Chapter 11 – Underground River Adventure
by Salted FishDespite Milk is Mom and Polly desperately spamming heals, the Assassin still collapsed at the three-quarter mark of the corpse herding path. Since teammates couldn’t be resurrected mid-herding, the system defaulted to the second-in-line Polly taking the lead. By the time the party finally reached the first miniboss’s location at the Mass Grave, Mad Lad had already been lying there for eighteen minutes.
“Assassin, you still there?” Fang Zheng’s question sounded concerned but inadvertently carried a hint of schadenfreude.
“Just finished showering. If you don’t rez1Resurrect me soon, I might consider grabbing a midnight snack.” The client’s emotions were full—unfortunately, all of them negative.
“Theoretically, Solid as a Rock should’ve triggered twice.” Polly suddenly interjected, cryptic and abrupt, then fell silent without a care for the total confusion his words inflicted on the listeners.
But Fang Zheng got it.
Birdy-kun’s subtext was: It should’ve triggered twice but only did once. My skills are on point. How dare you, the tank who couldn’t even hold aggro halfway, complain?!
Watching a Pay-to-Win Player’s glorious birth and humiliating death was the ultimate pursuit of every noob. So even Your Uncle’s ostensibly caring “Bless you, hurry up and rez” was dripping with spring-like joy and ease.
Crossplayer’s Blessing, rarely entrusted with such an important task, eagerly cast the resurrection spell—
Five seconds later.
“Can someone explain why I’m still not up…?”
Mad Lad didn’t even have the energy to rage. The persistent aroma of dirt and his teammates’ persistent stupidity had sanded down all his edges.
Fang Zheng frowned, realizing the issue: “Crossplayer, did you use Remote Resurrection or Blessing of Resurrection?”
Remote Resurrection, a Blesscaller’s unique skill, usable in party mode with no range limit, could resurrect any dead teammate on any map and instantly teleport them to the caster’s side.
Blessing of Resurrection, like the healer’s Resurrection, was a standard revive spell with a 24M range, capable of reviving any teammate or random player within range—except monsters, of course.
Prompted by Fang Zheng, Crossplayer also realized his mistake and quickly switched to Remote Resurrection. The next second, a flash of white light appeared, and Mad Lad, clutching his chest, materialized beside Crossplayer in a weakened state.
“These two skills are designed so unscientifically,” Crossplayer’s Blessing mused, still analyzing. “Their names are so similar, their icons too—how is anyone supposed to tell them apart?”
Fang Zheng facepalmed. If he remembered correctly, one icon was gold and the other light blue—how were they similar?!
“Why don’t you separate them, put one in the first slot and the other in the ninth?” Your Uncle, clearly unfamiliar with support classes, offered well-meaning advice.
But Crossplayer had his own principles: “Skills of the same type have to be grouped together, or else it’ll be even more chaotic during combat. I can’t hover my mouse over each skill for two seconds to check the name before using it.”
Holy shit, this guy hasn’t even memorized his skills yet?! TAT
“Healer, if you’ve got nothing better to do, mind tossing me a heal?” The slowly regenerating Assassin humbly requested from the ground.
Fang Zheng broke into a sweat and quickly cast Revival of the Withered.
As the chant ended, Mad Lad finally stood up, gaining a profound new understanding of the lyrics to March of the Volunteers2The national anthem of the People’s Republic of China. The opening line is “Arise! Ye who refuse to be slaves!”.
“Pulling?” Polly’s timing was, as always, impeccable.
By then, the enemy male zombie at the Mass Grave had been wandering alone for far too long.
The first boss was just an appetizer. Mad Lad swapped to full DPS gear, letting Polly tank instead. With the Blesscaller spamming Rally (+10% physical and magical attack) the entire time, they didn’t even need Solid as a Rock before the male zombie bit the dust.
And then… the boss’s corpse vanished. =_=
Fang Zheng froze. “What the hell?”
Silence filled YY. After a long pause, Your Uncle’s timid voice came through the headset: “Uh… I was close, so I kinda… looted it…”
At least there was a scientific explanation—Your Uncle had looted the boss and gotten nothing.
But the thing was, even the stingiest of bosses would at least drop some consolation materials, Blue-tier Gear, or, at the very least, a few dozen Huaxia Coins. Even if no one rolled for loot, the system would still announce who picked up what. Yet now, the system message log was eerily empty.
“Not even Huaxia Coins?!” Crossplayer, among others, refused to accept reality.
“Your Uncle, I beg you—never loot a boss again…” Even a whale had to bow to such overwhelming bad luck.
