Second World

The three of them were stunned with complicated expressions on their faces. They found it hard to believe what they had just heard. The monsters that were in front of them just now had miraculously vanished once the notification voice sounded.

"Successfully cleared… but, how…?"

They soon heard another notification after, "congratulations, your party is the first to clear the Giant Ants Dungeon, receiving first clear reward!"

"The first clear reward!" Queen Magenta exclaimed. "Quick! We have to get back to the Boss' hall!"

Before they could start heading back, another notification sounded, informing them of the rankings. Warpath's face was immediately dark when he saw the name on the first rank. The other two women also wearing grim faces. The agreement for the Guild Creation Token had been based on who got the first rank. Storm Wind was White Scarfs' helper. Hence, by right, that reward should go to them.

Se… second place again? Warpath was unwilling, "no! There must be a mistake. He must have cheated! There is no way Storm Wind could have cleared the dungeon and got the first rank. We have been fighting the boss for so long and we had also taken out most of its HP. Even if he came later and kill the boss, he still should not be the first rank!"

"In any case, we should go back to the Boss' hall to find out," Selena suggested.

"Yes, let's go!" Queen Magenta affirmed and the three of them rushed back to the Boss' hall. Since there were no more monsters around, they should be able to arrive back at the hall in a short time.

---------------

Jack had inspected all seven items. There were two uncommon materials, one uncommon tool, and two uncommon equipment, one rare equipment, and one rare accessory.

'I have to ask,' he said to Peniel in his mind. 'Why do I feel that the rewards from this dungeon are much less compared to the Monster Settlement? Even though the difficulty is somewhat higher? I don't think I would have been able to clear this dungeon by myself if given the chance.'

"It was common to be so," Peniel replied. "Let me remind you again that the settlement was not supposed to be taken alone. It was meant for a party, and there is no limit to the number of the party. While here you are only limited to ten people. If you divide the rewards from the settlement between twenty people, you won't find the rewards much different from what you get here. And also, a dungeon usually has an alternate way of solving its difficulty. If you just rely on brute force, the difficulty will be several times higher. You finding that nest filled with eggs must be the alternate solution to this dungeon."

"Another point to be taken into account is the risk involved," Peniel added. "In a dungeon, you will only lose 1 level. However, a monster settlement is considered as part of the wilderness. If you died when assaulting the settlement, you will lose everything. So it made sense if the rewards are better in Monster Settlement, since the risk is much higher."

'I see.' Jack thought that Peniel's explanation made sense. With that thought no longer bothering his mind, he turned his attention back to the Boss' loots.

Amongst the seven items, there were three that caught his eyes. The uncommon tool was a camping tent that had an alarm function, the rare equipment was a one-handed sword, and the rare accessory was a necklace. With just a brief thought, Jack decided the necklace to be the obvious choice. He had three accessory slots which at the current time only had one ring equipped. He looked at the necklace stats.

Purifying Pendant, (rare necklace)

All mental status effect resistance +10%

Negate all mental status ailment once, cooldown: 1 hour

Status effect resistance, was it the kind similar to that disoriented status effect he got when fighting the Horned Ogre Boss? He sent his question to Peniel, 'Peniel, that disoriented status from before was a mental status effect, wasn't it? How many status effects are there?'

"You seriously never paid attention to your status window, do you?" Peniel voice sounded in his mind.

'I got the information in my status window?' Jack opened his status window after hearing Peniel's comment. He shifted through his window pages, but no page with information on the status effect. 'Where is it?'

"In your attributes page," the fairy replied.

He went back to the attribute page. It was the same as before, the page only showed information on his attributes. He was starting to believe the fairy was making fun of him. He asked annoyingly, 'I don't see any status effect info here.'

"Do you not know how to scroll down?" Peniel replied with an equally annoyed tone.

"Oh," Jack said, he scrolled the attributes page, and there indeed was additional information down there, and it was actually a long list.

Elemental Resistance:

-          Fire resistance = 0

-          Ice resistance = 0

-          Wind resistance = 0

-          Earth resistance = 0

-          Lightning resistance = 0

-          Light resistance = 0

-          Dark resistance = 30

Physical status ailment resistance:

-          Burn = 0%

-          Freeze = 0%

-          Bleed = 0%

-          Poison = 0%

-          Paralyze = 0%

-          Blind = 0%

-          Cursed = 0%

-          Weakness = 0%

Mental status ailment resistance:

-          Dizzy = 0%

-          Disoriented = 0%

-          Rage = 0%

-          Confused = 0%

-          Charm = 0%

-          Fear = 0%

-          Fatigue = 0%

'That are a lot of resistances… I understand about the elemental resistances and some of the physical status effects. But for the mental status effects, apart from disoriented, I don't know about the others. What happened if I got afflicted by them?'

"Do you want me to spend the time to explain all of them to you now?" Peniel asked.

Jack turned and realized what her tone was implying. Silverwing and the others had been patiently watching him all this time. 'later then,' he said to Peniel.

"I will take this necklace," Jack told the others. "Here are the rest of the items."

He gave the items to Silverwing. "So how will you distribute them?" He asked while he equipped the Purifying Pendant onto his neck, now he was only lacking another ring, then he would have fully completed gears on his body.

"As had agreed with Queen Magenta, we will distribute them based on the rankings in this dungeon," Silverwing answered.

"You really are going to stick to that rule? I heard they left in the middle of battle? If you just keep the loots, there is nothing they can do about it, right?" Jack said, but then he realized Jeanny was there, he then said apologetically, "ah sorry, I didn't mean it."

Jeanny just smiled, "they did act dishonorably by leaving."

"Anyway, I will still stick to our agreement," Silverwing said. "Not my principle to break my word."

Jack nodded, "good man."

"Well, since the second rank is Warpath, we can't claim any of these loots first," Silverwing said. "Miss Jeany, please inspect these loots, I will need to put them in my inventory in order to bring them out from this dungeon. You will be the witness to determine they were the same items when I show it to your Queen Magenta."

When Jeanny was inspecting the loots, they heard a sound from the entrance of the hall. They turned and saw three people coming. They were Queen Magenta, Warpath, and Selena who had left previously. They wore expressions of disbelief as they approached.

"It was real?" Queen Magenta said when he was near, "you people had slain the boss?"

"There must be a mistake here!" Warpath snapped, "there was no way they could have defeated the boss. You! You must have cheated! How did you get the first rank when it was impossible for you to kill the boss?"

Jack looked at him as if he was looking at a retard. He could not believe this guy.

"We truly did slay the Giant Queen Ant," Jeanny came out to mediate. "It was not easy, it was all due to mister Storm Wind that we–"

"Silence, you girl!" Queen Magenta cut her words, "why are you with them? Do you not consider yourself as a member of Wicked Witches anymore?"

Jeanny frowned, why did she bring that up? Was she expected her to not help the White Scarfs group in fighting the boss when she found out that they had left?

"Where is the guild creation token?" Queen Magenta demanded.

"That token is now the property of White Scarfs, as we had agreed. We had won fair and square," Silverwing said.

"What fair and square, you obviously have cheated with that guy!" Warpath said again while pointing at Jack.

This guy is getting out of hand. Jack could feel his anger rising.