His whole chest covered in thick, black blood, Ryan took a step back. The mutated giant rabbit in front of him was already falling apart into a thick sludge, leaving behind three small plastic coins.

  "Okay, great..." he groaned, squatting down to pick the coins up, "So I take a picture of the dead ones, not the living ones. Got it."

  He put the picture away into Gaia's backpack to keep it safe. It was possible he had to actually exchange the pictures for the certificate later, after all.

  "Let's get going, I guess. But not before..." Ryan walked up to Maximus, "Do you mind if I already swap your parts out for the Paladin set? The ones that we have at least."

  Maximus quickly nodded his head. The Paladin set was fairly balanced, even if leaning slightly toward defence. It also seemed to be a little weaker than just the base Knight set, though with Maximus' stats right now, the stats gained from the armour pieces themselves didn't matter too much in the first place. What was way more important was the fact that, while Maximus was using pieces of the Paladin set, his attacks were imbued with a slight amount of divinity, the same power that clerics or actual paladins used.

  It was strong against undead, and since that was basically what they were dealing with here, it should do the trick. Or at least, it should help out a bit. Ryan really hoped that they could get their hand on more paladin pieces... the other sets were great too, but they weren't as useful in this specific context.

  Ryan quickly activated his Spirit Construction skill and carefully took apart Maximus. The parts that they had for the paladin set right now were the torso and the right arm. Replacing the torso meant, of course, that every other part had to be reattached too, on top of moving the spirit core from one to another.

  He quickly pushed everything into place and Maximus soon stood back up, stretching slightly while Ryan put the replaced parts back into the domain.

  "Let's keep going, then," Ryan took a deep breath. Just like before, they just had to go and find the monsters. But instead of being able to take candid shots and then leave, they had to actually kill them... and then face the mutated version. The mutated monsters were all vastly exaggerated versions of the regular base monsters. Their claws and fangs were all turned into daggers, and their bodies were large and bulky. Luckily, with Granfell's flame attacks, now freshly infused with some holy energy, were basically the perfect thing against these guys. Undead were famously weak against both fire and divinity, so this was basically the perfect match and made the battles way easier than they normally would be. Though, the divinity didn't seem to do anything with the monsters before they were killed the first time. This did give Ryan a bit of a weird feeling in his stomach.

  "Seriously, what the hell happened here before..? What does this place have to do with undeath?"

  Though these questions kept coursing through Ryan's mind, his curiosity almost driving him mad, this was something he might be able to figure out in the future. Maybe in the labs below the food stalls.

  For now, he just had to do one last monster to hopefully complete this area. The Moss Sheep. Though, Ryan did wonder what was going to happen with that one. All other monsters in this area were groups, and their corpses would merge together once their picture was taken. Ryan actually did try taking a picture after killing just one of them, but it simply didn't take the photo.

  The Moss Sheep, being the area boss, was not an easy opponent. It was much easier than it used to be before, but it still wasn't 'easy' by any means. And what it would become after its picture was taking kind of worried Ryan.

  Would it become worse? Stronger? Would it grow to be too much for him and the spirits to handle? At this point, there was nothing else they could do but try. They did have some leeway, and could make sure they had everything properly set up for when the moss sheep would wake back up before Ryan took the picture.

  "There it is..."

  The moss sheep was beyond the bush Ryan was looking over right now. Its wooly, moss-covered body was absolutely filthy, with blood sticking to its face and splattered across it's body. Taking this area boss down as it was could already be called a challenge.

  Initiating the attack, Ryan threw Maximus at the moss sheep. He cut into its wool with flames wrapped around his blade. It was cut apart quickly, but the mass of moss was too thick for Maximus to reach it's body just yet.

  The monster tried to shake Maximus off, but it was soon hit by one of Gregor's bullets. The magic-imbued projectile pierced the exposed skin, and blood started to flow out and soak even further into the moss.

