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VOLUME 1
Chapter 1: Altaria Island
Part 7
Soon, Eri and Jun arrived at the now-empty battlefield. The adventurers’ corpses had already disappeared, their equipment scattered throughout the ground.
“The monster sp.a.w.ns here. Make sure your equipment is ready and be on guard.”
“Hold on a sec. Don’t look this way.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Eri threw a rock that she had picked up, and Jun quietly shut his mouth.
She reequipped her battle armor. The rest of the guild made it to a safe place from which to watch the battle. Jun and Eri ignored them and started to walk away.
“Yesterday, you were pretending to be weak, right?”
“That’s just how I am.”
Jun sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re a veteran, right?”
“Not really. I’ve been going back and forth between MMOs for about three years.”
“The other guild members are pretty much just novices. Why don’t you lead them?”
“Leading people is a pain. Besides, I’m the youngest one here.”
This was what Jun felt uncomfortable about.
If one watched how somebody fought, it was very easy to differentiate somebody who was very skilled from someone who was still not quite there yet. In that guild, Eri was the only one who displayed such a level of expertise.
Unfortunately, healers were difficult to play well. Moreover, along with having to work especially hard as the sole healer, Eri had to juggle the well-beings of both the tank and the attackers.
“How old are you?”
“I’m in my third year of middle school.”
“Hmm&h.e.l.lip; Two years younger than me. I’m in my second year of high school.”
“Kasumi is also a second year high school student. Ms. s.h.i.+roko, our guild leader is a third year university student.”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble.”
“I had to pretend to be weak. I can use this opportunity to show them all my real ability.”
“Just that?”
“Well&h.e.l.lip;”
“Anyways, let’s see your skill in action!”
Soon, they reached the end of the forest and saw the pyramid.
Near the pyramid stood the Dread Sphinx, completely on alert. Its health had recovered all the way up to 80%.
“After that battle ended, its HP started to regenerate. Are you going to lure it anywhere?”
Leading the monster to a place that makes killing it as easy as possible was called “luring.”
“No, we can fight it here.”
“Okay~ I’ll buff you. Which ones do you want?”
Jun told her that he wanted HP, defense and attack speed increase buffs.
“Attack speed buffs&h.e.l.lip; huh. Of course.”
“Do you have any?”
“Of course not. I’m a white magician, so I wouldn’t have any offensive buffs.”
“I wish somebody would have told me that earlier.”
“Everybody tried to use their own cla.s.s’ abilities to the best of their ability. However, put to use, they really had very little skill, so that did not go very far. Because of that, I couldn’t use my own abilities to their full potential.”
“So that’s why you wanted to show them.”
“Yeah. I want them to know about my actual power. Because adventurers hardly come to this island from outside, and because we all started here, we really know next to nothing about the outside world.”
Start points in Sky World are scattered on approximately 50 or so islands on the eighth island ring. However, copies of the game run had the same start point as the original. Since it was advantageous to invite friends to play with, a lot of consideration was put into making sure that everybody ended up on the same start points. At the beginning, communities played only among themselves. Eventually, adventurers from different islands began intermingling. A negative aspect of this system was the lack of support for female gamers who were unaccustomed to MMORPGs, resulting in insular situations like that of the adventurers on this island.
After Eri finished buffing, Jun chanted “Wake Up.” His body became covered in light. His hair color changed from black to grey. When the light disappeared, Jun was wearing leather armor and wielding a large sword.
Standing on his own in front of the Dread Sphinx, he readied his heavy great-sword.
The Dread Sphinx glanced at Jun and slowly stood up.
“Beest thou the rightful successor of the Margrave of Gudonay?”
Jun swung his great-sword down towards his feet as a big lion monster rushed over.
The monster’s HP dropped significantly and its name changed colors from green to red.
The Dread Sphinx went into combat mode.
“How foolish. You’ll pay for that mistake with death.”
The raid level monster rushed towards Jun. Jun quickly got out of the way.
Back when Sky World was still just an MMORPG, battling on the front lines was fairly simple.
It just involved getting close to the monster. Players could simply attack randomly and make no effort to dodge. If they were lucky, and if their evasion attribute was sufficiently high, they could avoid taking damage.
Whichever side was still standing in the end would win the battle.
That system was very simple and repet.i.tive.
In fact, involving things like actual skill and cooperation would help to create a much more thrilling battle.
