Chapter 9: Solo PyerHappy with finding an adequate meat-skewer, I’ll move on to what I’m really supposed to be doing here: checking out Curatar’s Labyrinth. With the city quite literally centered on it, this byrinth actually has an entrance fee. I can afford the one silver, but this damn toll booth really slows down the traffic. Quite a bother and a bit of a rip-off, but I pn to jump the turnstiles ter anyway — I guess that’s bad of me, but they shouldn’t be charging people who are working to fight the byrinths.
The gatekeepers also sell maps for each floor with a full stack going for 1000 Nars. The drawing is rather crude, but covers the first 90 floors so the price is quite reasonable. They also sell a fancy, bound version for 20k — no thanks. I’ll just sketch a map or two onto my wax notepad and leave the fragile parchment bundle at home.
I pay for the cheaper map set and entrance fee and finally get my turn to step into Curatar’s Labyrinth. As expected, the interior is apparently designed with the standard GUI toolkit, but in contrast to Vale, this pce is full of noobs. Scores of young, enthusiastic, fools are running around like children, which many of them technically are.
This byrinth really matches the vibe of entrance fee. Wouldn’t be surprised to see food stalls or carnival games. Early mornings are probably even worse, but even this is bad enough for a small-town guy like me. Well, it probably thins out at night or within a few floors. Now, with so many people milling about, monsters are hard to find.
When I finally manage to find one, it turns out to be the stereotypical starting monster, a kobold — actually, it looks like goblin to me, not that it matters. [1] . This even further reinforces the amusement park feel, but, to be fair, this should be a nice safe pce for beginners. I’m just being a grump.
My several days of byrinth exploration may have made me a bit dismissive. I should try to remember what it was like… back in the old days of st week. As it is now, if the kobolds weren’t carrying knives and the noobs wouldn’t get in the way, I could probably just sleepwalk through this floor.
I sound like a guy who’s about to get stabbed with a shabby, little knife… nope, didn’t happen, I’m OK. Keeping my OP sword at the ready, I follow the general flow of people towards the main attraction. No need to bother with a map here.
For the slower groups, a little “mind if I py through” seems to work. Fortunately, the line to the boss room isn’t terribly long, especially since several parties practically insisted that I go before them. Don’t know if they’re being polite or hoping to get my cool sword if I fail.
The kobold boss, which had a German name for some reason, was just a slightly stronger kobold. Rather, I should say that it was a bit less weak. I shouldn’t get too compcent and remember the important part: I didn’t die. That’s what boss battles are: win or die.
Still plenty of daylight left, by my crude estimate, so I continue on to the second floor. This one introduces olive trees, which means that I should change what I call the other trees, but Olive is a much better name than Needlewood.
Just like Vale’s Labyrinth, the second floor here could have groups of two monsters. I sort of remember some rule about the number, but the current lineup didn’t really seem capable of using it strategically against me anyway. Of course, if I had a cheap, copper sword as someone in my position should, this could be a completely different situation.
After this much continuous fighting, the impact is hard on my wrists, but that might be due to poor technique. On the other hand, seems like my crosse experience helps, even if this sword is heavier than a stick. Well, hockey’s been useful too, but mainly for hand-to-hand scuffles. The important thing is that these trees weren’t particurly dangerous, even as a solo pyer.
The number of parties on this floor has dropped from carnival to haunted house — better, but I wouldn’t have to wait a full minute to see other people. This time, I actually gnce at the map (for the correct floor), but by the half-way mark, it was pretty obvious. Even burning through the shortest route, it’s pretty te by the time I reach the boss room. I consider going in, but I’m simply too tired. It’d probably be fine, but boss rooms don’t give pyers a second chance or any means of escape part-way through… as far as I know. I haven’t tried warp, but would hate to cause a paradox.
It’d be nice to just warp back to my room in Vale, but I don’t think I have nearly enough MP for that yet. Worse, I don’t know if trying to warp too far would drop me some pce along the way, make me pass out (here, there or elsewhere) or just kill me. The tter seems a bit pessimistic, but no way to tell without actually doing it. It’s sort of like, “I wonder if this fall will kill me”… no, it’s much worse. It’s actually more like, “Did I drink too much to drive home”, except I don’t have a (teleportation) license, experience or the instructions.
An extra complication is that I have no idea how far away I am from Vale. Measuring shadow angles at noon and using a reliable timer could work, but it’d require patience and be hard to do without long-distance warp, which sort of defeats the purpose. Hmm, I wonder if there’s some sort of Scientist job? Well, I sure won’t get it with this sort of zy attitude.
A merchant could probably give me a rough estimate, if they were friendly and not worried about competition. Before doing any of this stuff, I should try to get a world or national map with towns marked, solving the entire problem with a little money. Sometimes, “I’ll give you this nifty barometer if you tell me how high this building is”, really is the best strategy.
Too te to worry about such details, I soberly walk to the adventurer’s guild and look for a taxi back to Vale. Doesn’t seem to be a standard route from here, but I manage to find someone to take me directly for four silvers. It’s worth saving me the bother of a stop-over at the capital.
