Debuff Master

Chapter 313

“Ack!”

“C-Crazy bastard!”

There was nothing the party members could do as the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul far overpowered them in terms of both power and speed. The monster not only possessed all of its skills while it was still an Adventurer, but it also received a significant buff to all of its stats.

The biggest issue was that it possessed the racial characteristics of undead monsters, which was infinite stamina.

“Grrrwaaa!”

The monster continued its rampage.

“Forget about subduing it! Just kill it!”

In the end, the party leader was forced to give the command to kill their fellow party member, who had turned into a ghoul.

This was the right call to make, as they could not risk losing more of their party members while trying to subdue the rampaging ghoul. Besides, the description specifically mentioned that the player would regain control of his character forty-nine hours after death, while it would roam as a ghoul for thirty days if it didn’t die.

Unfortunately, killing the ghoul was not as easy as the party leader thought it would be.

“Ack!”

“This bastard is too fast!”

They were having difficulty killing the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul. Forget about killing it, the party members were slowly getting pummeled by the ghoul instead.

But the most surprising part was…

“That’s not a skill combo a monster is supposed to use!”

The ghoul’s AI was far superior compared to most monsters, as its movement was extremely fluid, and it also improvised from time to time to get itself out of a pinch.

‘It’s moving like a player-controlled character. Wow… Is Beehive seriously using such an advanced AI only in a game…?’ Siegfried couldn’t help but question what was going on at Hive Games Entertainment.

The artificial intelligence technology employed by Hive was called Doppelganger Algorithm, and it had a database of all gamers’ personalities, ways of speech, mannerisms, movements, combat styles, thought processes, etc.

It used that data to create NPCs within BNW that were as close to a human as possible.

This was the same for the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul. The ghoul was currently an exact copy of the Adventurer that once owned its current body.

In other words, the second party needed someone specializing in PVP rather than monster hunting to defeat the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul.

Why?

It was all because fighting a monster equipped with the AI of a gamer meant that it was basically no different from an Adventurer.

To make matters worse, the arena rank of the Adventurer who had become a ghoul was Hero III, which meant that he was quite a skilled fighter.

‘There’s going to be quite a lot of damage…’ Siegfried thought as he ran to stop the ghoul.

Of course, it didn’t take that long for him to kill the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul, and it was all because Siegfried’s rank was way higher than the Adventurer’s Hero III.

Thud!

The Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul fell to the ground with its head bashed open.

“W-What in the world was that control?”

“Oh, right! He fought one-on-one against Raptor at the World’s Greatest Survival Tournament!”

“He’s good…”

The party members were shocked by Siegfried’s control once again, but their surprise didn’t last that long.

“But how did he get turned into a ghoul?”

“You really can’t drop your guard with this game developer… How does it make sense for a gamer to have his character turned into a monster?”

“Why did he get turned into a ghoul?”

The party members were shocked at how realistic BNW was while wondering why the Adventurer became a ghoul.

“Hold on! Wasn’t that guy bitten by a ghoul? I think I saw him putting potion on his wound after the battle!” one of the party members said while pointing at the remains.

“Huh? I think I saw that, too.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to turn if you get bitten?”

“But we don’t turn into zombies even after getting bit, right?”

BNW was designed with the concept that the Adventurers were the avatars of beings from another world, so they wouldn’t get corrupted even after getting bit by a zombie in most normal dungeons. However, it didn’t seem to be the case for this Raid Dungeon, judging by how one of them turned into one of the undead.

‘A gamer’s character can turn into a ghoul after getting bitten? Hmm… this is a bit scary—wait!’

Siegfried was shocked by the revelation as well, just like the other party members, but…

‘This is pretty scary…’

A chill traveled down his spine when he realized something.

***

Siegfried was quite good at collecting clues from here and there to form a theory, and this was one of those times.

‘A dimensional storm raged as soon as we entered this Raid Dungeon. We couldn’t connect to the game for twenty-four hours. The other parties were nowhere in sight when we entered. A gamer became a ghoul. What if the other raid parties entered this dungeon at different times, and we entered late? That means—heok!’ Siegfried realized that the situation was far worse than it seemed.

“Excuse me! We need to hide right now! We can’t stand around in the open like this. We need to enter a building and hide!” he shouted.

The party leader asked, “Huh? We need to hide? Why?”

“We just had a huge battle here, so the ghouls are definitely going to come after hearing the ruckus!”

“Then we just have to kill them again, no?”

“We need to hide because we can’t kill them! There’s no time to explain; we have to hide right now!”

“A-Alright… Everyone! Listen to Siegfried-nim and hide! Hurry!”

The party leader decided to listen to Siegfried’s desperate pleas and ordered the second party to immediately hide in a large building nearby.

“Why did you tell us to hide all of a sudden?” asked the party leader.

“We confirmed that the Adventurer just now was cursed and turned into a ghoul, right?”

“Yes?”

“Okay, that’s not what’s important right now.”

“…?”

“What if the parties entered at different times? What if the delay they faced was not twenty-four hours but eight hours? Two hours? Twelve hours?”

