Jumping towards Mike, Roko waved his serrated sword around him, keeping Mike back for a moment. He didn’t want to get stabbed by the Roko’s swords, mostly because he saw the edges were rusted. The thought of getting tinnitus wasn’t on his wish list right now.

Their swords clashed with vigor, putting them in a stalemate. Mike made every effort to keep from getting sliced. It wasn’t easy, mostly because Roko wasn’t a simple pushover.

Roko’s muscle bulged, snarling at Mike, wanting to take a bite out of his face a few times. Mike could also feel it's disgusting hot breath spilling over towards his face, making it a very smelly fight. Trying to not inhale its bad breath was difficult, especially because every sharp inhale had an awful stench of rotten teeth and fish. He was running out of breath, making it a bit of a sluggish fight.

“Mike, what are you doing?” Dairen was pushing back the other goblins that were coming in droves. “Why are there so many?!” He was getting irritated by the sheer number of goblins that seemed to crawl out of nowhere.

“Oh, shut up. Why don’t you come here and smell its bad breath every time it breathes on your face.” Mike seethed, his eyes were watering, He wanted to kill these monsters so bad that his own reaction speed was getting stronger and stronger.

Two of Dairen’s skeletal minions appeared from behind Roko, trying to stab him.  Roko snapped, turning around and quickly dispatched the monsters in one swing.

“At least get your minions leveled up!” Mike yelled back. He took this chance to lunge in on a strike that barely missed the side of its ribcage.

“Thunker strike!” Mike shouted without much thought. Static electricity dashed across his arm, powering his very core and exciting his magical power. It got stronger and stronger to the point where he thought he would overexpanded himself. The black clouds rigorously answered with a bit too much excitement and gave him not one, but multiple rain of electric thunder.

Everywhere, the thunderstorm dazzled in its own little light show. The Thunderstrike smashed all around Roko with ecstasy, becoming more rabid and wild than before. Even the main thunderstrike that hit against Roko char him into charcoal. A puff of smoke erupted out of Roko’s lips, unable to move but stand in place.

“That’s more like it,” Mike smirked at his good fortune. He was surprised that he had that much juice in him to kill a named monster so easily.

Mike gazed at his hand, trying to figure out where all that magical energy came from. He felt a tingling in his arm, telling him that the air around him still was conducted with electricity. Looking for an answer, his gaze around, trying to figure out the solutions.

When he finally felt the source of energy, he glanced up. Not too far away, Mike was able to see a black pool of thunderstorms, growing even more hectic. He even heard a strange chanting in some gibberish of a language that he didn’t understand, but each word was filled with magic.

“I feel a powerful source of magic up there,” Mike shouted to Dairen, pointing up towards the roof.

“Up there? Not inside the pirate ship?”

“Yea. I’m going to go up there first.” Mike looked for a way up. The only thing he could find was a rope that led straight up towards the top of the pirate ship. He ran over, grabbing the rope with both hands, and began to scale upwards.

The thought of getting whatever it was excited him, a simmer of greed started to flow in his heart.

Mike scaled the rope, making it to the top. He pulled himself up, getting situated underneath the rails, where he was able to hide himself from getting spotted.

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The wildly chanting of the goblin mages were dancing and chanting their magic around a black orb. If he looked closely, he could see the orb containing a small thunderstorm inside.

Was this the orb that Snow was talking about? Because he could feel the powerful energy coming from the orb itself, this was what he wanted.

“You know I can see your greed spilling out from you,” Dairen whispered next to him.

Mike jumped in surprise, almost falling off from the side. Dairen and one of his skeletons

grabbed him to stop him from falling.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Mike said. For a second he thought he peed his pants a little. He breathed in a sigh of relief. “I thought you were down on the deck.”

“I knew you were going to try something stupid, and I came to help.”

“Stupid?” Mike gave Dairen a funny expression that told him that he does no such things. “Do you see me as that type of person? I’m your captain.”

