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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MrIzuarel on 2024-10-30 17:46:01+00:00.

Chapter 102

I had no exact description for what that stone was except that once that stone entered a dungeon, it would start the destruction of the dungeon.

Considering just how many dungeons were out there, I realized that destroying one just to find out about this quest was acceptable. But the question was naturally what dungeon to choose.

In my list, including tier 3 and 4, were almost 300 of them, so it shouldn't be too difficult to choose. First of all, it had to be one of the ones we did not like to do. It was a given that the favorites had to stay. But that reduced the possible candidates by about fifty.

We ruled out unique types of dungeons or dungeons with rare drops. That took care of about 100 of them. I still had a list of 142.

The list was reduced over and over again until we reached an agreement. The unlucky dungeon was a small 3 boss dungeon of the third tier that had no significant importance. It was filled with orcs and goblins, which were abundant in other dungeons as well and had no significant resources other than coins and fabric. I was surprised it wasn't directly chosen as disposable. That's how little worth that dungeon had.

First, I checked every quest that mentioned that dungeon. Of the thousands in my list, I had about fourty quests that needed something from that specific dungeon. So the girls and I did our due diligence to clear every quest inside that dungeon before we started its destruction.

Because I didn't know what to expect, I asked for the entirety of my girls minus the logistics team to accompany me. Arriving inside the dungeon with a legion of soldiers made me feel like a warlord.

Immediately inside, I pulled the flower out of my inventory, but it didn't react. I was a bit confused about what to do, so I reached inside the flower and pulled the glass stone out.

This time, there was a reaction.

The stone started glowing in a soothing golden light before leaving my hand and burying itself in the ground. In the next moment, a big golden crystalline structure started to come out.

I had no idea what this could mean, so I looked around but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Maybe it was because nobody was currently hunting or producing anything, but my chat window gave me a reaction. I usually ignored it because nobody ever talked to me, but this time, it gave me a warning.

<34,213,450 monsters left to kill.>

I stared at the message and was speechless. Thousands... millions? 34 million?

I was how was I supposed to kill 34 million monsters in such a tiny dungeon. That was more than the population of some countries. While I was staring at the screen, the number went from 450 to 451 after a few seconds. Oh wow. And the number went up? Those are great news!

Just as I tried to start the expedition, the dungeon started to shake violently. It was a full earthquake at that place, and the landscape drastically changed.

I had visited this dungeon once before, and that was the reason why I knew this was not normal. I was on top of a cliff, and the usual small villages of this dungeon were gone, replaced by a real city with the same building style. There were three of those cities, one for each boss, but now those places were slowly bursting with green skins. Far beyond the normal amount.

At the center of each city, three similar structures made from crystal started to grow, but the color was off. They were black and far larger than the one I had behind me.

I had no idea what was happening, but something told me that the solution was hidden inside these structures, and I should do my best to protect mine.

I tried to open my dungeon window, but a small error message prevented me from accessing it. I could not leave this place, I could not abandon it, I could not enter my own dungeon, and I could not change the difficulty. I could see that at least the healing and items were still able to come in and leave to the outside.

The fact that I was unable to change the difficulty was actually acceptable to me because I had put it on the minimal difficulty. I wasn't that idiotic to enter the dungeon and start a quest without preparation.

I took another look at the monster cities and saw no irregularities other than those I had already seen, but that didn't mean anything. I went down the cliff, not taking the regular path on the side, and came closer to the protective wooden walls of the first city.

They were wooden, massive, of irregular sizes, and assembled in an unorganized manner, just like so many tropes in video games depicted them. I wasn't even surprised anymore by such coincidences.

As I approached, alarms bells were heard all over the city, and some of the orcs came out. At the same time, the smaller goblins started grouping up on the walls and preparing their bows.

I knew the reach of the goblins and knew how to avoid getting hit by them, so I instructed the spikers and apothecaries to shot them down as the reach of my shooters was greater than the reach of those miniature bows.

It didn't take too long, and the first goblins started to die. The orcs didn't enjoy that and charged mindlessly, but everybody around me were veterans of group fights, even if those fights involved hundreds or more  individuals. We had experienced it numerous times when I tried to obtain my hunter quests.

The fight ended quickly. The orcs had little strategic knowledge, and once we had them surrounded, it was over for them. The fact that I had the lowest possible difficulty and that we were numerically superior to them also played a part in it.

We forced our way into the city. The orcs hadn't even closed the gates or tried a proper defensive fight with us, so the majority of the monsters inside the city had already been killed by us. There were a few stragglers, but nothing major.

However, I could not find the boss monster. The first boss, a Spearman orc, was usually always in the biggest hut of the village. Only on rare occasions did he roam the village. However, he never went outside his territory. I tried to find him but to no avail, but the changes made it difficult to find him.

I looked at the crystal at the center of the city and was almost certain that it was somehow connected to the missing boss.

After we cleared the entire place, the number of monsters to kill went down by about four hundred, but I didn't feel like rejoicing. We had millions to kill and had to work hard to clear this.

I came closer to the crystal and inspected it.

Unlike the one I had created, which was almost transparent with a golden glow, this one was pitch black and had a strange violent feeling to it. It was not a violence originating from rage and anger, but the unstoppable violence a force of nature brought with it.

I got curious and observed the crystal structure closer. I could clearly see that it was composed of thousands, if not millions of smaller crystals stacking into each other, forming something like fibers in a piece of fabric. The entire sculpture looked like a spiraling wave of black water.

I scratched at them to try and free one of those crystals but ended with a handful of them falling off the thing.

A bit surprised, I managed to grab most of them, but a few dropped to the ground where they dissolved instantly.

I had a bad feeling about that one.

In the next moment, I could feel that most of my girls started to panic. I didn't even have to ask why because I knew I was the reason for that.

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OP note: 102 was written this morning, and I am a slow writer, so I will most likely need 2-3 days for 103. For those who want to play a bit, there are 4 events that are obvious or hinted at in my story that are coming soon. Everyone correctly guessing one of them will receive a ☆ as answer. Good luck.