by E A Hooper
Vincent looked away, mentally trying to wall off his emotions.
She’s not Monika. She’s not. I can’t let myself get attached to a virtual copy of her—not again. This is only the game messing with me. Maybe that’s part of this Challenge World. She’s a distraction to keep me from defeating the bosses. That must be it.
They silently continued their walk until they reached the northern hemisphere. Vincent could see the world’s stem reaching through the wall of clouds, but as they got closer a dense fog swept across the region, blocking his vision. Luckily, he’d grabbed a compass from storage, so he could follow it to the stem.
After walking for another hour, Vincent saw a flash of light in the distance, and then he heard the sound of thunder. “A storm?” he wondered.
“No, a boss,” Monika replied. “He won’t bother us if we don’t challenge him, though.”
This might be a good opportunity to check out the northern boss that I theorized would be the strongest of the four. Since I’m not worried about fighting on this trip, I could even use the extra mana for True Scan and get as many details about him as possible.
Vincent steered their path in that direction, even as more flashes of electricity lit up the fog. The lightning and thunder increased in frequency while they approached the silhouettes of objects jutting out from cracks in the petal. Through the fog, Vincent saw towering rocks of an unknown material, each covered in runes. A giant in Viking armor stood between the towers, striking a hammer against a red-hot sword placed upon a massive anvil of basteel. The giant’s protruding, shark-like face remained fixated on the hammer as the two humans slowly approached. On his head, the giant wore a helm with antlers.
Vincent studied the complex runes on the towering rocks, and then the ones on the giant’s hammer. “Wow,” he said, watching lightning surge from the runes of one rock. “I’ve studied many kinds of forging runes, but I’ve never seen anything like these before. They’re not sophisticated by any means, but there’s a raw power to them. If you didn’t have perfect control over the huge surge of frequencies coming off these things, you’d probably vaporize yourself in an instant.”
“Uh, Vincent,” Monika said. “I think he heard you.”
Vincent’s head jerked toward the giant, finding one of his creepy eyes locked on him.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you!” Vincent told him.
The giant grunted.
Nodric wants to know if you’re here to challenge him or to forge? (Challenge/Forge)
“Neither, we’re only passing through,” Vincent replied.
Nodric went back to hammering the sword, creating more flashes of lightning as he did.
The two humans backed away as electricity flew between Nodric and the stones, but Vincent used True Scan to find out the boss’s defenses.
Nodric the Northern Noble (Exotic Boss) – Death Triggers: Brain (if 20% damaged), Heart (if 25% damaged), Blood (if 30% lost), Full Body Total (if 20% damaged), Lifeforce (if 100% lost). Forcefield 1 Rating: 300 | Forcefield 2 Rating: 400 | Forcefield 3 Rating: 500 | Forcefield 4 Rating: 600 | Forcefield 5 Rating: 700 | Electrified Forcefield 1 Rating: 300 | Electrified Forcefield 2 Rating: 500 | Electrified Forcefield 3 Rating: 700 | Bone Rating: 600 Total (400 Material | 200 Density) | Magical Protection: 300 (all other body parts) | Armor Rating: 500 | Chainmail Rating: 700 | Resistance: Breaker (70% less effective), Physical Attacks (60% less effective), Lightning Immunity, All other elements (30% less effective). | Weakness: Mana (10% more effective).
“What the hell,” Vincent said, staring wide-eyed at the text. “This dude’s defenses are ridiculous. Who even needs that many layers of forcefields?”
Monika shrugged in response, and then they continued north through the fog. The petal seemed to curve uphill, and soon they spotted the divide between the petals and the stem. Monika hurried to a large burl the size of a house, and she looked around it for signs of sap.
“I can usually find the sap in crevices or around burls, especially near the divide between the petals and the stem,” she explained. “Although, it’s possible some is leaking higher up. Maybe we should split up and check. I’d rather not risk going near the angel again, but maybe you could climb up higher.”
