Nightmare Fantasy Online

*CRASH!*

Too close-!?

*CRACK!*

Give it a-!

*CRASH!!*

"REST!" - Garami

I fired a Fireball in frustration at the attack of the wild monster. It hit with a huge flare, leaving the attacker's "arm" singed. That didn't stop its other "arms" from coming at me.

The enemy is, after all, an octopus. Or, a squid? One, two..., twelve!? W-well, its head looks squid-ish, so let's call it a squid.

Or stalker works as well! It's the perfect word for someone as persistent as this guy! 

The Sea Stalker looks like a cartoonish squid that's around two meters high, using multiple tentacles to crawl onto land, and its white body has dark-blue spheres on certain areas, like the end of its tentacles. Its mouth is strangely attached to the front of its face, unlike with normal squids. Granted, it isn't a real squid, but a demon.

I got proof for that since it was a valid "target" when I tried to use [Demonic Taming] on it. Sadly, this big bloke resisted the taming. 

Thinking about it, taming must be that kinda thing. You gotta make the target subjugate to you for it to work. Stuff like "friendship" and "kindness" may also work, but not this time around. 

I mean, this guy's serious about killing me here. Sitting down to chat will result in lunch. With me as the main dish.

Luckily for me, this thing's sole method of attacking is with its tentacles. The areas it hits get crushed as if being hit by a heavy hammer, and there's even some moisture on those spots for some reason. Probably a water-type skill of some sort.

Another strange thing about these attacks is that they're difficult to keep a track of. If I let my concentration slip, it's easy to imagine one of the squid's attacks getting past a normal adventurer's radar. [Detect Monster], however, seems to keep a track of things, so I guess it's a skill that hides tentacle attacks to a certain degree. 

Unluckily for me, however, is that this thing has such a huge body. Meaning the damage I deal is dispersed. Guess some hidden factors are working here. Something like "damage is given based on the area it hits". It would be a different thing if I hit someone's vital point...

But I don't know a squid's vital points! Even if it had one or two! All my knowledge about "assassinations" comes from movies, and you don't see squids as secret agents or whatever.

Anyway, the fight kept on going for a minute or two before I noticed that the squid was recovering its HP. It wasn't that fast compared to my Auto-Recovery for MP, but it's gradually going up. As if I didn't have enough trouble getting past its already-huge HP.

However, that problem seems to be solved as soon as I noticed it. By the squid himself, even.

As we were fighting, I tried to prevent myself from getting cornered by the waterfront, so I kept on retreating toward the island. And the squid followed with its tentacles slamming at the ground. And that seems to have stopped its recovery? I'm not 100% sure why, but since it has stopped, that works for me!

I did a somersault to dodge the two tentacles that were aimed at me, fired a [Mystical Thread] at the third tentacle, and threw a throwing dagger to pin the squid's tentacle to the ground. 

Honestly, even I'm impressed over my acrobatic talent here. Is this all from [Parkour]? It's the only new thing to my status sheet, so if that's the case, I know what skill to level up from now on!

The squid seemed to get agitated over my quick escapes, but it's not retreating. Rather, instead of angry, I'd say it's getting..., excited?

Whatever the case is, my SP is dwindling here. At this rate, I'll be the one empty of gas, so I should try to finish this as fast as possible. 

Seeing how the squid's not getting depressed or willing to serve me despite having lost over 30% of its total HP by now, should I change my approach? Trapping it could be a better method.

With that in mind, I started to prepare for the big catch. The threads are useless if I want to use them with [Create Trap]. They've gotten too soggy from the tentacle + Water-skill(?) rampage of the squid for my creation-type skill to consider them worthy as materials.

If I could control the threads directly, It'd be a different story. Alas, I gotta use what I have at the moment.

The squid, not tired of this game already, tried to smack me with its tentacle again. Does it think I'm a mole? Anyway, I backflipped (backflipped!!) to dodge the appendage, and when I landed, I struck the ground with my magic dagger. The magic dagger of [Grasp Vine].

Several green vines rose from the fertile ground and held the tentacle on the spot. The squid, surprised over this new move I'd shown it, tried to get its arm free, but the vine's power isn't to sneeze at. And even if you do sneeze, please turn the other way, okay?

However, being too occupied with its trapped limb was a bad move on the squid's part. While it was busy trying to break free, I ran closer to it and struck the ground with the magic dagger again, creating more vines which I used to wrap up the squid's legs like a Christmas present. Wow, I bet the one getting this gift won't have a happy new year...

Looks like the damn solid squid can't get out of this one. Seeing that, I calmly drank an MP potion to recover my close-to-zero MP back to its full state. Good thing I spent some DP on several of these back when I couldn't get any more facilities before the level-up. The potions in the shop are eeeeeexpensive! 

After putting away the dagger, I cracked my knuckles while positioning myself in front of the squid. Is it my imagination, or is this guy cold and sweating? Well, no mercy to find here. Try another shop.

"OOOORRRRAAAA!! [DEMONIC COMBAT] KIIIIICK!!" - Garami

My power-upped kick struck the squid right between its eyes and sent it flying backward. Or it would be, hadn't its limbs been trapped by the vines. Meaning it's getting a special kick-course for the prize of a single kick~.

