“Even if she’s your friend, she’s being controlled by that dumb skeleton thing! And I don’t think this one has the mind to even listen to you anyways…!” Key cried out as both Threy and Mako just stood there, blinking surprised at a corrupted Lazuli version of Sarah.
Eyes began to open, revealing only inky blackness, and the phantom rushed towards them.
“R-right, let’s deal with her then.” Threy shook himself out of his surprise and let out a startled gasp as a chain struck him from the side. He had ducked but not fast enough, allowing it to hit him in the shoulder. A pained hiss escaped him as he skidded across the stone. “Damnit, that smarts…!”
But it wasn’t debilitatingly painful, just enough to be uncomfortable. Well, that was one thing to thank for that this was just game after all.
“Agh, keep an eye on the evil magic copy of your friend, dummy!” Key criticised him, bonking her head against his own.
“You don’t need to shout!” Threy shot back as he dodged out of the way of another chain. “So, quiet in the peanut gallery!”
“I’m literally front row…!” Key screamed terrified, scrambling to wiggle her way under his cloak. She stumbled and Threy idly wondered if she would be time locked inside his inventory or float around helplessly until he pulled her back out.
While this was going on, Mako had circled around the phantom’s back and noted how she attacked. Currently she limited herself to just Lazuli’s basic attacks using her chains to swipe, not bothering with or maybe even unable to use any of her trap set-ups.
“Okay, let’s try this new Skill out…” Mako’s eyes twinkled and the sphere of watery depths took form once more.
The phantom was still stubbornly locked onto Threy who was now dodging and weaving between the predictable swiped of her chains while raining a barrage of blasts upon her. Most bullets missed their mark as she moved too quickly or deflected them with her chains. Those that did hit left behind dark cuts and holes of black smoke that slowly began to refill.
Mako struck, her twisted skill hitting the phantom directly into her back. It splashed over her body and spread around her feet, forming a pond of moonlit water that kept her locked in place.
“Take this!” Mako smirked, twirling her trident for a follow up stab that pierced right through her unprotected back. “Take the shot, Threy!”
And immediately she was forced to scramble out of the way as a circle of water mines erupted from the ground around the phantom, the pond bursting apart in a rain of normal water.
Threy was forced to swerve to the side as his dual shot hit one of the mines instead, causing a blast that nearly knocked him onto the ground even then.
“Looks like she’s got more up her arsenal after all…” Mako laughed sheepishly as she joined up with Threy, not taking their eyes off of the phantom. An exasperate whine escaped as she noticed her wounds closing quickly. “And she’s healing! What kinda busted tutorial boss is this?! Stupid, cheating evil spirits…”
Threy sweatdropped as she grumbled annoyed under her breath, showering both the skeleton captain and the dark spirit with ever more imaginative curses and insults.
“I think you shouldn’t have messed with our Skills…” He idly noted, making Mako gasp as if struck by arrows. “Let’s see how mine affects her.”
Without waiting for a response, Threy rushed forwards again. The phantom was still hiding behind the remaining water mines and he vaguely remembered a few ways in which Lazuli had been able to use those back when they had been watching the tournament. So, better not give her the time.
A blazing darkness bubbled within him as he reached for his Skill and leaping forwards, he pushed.
“HAH!!!” Hands thrust forwards, a wave of writhing shadows exploded forth from within his cloak that struck everything in its path. Darkness bled into the mines and a moment later they exploded violently, swallowing the phantom as she was entangled in a web shadows.
Leaping backwards with a cool pirouette and backwards spin, Threy landed at Mako’s side. The shark girl couldn’t help but sparkle at how awesome that had just been, even as she was a bit miffed at him just rushing ahead like that.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Lightly she kicked him in the side with a pout, making him grin.
“OH! Come On! Again?!” Mako cried out in exasperation, throwing her hands into the air when the tattered shreds of the phantom just started to rebuild themselves from the dark smoke again. “That’s just bad game design!”
“I don’t have enough juice for a second blast… and don’t even know how to recharge it. You?” Threy gave voice to his thoughts, glancing at her.
“Nope, well’s an empty hole.” She huffed as she turned to Threy only to blink owlishly as his hat started to wiggle. “What…?”
Before Mako could finish her bewildered question, Key gasped and sputtered into being as she pulled herself out of his hat.