438 hadn’t truly integrated himself into the team yet, but even he couldn’t resist siding with the majority: “Spirit Master… are you the Cursed One from Monopoly…?”
Your Uncle posted a timid finger-tapping emoji in YY, radiating grievance.
Polly kun never wasted time on pointless complaints or silent judgments—he was a man of action: “Healer, switch to Leader Loot.”
Fang Zheng loved this suggestion. ╮(╯_╰)╭
The male zombie was a bust, but there was still the female zombie—the second boss, who lurked in the Haunted Grove at the northwest corner of the Corpse King Necropolis, elusive and hard to pin down. The Haunted Grove was a fair distance from the Mass Grave, requiring several detours by land, so most dungeon-running parties opted for the water route—the Underground River.
The tragic squad soon arrived at a dilapidated ferry crossing not long after passing the Mass Grave. A lone bamboo raft bobbed by the shore, swaying gently with the ripples stirred by the eerie wind.
Mad Lad was the first to hop onto the raft, followed by the rest of the team. In no time, the tiny vessel was packed. Milk is Mom untied the rope from the wooden post, and soon, the raft drifted into the shadowy distance.
On YY, Fang Zheng narrated solemnly: “Forget the past. Every journey is a new beginning.”
His reward was four lines of ellipses.
Your Uncle, still in the doghouse, didn’t even dare to type ellipses.
The raft’s direction and speed were system-determined, so no player input was required, nor was getting lost a possibility. But during the ride, players would encounter various mobs emerging from the river—some would leap onto the raft to attack, while others would attack players or the raft itself while half-submerged. If players failed to dispatch the mobs quickly, well… either the players died, the raft capsized, or both—total annihilation.
Soon, the raft drifted into a rocky cave, and the current abruptly intensified. Everyone’s screen perspective plunged downward!
Fang Zheng hated this part the most. It added ‘motion sickness from monitors’ to his repertoire of ‘motion sickness from boats, cars, and planes.’
Finally, as the current calmed, the perspective gradually stabilized. The scene darkened as the raft entered the Underground River proper.
“The mobs here are numerous but not hard to deal with. Just watch your positioning.” Polly offered a reminder.
Fang Zheng knew this wasn’t directed at him—nor, presumably, at the Assassin. As for 438, his pet’s DPS made it hard to gauge his skill level, but Your Uncle and Crossplayer definitely needed the warning.
“No worries.” The completely self-unaware Blesscaller replied breezily.
Your Uncle, in contrast, was far more humble: “Um, can I ask a question…?”
Polly: “Go ahead.”
“If—hypothetically—we fall into the river, how do we get back up?”
Before Birdy could answer, Mad Lad cut in: “Unless the raft flips, you won’t fall in. Don’t worry about it.”
“Mhm,” Polly added. “The system doesn’t allow for just one person to fall in. Either the raft flips and everyone goes down, or it stays stable and everyone stays on.”
“Then what’s the positioning for…?”
Refined Into a Demon couldn’t take it anymore: “Your Uncle, do you just really want to go swimming?!”
The Spirit Master’s voice was pitiful: “I’ve never taken the water route before… I just want to make sure I don’t drag everyone down…”
Fang Zheng wanted to say your very existence is dragging us down, but hearing the dejected tone in the headset, he uncharacteristically spared the guy.
This was when Birdy-kun’s pro gamer aura shone through: “Don’t worry. The raft only capsizes if we encounter a catfish mob. Since hitting max level, I’ve only seen it happen once in this dungeon. Just focus on fighting.”
Fang Zheng only knew that capsizing was possible in the Underground River, but since he’d never experienced it—and neither had most players—and it wasn’t a hot topic online, he’d never known the specific mob responsible. He’d just lumped it under “random mobs.”
Reassured, Your Uncle fell silent.
For a moment, the only sound in everyone’s headsets was the slow, ominously lurking ripple of water.
The raft soon reached a bend in the river. Just as it began to turn, a humanoid fish-tailed monster burst from the water!
At that moment, the six players had formed a loose circle along the raft’s edges, and the monster appeared right in front of Milk is Mom. Fang Zheng instantly flung out a Willow Leaf Blade, but a healer’s attack power was downright tragic. He was already bracing to heal himself when an arrow streaked through the air, striking the fish monster dead-center—freezing it mid-leap…
Frost Arrow, a skill usable when the Assassin switched to a bow. It immobilized the target for two seconds and slowed their attack speed for five seconds afterward.
Fang Zheng knew Mad Lad had decent skills, but he hadn’t expected this level of precision. The guy’s pay-to-win golden glow had overshadowed his technical prowess. Polly was just as sharp—before Mad Lad could follow up, the zombie had already repositioned and landed a Netherworld Ghostly Claws on the frozen monster!
