by John Nest
“Well, it’s not like what I did was a sure thing,” explained Seth, hesitant.
“Who cares? At least we’re getting somewhere now!” said Nash. “We need to pester them to do their job.”
“Nash, let’s calm down a bit,” gently said Sherry. “Don’t you think pestering someone is a bit counter intuitive?”
“Actually, I’m with her on this,” added Seth. “Let’s just give them a couple of days and see what the Detectives will come up with?”
“Fine!” said Nash. He then turned to Sherry with a sour expression. “Sorry to cut this short, but I just remembered that I have something important to do in Zectas.”
“What? Right now?” asked Sherry, surprised. “Can’t it wait a couple more minutes?”
“I thought it could, but I just realized that I could fail my quest if I don’t return immediately,” he said.
“I see,” said Sherry, disheartened. “Well, guess you better get back in then.”
“Alright, I’ll send you a message once my quest is done,” said Nash passively and went inside his game pod, sealing the lid fast.
Seth turned to Sherry and asked. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. “I mean, not really. Who wants their boyfriend to be like that? But at least he’s pissed at me now rather than feeling guilty about Mima.”
* * * * * *
Smoke returned to the realm of Zectas, pissed. He did not even notice Daga and Igniz’s training. The dark ember sprite fired a torrent of fireballs at the little gray mouse, which she easily dodged.
“What does she know!” yelled out Smoke to the heavens. “Who does she think she is, giving me advice on what to do about Mima.”
“Look who’s back,” squeaked Daga. “Hey! You’d have to yell a lot louder than that if you want the wyverns to hear us.”
“Oh, shut up!” screamed Smoke and launched an earth-pillar at his Beggar Shade.
Daga easily dodged it and charged right for him. Smoke launched eight more earth-pillars, but none of them made contact with the little gray mouse.
Then, Daga suddenly lets out a burst of speed. She transformed into her human form and punched him squarely in the jaw, knocking Smoke back.
“How did you do that?” asked Smoke, impressed.
“What do you mean? I just punched you right in the face,” said Daga.
“No, I mean how did you move without me sensing you?” explained Smoke. “My Cunning of the Dire Fox usually senses all forms of melee attacks.”
“Ah, that’s because of my Silent Mouse ability,” said Daga. “Only cat-like sensory abilities like the ones that the sand cheetahs and swamp jaguars have can sense me.”
“I think I can use you against the wyverns after all,” said Smoke. Using his Earth Manipulation, he then created a life-size sculpture of the wyvern.
“We still have a couple of hours before Chrys and the other Sonstwelters arrive,” began Smoke. “Let’s use this time well.”
Smoke gave Igniz instructions on how to attack Daga and together they assaulted her with earth-pillars and fireballs. Her objective was to reach the wyvern sculpture.
They spent the time waiting for Chrysopelea training, only stopping to rest and eat before resuming on the tiresome regimen.
Of course, Smoke logged out to get in his scheduled power nap in the real world but did nothing else there during that time. He quickly went back into Zectas after his required slumber.
Finally, after twenty-six hours of training, Chrysopelea and the other Sonstwelters arrived.
They came in droves of war-carriages, being pulled by dirus wolves and driven by Lioumerean Pathfinders.
Smoke was easy to spot as there was a life-size sculpture of a wyvern near their encampment.
“Hey, what’s up with the wyvern statue?” greeted Chrysopelea. “And why did you want us to come meet you here in the middle of nowhere?”
Most of Chrysopelea’s party members gathered around the sculpture and inspected it. Only three of them walked together with him to meet with Smoke.
“I’ll tell you all about that later,” replied Smoke, disguised in his Faux persona. “Why don’t you tell me about your trip to the Thanotl Kingdom first?”
“Well, because of my Duke title I was able to have an audience with the King of Thanotl,” began Chrysopelea. “Let me tell you right now, he’s a lot better to talk to than King Kajou.”
“What? No nose hair?” joked Smoke.
“Exactly!” replied Chrysopelea, laughing. “Anyway, they also have a group of Sonstwelters leading their army.”