  Maximus quickly lodged himself in the cut, almost wrapping his foot in the wool so that he couldn't be thrown off while Ryan kept distracting it. Jester, wearing his tragedy mask, was casting a debuff on the sheep by actively mocking it.

  They were lucky this time, and the monster was very quickly taken down. Maximus climbed out of the dead monster's wool, covered in dark blood.

  While the Knight cleaned himself off for a few moments, Ryan made sure that everyone was prepared and getting ready. Gaia was safely in her domain, with her backpack hanging off a tree where nothing beside Gaia herself could reach it later. Gregor reloaded his machines, and Maximus and Jester also got ready to act immediately.

  Ryan held the camera forward, aiming it at the moss sheep. The flash went off, and a photo started being pushed out of the camera. He glanced down at it, trying to see what the moss sheep would be like now that it changed. And what he saw did nothing but confuse Ryan.

  It wasn't monstrous. It wasn't exaggerated or more dangerous. It was the opposite; the moss sheep turned back into its 'normal' form, how it would look outside of the dungeon.

  But that normal form was hurt. Its body was melting away. Before Ryan realized it, he could hear a pained cry from in front of him, as the small sheep was trying to get up onto it's legs, failing to do so.

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  "... Maximus."

  The knight didn't even need to be told anything else, slowly approaching the sheep. He stabbed his sword into its head, killing it as fast as he possibly could.

  Silently, Ryan summoned Gaia, had her take the backpack off the branch they put it up on, and then they all made their way back to that hut in the centre of the area.

  Ryan placed the camera onto the counter, together with the ten pictures. He couldn't even really feel excited, and when the confetti and congratulatory music sounded out from the hut, Ryan just waited for the paper certificate that showed that he properly completed this area.

  Once they made it back out of the petting zoo, Ryan squatted down for a moment. This dungeon, much more so than any other that Ryan heard of until now, played with the history of this place in a pretty fucked up way. If he took all of the info he got so far at face value... This place was riddled with illegal trade, murder, and unethical experiments related to undeath. And the animals from the petting zoo were very clearly used for those experiments.

  Otherwise, the 'perfect completion', mutated version of the area boss wouldn't have looked like... That. The dungeon was trying to tell others what happened here. Like that was it's very purpose. Ryan stood up and clicked his tongue. He really had to look into what kind of fucked-up freaks ran this place in the past. For now, Ryan would hold off on going to the gift shop. There were some other places he at least wanted to give a shot.

  First, it was time to finally try some of the 'less dangerous' ones. There wasn't really anything safe in this dungeon, of course. But the rollercoasters and arcade games, for example, were dangerous in a different way. Ryan managed to get a few details out of Runar. The rollercoasters were basically exaggerated versions of what they were before. Faster, taller, longer - crazier, overall. The goal was apparently just to ride every single one of them. With how intense they were, that in itself was supposed to be an extreme physical challenge. For most people, normal rollercoasters could already hit the limit to unconsciousness in terms of acceleration, but these went far above that. But being an Awakened, on top of Tiar's support that simply strengthened some physical functions, he should be able to get there. Even so, he should take it easy with some of the less dangerous ones and try those out first until he hit the limit. Runar gave him a 'danger ranking' for each of the rollercoasters.

  Supposedly, they actually used these to help out people train their Resistance stats, so if he was lucky, he could get something great out of this. That might lift his mood away from all the other crap happening here in the dungeon, at least. Of course, the rollercoasters were something that they hadn't figured out the 'perfect completion' for yet. The regular completion was also just going on the most dangerous of the rides. When the park was still up and running, you would get a keychain after riding it, but here, you got the whole 'statue'. But the problem was that there was one rollercoaster missing.

  On the back of the map was a small stamp book, where you could get a stamp depending on which rollercoaster you went on. There were 16 stamp slots in total, but there were only 15 rollercoasters in the park. They had searched high and low, and tested out literally anything they could think of that might count as the last rollercoaster, but they were unable to get the last stamp. That was very likely to be the last thing stopping them from getting the perfect completion; an error that the dungeon made, somehow. At least, that was the assumption.