The fish-tailed monster shrieked and plummeted back into the water.
The whole sequence was so fast the others barely had time to react. Crossplayer’s Blessing, for instance, didn’t even get a good look at the mob.
“Stay focused,” Polly reminded them again.
“Protect the healer,” Mad Lad emphasized.
As a healer, Fang Zheng knew this treatment was standard. But as a healer who’d mostly run with PUGs and played dirty, such concern was rare. A warm feeling flooded his heart…
“Healer… do you hate me so much you’re deliberately not healing me…?” Your Uncle’s mournful whine echoed in YY.
Fang Zheng snapped back to reality and looked—three monsters had somehow boarded the raft and were now ganging up on the squishy Spirit Master. While the others were already DPSing them down, Fang Zheng hurriedly cast Silent Nourishment for a quick patch-up, then began chanting the single-target mega-heal Revival of the Withered.
By the time Revival of the Withered enveloped Your Uncle, the three mobs had also collapsed.
Your Uncle exhaled heavily in YY, not daring to complain further.
Fang Zheng, however, acted as if he hadn’t spaced out, shifting blame to the Blesscaller: “Crossplayer, why weren’t you healing Your Uncle earlier?”
Crossplayer had no idea why he was suddenly under fire: “I was Rallying.”
Fang Zheng had seen Crossplayer spamming Rally—in fact, aside from rezzing Mad Lad, the guy had done nothing but rally during combat. But for fuck’s sake, Blesscallers had dozens of skills—defense buffs, attack buffs, speed buffs, resistance buffs, debuff cleansers, etc. This guy had latched onto one and refused to let go.
“Don’t you get bored pressing the same skill over and over?” Fang Zheng’s question was technically sound.
Crossplayer thought for a moment, then answered honestly: “Actually, my finger’s kinda sore, so I’ve been alternating between my index and middle fingers.”
“……” Fang Zheng was speechless. Suddenly, the future of this Corpse King Necropolis run felt as bleak as the river beneath their raft—endless and pitch-black.
Just as despair set in, the raft on Fang Zheng’s screen lurched violently. A massive shadow rose from the depths, approaching the raft.
Fang Zheng barely caught a glimpse of a whisker before an enormous fish tail flipped the raft entirely!
[If—hypothetically—we fall into the river, how do we get back up?]
……
Was that a question?! That was straight-up PROPHECY!! He was banning Your Uncle from YY!! Lifetime blacklist!!
Simultaneously, a wail erupted in YY—from the usually silent 438: “Fuck, we can’t be this unlucky!!”
The screen turned a murky, near-black green as Milk is Mom plunged underwater. Sinister seaweed swayed at the bottom of the screen, while a breath-holding timer appeared above the character’s head.
“Don’t panic. We’ve got eight minutes. Just keep swimming northwest and avoid the mobs. Once the water turns light green, surface!”
Polly’s commands remained calm, even though he was no longer visible on his teammates’ screens. =_=
“Where are you?!” Fang Zheng adjusted Milk is Mom’s camera angle but couldn’t spot Birdy anywhere.
“Hit a whirlpool when we fell. Probably behind you guys now. Don’t worry about me—just swim.”
Fang Zheng trusted Birdy, but he couldn’t extend that trust to the rest of the team. Case in point—
“438, where the hell are you?!”
On Fang Zheng’s dark green screen, only Milk is Mom, Mad Lad, Your Uncle, and Crossplayer’s Blessing remained.
“No idea. Everything spun as soon as I hit the water,” 438 said, on the verge of tears. “I can’t swim…”
“You think this is real-life CS?” Mad Lad facepalmed. “Your character can swim!”
The character, of course, being the Demon Refiner 438 controlled.
Who would’ve thought 438 wasn’t exaggerating: “I mean I can’t swim in-game. I lose all sense of direction underwater. I’ve never dared go to the Heavenly Lake Monster—I always die at the bottom.”
Fang Zheng had been driven to the brink of madness by his bizarre teammates tonight and didn’t hold back: “Did you fucking eat a Devil Fruit3One Piece reference. Devil Fruit users can’t swim, but they gain different powers. or something?”
To his shock, the Demon Refiner admitted readily: “Yeah, that’s what I think too.”
Fang Zheng lost it: “Then what fucking power did you get, huh?! Are you made of rubber, or do you grow a hundred hands?!”
After a pause, the Demon Refiner silently typed in party chat—
[Party] Refined Into a Demon 438: Actually… I ate the Human-Human Fruit4Grants non-human users human-related powers, like human language or anthropomorphism. No effect on humans except the inability to swim.…
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