“And when are we suppose to have this joint attack?” asked Smoke.
“Well, they’re still gathering more intelligence on the Orks,” explained Chrysopelea. “But they say that they’ve already confirmed the OlegHai have joined with the UrukHai and the MoriHai.”
“So, they only lack the MaduHai tribe, huh?” said Smoke.
“Yeah, and I think they would be a powerful threat,” added Chrysopelea. “Since most of those MaduHai Orks know healing and offensive magic.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” said Smoke. “Maybe the MaduHai won’t join the rest of the Orks.”
“Who knows?” said Chrysopelea. “Anyway, we’re still waiting on the intelligence report before we could finalize anything.”
Chrysopelea then pointed back to the wyvern statue. “So, ready to tell me what’s the deal with that?”
Smoke chuckled. “I was kind of hoping that you and your friends can help me get rid of a couple of wyverns.”
“Wyverns? Did he just say wyverns?” asked one of the Sonstwelters behind Chrysopelea. “Isn’t that the monsters that wiped out most of the DracoRicco’s guild members?”
“That’s right, that’s the monster that ended thousands of their members on their great expedition to the eastern lands,” added another Sonstwelter. “Why is there a wyvern here?”
“Wyverns aren’t exclusive to one continent you idiots,” said an older looking Sonstwelter. “The name’s Clint, nice to finally meet you in person, Faux,” he said, offering his hand to Smoke.
“Nice to meet you too, Clint,” said Smoke, shaking his hand in return. He then turned to Chrysopelea and asked. “I thought you had around five hundred men with you? I’m sure there’s less than that here.”
“Oh, about that,” began Chrysopelea. “Most of them wanted to stay and explore the Thanotl Kingdom. They just came along for the free ride against monsters. You know, since paying for a teleportation to another kingdom costs a fortune.”
“So, how many of them are left here?” asked Smoke.
“There are two hundred thirty-four of us left,” said Clint, answering in Chrysopelea’s behalf.
“By the way, this is my Uncle,” said Chrysopelea to Smoke.
“You have an in-game Uncle?” asked Smoke, confused. “What are the effects in that? I only heard about the benefits you get from being married but I never heard about this before.”
Chrysopelea chuckled. “No, I mean he’s my Uncle in real life.”
“Chrys, stop telling people that,” said Clint.
“Why? It’s the truth,” said Chrys.
“Anyway, why don’t you tell us more about this wyvern of yours,” Clint said to Smoke.
“Right,” said Smoke. “Well, there are two of them and they have this Ponderous Mist that increases your weight by ten times.”
“Wait, two wyverns?” said the freaked out Sonstwelter.
“Yeah, I’m sure we can handle it,” said Smoke. “How many melee fighters do you have?”
“Fifty?” replied Chrysopelea, uncertain.
“That low, huh,” said Smoke, remembering how the Vitzytl Kingdom was mostly composed of Mages.
“Anyway, why don’t you tell me the exact number of people we have,” said Smoke to Chrysopelea.
One by one, Smoke accounted for the Sonstwelters Chrysopelea had brought with him.
Although he was only speaking directly
to Chrysopelea, he just realized that this was the first time he had been with this many Sonstwelters outside of his guild. Since during the defense of the Vitzytl Kingdom he was assigned to be the leader of the Automaton Knights.
After discussing the general plan against the wyverns, Smoke said to Chrysopelea. “Let me fix us all a meal first before we discuss with the rest of the members about our attack plan.”
As he practiced with the Zectians, Smoke cooked food for all of the Sonstwelter members of his party. He knew that it would not raise any Intimacy stat with them, but he thought to do it anyway since he knew that people with filled stomachs were prone to listen more and have broader thinking. This wisdom was taught to him in the real world by his grandmother.
He cooked them a simple sand cheetah stew with five bottles of pompom juice added to the broth. The effects of the stew gave an increased MP recovery for the next hour.
As these were Sonstwelter Adventurers, all of them had their own bowls with them.
Smoke asked for help distributing his stew, which each Sonstwelter finished with gusto.
