their physical strength to rip themselves free, while the formation drained their resource at all times, making them even weaker in all other aspects. However, Jake believed the most important function was the formation’s ability to disrupt energy movements, even within the body of the affected person. It acted almost like a neurotoxin, making Jake very curious.

As the two old men once more spoke, Jake subtly disassembled the entire prison cell and stored it away, including the chains on the wall and floor tiles the magical circle had been carved on.

”Thank you, thank you, oh valiant heroes. Please, with the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas now freed, he must be stopped, but I fear he has already managed to reach his castle deep within the labyrinth. I… I wish we could seal him once more, but I am too weak. Heroes, do you believe yourselves capable of facing the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas? That you can bring peace and justice?” the Royal Mage asked in his usual dramatic and severe tone.

“That is a quest we would take upon ourselves with honor,” the Sword Saint nodded.

“I cannot express my gratitude enough, heroes,” the old mage said with a big smile. “Allow me to assist you in your quest.”

The old man made a magical seal with his hands and summoned a small golden stone with magical scripts on it that Jake promptly Identified.

[Anti-Demon Sword-Sealing Stone (Unique)] – A stone created by the Old Royal Mage capable of temporarily weakening the Demon Lord by sealing in his sword. The duration of the seal is one minute (60 seconds). This item cannot be used outside of Nevermore and will cease to exist if brought out for too long. Will break upon usage.

”In an attempt to assist the Knight of Light’s Dawn, I created this Sealing Stone, but sadly I could never use it… please, would you take it instead? Use it to slay the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas?” the Old Royal Mage asked as he held up the stone.

To Jake’s surprise, the Sword Saint shook his hand as he closed the hands of the Old Royal Mage around the stone. ”No, this quest is ours alone, and we shall slay the Demon Lord using our own power. We have already encountered him once, and the last time, he cowardly fled. I thank you for the offer, but your job is done, and you can rest. We will handle the rest.”

”Truly?” the old mage asked in disbelief. ”The evil Demon Lord Gubrothas is not easily bested… even if you faced him once, he will be far stronger when you face him in his domain.”

”No matter where or when, he shall fall to us. Evil shall never prevail; I swear my life on that,” the Sword Saint said.

”Very well, I shall respect your conviction, and once more, I thank you, heroes,” the old man bowed deeply.

Achievement earned: Locate and free the Old Royal Mage and reject the Anti-Demon Sword-Sealing Stone. 200 Nevermore Points earned.

So that’s why he rejected it… bonus points. Yay, Jake thought, giving a mental thumb up to the Sword Saint.

The old mage seemed to be deep in thought for a moment before he smiled at them. ”Even without the seal, allow me to assist you in reaching the deeper parts. We have a stronghold that should still hold due to formations of old laid down by the court. It is close to the next entryway leading further into the demon’s domain.”

Jake instantly caught on and sent a mental negative to the Sword Saint. Chances are this stronghold would be within a room and thus make them lose out on an achievement for doing the minimum number of rooms possible.

”Once more, I thank you for the offer, but we wish to scour the halls to truly wipe out the foul cultists that still wander them,” the Sword Saint said in a solemn tone.

”I understand,” the mage said with a nod. ”In that case, all I can give you is my well-wishes. Go forth and be the arbiters of justice.”

”That we shall,” the Sword Saint nodded and bowed as he turned around and began walking out of the cathedral. Jake looked at the old mage for a second before mimicking the actions of the Sword Saint and also bowing as he followed after. Everyone except for the Fallen King did a small bow, with even Sylphie trying it.

Following the Sword Saint out of the cathedral and back towards the hallway, Jake gave the old man a questioning look.

”I did theater back in my school days,” the old man revealed. ”It has been… hm, must be a century since then? How time flies…”

”Old fart,” Jake snorted jokingly, the old man just smiling in response.

They didn’t need to talk much more as they made their way back into the hallway, and Jake once more proceeded with guiding the group towards the exit. With commentary, of course.

”Such a missed opportunity. You should have just teleported with the Old Royal Mage. Even if you didn’t want to wait for him to recover, Jake could have just handed him a mana potion to get him up to speed. It would have been faster by a lot, and you would have been able to see the cool stronghold and even interact with all the people who live there. There are a bunch of individuals with very interesting information, including a former member of the cult, an old nobleman, and the squire of the Knight of Light’s Dawn, that died at the beginning of this floor. Who knows, maybe they would even give you some reward for slaying the Prime Summoner? At the very least, you would have seen them all react to the Old Royal Mage reuniting with old friends. It would have been really touching. His granddaughter would even be there and hand you all these small flower crowns to wear for freeing her grandpa…”

”Or, we could get the bonus achievement points by only doing the minimum amount of rooms,” Jake countered.

”Well, considering the room with the Prime Summoner was only for the bonus objective, you could have skipped that too.”

