Chapter 59 – Cat Dad and Warg Lord’s Treasure Room

Xiaomao looked at the locked metal door. He let out a sigh of relief and kissed the keycard.

BANG

The gnolls in front of the room smashed the door as if they were hungry zombies. A red bar appeared over the door.

1% of the red bar was decreased. The door also dented a little.

Xiaomao’s heart sank. His tentacles kicked the ground and forced his body to turn around.

DING

<Your supporter, Slave One, has changed his name to Shepherd.>

Xiaomao glanced at the notification menu. He was glad that Slave One didn’t change his name into something absurd.

‘No time to waste. I need to loot everything and destroy that!’

Xiaomao stopped being distracted and gazed at the center of the hidden room.

A human-sized pedestal stood at the center of the room. Gold coins piled into a mountain on the left side of the room. On the right, precious jewelry and trinkets filled a hundred crests to the brim.

The cat ignored the gold coins and jewels. He aimed his crossbow at the floating orb, which hovered over the pedestal.

It was the dungeon core!

Xiaomao pulled the trigger, delivering the finishing blow to the dungeon.

BOOM

The bolt pierced into the orb and exploded. The glass-like orb shattered and released black skull gas._.

The skull’s glowing red eyes glared and cursed Xiaomao.

“Descendent of Cathulhu, all your attempts are futile! You cannot kill me!”

The skull gas vanished after leaving the cliché line.

“Sore loser,” Xiaomao scoffed.

He wasn’t surprised as he knew who was behind the dungeons in the game world.

As soon as the dungeon core was destroyed, the banging sound from the other side of the door ceased.

DING

<Congratulations. You have destroyed a dungeon core!>

<You have removed Gnoll General’s curse!>

<Warg Lord has been greatly weakened!>

<Dungeon Tributes to the Warg Lord have been ceased.>

<All gnolls will not respawn for one week.>

<A new dungeon core will be respawned in one week.>

<Congratulations. You have completed the Hidden Quest: Coup d’état!>

<The quest has been updated.>

…

Hidden Quest: Replacing Regime

After taking down a dungeon, you have two choices to thread. The first method is the simplest way as you can take everything in the dungeon core room and get the hell outta there. But the second method is quite tricky and troublesome. You can replace the dungeon core with ANOTHER dungeon core that you can control. Then, the entire dungeon will be yours.

Quest Objective: Put a new dungeon core in this room.

Failure Condition: One week has passed and a new dungeon core is respawned.

Quest Reward: Ownership of Gnoll Dungeon

Failure Penalty: You will suffer a random abnormal status effect whenever you are within Gnoll Dungeon’s territory.

[?????? Instinct]: You can either craft or get a blank dungeon core orb from any dungeon boss.

…

Xiaomao gazed at the quest detail and sighed.

‘Only high-leveled bosses drop spare dungeon cores. Warg Lord should have one on the loot table, but the drop rate is one in a billionth.’

Xiaomao smacked his forehead with his tentacle hand.

‘Why am I worried about the drop rate when my character is like a 3D printer? I can just kill the boss and be done with it!’

He turned toward the locked door. The HP bar of the door was still at 95%.

Since Warg Lord and his goons could not break into the room anytime soon, Xiaomao turned toward the treasure trove. He rushed to the pile of gold coins and scooped everything into his inventory.

DING

<You have collected 435 gold coins.>

<You have collected 500 gold coins.>

<You have collected 444 gold coins.>

Every time Xiaomao threw gold coins toward his inventory, the game transformed the gold coins into digital currency without occupying one of the item slots.

Still, the tiny tentacle’s arms and hands couldn’t gather gold coins fast enough. Xiaomao got annoyed as the mountain of gold occupied one-third of the room, and he might not be able to finish it within a day.

He looked at the remaining rental time of the legendary crossbow.

Eight minutes remained.

Xiaomao clicked his tongue. He could reopen the door and fight Warg Lord now, but he needed an item that had been hiding under the mountain of gold coins here.

From his memory, this room was once a hidden stash of a pirate group. However, the pirates were slaughtered by monsters and left behind their heritage here.

Among the gold coins, a super rare item, Token of War God, got mixed in. This item was necessary to negate Warg Lord’s notorious AOE debuff skill, which could negate all ranged-attack damages!

As Xiaomao was running out of time, he got creative. Instead of shoving gold coins into his inventory menu, he grabbed the panel and shoved the screen toward the gold coin mountain!

<You have collected 58,754 gold coins.>

<You have collected 82,248 gold coins.>

The speed was a hundred times faster than collecting gold coins by hand. Like a bulldozer, Xiaomao swept through the gold mountain in minutes.

Then, Xiaomao finally located the item.

DING

<You have obtained a super rare artifact, The Token of War God!>

…

Token of War God (Super Rare)

This coin belonged to a memorial coin of a war god, who had saved the world from a calamity. By looking at it, you can gain self-confidence and courage from its aura. Unfortunately, it was stolen by a robber, and it was passed down among thieves and pirates.

Item Type: Artifact

Effect: By keeping Token of War God in your inventory, you will obtain the following effects:

– Immunity to fear, confusion, taunted, and charmed status effect.

– Will be broken after three uses.

…

“Alright, munya!”

Xiaomao jumped in joy. He kissed the coin and put it back in his inventory. Then, he glanced at the remaining time on the legendary crossbow.

Four minutes

The cat’s eyes became bloodshot. He looked around, searching for a spare crossbow in this room that he might be able to use.

And he spotted one among the chests. Without hesitation, Xiaomao grabbed it and put it in his inventory. Rushing back to the door, he swiped the keycard.

Inside the boss room, everything was in Chaos.

Shamans and gnoll soldiers had been attacking the shrunk version of Warg Lord. The dungeon boss was no longer a big fat werewolf but an oversized humanoid hyena.

The dungeon boss kept leaking black gas. It brandished a hammer and a claymore around, knocking and smashing his ex-followers.

“WOOF!”

“WOOF!”

The Gnoll Generals, who used to attend Warg Lord in this room, turned against their master. They swung their giant blades at Warg Lord’s unprotected chest and legs, causing three digits of damage.

Yet, one of ten Warg Lord’s HP bars was decreased by half!

“URAAAAAA!!”

Warg Lord suddenly roared and swung its hammer at the nearest Gnoll General.

Like a baseball being hit by a metal bat, the giant gnoll was sent flying to the ceiling.

Xiaomao stopped paying attention to the chaotic battle. He opened the monster encyclopedia book and put all new cards into the slots.

As Xiaomao completed the collection of gnoll cards, the game awarded him with a permanent buff.

DING

<You have completed Gnoll Dungeon Collection!>

<You have earned the title: Gnoll Slayer!>

…

Title: Gnoll Slayer

This title is awarded to the collector who completed the gnoll card set in the monster encyclopedia book. With this, you might be able to handle the gnolls easier than before.

Effect: 20% increase in attack damage when fighting gnolls and Warg Lord in Gnoll Dungeon.

…

The title buff was insignificant, but it could help in the boss fight.

Xiaomao turned his crossbow toward the Warg Lord. Ignoring friends and foes, he activated his only combat skill.

A thousand bolts appeared in the room and rained upon Gnoll Generals, soldiers, and Warg Lord!