“This is amazing! Why did Chrys didn’t feed us this when we’re still headed to the Thanotl Kingdom?”
Smoke heard one of them say after slurping down her first spoonful.
“It even has an increased MP recovery effect! Maybe, Chrys saved it for the trip home?”
He heard another Sonstwelter exclaim.
“I’ve never had any meal taste this good outside of a restaurant before!”
Praises of different kinds came pouring down. Smoke felt proud and happy. For a fleeting moment, he completely forgot that his Mima was missing. Instead, he only remembered the happy times and the life lessons she gave him.
After everyone was fed, Smoke and Chrysopelea stood in front of the crowd of Sonstwelters.
“Everyone, I would like you all to meet Faux,” began Chrysopelea. “In case you don’t know yet, he is the first runner up of the Magi Gagnant Tournament and lost only to Prime Wizard Ouragan.”
Half the crowd gave Smoke a respectful clap.
“He is also one of the leaders in the defense against the Ork invasion on Votl City,” added Chrysopelea
Again, the same Sonstwelters gave him a passive applause.
“And he is also the one responsible for our delicious meal today!” explained Chrysopelea.
At once, all of the Sonstwelters clapped loudly. They cheered and some of them even stood up to shake Smoke’s hand.
“Please, please, it was nothing,” said Smoke. “But that meal was just a precursor to what we’re going to do next.”
The crowd fell silent, all of them waiting to hear what Smoke had to say.
“We’re going wyvern hunting!”
“Yeah!”
“Let’s do it!”
“Woohooo!”
With the Sonstwelters all in high spirits, Smoke began to tell them of his plan against the wyverns.
* * * * * *
Smoke together with Chrysopelea and the other Sonstwelters stood outside the smoggy entrance of the Ork Outpost.
“Hey, Faux, you didn’t say this was an Ork Outpost,” said Chrysopelea to Smoke. “And there’s even a swamp right next to it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” replied Smoke. “It’s deserted. Besides, the loot and experience we’ll get from these wyverns should be useful against our upcoming war with the Orks.”
Smoke had not completely divulged all of the information regarding his Quest under the MaduHai Ork High Priestess. Not because he did not trust him, but simply because it would complicate things.
With the Ork Outpost issue over with, Smoke and Chrysopelea began the final review of their attack.
He had divided the two hundred thirty-four Sonstwelters into two groups. With him leading one of them and Chrysopelea the other.
Chrysopelea flew overhead and the rest of his group scattered around the Outpost. Most of his members were composed of Aero Magi. When he was directly above the smog, Chrysopelea began creating a strong circular wind, reinforced by the other Aero Magi from the sides. Together, they created a powerful tornado that cleared out the Ponderous Mist.
“Now!” shouted Smoke, leading the charge into the Ork Outpost.
The two wyverns were surprised and blankly looked up at the clear sky, bewildered where their heavy smog had gone.
Each wyvern faced twenty-five Knights. Their shields smashed up against their scaly skins, but their stunning attacks proved to be ineffective.
Instead, many of the Knights were skewered by the sharp bones of the one wyvern whose tail remained intact.
“Aim for their heads!” screamed Smoke, raising his hands and created a magma-arch around the wyvern with the sharp bony tail. He quickly forced the monster down.
The Knights near the fallen wyvern hurriedly bashed their shields into the monster’s head. Sadly, their attacks were not well organized and many of their stuns overlapped one another.
Thankfully, Chrysopelea followed Smoke’s lead. He created a powerful gust of downward wind and forced the head of the second wyvern to the ground.
Noticing this, Smoke locked another magma-arch around the second wyvern’s neck, trapping the draconic monster to the ground.
Yet, the wyverns would not go down without a fight. The monsters opened their mouths wide and let out another smog of Ponderous Mist.
As the Sonstwelters near the wyverns fell victim to their cumbersome fog, they were sent flying to the wooden walls of the outpost instead. Whereas, the ones near the tails got whiplashed.
As most of them were Magi below level 100, their life bars were less than 200,000 HP. Many of them died in a single attack from the monster, their bodies began to fade out of existence as they were forcibly logged out of Zectas.
