MMORPG: Rise of the Peerless Pumpkinmancer
chapter-99

Deadly feathers flew toward the human’s vitals. But just as they were about to reach his head, he bent his back, avoiding death entirely.

Jack currently looked akin to the protagonist of an action movie— the kind that wore a black leather outfit with shades.

Then there were more and more volleys, trying to claim his life.

All that he could do was relentlessly dodge. A single hit could very well doom him entirely by making him lose his balance. This was a confrontation between a shooter (chicken) and a daredevil.

“Woo!” (You can do it!)

On the side, Moon Moon was the perfect cheerleader— albeit a little unconventionally hairy.

That’s how Jack managed to survive all the attacks. 99% thanks to the moral support and 1% thanks to the skills he had honed over the years. Or was it the opposite?

The chicken kept going until it ran out of feathers. Yes, all of them, even the ones it was wearing! This cowboy now looked…peculiar as it was buck naked. Seeing its sorry state, it suddenly bolted away inside the saloon to hide its figure.

Jack and wolf could only stare, perplexed. What kind of weird challenge was this?! But they didn’t dwell on it as another chest spawned! What would it be this time? Perhaps feathers?

It turned out to be… Yet another ring!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Chicken Avoiding Ring!

Rank F

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Attribute] +2 AGI

[Trait] +Boost Evasion

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jack gleefully equipped it. It had a feather engraving that was fitting very well with his Cluckinator.

“How do I look!”

“Woo!” (Decent!)

“The correct answer is dashing.”

“Woo? Woo!” (Alright, dashing!)

It was important to teach one’s pets well. After all, he had to make sure it knew how handsome its master was. (In case it ever gained the ability to speak human language.)

“Alright, let’s hurry and clear the third challenge.”

“Woo!” (Hell yeah!)

Jack really was unsure of what to expect with that new one. On the door, there figured a bomb…why?! Then again, could it be any weirder than a naked cowboy? (Besides 18 of them, of course)

He held his breath as he pushed the door open. On the other side, awaited…something?

He wasn’t sure what to make of this. Next to the entrance, there was a weird staff. It looked like a classical mage one, but a cross-eyes glass chicken replaced the crystal ball.

A for the actual area, it was a balcony that allowed one to view the arena underneath. It looked like a chessboard with many squared tiles. On each stood chickens that seemed to be frozen in place.

Out of all of them, there was one chicken that looked different. It was pulsating red as it gently radiated a dangerous-looking red light. Now, what was he supposed to do?

“Woo?” (Perplexed)

Moon Moon was ready to show its wolfish prowess and hunt them all! But first, it needed to figure out how to get down there. Why was this so troublesome?!

“Wait, I think that we’re supposed to remain here,” Jack commented as he observed his surroundings.

A pictograph on the wall suggested that one needed to point the staff at the chickens. What would this do?

He tentatively tried it, and that’s when the world down there seemed to resume. The chickens were still staying in place, but they started breathing, bouncing up and down, and even clucking.

The red glow seemed to be growing more profound as it started pulsating faster. Four squares also suddenly brightened up as an energy cage appeared around the tile perimeter. Jack tried pointing the staff at the glowing chicken. That’s when he understood the game.

The red glow left that one chicken and spread to all the chickens on a case directly touching that one. He then pointed a few times, and it was as he had guessed already.

This glow turned the white chickens red and the red chickens white. There had a been a bomb on the door, right? His gut feeling was telling him that the red chicken would soon explode.

As for what he had to do? The goal was to make it so that the bomber chickens were only in the barrier areas. It didn’t help that the chickens began pulsating faster if he took his time to make a move.

This was one troublesome puzzle, and it was goddamn timed! Who the heck had come up with such an annoying thing! Jack kept doing move after move all until he finally…lost!

The red light stopped flashing and settled ultimately. That’s when he heard a click, right before everything went to hell.

— BOOM! —

The explosion was massive, as freaking huge as a nut after November!

Fire engulfed the whole challenge area, and it soon reached the balcony. Moon Moon heroically tackled the entrance door, but it didn’t budge at all. The room crumbled to pieces and the insane heat filled it entirely.

In a flash of red, the two of them were now respawning at that one altar right at the beginning. As they saw the surrounding chicken army, they felt like full-blown cursing!— but doing so meant having a death wish.

Jack sighed as the two of them began the arduous ascension.

After a while of effort, the two were back in the exploding chicken room. This time he would carefully think of his plan to win! Then after a few minutes of pondering, he was finally ready.

Jack confidently relaunched it! It was time for revenge! It only took him 10 minutes before he…fucking screwed up again. -_-

— BOOM! —

This time the cause for his failure was the fact that a chicken had freaking switched place with another! Why the heck were the pesky chickens allowed to mess with his carefully crafted strategy?!

He could only grit his teeth and do the damn parkour again. The only consolation was that Moon Moon was getting hella good at it. This wolf was flying!

“Alright, this time, we’re succeeding.” Jack motivated himself.

“Woo!”

What was his strategy this time? He went completely ham! Before he had been so cautious with every move, but now he rushed it!

He was pointing to all the chickens as if a professional maestro. The only thing missing was the epic music. Then finally, all the red chickens were in the barriers.

— BOOM! —

Jack grinned as the explosion didn’t cause any damage. It was all contained inside the barriers!

Once again, a victory chest spawned with him already expecting its content. Of course, it was yet another ring!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Chicken Regulating Ring!

Rank F

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Attribute] +2 INT

[Trait] +Boost Spells

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hell, this place would be the perfect place to bring one’s girlfriend to propose. The groom wouldn’t even have to prepare any ring, just grab one in passing.

Jokes asides, Jack was actually relieved that this exploding mess was finally over. He wasn’t sure how many more explosions his sanity could have taken.

Now that the challenge was over, the door finally opened.

As they came back to the room with the three doors, it had changed. Earlier it had been empty, but there was now an added chicken statue.

Near the chicken’s talons, there was a plaque:

< Harder challenges increase one’s resilience!>

Resilience, was it? At this moment, Jack understood what this meant. This part of the dungeon wasn’t available at the normal difficulty.

[Chicken Trial Palace Completed!]

[Do you wish to exit the dungeon?]

“Screw you, chicken statue. I’ll be back.” Jack grumbled.

Master and pet disappeared, fighting spirit burning in their eyes…

Creator’s Thought

This dungeon was great for farming. One could simply run their preferred challenge, grab the ring, and reset the instance. But as far as clearing the dungeon went, it required one to complete all challenges. If it had given me trouble, how would other players handle it?