“Okay, but I don’t want to leave you by yourself too long,” Vincent said. He equipped his Specter’s Pendant, a soulbound item he’d received from defeating Fayros decades ago, and used its once-a-day ability to summon a ghostly knight or five minutes. “Keep watch over her. I’ll try to be back around the time you disappear.”
The specter nodded in reply.
Vincent hurried up the stem. He couldn’t tell how high he was walking because of the fog, but he could feel gravity shifting as he crossed burls and valleys along the stem. While he journeyed, he tried to spot anything that might look like sap. After hurrying around several large crevices and finding nothing, he continued higher into the clouds, then finally passed through one.
When he looked ahead, Vincent finally discovered the clearest view of the World-Tree he’d had since arriving at the Challenge World. His eyes studied the branches until he finally spotted a group of worlds that looked familiar. He might’ve second-guessed himself if it weren’t for the tiny red marble that was a dead giveaway, even from such a far distance.
That’s Lavrin, he realized. So that greenish one near it is Cryasal. It looks like I’m quite a bit higher than those worlds, however. It might be too much of a long shot, no matter how many Jump Crystals I use. There should be one more City-World higher than Cryasal. It’s supposedly guarded by an army of angels, but if it’s closer than Lavrin, I’d have a better chance of jumping to it.
Vincent studied the worlds that looked higher than Cryasal. When he peered toward the highest parts of the World-Tree, past hundreds of other worlds, he saw that there were glowing, swirling clouds blocking his view of the final world.
Holy crap. Am I really that close to the end? I don’t see another city between there and Cryasal, but it’s too hard to tell. My best bet might be to put a Jump Gate at the top of this world, so it’ll view a wide range. Maybe it’ll hit Cryasal or that other City-World. If not, then surely it’ll reach a Jump Gate on some random wo—
Vincent froze when he spotted the figure floating above the world’s stem.
The woman wore a mask as pearly white as her long hair. Her wings were outstretched, looking longer than he’d expected from the angel. Unlike Pidge the Fallen, this angel had slightly more human proportions, including an hourglass body covered in mithril armor. A dense aura of world magic encircled her from head to toe, culminating in an intense halo above her head. Her power was so great that he could feel a heavy pressure on his body as she came closer.
The angel’s beauty and tremendously powerful aura captivated Vincent, but as she slowly floated downward, there was something he noticed about her that made his muscles tense in fear: her red lips were fixed into an unnerving smile. He couldn’t quite figure out why the smile bothered him, but there was something subtly inhuman about it.
Vincent tried to True Scan the angel, but it failed as white light flickered over her body.
Her world magic is so dense that True Scan can’t even penetrate it, he realized, trying the normal Scan to see if that would work.
Rosaria the Brutal (??? Boss) – Monster Class: S+ | Ageless | Sex: Female | Respawn Time: ??? | Personality: Cruel
“There’s no way,” Vincent said, his mouth hanging agape for a moment. “S-Plus? You’re S-Plus?” He recalled the game’s monster categories, which listed S-Plus as Impossibly Dangerous.
Rosaria outstretched her arms, and her smile appeared to grow even larger—so large it looked clearly inhuman.
Rosaria wants to know if you’re trying to leave this world? (Yes/No)
“N-no,” Vincent replied. “I’m just looking for world sap—it’s for a quest.”
The angel’s head twisted sideways.
Rosaria demands to know why you’re trying
to build a Jump Gate? (Because you’re trying to leave/Because you’re a liar)
Vincent paused, unsure of how to answer. He caught sight of the muscles in Rosaria’s fingers tensing under the skin, almost like she might be about to make a move. Before the angel could act, Vincent cast Zero Field and launched himself backward through the fog. He could hear the angel laughing in a mocking tone as he sped away at superhuman speed. His heart continued to race even after he landed on the ground and took off in a sprint. Eventually, he made it through the fog and backtracked to where the petals met the stem. After minutes of searching, he finally found Monika crouched over a crevice with a jar half-filled with glowing sap.
