by D Wolfin
A hint of indecision and turmoil glazes over her eyes before she obediently nods and flashes off faster than the enemy can react to stop her.
“Are you sure that’s wise, Lost? Now you are all by yourself.” Chronix laughs at me.
Making up my mind, I decide that I will go down swinging, doing as much damage as I possibly can before they kill me. That way, I should at least be able to kill a fair few of them and hamper their efforts in chasing the others.
Dashing straight at the group, I wipe the smirk off that arrogant knight’s face as I silently activate ‘multi mirage’, transforming in eight bodies. The moment I do, I also launch the throwing knives attached to the calves of my legs. Only ten knives are real, but a massive eighty projectiles seem to be attacking them.
Arrows quickly disperse the fake images, but they have served their purpose of allowing me to close in on them relatively unharmed. Suddenly appearing right in front of Chronix, I slow down time by using ‘perceptual sight’ while activate ‘back stab’ the moment his swords falls on me. The sword passes straight through the image with no resistance as I appear behind him and stab both my swords into his fully exposed back. A critical hit follows but unfortunately, it is only enough to take off ten percent of his health.
Two arrows land on me before I jump back away from him, each taking away a further eight percent of my health. Despite the slight headache that ‘perceptual sight’ is once again giving me, I use my heightened senses to tuck one of my shortswords into my belt mid air and extend my hand upwards.
“Minor Dire Flame!” I call out as 800 mana is drained and a small, crimson lightning coalesces on my palm and forms a small fireball of the brightest flame.
I immediately throw that fire ball at the now turning Chronix, and it hits him square on the centre of the chest. As my feet land on the ground, the flame splashes over him, clinging to everywhere it can. It doesn’t seem like much, but his health slowly depletes from burn damage. Currently, is seems to be taking away nearly two percent of his health a minute.
“What the hell is this! You ****.” The man curses at me as he tries to get rid of the flames on his body. Only, no matter what he tries, the flame just won’t come off. All the other low level players are also standing there like statues, utterly stunned.
While he rolls around and tries to suffocate the flames in other, bizarre methods. I notice that slowly but surely, the flames are gradually spreading to the forest floor and even the trees.
‘What an overpowered spell! And this idiot is even starting a damn forest fire!’
I cry inside, my only two options are to either put the fire out and be killed by Chronix, or to leave it and escape in the confusion, letting god knows how much of this forest burn down.
I made the mistake in town with the fire, assuming that houses and the environment would be indestructible in the capital city. Apparently, they are not.
The flaming knight starts calling out for water, he even pours his drinking water from his inventory on himself. It is safe to say, that water does not put this fire out, only a ‘Burn Remedy’ will.
He runs off into the forest looking for a water source in a panic. Given that he only had eighty percent health left, he only has forty minutes to do so. I wonder what he will do when he find out this fire can even burn underwater.
From my previous experience, I learnt that my fire is nowhere near as powerful as Grael’s is. Rather than burning for six days and six nights, mine will dissipate after six hours. It is still more than enough though to put an end to this level 250 player.
Before all the other players realize what they are doing here and bring their attention back to me, I immediately flee away from them and out of the forest. Given my speed, there is no chance they will be able to catch up to me.
I enter the grasslands outside of ‘Eldenweiss Forest’ and sprint back towards the eastern city gate. As I am passing through all the low level players working diligently to raise their levels, I start hearing loud voices.
All the players around me are suddenly running away, half of which are cursing at me as they try their hardest to get away as fast as possible.
Stunned, I stop and have a look around at the area which is now practically devoid of all players.
“Oh, just great.” I say with a sigh, looking at the icons of the current statuses on my player in the corner of my vision. There is a few, such as my hood shrouding my face with a shadow, fire and ice resistances from my equipment. But the most important one is the large red skull. The symbol of a player killer.
Chapter 19 - The Ghost of Eltreant
-Lost-
"Mason, I see you have revived. Did you lose many stats?" I private message the moment he respawns back at the church in Grenton. Fortunately, he isn't from Iceridge like I am, else it would be a catastrophe for completing this quest.
"A bit, I lost a total of ten points all round. How did everything go on your end, did you die as well?"
"Well... I didn't die. Which is good news."
"So you won?"
"I wouldn't necessarily say that I won either. More like I escaped."
"There were so many of them, how did you manage that?"
"I took care of the boss, then ran during the confusion."
"Took care of him? Wasn't he insanely strong."
"To tell you the truth, the battle didn't really go for that long. He did have an insanely high defence though."
"Then what did you do?"
"... Set him on fire."
"..."
"..."
"Then what?"
"... I ran during the confusion."
"... I feel like there's more to this. This conversation wouldn't be so awkward if it was just this. What else happened?"
"... I also got a player killer's mark from killing one of the lesser players who apparently didn't attack me first."
"... Still not a big deal. What haven't you told me?"
"... Once he was on fire, he started to roll around and such like an idiot, and spread the fire around a rather large area."
"... You set the forest on fire?"
