Chapter 195: Scene 1
However, Ian couldn't get up. He felt life draining from his body, the pain in his shoulder gradually fading, and all his strength seemingly ebbing away.
[You are dead. Please select a resurrection time.]
A line of text appeared before Ian's eyes, and he realized that his first round of the dream adventure had ended so absurdly.
The option before him was a three-minute progress bar, from which he could freely choose when to resurrect.
The upper left corner showed the currently used time, which was paused, meaning that time wouldn't be counted while he waited to resurrect.
Without much thought, Ian directly chose to resurrect at minute 0.
As expected, the sound of something cutting through the air rang in Ian's ears again at the start. This time, he wasn't stunned like before, but looked around, trying to find a place to take cover.
But he was immediately disappointed, because the street was clean and empty. He had nowhere to hide.
The next moment, a sharp arrow pierced Ian's chest.
In the blink of an eye, he reappeared in the salt pans of Lord Holloway's town, and Harold's corpse rose again.
This time, Ian didn't choose to kill the ghoul, but instead turned and ran away.
Killing Harold would mean returning to White Harbor... He was already wounded in the chest, and going back would mean certain death.
Even if he resurrected, he still wouldn't escape the initial scripted death, so he had to find another way to break through this predicament.
At the entrance of the salt pans, Ian found an old nag, mounted it, and quickly left.
After traveling a while, Ian noticed that nothing was following him, and he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
To be honest, Ian was completely lost. He didn't know what to do next.
In a sense, he was already dead, and the reason he was still alive and kicking was entirely due to the dungeon inexplicably switching scenes.
This process was completely illogical, but if it were logical, it wouldn't be a dream. Dreams are the most absurd things.
Therefore, to clear the dream instance, one must find a method that conformed to the 'logic' of the dream itself.
Ian fell into deep thought.
What should he do next? The conditions for clearing the instance were unknown, meaning those conditions must be deduceable from his current experiences.
He had only experienced two things: being killed by the script at the start, and the scene shifting after his death, delaying his demise.
Being killed by the script couldn't be the way to clear the instance, so the scene shift that delayed his death was the key.
Could he use this time to get to White Harbor and kill the archer? Ian suddenly realized.
Although, based on his recent experience, the White Harbor scene occurred after the salt pans scene, in the rules of the dream, it was uncertain which scene preceded the other in the timeline!
Perhaps killing the archer now was the clearing condition! Ian felt he had found a solution.
However, traveling from Lord Holloway's town to White Harbor would take at least three days, and he only had 72 hours for dream exploration! Thinking this, Ian felt a pang of despair.
To his surprise, the next moment he found himself inside White Harbor.
"No wonder it's a dream," he thought to himself. "It's just so damn illogical." He scrambled off his horse and ducked into an inn.
He was now wearing the same set of equipment he'd worn in the salt pans—a fine robe and a longsword.
Ian had no confidence that he could defeat the archer on that empty street with just that.
Entering the inn, he found it empty, but Ian wasn't surprised. He simply began searching.
He was lucky. In one of the rooms, he found well-fitting mail and a large shield.
After changing out of his flimsy robe and into his new gear, Ian returned to the streets of White Harbor, cautiously searching for the archer.
Soon, he found his target.
Ian, shield in hand, suddenly appeared from around the corner. His opponent reacted swiftly, raising his bow and loosing at Ian, but the arrowhead only pierced the shield two centimeters before getting stuck.
Just as the opponent nocked a second arrow, Ian was already upon him, piercing his chest with his sword, just as the archer had done to him before.
The next moment, Ian was back in the salt pans of Lord Holloway's town, and Harold had once again risen.
Ian didn't choose to flee again, but instead slashed with his sword, dismembering Harold once more.
This time, the scene didn't change. Ian remained where he was.
He breathed a sigh of relief. He had indeed guessed correctly. After killing the archer player, the scripted death he suffered at the start of the dungeon had been resolved.
However, before Ian could even celebrate, he suddenly saw all the corpses around him begin to move.
Soon, everyone stood up.
Sellsword Captain Camel, the old sellsword Adam, and the entire sellsword company that Ian had wiped out that day.
Unlike Harold who only knew how to frighten people, these ghouls were all armed! There were more than a dozen of them, while Rol and Cass were nowhere to be seen.
"Damn it!" Ian cursed under his breath, turning to run away again.
But as if they knew what he was thinking, they had already sent men to block the salt pans' exit, cutting off his retreat.
Helpless, Ian could only raise his sword and charge at the four ghouls guarding the entrance.
As a player skilled in swordplay and who had undergone considerable training, Ian found that although he hadn't experienced much actual combat, his fighting ability had significantly improved compared to before.
Within half a minute, he had cut down all four ghouls in front of him... Although these things got back up, if they were normal humans, they would definitely be dead.
During the battle, Ian was caught up by Camel and the others behind him again, but he wasn't in a hurry to escape this time.
Where else could he find a real combat opportunity with unlimited resurrections outside of the dream world?
Thinking this, Ian turned to fight, quickly engaging several ghouls in combat.
Although he soon succumbed to their overwhelming numbers and the fact that they couldn't be killed by normal cutting damage, Ian was still very satisfied with his performance. Fighting a group of ghouls to this extent had exceeded his expectations.
Of course, this was also related to his knowledge that he wouldn't truly die anyway. Without fear, he could fight calmly.
From this perspective, it wasn't so difficult to understand why the Unsullied, as eunuchs, could become one of the best military units.
[You have died. Please select a resurrection time]
Familiar words appeared before Ian's eyes. This time, he chose to resurrect at the moment he appeared in the salt pans after killing the archer player.
Harold's corpse rose for the third time tonight, but Ian didn't rush to kill him. He simply pushed him down and went into the mine's building.
Inside, he found the miners' flint and steel and used it to light the campfire in the courtyard.
Then, Ian piled all the corpses in the mine together, poured oil on them, and set them all ablaze.
As the corpses were about to burn out, he kicked Harold's body in as well.
This time, no more ghouls could rise, and a line of text appeared before Ian's eyes:
[Successfully cleared the first scene, dungeon exploration progress 10%, player's Spirit +2]
"Holy shit? Rewards are given for each scene?" Ian was somewhat surprised.
Although two points of Spirit weren't much, he had only spent less than an hour from start to finish, and that was within his dream time.
If he could clear the entire dungeon, he would undoubtedly receive a huge boost... of course, provided he could actually clear it.
(End of Chapter)
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