However&h.e.l.lip;
That only applied when Sky World was still just an MMORPG.
When Sky World became reality, everything changed. Enemies moved in real time and it became necessary for Jun and other adventurers to be cognizant of their situation and move or attack accordingly.
Even so, the automatic fighting system was still effective sometimes.
If your attack power was higher than your enemy’s, then the enemy could be defeated.
That support system was the best way for newbies to fight.
Actually, the front line of Eri’s guild all fought with automatic fighting. The automatic fighting system indicated that they could bring the Dread Sphinx’s HP down to 40%. Afterwards, if they could keep their DPS (damage per second) consistently high, it would have been possible to defeat the Dread Sphinx.
However, this was not just a matter of damage.
They did not read up on common techniques used by gamers.
“Really? You can avoid their attacks!?”
The girls who came along with Jun to watch the battle stood still in awe.
Even after hearing their chatter, Jun concentrated intensely on observing the Dread Sphinx’s movements.
The monster had huge muscles. It jumped and kicked. However, it was not fast enough to best Jun. It landed on the area where Jun had been standing a moment ago.
It let out a thunderous roar and the sand around it flew up.
“You’re still just dodging? Why!? If I remember correctly, you’re a light warrior, right?”
“Nope. I’m a magic swordsman. However, magic swordsmen are somewhat low on evasion&h.e.l.lip;”
That was obvious. Jun did not use the automatic battling system. He watched the Dread Sphinx’s movements and moved in accordance to them in order to dodge to the best of his ability.
The giant four legged monster chased after the running Jun. Then, when it finally took a break from attacking Jun, Jun dived under it. He took one swipe at it with his magic-enhanced great-sword, and ran away.
Its HP only went down by a bit.
The Dread Sphinx’s standard attack had four parts. He had already figured the first two parts out by watching the earlier battle with Eri and Kasumi’s guild.
After the third part, there was a long pause.
In addition to that standard attack pattern, there were also two other attack patterns. If one did not guard well, its fast spinning tail attack could deal a lot of damage.
Because of all of the dangers in this battle, Jun was very appreciative of Eri’s being there, even though she would be limited to casting weak healing spells in order to prevent the Dread Sphinx from targeting her.
“If it continues like this, we’ll win!” he thought, remaining calm.
Once he figured out the pattern in the Dread Sphinx’s movements, he’d be able to fight to the best of his ability. It was just like in shooting games or in action games. For gamers, understanding the process by concentrating and through previous experiences was the key to success.
So far, Jun managed to fight against the Dread Sphinx without getting hit.
Even his strongest attack could only take out 1% of its HP at once.
However, the Dread Sphinx could not recover its HP. Jun took this into account when he decided to challenge it.
“Hey~”
While casting a recovery spell, Eri smiled.
“If it healed, what would you do?”
“If that were the case, I would certainly have no chance.”
If the Dread Sphinx had recovery spells, he would have given up all hope. However, it could still be doable if he outlasted its mana .
“That was just a joke. Calm down.”
“Quit being facetious.”
As a matter of fact, Jun thought that such a trap would most likely not exist.
Sky World was an MMORPG. At least that was once the case. Thus, developers had once designed everything in Sky World, from monsters to ruins.
Jun could appreciate their ideas to some extent.
All gamers could appreciate game developers. Gamers moved around from place to place to explore their world designs. Jun was good at that.
After all, this was the eighth island ring. Developers would never place such devilish traps into the newbie zone.
Of course, it was possible that the developers of Sky World could have used this viewpoint to their advantage and created surprises.
However, Sky World’s developers did not seem like such evil people. That was only Jun’s stubborn intuition speaking, but his intuition was often right on the mark.
Earlier, Jun had watched the girls’ guild steadily whack away at the Dread Sphinx.
When they finally managed to get the Dread Sphinx down to 30% HP, its movements suddenly changed. Its eyes began to glow and its movements became sharper and sharper.
His intuition told him, correctly, that those changes were the direct result of its HP decreasing.
“I see&h.e.l.lip; Its attacks get stronger and stronger.”
Magic swordsmen, because of their extremely high attack power, typically had low defense. At best, they could only wear simple leather armor. Because of their inability to wear decent equipment and s.h.i.+elds, their defense power was even inferior to that of Eri, a white magician. Magic swordsmen were definitely not cut out for withstanding enemies’ attacks head on.