“My Specter already disappeared?” he asked, noticing it was gone.
“It vanished just a few moments ago,” she replied. Monika must’ve noticed the tension and fear on his face, and she gave a worried look. “Is everything okay?”
“I think so,” he said, his heart still pounding in his chest. “I saw that angel you told me about. It seemed like she was about to attack me, so I hurried away.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t try to fight her.”
“That would’ve been suicide. Her aura alone felt like it was suffocating me. Besides, she completely outclasses the bosses here, and I’m struggling enough with them as it is.”
Monika nodded, and then crouched to collect more sap. “Well, help me with this. I don’t want to stay too close to that angel any longer than I have to.”
Vincent approached, placed several jars on the ground, and then used Zero Field to fill them with world sap. While he worked, the image of Rosaria stayed clear in his mind.
If there’s one thing I’ve realized about this game’s monster classifications, it’s that the range on each class gets bigger with each rank. There was a small difference in power between the lowest D rank and the highest. A larger gap in the bottom and top of C. B has a pretty big span of power, but A’s range is huge. It’d still take me some effort to solo an A-Plus monster, so the bosses on this world are probably on the lower end of S-Class. That means Rosaria is likely stronger than all of them combined.
They finished filling the jars, and Monika collected them all.
“Let’s hurry back to the Garden and spread this sap around,” she said. “Then the Garden will be able to recover.”
Vincent nodded in agreement, but as they headed south he couldn’t help but glance back into the fog, hoping to catch a glimpse of the angel. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get her inhuman smile out of his mind.
Chapter 4
After returning to the Garden, they split up the jars of world sap to spread across the area. Monika started off pouring some into the lake and onto the nearby flowers, and Vincent headed to the densest group of trees. Whenever the sap touched any plant life, the florae seemed to spring to life. Flowers grew in seconds, and trees blossomed if the sap came anywhere near their root systems.
Vincent walked back to the lake, finding Monika sitting beside empty jars. Multicolored foxes had come out of the woods to lick the jars clean, and the woman smiled as she patted them on their heads one by one.
Vincent watched Monika play with one of the smaller foxes. “So, is the quest finished?” he asked her.
“No, I have one more jar of world sap,” Monika replied, suddenly looking nervous. “However, I was hesitant about going where I need to take it. Behind the house, there’s a tunnel connected to a nest of thralls—the monsters that will inhabit this world if it ever blossoms.”
“If you give me the jar, I’ll wipe out the thralls and spread the sap down there,” Vincent replied.
“No, no!” Monika said, reacting with fear. “You can’t kill the thralls. Their population is so low that slaying even a few might lead to their extinction. Besides, they mostly hibernate unless they’re breeding in the nests. They shouldn’t be dangerous—they just spook me a little.”
“Okay, I’ll take the jar down there, but I won’t kill any thralls. I promise.”
Monika’s face still held a frown. “The sap has to be released at a very specific place. I’ll have to go with you.”
Even though Vincent knew she’d probably respawn, the thought of watching his wife get torn to pieces by monsters made him nervous. “I’d really prefer to go alone. Can’t you give me instructions?”
“You don’t have to worry about my safety. I’ve been down there before.”
Monika walked toward the house, and Vincent followed.
“And you’re sure it’s safe?” he asked. “The thralls have never attacked you before?”
“They’ve clawed at me once or twice while they were sleepwalking, but that’s it,” she replied.
“They sleepwalk?”
“This world has been on the verge of blossoming for millennia, so it’s only natural the slumbering monsters would get fidgety. They likely dream about conquering this world.”
Monika led Vincent around the house, and then they continued toward a well with a rope hanging down it. “The entrance to their cavern is just above the water,” Monika explained. “Normally I’d use the rope, but maybe you could take us with your levitation power.”