"Ready to submit? Or die?" - Garami

I asked the squid again while stuffing the small fear I had in the deepest part of my head. Because this guy won't handle a few more blows. It's a real deal "submit or die" situation we got here. 

But it seems that my good luck hasn't failed me this time as well. The taming was a success. 

What is worrying me is the eyes the squid has after I knocked it out. They looked too..., aroused...

Oh, "he"'s a girl. Then for her name...Scylla? Charybdis? But those are probably made into real monsters, so if I meet them, it could get complicated...

Wait, wasn't there some sea creature called "Nautilus"? Hmm..., then let's change it into "Nala". It may be sorta rude to call a squid-like creature something based on that creature, but I'm bad with names anyway. 

With that figured out, I sent Nala to the Followers' Hotel thanks to the "Return Home" art that's part of [Demon Taming]'s effect. Calling it the opposite of "Summon" would be the right...

Who're those guys? There's some floating light ball right beside one of them..., are those the rumored streaming functions? Oh no, did I just reveal most of my hand for the rest of the world to see!? 

...should I try to threaten them? Wait, how am I supposed to do that? This is inside a game..., and thinking about it, I didn't use the Evil Eye, so my best weapon is still a secret. And [Demonic Combat] takes too much MP to be useable in a fair fight, so it's not hurting me that people know about it.

Hmm? Then I can simply ignore those..., okay, I have to ignore them. Because there's nothing I can do to them anymore. They're dead.

While the players were too busy gawking at me, someone got behind their backs and crushed their heads. It happened in the blink of an eye. I bet that those guys are looking around confused in their Player Rooms right about now. 

The culprit then left the sorry remains of the players' corpses (it's just white-colored dust anyway) and walked toward me. Not that I felt threatened by him. I know this guy after all. I guess you could call him an old friend. 

---

Later, after I logged in again after lunch, I returned to the Fort. That old one did me the favor of inviting me to his place, so I should bring a gift at least. Crystal Roses should be good. They're pretty, and it seems that practically anyone wants them for some reason.

I should also take a look at how Nala's doing. With that in mind, I walked over to the Followers' Hotel and discovered..., the squid playing card games with Nyx. Hey...

Let's take it as a sign that this squid's talented. Wait, I didn't get to check her stats earlier. Better late than never.

Skill List:

Title List:

......there is some stuff here I wanna complain about, but everything should be solved in its proper order. First, is her race.

So that's why it's called a "stalker". I don't think any of the skills Nala gives her long-range capabilities, so is she one of the specimens that don't do the turret-style? Best to take a look..., starting with this [Greater Health] skill. Isn't it just an upgraded [Health]? Did she waste her AP on just improving her HP?

..."increases the level-up growth"?? So, Nala gets 1 more HP each time she goes up a level!? 

I take back all the bad things I've said about Ability Skills. This effect is awesome! Ah, but T2¹Skill Tier 2 skills need 6 AP to be obtained, not to mention increasing its level. 6 AP just to increase the status growth when leveling up..., yeah, not something I would do.

People who rely more on their stat values than their number of skills choose to do so, but I like to have a lot of tricks up my sleeves. 

Speaking of different skills, I haven't seen this one before. I can guess what it does though...

Yup. I guessed it. This explains why the ground got wet from this "girl"'s attacks. The next one is...

Hey, she's a proper tank! Lucky~. But she would need more defensive skills if I wanna put her on the front line. Maybe I should look for a healer as well?

Okay, this skill is no good! Sure, a tank would like it, but it puts me in a bad light as this girl's master! Let's forget about it...

And I guess I don't need to see the talent skills either. Meaning what's left are the three monster skills:

Now I get why those tentacle slaps were so powerful and why I almost didn't notice them a few times. Not to mention that recovery effect! This girl's a combined tank/assassin! I'll love seeing how she's gonna improve from now on~~.

And as for the title, no need to see that again. But she does have a different trait than me and Nyx, as we both share the same traits. Nala has the [Demon] trait like the rest of us, but this [Sea Demon] is a new one.

Hmm, not flashy. But there are no drawbacks, so I won't complain either.

All that's left is for her to evolve her class, I guess. Luckily, she's got both the class at its highest level and enough AP to upgrade it. The only problem is that she's not likely to get any good classes. You need to clear specific quests if you want rarer and stronger classes. Nyx has the same problem. If there was something I could...

And being a Dungeon Ruler solves all my problems yet again!

After I returned to the Player Room based on a hunch I had, which turned out to be right, I discovered that I could place a "Dojo"-facility in the Dungeon!

There are some problems regarding this Dojo though. First, it is that it cost 200 DP, but that's already cleared as my DP has recovered that much since I used them up earlier today.

The second problem is that I also need to hire some "teachers" for the Dojo. But that doesn't seem to be a problem in the future, as I can pay DP to "summon" some teachers and add them to the Dojo. It's just that the quality-class teachers come with a high salary (DP-cost), and the Dungeon's stats is influencing what type of teacher I can summon. 

...wait, why am I worrying about this now? I don't have enough FP to place the Dojo (which requires 250 FP) yet! Tch, guess I need to postpone the evolution of these two's classes until tomorrow. Right now I got to prepare for my visit to my old "friends"...

I can call them friends, right? Those Blackmarket guys. ...let's add some more Crystal Roses to the gift. Just as a precaution.