March 15, 7:42pm, Beijing, China

Irade expected to find a monster. She did not expect to find a seven story building that advertised itself as a high-end nightclub with flas.h.i.+ng neon signs.

That was also, apparently, full of monsters.

She checked out the building from the other side of the street, leaning against a wall, bag in hand. People were pa.s.sing by her and the building as normal, so much so that it didn't seem possible that the nightclub in front of her was anything more than advertised. But when she closed her eyes, she could see all the monsters on each level.

Maybe the monsters all cleared out once the building opened? It was barely 8pm after all. And from what little Irade knew about nightclubs, they probably all opened at like, 10pm the earliest? Probably?

Irade didn't know what to think. She was expecting a monster, not a nightclub with seven floors, with monsters on each level. Then again, the HUD did mention that this was a 'story mission.' That implied some sort of difficulty…

But wasn't this level a bit too high? Didn't she just finish the tutorial a week ago?

What was with this immediate spike in difficulty? What kind of heartless developer made this game?

Irade knew she was being irrational, but that didn't make her any less annoyed. Seriously, she just wanted to vent her frustrations somewhere. Would she really be able to do that here? Maybe she should just find an internet cafe to play some actual games.

Then again...it wasn't like she had anything better to do. Her stats had all increased a lot, and if it was anything like the previous monster she battled, she could just run away.

Of course, that monster had been injured, and it was in the tutorial...but still. Irade had been able to keep up with it's movements. Its speed hadn't been anything too tough for her. Besides, she was stronger now, so she should be able to deal with a completely healthy monster now, shouldn't she?

What was the worst that could happen?

Probably death.

…

Irade sighed. If she was going to do this, then she had to do this properly.

She swung her bag on her shoulder, crossed the road, and walked into the alleyway beside the building, looking around to see if there were any windows or anything she could sneak in through. There was no way she was just going to open the front door. For one, she was underage, and for another, there was monsters that probably didn't want her around in there.

"Urgh."

She pinched her nose immediately as the smell of garbage hit her. The alleyway itself was quite narrow, with barely enough room for two people to squeeze in. Without the cans of garbage.

Luckily, there was a window a few stories up. Irade moved further into the alleyway, pus.h.i.+ng aside bags of garbage, looking up to see exactly how high it was. She estimated that it was roughly ten meters up, and about large and wide enough for her to crawl through. A window like that was probably to a storage room or something, so it was probably empty too.

Irade rubbed her hands together and blew on them. This action did not help her [Flight] at all, but it was a small habit she had gotten into. Over the past week, Irade had been practising her flying. Of course, no matter what she did, there was a hard limit of how long she could stay in the air. However, she found that her speed and movements in the air had no relation to MP. She could go as fast as she wanted, and move how she wanted...but it was difficult.

As such, she had developed a few new moves, the first of which she called ['Dash']. Really, it was just a burst of momentum the moment she activated [Flight] that allowed her to rush in one direction in less than a second, before canceling the Skill. Including straight up. It could cover a maximum of 10 meters in a single burst.

There were some limits, however. For one, Irade felt like there was some sort of mental block on her speed and movements, like she could move potentially move faster, but there was a trick to it that Irade couldn't quite crack yet. Kind of like learning a physical skill, and being at the stage where she knew how she wanted her body to move, but it just wouldn't listen.

Still, for now, her technique was more than enough.

Irade bent her knees, then activated ['Dash'], shooting straight up, instantly coming level with the window. Panicking slightly as she had already canceled the Skill, Irade immediately smashed the window with her fist, and hung on the ledge.

Breaking gla.s.s wasn't enough to hurt Irade now, it seemed. She made a mental note as she hung fron the window ledge.

She stayed there, hanging for a moment, before pulling herself up and looking through the window.

Sure enough, it was a storage room, full of all sorts of shelves. The light was off, so Irade couldn't really see well. Instead, she activated [Monster Map]. The shelves and the items on them were all outlined in blue, with the floor in white. There was no red in here, but she could see some faded red through the blue walls. The monsters must be in other rooms then.

First, Irade pushed her bag into the room. Once she heard the bag land softly, she took in a deep breath. With a grunt, Irade pulled herself into the room. It was a little bit of a tight fit, but she managed. Slowly, Irade lowered herself. She didn't want to use [Flight] any more than she had to; it was her one weapon. She needed to save it for emergencies. With that in mind, she hopped over to one of the shelves, trying to use it as a ladder to climb down.

She didn't expect the shelf to shudder, and slowly start to fall over. Irade's mind suddenly went blank from this unexpected consequence to her actions.

CRAs.h.!.+

Somehow, Irade managed to jump off the shelf before it crushed her, landing safely in a white patch of ground. That said, the noise made did not go unnoticed. Irade watched in horror as one large red figure quickly moved through the blue walls, becoming more and more defined.

What was she supposed to do now? She could go back out the window, but the monster would probably catch her as she tried to squeeze through again.

She had no time to think. The monster was at the door. Irade instantly used ['Dash'] to plaster herself to the ceiling above the door.

She could smell him before she could really see him, the scent of heat and metal searing the air. Once the monster was in, Irade finally opened her eyes.

Below her was a monster that walked upright, like a human, but with the legs of a goat, the upper body of a bull, and the wings of a bat. Irade recognized it as a Baphomet; there were a few games that used that design for their monsters. However, instead of the chest and arms of a human, it seemed to have the midsection of some kind of monkey, or gorilla; big and bulky.

But she didn't have time to gaze at the monster, her MP was running out. So she did the first thing she could think of.

She used ['Dash'], straight down.

SPLAT!

The monster literally burst, covering Irade in blue blood and guts. It was all she could do to stop herself from yelling in disgust. There were bits of monster splattered through the hallway and in the storeroom; impossible to hide now. Her legs were trembling with pain, the force of the impact reverberating through her skeleton.

But she was alive.

[Level Up!]

It seemed like there was no loot this time, but there was no time for that. Irade called up the [Monster Map], and discovered that thankfully, none of the monsters seem to have noticed.

She did a quick scan, noting that she was on the second of seven levels. On this level, there seemed to be about six or so monsters, possibly more of them all grouped up in one place.

Furthermore, there was a faint yellow glow around certain walls. Irade was pretty sure these were places she had to go to in order to complete the [Monster Nest] Story Mission. Of course, this was just a guess. There was only really one way to find out for sure.

"Okay Irade," she muttered to herself. "We got a nest of these monsters. But don't think of it like that. Think of it like...a grind spot. Yeah. Just a grind spot. A very dangerous grind spot."

Stealth would be the key here. She had already used up 10 MP, almost a quarter of her maximum. If she a.s.sumed a single ['Dash'] was a one-hit kill for a monster, that would only mean she could kill 36 more monsters. Better to take them by surprise, and kill them by other means.

With that in mind, Irade picked up her bag, and took out the Thiljar Fang.

"Let's grind."