“Captain, out of all of us in the guild, you have three weaknesses.” Dairen brought up his fingers for Mike to see. “Girls, greed, and your rash actions that lead to trouble.”

Mike dryly laughed. He felt exposed to the prying eye of Dairen that read his very soul. They weren’t really his weakness, but more say his carnal desires. He had a good reason for it, and that’s what he wanted to believe in himself for.

“I don’t know how you became a hero with these three things.” Dairen sighed, placing his hand on his shoulder and gripping it slightly too tightly for Mike’s comfort. “Are you even a hero, or was it a lie?”

“Well, you know. Hero is an occupation.”

“No, a hero is a person who is admired or idealized for their courage, heroic achievements, or noble qualities. Out of all of these things, you have two out of three qualities, while the third one you need some work on.”

Mike snorted, “I have all those qualities. You just don’t pay attention hard enough.”

Dairen let his shoulder go and brushed off the lint on his shoulder. “Sometimes, you do. Let’s not jump without thinking of what to do next.”

“You got a plan?” Mike asked, wondering what Dairen had in mind. A creeping smile erupted on his lips as his eyes brightened. He knew that Dairen was a cunning type, more things were running in his mind that normal people would not have thought of in such stressful situations.

Most of the newer recruited Players were a lot more inexperienced and got into trouble. While Mike personally did things out of instinct instead of a plan, and his instinct always held true. There was not once did it stopped him from doing what he needed to do, and most of the time, his instincts went with his morales and thoughts.

Mike wanted to get the orb that was filled with magical electricity. He wanted to get out of this place without many of his guildmates from getting hurt. This was the main reason that he wanted to get stronger quickly than ever. There were many people he wanted to keep safe, even though he knew that he couldn’t protect them all.

Instead, he wanted to be the giant tree that could shade his people from as much danger as possible.

As simple as this sounded, it was difficult and unrealistic. Still, it was a selfish goal Mike didn’t share loudly with anyone. He never really had a place called home and he couldn’t help but feel like this was his place and that he didn’t want to lose.

Was he truly a Hero? He never thought of it and associated it with it as it was more of a title. He was a tool to find the strong Player and lure them to his guild. He wasn’t a superman.

“Yea,” Dairen said. He was glancing around and was squatting next to Mike. With a motion of his hand, he called upon the remaining minions around him. Mike did not see until now.

Mike wondered where they had appeared from as he felt like they were popping up like weeds with the way they appeared and disappeared out like the wind. His minions were like his master, Dairen had appeared and disappeared so easily that it startled him more times than he liked. Sometimes, he couldn’t help but think Dairen follows the famous comic book hero he knows.

“Distraction?”

“Something like that.” Dairen didn’t look back at him. “You are going to go in and snatch the orb, I’ll take care of the other three as best as I can.”

“Wait, why don’t you just go in yourself? You’re usually a lot faster than me on these kinds of things.”

“I just want our percentage to be high when going in and getting this done.” Dairen motioned his head, giving his minions ago.

The skeletons rushed in from all sides, startling the goblin mages from their chants. Instead, they turned to focus their attack on the ones that tried to harm them, dispelling the magical spell from forming. Their magic was quickly diverted back to the minions and fired off a fireball spell.

With a burst of magic, the skeletons caught on fire. Two out of five that attacked were incinerated, leaving only three behind. It still was enough to keep the goblin mages occupied as they furiously yelled and stomped. They were unable to hit the skeletons again.

“Let’s go.” Dairen got up, jumping into the fight. His dagger in hand. He wielded fluidly, stabbing into the back of the unsuspecting goblin mage.

Mike jumped up, the thought of diving into a fight always excited him. The taste of adrenaline was high that he couldn’t get rid of even if he wanted too.

“This is more like it.” Mike breathed out. He ran towards the orb that was not too far away.

He made his way over without fighting the monsters. Already, he could see the glimmer of the orb right before his eyes as his greed for the magical orb was a fingertip away.

A zap of electric energy tingled his fingers, telling him that this orb was made just for him. He could not lose this chance.