“Puah! That was terrifying…!” The dragon bean laid sprawled out on Threy’s pitch black marble of a head like a mismatched wig, panting wide eyed. “W-what the heck?! Why do you have the Realm of Darkness for your pockets?!”
“It makes for a great inventory.” Threy easily replied, blazing eye bending over the vast rim of his hat.
“Freaky is what it is…” Key grumbled annoyed, her breathing slowly calming down again. And she blinked. “So… what did I miss?”
“A cheating cheater, you missed… any idea how we beat her with that stupid regeneration of hers?” Mako pouted, pointing at the nearly fully healed phantom. Absentmindedly she took a mental memo to find a way to abuse the heck out of Threy’s inventory- which he hadn’t even told her about!
Confused the dragon bean tilted her head as if she didn’t understand and looked towards Mako, to the phantom and then back to her before leaning over to come face to face upside with Threy.
“You know you already won… right…?” Key asked awkwardly.
“You know that I’m looking through the flame, right?” Threy drawled in reply. “Also… wat?”
“Victory? Seriously, you can see this, right?” Vaguely Key waved towards their surroundings in explanation, looking very exasperate, and it took Mako only a moment to understand while Threy’s eye still pulsed in thought.
Slowly Mako blinked and then facepalmed hard with a groan.
“Huh… I didn’t realise the lights had been going out.” Threy spoke aloud, looking at the runes inscribed into the stone platform. All of them had glowed brightly at the start but were now rapidly depleting as the phantom tried to regenerate. And with their realisation, the last dark light of the spiralling circle of runes evaporated alongside the phantom’s form.
The shadows receded and for a second the inky black of her eyes was replaced by lively green.
“Huwha…?! Right, uhm, follow the beach! Ships, uh, islands… agh, this sucks, just break these stupid chains…!” Sarah hurried to speak before her voice trailed off in an impatient whine and only a sphere of purple and blue was left behind, dark chains swirling around it.
Stab. Bang.
Daniel and Tania grinned at each other as they had both not even spent a second thought before striking at the chains. With a pulse of visible relief the so freed sphere sunk back into the platform, returning the soft green glow from before, and the barrier surrounding the platform shattered into beautiful, shimmering dust.
A soft breeze blew across them. As did the rattling grumbles of the skeleton pirates who had been idly gathering around the arena during all of this. A few had sat down together to chat, some squatted lazily while others had started reading newspapers the got from somewhere that they now casually set aside to return to their violent existence as an affront to the natural order of all things.
“RAAAAAH!”
“I’m too exhausted to deal with this shit…” Threy groaned while Mako hadn’t wasted any time to leap back into the fray, trident spinning at her side.
“I told you to deal with those idiots first, didn’t I?!” Key’s tail bonked him over the head and he had nothing to say in denial since she was absolutely right.
Or was until Mako managed to shatter the first skeleton that now burst into a shower of gold and white wisps that were immediately suck into the shark girl.
“Hey, they give money now…!” She laughed, eyes sparkling bright. “And they refilled my Skill Meter!”
Mako tensed her legs and burst into motion, a wide and evil grin stretching her lips as she raced after all those walking piggybanks that suddenly wondered why exactly they had thought that this was a good idea at all.
“I kinda feel bad now.” Threy mused as the horde of evil skeletons had turned into a flock of headless chickens running into each other while the drooling fox cheerfully pounced at all that juicy prey. Or rather the adorable shortstack shark girl shook them down for all the gold they had as the case may be.
“Y-yeah…” Key sweatdropped.
Threy lightly hummed to himself and then shrugged, twirling his revolvers as he burst back into motion.
“Hey, leave some for me…!” He called out and the one-sided slaughter of Tutorial Cove truly began.
Only a scattered few skeletons escaped the slaughter and vowed to never harm another being again, following the first skeleton sage’s teaching as he rose with sombre gaze from the waters. Though that wasn’t of any real important at the moment.
In total Threy had gained 30.465 G while Mako had claimed an impressive bounty of 53.213 G. Truly, the advantage of a melee fighter was unfair, Threy mused with sagely wisdom as they completely gutted whatever had been the intended economy for Floreta’s Lands.
Now no skeleton was left behind to fight. The frigate alongside the fog had vanished at one point during their battle with the phantom and all the remaining ghost ships had started to sink halfway through their slaughter. Now the cove had returned to normal, though sadly the coral pillars were still left grey and dead.
“So… what now?” Threy asked the question echoing in both his and Mako’s mind.