"... It was all him being a foo-"
"You set the forest on fire, didn't you?"
"... Yeah... I'm sorry."
***************************************************
A little after Chronix had fled to search of a body water in the futile attempt to snuff out my 'Minor Dire Flame' covering his body, I received a notification.
You have successfully killed a player utilizing your
dire flame.
- Belief has increased by 2
- Alignment has decreased by 1
***************************************************
"You're the idiot!" Mason cried as he hit me over the back of the head.
We are all standing on the grasslands area a good 500 meters away from the 'Eldenweiss Forest'. It is currently night time in the game, but not even the stars can be seen tonight. Not with all the black smoke rising from the forest and blocking out the sky. The light coming from the forest is extremely bright as the flames emit a large glow up into the sky.
All I can smell is smoke and burning wood. The stench covers the area as thick as the white flakes of ash that rain down from the sky
Off to one side of me, Shai'en stares at the sight in tears. There are a lot of players with water style magic and even Grenton's royal magic corps are drenching the forest in water, but nothing is stopping this fire.
"We have been here for five and a half hours now, there shouldn't be much longer left." I said submissively, counting down the time until the fire should naturally go out.
This fire here is magnitudes more devastating than the one I released in Grenton. Clearly the city must have had some form of magic protection against the destruction of property to mitigate the damage as much as it did.
Half an hour passes and slowly the smoke billowing out from the forest comes to a stop and the light from the fire fades
away, almost as if it never existed in the first place.
Even from where we are, we can see the damage those six hours caused on the forest. Only about twenty percent of the forest is burnt, but the area of that twenty percent is enormous.
"Lost," Mason says morbidly, "You are to never use that spell again. Ever."
"Please, Lost." Shai'en looks at me with her red, teary eyes, "When we are at Eltreant, promise me you won't use that spell."
"But wouldn't it be a great way to flush out all the bandits at once?" I ask jokingly, trying to lighten the mood.
"Not a good time for jokes." Mason says seriously.
"Sorry."
"Don't worry about it. When all this is over, I'm going to go find all the boxes of matches we have around the house and change the warning labels from "Keep away from children", to "Keep away from Lost"."
"Didn't you just say this wasn't a good time for jokes?!"
"I didn't start the fire..."
Everyone except the two NPCs had a quick laugh at that. If anyone lightened the mood, it was Mason.
We quickly head off towards our destination, the northern forest. Ensuring we circle the currently damaged forest in front of us, we decide it is best to avoid a place full of players and NPCs trying to find out who caused the damage. I am in a hurry to get away in case anyone recognizes me as the person who came out from the forest the moment it caught fire. Meanwhile, the others would rather be elsewhere in case they were pinned as accomplices.
We travel throughout the night and slowly make our way around the forest. Beyond the grasslands, we arrive at some spring fields. The grass was a rich green, with patches of moist dirt throughout and tens of thousands of medium sized flowers. Reds, blues, and whites sprouting out of the ground as far as the eye can see.
There are large trees littered about in no particular systematic order, all of which are covered in small or large leaves of various greens and pinks. Most of the trees are separated from each other by vast distances, but there are a few crops of trees that all grow together. From underneath one of these groves I get the sensation that I can collect herbs there.
With the party in tow, I lead us through the field and towards the cluster of trees and smell a strong scent of pollen. From the corner of my vision, I see a couple of blurs head in my direction, making a constant buzzing noise as it moves.
Without thinking for more than a fraction of a second, I immediately dive to the side. Unfortunately, I am not fast enough and the stinger of an enormous hornet lands an attack on my hip. Five percent of my health instantly vanishes as a dizzy sensation attack my body. A flashing green icon appears up next to my current row of status effects and enhancements, indicating a poisoned status.
My loss of health from the poison is minimal, but the dizziness it induces is a problem.
There are a total of three hornet attacking our party. One attacks me, while the other two split up between Fen and the brothers. At least, until one of the oversized hornets attacking the brothers falls under my aggravation and starts flying to me at breakneck speed.
"Creature analyse!" I call out hurriedly.
Name: Mutant Hornet
Level: 85
Health: 634
Magic: 0
Stamina: 108
??
I understand exactly why players prefer to play the roles of a 'tank'. These bees are incredibly quick, to the point where it is simply pointless trying to compare with them in speed. The only way to properly fend off their attacks is to use a shield and block them as they strike.
With two hornets coming my way, I activate one of my own skills. Disappearing into smoke as two stingers pierce through me, I appear behind one of the wasps and land a critical hit with my blades, taking away the majority of its health. It is unfortunate, but the creature is too quick and flees before I can land any further blows on it.
As it backs away, Fen's rain of ice bolts comes down on all the hornets, narrowly missing them as they zig-zagged through the air.
"Everyone, they're not strong, but they're incredibly quick. Be careful!" I call out loud enough that everyone can clearly hear me.
Mason and Matrix follow the orders I gave them earlier, making sure they remain close to Shai'en to protect her from any danger. As such, Matrix becomes relatively useless in battle while the older of the two brothers is somewhat less useless with his bow.