“That is a possibility, but we still haven’t seen the other parties, so…”

“Yes, it is a huge relief if we entered first and the other parties are coming in later, but what if that is not the case? What if we entered last?”

“Heok…!”

“Let’s say that we entered last, and the parties that entered before us were all annihilated by the ghouls?”

“That means… they’ve all become ghouls…?”

It was then.

“E-Excuse me…!”

A party member urgently whispered while pointing out the window.

Siegfried and the other party members rushed to the window.

“Heok!”

“W-What the hell…?!”

“That’s… horrible…!”

Everyone held their breaths after witnessing what was outside the window.

“Gwuak! Gwuaaak!”

“Grrr…!”

“Gwuaaak!”

The site of the battle a while ago was overrun by a wave of ghouls Adventurers.

***

Siegfried’s suspicion was right on the money.

There were roughly around one hundred Dimensional Adventurer Ghouls.

There were three hundred fifty Adventurers in this raid divided into twelve parties, and each party had twenty-five to thirty people.

This meant that at least three or four parties had been annihilated and turned into ghouls, which meant that a third of the raid parties had become ghoul parties.

“We can say that three to four parties have entered before us,” Siegfried said.

“Isn’t that obvious? The fourth to twelfth party entered first, after all.”

“No.” Siegfried shook his head before pointing at a specific Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul and said, “That ghoul… I’m pretty sure I saw it with the first party.”

“Huh? You’re right…!” the party leader replied in utter disbelief.

It was extremely easy for them to recognize the Dimensional Adventurer Ghoul in question, as it was a high-level Adventurer in the first party. The emblem of a raging flame was emblazoned on his armor as well.

The first party should have entered last if they came in order, but why was that Adventurer already a ghoul?

Siegfried’s deduction was on point, and the parties entered this place at random.

“I am not sure if we are the last to enter this place, but it seems that all of the parties that entered after us have been annihilated.”

“I agree… then that means…”

“This place is crawling with powerful ghouls, and the worst-case scenario is…” Siegfried trailed off before continuing. “It is possible that the strongest party, the first party, have turned into ghouls and are roaming around as we speak.”

“That’s… insane!”

“It seems this dungeon’s difficulty has exponentially increased,” Siegfried replied while looking like he stepped on dog poop.

A Raid Dungeon was an extremely challenging place that required the cooperation of hundreds of Adventurers to clear. However, they lost a third of their raid party already, and the second party might be the only one left in the worst-case scenario.

In other words, their chance of clearing this Raid Dungeon as a single party was a big fat zero.

And what were the consequences if they failed to clear this Raid Dungeon?

Well, they would have no choice but to roam around here as a bunch of ghouls until the next raid party challenged the Raid Dungeon.

“This is the worst-case scenario for us…” Siegfried grumbled.

“Grrwaaaaah!”

Suddenly, one of the party members started convulsing and foaming at his mouth.

Mutation.

It turned out that one of the party members hiding in the mansion was bitten as well.

“I… I… sorry… got… bit… while… ago…”

Everyone’s faces turned ghastly pale at those words.

“You crazy bastard! Why did you hide it?!” Siegfried shouted in anger.

He could have killed the Adventurer if he had known earlier, but it was too late now.

Who would have known the Adventurer would only reveal that he had been bitten the moment he started turning into a ghoul?

“Kwuaaaak!”

The party member let out a scream before he fully turned into a flesh-decaying ghoul.

“Ack!”

“Kyah!”

Two of the party members standing near the newly-turned Adventurer were drenched in the blood and flesh of the ghoul.

“Grr…!”

“Kwuoook!”

Then, the two of them started to turn into ghouls as well.

“We need to kill them quickly before we—” the party leader tried to control the situation.

“Nope. It’s too late,” Siegfried interrupted him.

.

“Pardon…?”

“Look over there,” Siegfried said as he pointed outside the window.

“Gwuuuok!”

“Kyak! Kyaaak!”

“Grrr…!”

The Dimensional Adventurer Ghouls were already rushing toward the mansion at scary speeds.

The second party was now stuck between a rock and a hard place.

There were three ghouls running amok inside the mansion while hundreds of them were rushing toward them from the outside.

“W-What should we do?! A-All forces, prepare for…!”

Even the experienced veteran party leader seemed to be at a loss.

“What do you mean, prepare for battle?!” Siegfried snapped. He grabbed a large cabinet and blocked the staircase coming up to the second floor.

That was the best move that they could do at the moment…

“We’re all going to die if we fight!” Siegfried added.

“T-Then what should we do?!” the party leader desperately asked in response.

“Run! Run without looking back!”

“…!”

“RUN! All of you!”

Siegfried was the first to run after shouting.

He ran toward the window at the far end of the corridor.

Crash!

The window shattered into innumerable pieces.

“RUN! RUUUUUN!” Siegfried shouted at the party members after landing.

“Aaaack!”

“D-Don’t come near me!”

“Run! Ruuuun!”

The second party, including Siegfried, ran from the horde of Dimensional Adventurer Ghouls.

They ran, ran, and ran…

“Gwuuu Oooook!”

“GWUOK! GWUOK!”

“Gwuaak!”

…With a horde of ghouls trailing right behind them.