After we made our final preparations, the three of us drove off to the east, as if we were manually traveling to the Sunset Isles. Because of our plan to maintain our monstrous forms throughout this endeavor, I left my backpack in the bank for safekeeping. Even if the monster players had any friends living in Fallcry, this would make sure that they didn’t know that we were heading in their direction.

  Once we were out of sight, I parked the car on a projected platform, getting out with the other three. “Which dragon form do you two think would be best for this? I’m leaning towards my Ghost-X skill. We could call it a Phantom Dragon.”

  Bella hesitated slightly. “Would that be alright? Shouldn’t it be a more mainstream dragon type, in order to appear more believable for the enemies?”

  However, Diane shook her head. “No, Drake’s right. Most players would brag about their draconic character, just like his old player did. In this case, a dragon focused on stealth would be preferable. First, it would give us a plausible reason to avoid detection. Secondly, if he revealed his power on a public forum, other players would know how to counter it. That’s the worst thing for a stealth class.”

  I nodded my head in agreement. “Diane, how much do you know about the process of becoming a monster player? I’m sure someone must have shared the information by now,” I pressed, knowing that this was vital information that we would need if we were to infiltrate their ranks.

  Diane smiled, pleased with the question. “I looked it up a while ago out of curiosity. When a player creates a new character, there is a very small chance that they will trigger a rare event. When they do, the list of available races changes. Instead of the standard races, which include humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, beastfolk, and halfblood, you get a list of ten monster races that you can choose from.”

  “According to the people who responded to this forum post, the choices are random for each person. However, there is always at least one ‘superior’ race among the options. Superior races are rare variants or naturally powerful creatures like dragons.”

  “Why wouldn’t everyone pick the clearly advantageous race?” Bella asked, but Diane shook her head with a smile, looking directly at me.

  “It’s because they might want a roleplay option, right?” I guessed, to which the halfling readily agreed.

  “Right. Out of our targets, I’d be willing to bet that both the slime and golem are normal, weaker races that the players chose for roleplay reasons. Or, maybe their superior race option was just something unpleasant like a greater undead, and they didn’t want to constantly smell rotting flesh.”

  “Right…” Bella hesitated, before raising her next question. “Doesn’t this make it seem like monster races have more options than normal ones?”

  “Not at all,” Diane clarified. “Although normal players only have seven races on paper, both the beastfolk and halfblood races have far more sub-options to choose from. Just those two alone could open up thousands of possibilities. Which, combined with the rarity of triggering the monster event, I believe is the reason why monsters have an additional racial trait. Speaking of which, have you decided what type of monster you want to turn into, Bella?”

  Bella thought about it for a moment, lowering her head. “I think a dryad would be best,” she murmured aloud. “It’s still humanoid, and should be a valid option for my Transform skill. Also, it wouldn’t be too strange for a dryad to wield a bow, so I can swap back to my old weapons for this.”

  As they were discussing their plans, I put the car into my inventory, expanding the platform to shift into my dragon form. “In that case, let’s go with this. If any of them ask, the three of us are players that knew each other in ‘real life’,” I said, making sure to use a term I had heard from various players over the months in passing. “We all ‘rerolled’ our character selection until we got the choice to play as monsters. Bella, dryads are probably a more common race, so if they ask, your superior race option was… let’s say an arachne. That would make sense why you didn’t choose it.”

  Bella shuddered at the mention of the spider-like monster, nodding her head. “R-right. Most people would immediately reject the idea of being half-spider.”

  Diane smiled at our exchange, shifting into her shadow draconic form, before black mists seemed to wrap around her body, lifting her up and giving her an ethereal appearance. “Then, after we created our characters, we all immediately set out to meet up, so we missed the chance to enter the monster’s player hub. Given how big this world is, it would make sense for it to take weeks for people to meet up, assuming that they did not start in the same area. Especially for those who couldn’t rely on teleportation hubs.”

  Bella gulped, looking at the two of us as she used her Transform skill. Her skin turned a pale green, her clothing changing into leaves and vines that covered her armor. She put away her guns, instead strapping her bow to her back.

  With both of them transformed, they climbed onto my back, and I glanced back at them. “If there are any questions that we can’t immediately answer, let Diane handle it for us. She knows more about the situation for players, so she’d be able to respond more appropriately.”

  Bella nodded her head in agreement, so I dismissed the platform beneath myself and set off flying to the north at high speeds. We had all adjusted our displayed information with our Status Charms, so there was nothing left for us to prepare. And, since I was choosing to appear as a ‘phantom dragon’, I surrounded us in a Ghost Zone, hiding us from view of those below.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The flight to the rift was a lot slower than when I was driving the car, since I wasn’t able to use Glancing Steps-X in flight with this form. Still, we entered the area after roughly an hour, the rift shimmering before us in various shades of green.

  “We can use this,” Bella spoke up from her spot on my back. “If anyone asks, we’ll tell them that we came from Blossom Vale. It would be the perfect place for a Dryad to visit at least once, but then we got discovered by the locals and hunted, so we fled through the portal here.”

  Bella and I quickly agreed, and I continued circling the area, scanning the forest below. Fallcry’s location would be public knowledge among players at this point, so I had to gamble on whether or not they would choose to go to my territory to hunt, or if they would play it safe and target smaller villages.