"Mason, do you have a spare, low levelled bow?" I ask him while attempting to redirect one of the stingers attacking me, barely managing with a combination of my strength and dexterity.
"I do. Did you want it?" He responds while rapidly firing off arrows at my aggressors, each missing by only a hairs breath, but at least managing to open some distance between me and the hornets.
"No, I don't. Could you please give it to Shai'en along with some arrows? Also, make sure you don't kill the monsters, just bring them near death. That goes for you too, Fen."
The wolf girl is having no problems with her hornet. She has taken it outside of the range of my aggravation area and is easily fending off its high speed attacks with two short ice daggers in her hands. Being an AI with extremely high agility, she has no problem following and reacting to the giant insects strange movements.
I also activate my first sacred art, 'triple thrust', at an incoming hornet which manages to land just one of the thrusts on its body before it retreats and causes the other two attacks to miss. It is unfortunate that the insects move far too fast and don't allow me to move around much, preventing me from creating an afterimage to defer their attacks.
As soon as she receives the bow and some arrows, I tell her to attack the weaker enemies. It appears that my predictions are correct. Not just the elven guards back in the Eldenweiss Forest, but also Shai'en, has immeasurable accuracy with a bow. The arrows she launches, seem to almost predict where the hornet will be as they home in on the creatures.
Several arrows later, the level thirty companion successfully kills all three of the weakened level 85 Giant Hornets, gaining two full levels in the process.
"They seem to drop quite decent experience, but they are incredibly difficult to hunt." I say to myself as we all reform together.
"Indeed, they do." Mason nods his head in agreement, "I'm a little confused though. Why have Shai'en deal the finishing blow? The stronger we are, the easier this quest will be."
"Wrong. A part of this mission is to protect Shai'en." I speak as if she could not hear me. "The stronger she is, the harder it will be for her to die. This is what will make our quest easier."
Mason makes an "ahh" sound as he understands where I am coming from. Rather than making it easier for us to pass the quest, I am aiming at making it harder for us to fail. As things are right now, we simply have too much risk.
We spend the entire day in the fields of green and pink. A warm scent of pollen and bees replaced the morning freshness around noon when sun reached the apex of its journey through the sky. It was also around this time that the number of Giant Hornets, along with other various Mutated Wasps, and even a few Hive Mothers appeared.
The Hive Mothers were the most difficult to battle. They had an incredibly high health and would constantly send out either Giant Hornets or Mutated Wasps, depending on the breed of Hive Mother.
In the space of about four hours, we killed hundreds of various monster insects. Well, Shai'en killed them at least. The rest of us killed a few, but that was mostly by accident. The enemies definitely gave quite a lot of experience with each kill, but there was something odd going on with Shai'en's levelling speed.
Even with the high amount of experience the insects dropped, the elf gained levels at an incredibly frightening speed.
'Could this be some form of racial trait?' I wonder to myself.
In the period of a single day. Shai'en went from being level 30 to level 82, higher than anyone in the party could have possibly imagined.
We all sit around once the day ended and I cooked up a full meal based o
ff some ingredients I had stored away and some local wildlife. The meal was rather lively with the elf's incessant complaints about how eating red meat is wrong and Mason rebuffing her and trying to explain while it was good. In the end, she ended up only eating a few sparse vegetables and that was it.
"Well, let's call it a night, shall we?" I look around at everyone through the darkness. We don't have any torches and the moon is only half full, so fighting monsters in these conditions is unfavourable.
They all nod their head in agreement. Mason and Matrix pull out their sleeping bags, but the younger of the two brothers hand his over to the elf, telling her to use it as he will remain on watch tonight. At the same time I pull out my sleeping bag and have a sudden realization.
'I only have the one sleeping bag. I forgot to get one for Fen!'
Feeling slightly guilty, I offer her my sleeping bag but the girl refuses it and says it is for me to sleep in. She doesn't mention the fact that she will climb in there as soon as I am asleep anyway.
Feeling the end result is practically preordained, I voluntarily let her climb in just before I fall asleep. Of course, I turn and face my back to her as I doze off.
***************************************************
I wake up to a pair of arms wrapped tightly around me from behind.
'You are meant to sleep with your back to me, idiot.'
We all get up at relatively the same time, climbing out of our sleeping bags with half asleep expressions. The others must have woken up a little earlier than I did, considering the blushing faces they made at us.
"Cut it out. Geez, you guys." I laugh while shaking my head at them.
The journey from these fields of flowers to the northern forest takes up approximately a full week in real life to reach. At the end of the second day, in real life, I had finally spent enough time online for my player killer status to dissipate. I had only personally killed two swordsmen, but Fen had killed the third. As it turns out, anyone Fen kills counts as me killing them considering she is my 'Companion'.
I had a full thirty hours of time with the player killer status, ten hours per swordsmen. Fortunately, I didn't run into many high level players. Those that I did cross paths with stopped and looked at me with some consideration, but decided to pass on it upon seeing that I was in a party of five.