“Stay back!” yelled Chrysopelea. “Use your long range attacks,” he added, sending another powerful gust of wind to clear the smog away.
With that, the Magi unleashed a fury of earth, wind, fire, and water attacks on the trapped wyverns.
However, Smoke remained close to the two wyverns. He needed to begin to seal the wyverns movements. He went for the tails, locking them down with more magma-arches, shackling them to the ground. As he was doing so, he noticed a part of the Outpost remained to emit the gray smog. Upon closer inspection, he found a nest filled with four wyvern eggs in them. He could not explain why he did it, but the next thing he knew, he dug a tunnel under the nest, sliding it softly to the ground and sealed the entrance.
When Smoke turned around, he found the wyverns bombarded by spells and swords. Yet, the monsters’ life bars still remained well over 75% of their maximum capacity.
‘It must be because of their thick scaly hides,’ surmised Smoke.
Now, with Chrysopelea and the rest of the Sonstwelters continuing to bash the wyverns in, Smoke was assured that they would probably finish off the wyverns in the next thirty minutes or so.
However, Smoke wanted to finish these monsters sooner. “Daga, get ready,” he whispered into his chest. He then let out an earth-pipe from the bottom of his feet, directly into one of the wyverns’ ears.
His Beggar Shade quickly traveled through the insides of the earth-pipe and entered the wyvern’s ear. From inside, Daga began slashing and biting the wyvern’s ear drum.
The Sonstwelters outside were taken aback, surprised by the sudden increase of damage on the monster’s life bar.
After seeing Smoke’s last earth-pipe attack, Chrysopelea yelled out. “Attack the ears!”
However, the damage on their wyvern’s life bar remained the same.
As the life bar of Smoke’s wyvern began to reach 10%, Daga ran back towards the earth-pipe and hid inside Smoke’s chest pocket.
Desperate, the two wyverns wildly shook their bodies and loosened the hold of Smoke’s magma-arches.
Smoke managed to reinforce the wyvern he was facing, but the other wyvern completely broke off all of its shackles.
Freed, the monster w
hipped its tails and killed half of Chrysopelea’s team members.
With their tattered shields on hand, only the Knights who were struck remained to stand, while the rest of the targeted Magi on the ground began to fade out of Zectas. Clint, Chrysopelea’s uncle also died during that last wyvern attack.
“Faux! We need your help!” yelled Chrysopelea from above, forcing another powerful gale to push the wyvern down.
Yet, the wyvern Smoke had trapped let out a death shrill, which made the other wyvern escape Chrysopelea’s wind attack.
The freed wyvern went for the place where the nest was but found nothing there.
Finally, Smoke and his team members delivered the final blow on their wyvern and killed it.
The half-dead wyvern looked at the scene below and let out another round of Ponderous Mist.
The heavy smog fell down on Chrysopelea, preventing him from casting the dispelling tornado.
Fortuitously, the other Aero Magi escaped and began to dispell the Ponderous Mist from the sides. When they cleared the smog, Smoke and everyone else found that the wyvern had already flown some distance to the horizon.
“Should we go after it?” asked Chrysopelea from above.
“No! Only you and I can fly and it would take a while before the rest of our members could get to it,” replied Smoke from the ground.
The surviving members could care less what Smoke and Chrysopelea were discussing. They were mesmerized by the dropped loot of the slain wyvern.
Rare swords, shields, armors for many Jobs were scattered on the Ork Outpost grounds.
“Now, why would a wyvern drop this kind of loot?” asked one of the Sonstwelters happily collecting a rare sword from the ground.
“Maybe it used to belong to the ones who attacked it before?” suggested Chrysopelea. “We should gather some of this loot and give them to the ones who died,” he added out loud.
The rest of the party members ignored him. Instead, they proceeded to loot the horde of items on the ground.
Smoke turned to face the looting Sonstwelters. Less than half of them remained, and most of them belonged to Smoke’s team.
“They can have my share!” yelled out Smoke. “It’s only fair. I already got a ton of experience from slaying the wyvern.”