As Kimsung wasted another hour, finding his way back to their camp, the sun, still in its permanent sunset, cast a glow upon the forest and nearby river. It looked beautiful, like a paradise, a very deceptive one. He gained about ten more EXP and mana, racking it up to one-hundred and eighty-five mana in his reserves. Unfortunately, he didn't find any other wolves nearby, so he wasn't able to get to one-hundred and ninety.
It certainly would've been nice, but you can't have everything, most of the time. Unless you had exorbitant amounts of money and resources.
Walking up the hill to their camp, he saw the siblings tending to the campfire. It looked like they were just going camping, the three of them. In all honesty, they were doing just that, except the forest was filled with a multitude of wolves ready to kill them if given the opportunity.
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The city was mostly destroyed. Mostly, because a large part of the buildings had not collapsed yet, and many people were in hiding. The streets were in ruins, with cars in various forms of destruction, corpses, and rubble. Inside a bunker under a school building, a few children were watching a stream on social media.
They were drawn to it, shocked by what was happening in it. Someone was live-streaming a dungeon, something very few people even knew existed. The man in the stream did not speak often, yet there were already thousands of viewers. That man was currently in a dungeon that appeared to be in a forest, with many dead monsters surrounding him.
A screech could be heard in the stream as the camera moved its view up to see a large humanoid creature with antlers jump in front of the camera, only to be stopped midair. The humanoid monster seemed confused as it fell to the ground. It attacked the human in its territory, so why was it not able to kill it? The human had been in the dungeon for quite a while now, and yet none have killed it yet.
It charged forward again, punching at the human, only for its fist to impact something protecting the human. The creature could not see it and did not register the translucent spear that impaled its head, killing it immediately. Many viewers of the stream had been watching for the past seven hours, and never once was the streamer harmed. One of the children's eyes was glued to the screen, amazed at the streamer's abilities.
For the past two and a half days, no one was able to survive the monsters long enough to escape.
Many were only able to contact each other because the internet was still functional, unlike all other utilities that would normally be available. The water was starting to stop in many buildings, resulting in search parties that would only be wiped out by hordes of monsters waiting.
The few that did make it weren't able to bring enough supplies, and brought stories of others outside, fighting the monsters off, albeit just barely. Such little success didn't inspire much hope until the streams of that man and a few others began. The military was completely unresponsive, having been completely overrun just hours before in Washington, D.C., and firearms were losing the usual efficiency they'd have if whatever was in the streets fit the idea of "normal".
A child who had been watching the man's stream got up and ran to his mother as roars could be heard from above. His father was killed trying to protect his sister, and even then, she did not survive, having been bitten in half by a large monster that did not fit reality.
"Mom? Are we gonna be ok?" He asked her, his small arms hugging her side. His mother, whose eye was covered in a bandage after some debris had hit her face, hugged him and tried to comfort her son.
The monsters had first appeared in the afternoon, only a few days before, when they went out to a nice restaurant for dinner to celebrate her daughter's birthday. The first wrong thing was the screams and car crashes in the streets as large hordes of monsters ran about, snatching up and killing anyone they found. The few people with firearms, after the first day, were completely wiped out; the building they had taken to make their base in was leveled as easily as crushing a castle of cards.
No one knew where the monsters came from, and many were dying at record speeds. Those who were able to kill some of the monsters learned about their powers after the initial grace period and were able to effectively defend against the monsters. But that was across half the city. If anyone in the bunker attempted to leave, they would quickly be killed.
Thus, those in bunkers were told to stay for their own safety as the dubbed "hunters" did their best to clear the streets.
Of course, in such situations, many were spending their time online, hoping for any notification of a rescue. Until a few people in Virginia discovered someone was actually streaming a dungeon live, and fully survived it. The stream spread throughout the entire country in a matter of minutes when the news was shared, and thousands were now watching the stream of the mysterious man as he used his skill to lure them in and attack.
Many were donating what money they had to speak with him through the text-to-speech feature on Bik Bok's streaming service, and while he did answer some questions, many of them, regarding if he could help them, were refused, for obvious reasons.
As he walked through the open, chill forest, with Maple trees and Hickories filling the green expanse, monsters continued to attack him from all sides. Many of them were small, which would normally make them difficult to hit with a conventional weapon, such as a sword.
However, the man had no difficulty; all of the critters were impaled sooner or later by translucent spears and discarded on the ground. The man sighed, a bit tired of being attacked so frequently.
Perhaps it was just this dungeon, but he'd never been attacked by this many monsters before. There was already a long, large path of monster corpses along the way he walked.
But in truth, there was some good in it, since killing so many of them gave him an abundance of EXP to gain with each kill. He must've killed hundreds by now, ever since he entered the dungeon an hour ago.
"Fucking shit… Where the fuck is the boss monster? I've been walking for a whole fucking hour already…" The man complained honestly and sighed again as a sort of monster squirrel jumped at his face, only to be stopped by a spear its own size sticking out of its back and chest. The man had already learned of the creature's biology, and for some reason, he felt like he was actually starting to see something more inside of the squirrel, almost like its own insides.
Whatever it was, it helped target their vitals and make quick, clean kills rather than waste his mana more than he already does.