  With that in mind, I expanded the search in a fanning pattern, trusting my flight speed to make up for the difference in travel time. Every so often, I would use Detective Analysis, sweeping the ground below for any signs of suspicious activity.

  Like this, we continued for another hour before I finally found my target. A band of three humanoid creatures were slowly walking through the forest. One was a gelatinous mass with translucent green skin. Another was a stone golem standing just over two meters tall. Finally, the last one appeared to be a normal human in dark robes, though I had no doubt he was our shapeshifter.

  “Found them,” I called out to the two on my back. “Let’s land up ahead, and make it look like we were setting up a camp. Bella, you act as if you are manipulating the trees, and I’ll use Instant Fortifications to shift them into a dwelling able to hold us.”

  Bella blinked at that, but quickly understood as I checked their path, flying ahead of them. I landed about three kilometers beyond their position, and dropped my Ghost Zone. The surrounding monsters, a pack of wolves with glistening, metallic fur, growled and charged at us. However, Diane quickly dispatched them with shadow spikes as Bella dismounted from my back.

  “Take a moment to practice, and I’ll follow your lead,” I assured her. With a deep breath, Bella held her hands out towards the trees. Seeing this, I activated my skill, causing the trees to tremble where she was pointing. Then, as she swept her arms slowly to the sides, I extended branches in that direction.

  Emboldened by this result, Bella continued to direct my skill, until we had a large canopy of branches higher than my own body, and wide enough for me to comfortably fit under. Right on time, we heard a branch snap nearby. Alarmed, Bella and Diane both turned in that direction, finding our three targets, who looked at us in surprise. Naturally, all three of us had our own brands, though Diane’s was barely visible through the black fog surrounding her body.

  “Woah,” the golem said in astonishment, looking at the three of us. “I didn’t know that there were any other monster players in this area. Are you on the quest, too?”

  “What quest?” Diane asked innocently, moving under the shadow of the canopy. “We just came over from Blossom Vale.”

  After saying that, she put on a somewhat bitter tone. “We were in such a hurry to meet up that we missed the tutorial missions. And nobody’s exactly willing to post the location of the hub on the forums.”

  The slime let out a gargling laugh, nodding his head. “Makes sense. So, you guys have just never been to the dungeon cities?” When he asked that, my eyes sparkled with interest.

  “There are entire cities in dungeons?” Bella asked in astonishment, her eyes going wide.

  “Some of them,” the slime said casually, clearly not showing any restraint around the three of us. In fact, all of them seemed to relax, moving into the shadow of the newly created canopy. “However, the path will only open if you smear monster blood on the wall, so it’s kinda gruesome.”

  “We’ll need to keep an eye out for that,” Diane said, a smile in her tone. “Thanks for the tip. I’d guess that none of the dungeons in Chimeris have a city, right?”

  The shapeshifter smirked, shaking his head. “Yes and no. There are dungeon cities that connect multiple dungeons together, but they have special requirements to earn passage through their gates. That’s the quest we’re on now. We’ve got to cause at least a thousand non-monster deaths each in order to complete the quest and earn the Badge of Slaughter.”

  “Speaking of which,” the shapeshifter looked at us. “How have you guys managed to stay together all this time without the dungeon cities? Your respawn points would be all the way back at your original spawns, right?”

  “Ugh, don’t remind us, please,” Diane spat out with a tone of disgust. “We’ve been playing on Hardcore Mode ever since we got here. The one time Cassium died, we had to wait for a week for him to fly back to us.” After saying that, she pointed a thumb in my direction. “Without him, we can’t really get around very fast, so we were just stuck in a cave.”

  At that, the shapeshifter turned to look at me, a hint of surprise in his eyes. “That must have sucked. What type of dragon are you, anyways? I’ve never seen a silver dragon your shade before.”

  “Phantom dragon,” I answered with a small smirk. “My racial allows me to easily master stealth skills. You’d never guess something my size could be an ambush predator, right?”

  The other three all widened their eyes in surprise, looking at one another. “Do you think that you could help us out, then?” The shapeshifter asked, turning to look at us. “We’ve been getting by slowly with our own ambush tactics, but we can only get a few people at a time. At this rate, it’ll take us at least a few more weeks before we can complete our mission.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem, as long as you can put in a good word for us with the Dungeon Lord,” Diane agreed readily, before I could open my mouth to speak. I could vaguely see her hands moving within the black fog, a message appearing in my vision.

  I’m going to message Charles, and have him arrange for some players to act as sacrifices to earn their trust. If we can at least figure out what dungeon in Chimeris is connected to that dungeon city, we’ll be able to complete our objective without letting them take out any more NPCs.

  I nodded my head after reading the message, seemingly accepting the proposal from the shapeshifter. “She’s right. If we can get into dungeon cities, that will at the very least let us have a shared respawn point. I’d rather not have to be flying to meet up with everyone until the next patch hits if I die again…” That comment earned a round of laughter from the three monsters, and I looked at Diane suspiciously. If my claws weren’t really large and noticeable, I’d really want to message her to ask if players were really all this trusting of each other.