“Hm, this is unpleasant. Eri, heal me please!”
“That’s impossible. If I heal any more than I am now, the Dread Sphinx will target me. I’m really weak. I’ll die in just one shot.”
Eri shook her head heartlessly. She was correct. The healer’s well being always came first.
Trusting the front line battlers and not getting too much Enmity from the monsters were the most important things a healer should be able to do.
Either way, this was Jun’s battle.
“Guess that can’t be helped.”
Jun’s HP was at only a little bit more than 50%. His MP (the resource used to cast magic) was at 70%.
He had a trump card. Jun calmly a.s.sessed the situation and made a decision based on it.
He could avoid the Dread Sphinx’s attacks until it stopped attacking for a little while. Then, he could begin casting a spell. When it resumed its attacks, he could unleash the spell on it.
“Quick Stun!”
A white bullet shot out from the tip of his sword and was absorbed by the Dread Sphinx’s chest. It did zero damage. However, the Dread Sphinx’s stopped moving.
Unlike paralysis effects, stuns instantly stopped their target in its tracks. They were one of the few means by which magic swordsmen could defend. Even if it could only stop the enemy for one or two seconds, it could open up many options and even turn the tide of battles.
However, stuns were rarely usable against group level or raid level monsters.
His Enmity, the level of hatred a monster has for a character, was increasing at a rapid rate. Monsters targeted characters based on whoever had the highest Enmity. If attackers, low in defense, got targeted, the healer’s burden would increase immensely. However, since there was only one attacker, Jun, Eri was able to handle it.
“Heal, please!”
Eri, as expected, synchronized with Jun and let out healing incantation upon healing incantation. Jun’s HP recovered before his eyes. At the same time, Jun charged in for an attack. The Dread Sphinx’s health went down by a lot.
There were cheers among the onlookers.
While that was an appropriate time to use Quick Stun, Jun continued attacking without any pauses.
By the time he had started to slow down with his attacks, Jun’s MP had decreased significantly . Magic swordsmen did not have very high MP, and their Quick Stun spell used up a lot of it. He could not keep up this strategy for very long.
However, at that point, the Dread Sphinx’s HP only had 10% HP remaining.
If Jun’s MP had run out, the Dread Sphinx would have pounded on the ground and blinded Jun with the clouds of sand that would emerge from such an impact.
“Jun has defeated the Dread Sphinx” appeared in the corner of his eye, in the log window.
Cheers and exclamations of disbelief flooded the area.
“So you were able to do it.”
Eri smiled.
Jun, with a strained smile, was panting heavily.
“You did it! You won! You won!”
Kasumi, her face full of excitement and ecstasy, gave Jun a big hug.
“I’m so impreshed—impressed! Jun-san, you’re amazing! Wow!”
Kasumi stumbled verbally from the excitement.
“Yipes!”
They collapsed onto each other.
Jun, stuck under Kasumi, groaned. Kasumi had a sweet sweat-laced scent and her skin was soft. Her voluptuous b.r.e.a.s.t.s squashed Jun.
“&h.e.l.lip; I’m&h.e.l.lip; so sorry. Uh&h.e.l.lip; are you OK?”
“Uh, sure, yeah.”
Trying to push her aside, he realized that he felt powerless in his arms and legs. The stiff faced Jun thought that that situation could create a misunderstanding. Kasumi, all teared up in her eyes, shook his body, saying, “Are you OK?”
“Kasumiiiii. He can’t move his body, right?”
“Yeah! This is a big problem!”
In Sky World, light warriors were far stronger than high school students in real life. Kasumi picked up the still-unable-to-move Jun with her two hands.
“Wait up!”
Jun, being carried like a little baby by the skinny Kasumi, blushed and shook his head.
“Jun-san, please don’t move because I’m taking you to the bind point right now. Eri, can you cast some healing spells?”
“Okie. I’m happy we succeeded, Jun.”
“You seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“Of course. Either way, we have plenty of time to pick up the items. But, this is my first time taking out a raid level monster&h.e.l.lip;”
“The item pickup time limit for raid level monsters’ drops is 24 hours.”
“Well, please watch over him well.”
“Hm, let’s go, Jun-san.”
Jun, being held by a pointlessly enthusiastic Kasumi, was taken up to the top of the hill. On the way there, the girls from the guild squealed “Eek! Eek!”, but he tried as hard as he could to ignore them.