“Sure,” Vincent said, lifting them both off their feet with Zero Field. The well was just wide enough that he could send them both down side by side. They descended slowly, and he formed a ball of mana to light their way. Vincent had only expected the well to descend a dozen meters or so, but they floated downward for almost half a minute before he saw water. Just above the surface, Vincent spotted a hole in the stonework that a person could squeeze through.
“That’s a pretty far climb,” Vincent said, glancing at the exit far above. “You must be stronger than you look.”
Monika smiled at him. “No, there’s a pulley system connected to the bucket,” she replied. “I use it like a little platform to move myself up and down. It takes me a long time, and I usually need several breaks along the way.”
Vincent climbed through the gap in the wall first, finding himself in a narrow passage. Once Monika came through, he released his spell, placing her gently on the ground. He held up his mana ball, but he couldn’t see very far into the passage.
“I can barely see a thing,” Vincent said.
“Here, let me help.” Monika opened her palm, casting Clarity, a spell that let them see through the darkness for a short range.
“Oh, you’re a Cleric?” Vincent asked in surprise.
“I guess so?” she said, her voice full of uncertainty. “I just woke up one day and could use a few simple spells. Nothing as interesting as your power, unfortunately.”
Vincent walked through the passage with Monika close behind him. She seemed nervous and held on to his coat as they followed the downward path. The tunnel continued with a slight left turn, and Vincent suspected it was making a long spiral around the well.
After several minutes of walking, the cavern finally seemed to open into a wider area. To his left, Vincent saw that one passage descended into a large pool of water that he assumed connected to the well. The tunnels on the right looked so narrow he would’ve had to turn sideways to move through them, but they continued beyond the range of Clarity. Up ahead, he saw the open cavern descend with several short drop-offs, each about a meter high.
Monika went ahead as Vincent looked around, and she slid off the drops. Vincent followed and jumped down them with ease. Clarity revealed more of the cavern ahead, and he finally noticed the silhouettes of creatures standing in the cavern.
The gray creatures stood about seven feet tall and had withered yet humanoid-looking bodies. Most had their long arms wrapped around their bodies, and they seemed to be almost twisted with their heads, torso, and legs rarely facing the same way. A lot of them had one arm wrapped over their faces, but a few did not, letting Vincent see their ugly, warped expressions. The slumbering monsters twitched, but their eyes always remained shut.
They’re almost human shaped, but not quite, he thought
, staring at one as he approached it. They don’t look too strong, but I ought to check.
He Scanned the nearest one.
Gray Thrall Huntress – Monster Class: B | Age: 1025 | Sex: Female | Number of Offspring: 2 | Personality: Vicious
These things are B-Class? I wonder if they have powerful magic, or maybe they’re just unusually fast and strong.
“Follow me,” Monika whispered to get his attention.
Vincent walked in that direction, but then one of the thralls grabbed his arm. His entire body tensed, ready to fight, but he realized the creature’s eyes were still closed. Its head twitched as if it was having a nightmare. Vincent tried to pull his arm away, though he found the creature to be far stronger than it appeared. Its body must’ve weighed over a ton because he barely budged it as he pulled his arm.
“Hold still,” Monika whispered. “It’ll let go in a second.”
That means these things have very dense bodies, he realized. My void attacks wouldn’t be nearly as effective on them as other monsters.
The thrall finally released him, but as it did its long claws slid across his skin, leaving minor scratch marks.
“You okay?” Monika asked as he approached.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he whispered in reply. “So, is this where we place the world sap?”
Monika shook her head. “It’s even deeper underground. It’s really too bad we can’t just dig straight down to it.”
“Well, my tome could let me do that, but I don’t want to waste any of my Builder Points,” Vincent replied.
“Are you sure? Can’t you spend a little to dig to the next floor? If you could cut me a path, it would help me so much after you’re gone. I’m always afraid to come down here.”
Monika flashed a sad expression, but Vincent looked away.
“Sorry,” he replied. “Maybe if I have extra points left over after building the Jump Gate, I’ll come back and make you a tunnel.”