  It didn't take long until Ryan reached the first rollercoaster. It was actually less of a rollercoaster, and more of a simple, scenic ride. Even so, it was supposedly quite intense. Ryan called the spirits back into their domains, keeping Gaia's backpack safely near the entrance to the queue.

  He looked around for a moment. The only things he could see were the entrance and the exit. Apparently this was a distorted space within the dungeon, so the ride was way longer than it should be when seen from out here. Carefully, he approached the car. It seemed to growl as Ryan got closer, shaking and grumbling. As Runar had said... the dungeon thought these things were alive.

  It still looked like a regular rollercoaster car, at least. It was just rumbling and distorting ever so slightly, like it was breathing. Ryan climbed inside and fastened the restraints. Almost immediately, the car started moving forward along the rails. It was a slow start. Beyond the doors that opened automatically, a vast, emptiness opened up. Like a fully black space, with just the rails visible and leading forward.

  As the car moved forward, it just kept speeding up, more and more, faster and faster. He could feel the wind in his face, and could barely keep his eyes open anymore. Then, a sharp right turn almost threw Ryan out of his seat. Without the safety restraints, he wouldn't be in here anymore. In the distance, Ryan could see something like a forest. A castle stretching out. At first glance, at first glance, it was quite pretty, but the closer he got, the more he realized just how messed up this sight was. The trees were melting and the castle was sort of stretched out into the distance, like someone had simply grabbed it at the top and pulled it up as high as it could go. Though he didn't have a lot of time to look at what was going on around him.

  The ride just kept speeding up the whole time, twisting and turning, taking sharp turns that just pushed Ryan even further into the safety restraints. It was starting to get a bit painful, since he was pushing against the same spots again and again, but it wasn't too bad. He could still breathe, and though it was disorienting, the five or so minutes that he was in there could have been much worse. Though Ryan would never tell her this directly, but he was somewhat reminded of Yamada's driving.

  Before long, he left the 'forest' and found himself back in the black void, quickly returning to the glowing hole in the emptiness. The car slowed down rapidly, almost pulling the air out of Ryan's lungs as it did. He quietly stepped out of it, unfolding the map he was carrying in his pocket. It now had a stamp on its back. The first of 16.

  "Holy fucking shit," Ryan groaned out. His feet were unsteady, and he had to use the railings next to the queue for some balance, "This is just the first one? How the fuck am I gonna make it through the rest of them? Gods..."

  With a yawn, Richard stepped out of the car. Following him from the backseat, a man in deep black assault gear came stumbling out as well.

  "Hey, careful. If you scratch that car, you're going to pay for it," Richard said, not even looking behind him as he did. The man didn't even respond, just walking to the trunk. He took out a number of boxes, placing them onto the ground. They all unfolded, turning into a number of different full-size Roxie units, each supplied with different weapons. Once they were ready, the man began grabbing different gear from the trunk. Guns, knives, grenades, amongst other things.

  "Could you hurry it up already? I'm already annoyed we have to take care of this in the first place," Richard sighed. Once the man stepped back, the halfling snapped his finger and the car started driving away on its own. The man just grunted in response, following Richard and the Roxie units, "What, someone's here already?"

  Richard looked over at another part of the parking lot. An old motorbike was standing there.

  "It shouldn't be an issue, I assume," the man said, speaking in a mechanical voice. Like it was his old voice had been synthesized.

  "Of course not," Richard sighed, "If it's anyone annoying, we, which in this case means 'you', just take care of them."

  "Hm."

  Richard rolled his eyes and held out his hand. Black, magical sparks shot out from his palm, entering the security system that was set up here so that nobody could tell that someone that wasn't supposed to be here came in.

  The halfling grumbled, still annoyed as he stepped through the dungeon's threshold, "Seriously, why the hell did they hide something like that under an amusement park?"

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