Huh, it’s not just past sundown, but really dark here in Vale. That’s too crude for a good data point, but at least I know that Vale and Curatar aren’t within walking distance. I should have enough mana after I get the Mage job and level it, but it’s a good thing I didn’t try to warp from Curatar today. At least I can safely warp to the inn from here to hopefully make it there before I miss dinner. With time to spare, I enjoy the pin but perfectly adequate food. The guy at the reception desk says that the dinner period normally sts a couple hours past sundown.
I haven’t seen any normal clocks here, not even in the center of town. Maybe they’re rare and expensive. Are ‘hours’ a soft transtion feature or do the locals have internal clocks? Maybe even digital, seeing as how coin denominations are 10- or 100-based. Or, growing up without watches just makes them good at estimating and they don’t sweat the details. Well, my own sense of time isn’t bad so I shouldn’t worry about it either.
“Dinner’s over, so kindly get out.”
At least I picked the right type of inn. No fake politeness here.
A bit too tired to go out tonight, I’ll do that homework I’ve been putting off: bonus point allocation. Whipping out my little wax notepad, I start jotting down notes while fiddling with several of my bonus skills. Most were just simple toggles of off or on, but others had levels that I could control through point allocation, not experience.
An important and easy-to-verify change was for my bonus weapon. Starting from level 1, costs: 1, 3, 7, 15, 31, and ending at 63 bonus points for my level 6 weapon, Durandal. Well, this is just a geometric series on two, which simplifies to 2n - 1. One less than powers of two is easy for a low-level programmer to remember.
Weapon: Durandal
Lvl
Cost
Tot
1
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
7
4
8
15
5
16
31
6
32
63
My EXP, crystal, and probably every skill with levels seem to use the same point progression — really nice. My on/off skills seem to just cost one point each, though I haven’t checked them all. Some of these are more powerful than the costly, leveled skills — it’s not like I’m going to compin, or that my compints would be relevant anyway. I can’t or at least won’t drop [Reset Character] since that would probably lock me out of any other changes forever.
From the very beginning of the manga, there was some special point about him starting out with 99 bonus points. I don’t remember my exact starting configuration, but it looks like I got the same. It’s also likely that I’m gaining one point for each additional level of the job in first position, i.e., level minus one.
I’ll obviously keep Durandal, at least for now. For experience gains, I have [Decrease Level Up EXP] set to 1/5 and [Increase EXP Gained] set to 5. They cost 15 points each and effectively give me 25x progress. Bumping one of them to the next level would cost 16 points so I’d have to drop the other skill, pay an extra point and only get 10x progress instead of 25x. So, an obvious ‘No’.
For other on/off toggles, I have [Identify] and [Job Setting] — the tter is so I can quickly switch to Monk for healing.
My level 2 [Accessory] (the ring) and my third Job cost 3 points each, which leaves me with 2 points unallocated. Level 2 is too low to be useful so I’ll drop the ring, open a fourth Job slot and throw the st point into the first level of [Crystal Acceleration]. I’ll set Monk as my job and leave [Job Setting] switched on for convenience.
Whenever I want to maximize [Haggle], I need to find 63 points by swapping out Durandal.
After all this effort, I’d better record my settings on actual paper: [2]
Bonus Points: 104
Lvl
Cost
Skill
Note
1
Reset Char
Essential
1
Job Setting
Keep
1
Identify
Keep
4
15
EXP Needed
1/5
4
15
EXP Gained
5x
6
63
Weapon
Durandal
Accessory
Skip
3
7
Extra Jobs
4 jobs
1
1
Crystal Acc
2x
Chant Omit
Later
Haggle
Ad Hoc
Really should have done this earlier, but I guess it’s more useful now that I have enough points to move around. With that, I’m totally exhausted and fall asleep while counting alternative bonus-skill configurations.
────────────────────────
Day 7
My current cash-on-hand exceeds 450k Nars. There’s no way I want to count the exact amount. If I reallocate my bonus points to crystal growth and work really hard, I could probably squeeze out 6k/day. Of course, I don’t want to do that, but it’d be possible if needed. Considering that my basic daily expenses don’t even reach 500 Nars, I can be much more rexed regarding money. Heck, I’d even be fine getting robbed, at least financially.
After breakfast, I bathe and go to Vale’s first level. Sort of boring, but still useful. I eat a light lunch and return for more fighting on the same floor. Yep, I can just keep up this cycle as a safe, solo pyer. Eat dinner, clean up and warp to Tuuli. OK, this part is better, much better, but not enough of a strategy if she’s keeping me at a distance.
Bored with the rest of my day, I put more effort into teaching Tuuli. I’ve had more than enough formal education to organize the information for her. This is certainly good for Tuuli and as her English improves, I like that we can communicate better.
I also pn to eventually learn one of the local nguages and will ask Tuuli to help. Besides being able to talk to other people, it could be really good to establish some sort of pusible backstory in case anyone in authority gets too interested in me. Even if I don’t become fluent, knowing enough to cim to use a different dialect might be enough in an emergency.
My routine of working every day and keeping semi-regur visits to Tuuli has convinced me that I can make it as a solo pyer in the byrinths. I’m fine alone.
────────────────────────
[1] The manga shows a D&D-style Goblin, but the name Kobold is a better fit to German folklore. David is not quite enough of a nerd to know this.[2] Some bonus multipliers changed between the WN and LN. I’m using LN version when possible.