Chu Fu and the others approached and saw an exclamation mark appear above the farmer’s head.
The old farmer’s gaze fell on them, and he said, “Honored Awakened Ones, have you come to eliminate the mutant rats?”
[Do you accept the quest: The Rat Plague in the Fields.]
“Yes!”
Chu Fu and the rest all accepted the quest.
The old farmer’s weathered face broke into a smile, and he continued, “That’s great. Thank you. But the mutant rats aren’t easy to wipe out. You’ll need to enter their nest to do so.
The only problem is, their nest is too small. You’ll need some special items to get in.
Here are five bottles of shrinking potion. After taking them, you can enter the dungeon.
Please note: the shrinking effect only lasts one hour. If you haven’t cleared the dungeon within an hour, you might get trapped inside the mutant rat nest.
So if you can’t finish in time, remember to exit the dungeon early to keep yourselves safe.
Of course, you can also buy more shrinking potions from me, so you won’t have to worry about that!”
Then a shop interface appeared.
[Shrinking Potion]: Shrinks your size by five times. Price: 200 copper coins.
[Night Vision Potion]: Allows you to see clearly in the dark. Price: 100 copper coins.
The one they called “Who Calls Me Blind” instantly turned pale.
After all, he was blind. He’d had to ask for help just to buy the game helmet, waited in a queue of over 30 million players to enter the game, and couldn’t even read strategy guides.
He had no idea that going into a dungeon would cost money.
He hadn’t expected the old farmer to seem pitiful—but as the saying goes, the pitiful often have their hateful sides.
What a crooked merchant.
He gritted his teeth and bought five bottles of shrinking potion—it took every last copper he had.
The only silver lining was that he didn’t need to buy the night vision potion, because he had his inner eye.
The group drank the potions and quickly shrank.
Chu Fu might have looked slender, but she wasn’t short—standing 168 centimeters tall. After shrinking by five times, she was about 33.6 centimeters, looking just like a Barbie doll.
With her green puffy skirt, she seemed delicate and resembled an SD real-life doll.
Of course, since everyone had shrunk at the same rate, their proportions stayed the same, so it didn’t feel odd.
But when they looked at the massive pit that was the mutant rat nest, it now looked like a dark, gaping maw ready to devour them, with an entrance twice their current height.
The dungeon had three difficulty levels, each with a larger tunnel diameter than the last.
A cold wind blew, carrying a stench like rat droppings.
A blue glow marked the dungeon entrance.
[Dungeon: Mutant Rat Nest]
[Level: 3]
[Party Size: 3-5 players]
[Difficulty: Normal, Hard, Nightmare]
[Dungeon Description: The rats living in the fields have mutated and multiplied rapidly. No one knows what’s happening inside.]
[Please select a difficulty!]
“Normal difficulty.”
Chu Fu didn’t hesitate long and chose the smallest tunnel opening.
Once the difficulty was set, a pull of force dragged all five of them toward the dungeon entrance, as if they’d been forced to take a few steps.
They entered the dungeon.
The surrounding light instantly dimmed.
With night vision, everything looked bathed in blue.
They could make out the cave: the ground was littered with clumps of dirt from the rats’ digging, along with wheat ears and dry grass—uneven terrain. For now, no monsters were in sight.
Chu Fu was also experiencing a dungeon for the first time, but since she was familiar with the plot, she instinctively took on the role of commander.
“Brother Sword Saint, Sister Prideful is up front, Wheelchair Bro and I are in the middle, and Sister Suture is in the back. Stay alert.”
The five of them formed a line and moved forward.
Soon, they heard a rustling sound, and then a giant mutated rat poked its head out.
Seeing this monster up close almost triggered a bout of megalophobia.
Normally, a mutated rat would be about the size of a stray dog—but because of its short legs, it would only seem about twenty or thirty centimeters tall. However, now that Chu Fu and the others had shrunk, the mutated rat looked as tall as a person.
A colossal creature blocked the tunnel.
【Nest Mutated Rat (Common), Level 3, HP: 650.】
The mutated rats outside, at level 2, only had 200 HP. This one was three times tougher.
But a moment later, this nest mutated rat suffered an unprecedented assault.
-62 (Venom Strike)
-180 (Piercing Sky Sword)
-50-50-50 (Gunfire Attack)
-124 (Venom Strike, Layer 2)
-50-50 (Gunfire Attack)
-58 (Heavy Sword Attack)
In just three seconds.
The mutated rat died miserably under their combined attack.
As the rat fell, it crashed like a bull hitting the ground.
It dropped three copper coins.
The coins automatically went into the team loot pool, to be shared equally at the end or distributed by the party leader.
“Can I harvest it? I learned the Gathering skill!” Suture Saint said. “This big of a rat—how much fur can I collect? I can turn it into white-grade gear back in town.”
Chu Fu reminded her, “Have you considered that it only looks big?”
Suture Saint suddenly realized she had shrunk.
“Well, there goes my excitement.”
“If we gather enough, we can craft something. I remember ten rat pelts can make a rat-skin skirt,” Chu Fu recalled from the novel’s description. After the first monster wave, players cleared the Rat Nest dungeon, and all newcomers were decked out in rat-skin sets.
“Thanks! Don’t worry—harvesting only takes five seconds. It won’t waste much time!”
Suture Saint stepped forward, pulled out a harvesting knife, and began skinning the rat. Soon, she collected both fur and meat.
The group continued onward. After advancing about a hundred meters—though it might have been only twenty in actual distance—they ran into twenty rats in succession. They carved through them like chopping vegetables, killing every one.
Prideful Not Fragile joined the attacks too. Though her damage was minimal, it saved Chu Fu from having to cast a second Venom Strike.
Finally, the tunnel opened up into a large hall.
This appeared to be the living room area of the rat nest.
Inside, about fifty rats were densely packed together.
“Don’t rush in. I’m going to plant some Dandelions here at the entrance. Wheelchair Bro, use pulling aggro. Brother Sword Saint, Sister Prideful, hold the entrance.”
Soon, two Dandelions were spurred to growth, also shrunk down five times.
“Bang! Bang!”
Shen Chi fired his gun.
Those two shots stirred up the nest like an explosion. The rats went into a frenzy, triggering what should have been the first party-wipe point of this normal dungeon.
But when the rats charged into the tunnel, the electric saw Dandelions whirred and spun. The rats couldn’t break through and died on the spot.
It was ridiculously easy.
As they pushed deeper, they cleared more monsters from the dungeon. After passing two more rat halls and exterminating over a hundred mutated rats, they finally reached the deepest part of the cave.
A giant blood-red rat revealed its green, glowing eyes.
[Mutant Giant Female Rat (BOSS) Level 3, Health Points: 8500.]