”Yeah, but seeing as it is the bonus objective, and coupled with the points for freeing the Old Royal Mage, I’m gonna bet it has at least equal or more points, especially with the two achievements we just got. Oh yeah, and the experience was also pretty worth it,” Jake said with a light smile as he turned to the group. ”Patrol ahead on the right, two-point-five kilometers.”

The Fallen King and Sylphie responded as they picked up speed and went ahead of the group to clean up the patrol.

”Why do I get the feeling you said that out loud and not through telepathy just to annoy me?” Minaga asked.

”I have no idea why you would possibly think that,” Jake said before he looked at the Sword Saint and Dina. ”We should reach the end in about thirty minutes, just got eleven left turns and eight right turns before we reach the final room.”

”You are definitely doing it on purpose.”

”All in your imagination,” Jake shrugged. Soon the Fallen King and Sylphie rejoined them as they passed through the place where the two of them had utterly slaughtered the patrol.

From there on out, it was just a rush to the final room with the gateway in it. This room was also filled with cultists and even had a level 255 Cultist Leader who ended up being weaker than the Prime Summoner. Or maybe he would have been stronger if the guy had managed to finish his large-scale ritual, but they promptly killed him before the guy had a chance to. Without further ado, they entered the gateway to finish off the thirty-second floor even faster than they did the thirty-first.

Thirty-second floor completed. 320 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-second floor in less than a day (24 hours). 500 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-second floor without allowing the Demonic Cultists to perform any of their planned rituals. 400 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-second floor without receiving assistance from any friendly creatures. 350 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-second floor while only entering a maximum of two challenge rooms. 300 Nevermore Points earned.

Appearing in the in-between lounge, Jake admired all the achievements just rolling in.

”We managed to stop all the rituals?” Dina asked, a bit confused. ”That seemed… too easy? There were only those two…”

”No, there were not only two, there was a total of nine rituals going on across this entire labyrinth, but even the slowest one – besides the two mandatory ones you did – would take around a full day to complete. Honestly, I am questioning why I even decided it was a good idea to add an achievement for not allowing any rituals to go off while also having one to complete it in under a day. Seems a bit like an unnecessary double reward… oh well, what can you do about it? I guess you did interrupt two rituals, so it wasn’t like it was totally free,” Minaga answered Dina.

”Oh… thank you for telling me,” Dina said with a small bow.

”See, Jake? That is how you treat an all-powerful dungeon master who wields your fate in his hands,”Minaga took a jab at Jake.

”Noted and ignored,” Jake smiled. ”Though I have an even more important question than Dina.”

”…what?”

”Are the drinks in the bar different in this in-between room from the ones before?”

”… yeah, they are… why?”

”Any recommendations?” Jake asked genuinely. “I didn’t do that well last time. I reckoned you would have some good recipes.”

”Mixing Ualberry Juice and… actually, get over there and let me guide you. As an alchemist, you should be able to properly mix drinks at least. It can’t be worse than last time. That was a damn atrocity,” Minaga said, oddly engaged.

”Sir, yes, sir,” Jake said as he popped over to the bar. The next two hours were spent with Jake getting guided by Minaga on how to mix some banger drinks, and he learned a lot about different foodstuffs of the multiverse.

Sylphie also opened the lockbox in the room as he was working at the bar, and inside, they found a staff suited for a mage. A fire mage, more specifically, as the staff gave off intense fire affinity energy. This made Dina visibly upset with the thought of getting it, so they decided to just decide by random chance, with the Fallen King eventually winning.

They had primarily chosen to relax a bit in the in-between room because the Sword Saint needed to fully get back in top condition after using his Rain of Time and boosting skills. That Jake got a lesson in drink mixing was just a bonus.

After resting, they entered the next floor as usual and once more appeared in a pretty much identical room to the thirty-first and thirty-second floors. And as was also customary, they got their usual welcome message.

Welcome to the Thirty-third floor of Nevermore: Minaga’s Labyrinth (Part 3)

Main objective: Reach the end of the Labyrinth.

Bonus objectives: Free at least a quarter (25%) of the prisoners trapped on the thirty-third floor (0%).

Current progress: Prisoners freed (0%). End reached (0/1)

Note: More hidden events, achievements, or objectives may be hidden on the floor.

Current Nevermore Points: 19203

Minaga appeared in all his glory with a huge grin on his face while they were all reading the description of this floor.

”Hello again!” Minaga said with a big smile.

”Hello again indeed,” Jake smiled. ”Will this floor be different from the last two?”

”Oh… this floor is truly special… because this time, your cheating skills won’t give you any big advantage; I can promise you that!” Minaga said, full of confidence. ”Oh, and I already set the difficulty to Archmage again. If you have any complaints, voice them in 3… 2… 1. Okay, it is set now.”

”No complaints about the difficulty,” Jake said with a shrug. ”But not sure I believe the first part.”

”You will… oh, you will!” Minaga said with maniacal laughter as he disappeared from the room, and his voice echoed as the door in the distance began glowing red as it opened.

”Do tell me… how are you going to cheat this time around, huh!?”