Chapter 41

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"Hey, Paladin! It took me a long time to find you!"

A terribly familiar voice distracted me from my plans to conquer the world.

Nika was walking down the street, and she was walking toward me.

The shaman priestess... it sticks, but what else could I call her? Nika, in short - was on my tail right after I met her. I took her to every dungeon once, I helped her with her tasks, and I took her to the Mists. And perhaps in no way claiming to be pestered by her. I'd still be pumping someone or sitting by myself, boosting skills on monsters, and it was more fun to do it in the company.

And now Nika was clearly on her way to me with another demand to "entertain the girl".

Behind her followed an unfamiliar bard, clearly playing without modules, judging by the standard music.

"Toss a coin to this music machine, and I'm all yours!"

"Why would I want so big happiness?"

"Who's fat?! Am I fat?! Rude. You've had the rare good fortune of escorting me to the Mist!"

"Nika, you've got a whole guild to work with. Why would you want a miserable old paladin?"

"You're beautiful! You have a flower! It's so... romantic! A gift from the woman you love, huh?"

"If you laugh at the symbol of Her, I'll punch you in the face!"

"Lady?!"

"My bad. I'll punch you in your charming face. With a heavy gauntlet!"

"Bully! It's so hot!"

"Two golds."

"Go ahead. I'll put it to good use."

"Two gold coins from you."

"Paladin, do you want to take money from a girl?"

"Pumping of the noobs on the mist has its price."

"Warrior of Light, fighter against injustice! Will your divine protector not reward you for your feat?"

"My Lady strengthens my soul and gives joy to my heart... but do you think she would be interested in my armor? And it needs mending! Gold for an hour! That makes two. Money first!"

"Greedy! Take it!"

"Don't buzz! Are you going alone?"

"Nah, I'll take a couple of local ones. If I go with you alone, it might ruin my reputation!"

There's a lot you learn about yourself from a girl.

"By the way, honey, are you sure you can finish it in two hours? We're going to be doing this for a long, long time..."

"In the company?"

"Are you embarrassed by the audience?"

"A true paladin is not embarrassed by anything. We just don't know how to do it. But since it's long, are we going to the Groves?"

"Smart. Are you ready?"

"Well."

Nodding goodbye to the hawker, I invited Nika into the group. Interestingly, she looked a lot like Villti. Apparently, this is the type of girl who enjoys playing.

Or maybe I just don't know places with more... adequate? Boring? Others, anyway.

"Stop! Here are our accomplices."

There was one I knew. It was Superjha, the archer. I wonder: Nika has her guild support - why is she constantly in contact with the wards of the half-elf I know? The Flame of Anor is already at level four, which means they can join alliances, but they can't offer anything to the tops yet. Or do they want to be converted to a recruitment guild? In the fourth level, you can recruit four hundred players, a good 'kindergarten' to test those who then go on.

The second, a beastfolk mercenary, was an acquaintance of Nika's and was clearly going to join her guild.

The Slow Brooks Gorge. A misty place with an unusual history - it didn't come about because of the breakthrough of the Darkness or the machinations of Evil, Chaos, and the like. No, it has always been here.

A place with an abnormally high magical background. It looks like an elongated crater, with a river running along the top edge, not filling the lowland but rolling down in dozens of streams with very slow-flowing water. I have dipped my hand into the water, and if you take a handful of it, pick it up, and pour it out, it falls at normal speed, and once it touches the ground, it's slow and drafty again. I'm willing to bet that some game designer screwed up and then decided not to redo it but create a "curiosity". What can I say - it succeeded!

There were no creatures or elementals here, only native plant and animal life.

Misty wolves, running fish, splitting bushes (like to surround their prey from all sides), and other strange life. Again, unlike the usual mist wolves, there were hardly any breakthroughs here. Only occasionally, another monster creature would gain some natural magic and stagger around the hollow until it was killed. It is said that once such a creature was kept out wishing to pump up exp by two months until a rescue squad of High was summoned. Legend has it that after killing the creature in an epic battle, losing half of the raid and a bunch of consumables, the fighters were rewarded with a fox's tail. Just a fox tail without any bonuses. Can be sewn onto clothes. The legend also said that the tail is now stored in that guild's treasury, and newcomers are taken to it to swear never to save anyone without first negotiating the reward.

"Is everyone here? Let's go."

"Paladin, did you come up with a plot for me?"

I sighed. He digested the idea I had given him, put it before the public, and happily declared that he wanted more. He did not accept my objections, accusing me of greed: "If you know how to give ideas, then do it! Otherwise, his creative process would stand idle."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I wish someone could tell me how to set up a quest involving other players!

After crossing the river by a suspension bridge, we entered the tract.

"Gloomy."

I nodded. Beautiful, but gloomy.

"I'm tanking, Jha and Merc behind me. Nika, you've got a heal on you."

"By the way, I'm a Damager!"

"By the way, I'm the leader. And you are the wagon."

"Level thirtieth!"

"Conversation in the ranks! Then I'll give you a chance to transform a couple of times, OK?"

"Ok-ay."

"Jha, target! Pull him in."

The archer sent an arrow into the misty shadow that lingered on the bank of the buttery shimmering stream.

The second peculiarity of the tract was the inability to determine the level and capabilities of the monsters. In the usual fogs around town, elementals or demons were at least somehow amenable to classification, but here...

The shadow took a long leap toward the archer, and I stood in its path.

"Jump!"

This particular mist didn't suit me well, and neither did Nika. I am a paladin. My opponent is evil. She's a multi-priestess, also honed to oppose demons. And here, they're just nature-magic-altered creatures. I can't stun them, can't blind them. At least the Purification works.

The creature, clearly mutated from a beaver, finally disintegrated.

"Empty. I don't like this area. No loot, wasting time. Shall we go to Negrincka?'

"Time lost with pleasure does not count as time lost!"

"Nika, you're a philosopher!"

"She's a plagiarist!"

"And you, paladin, are a boor!"

"You like it, so I do it. Jha, that bush over there."

A fiery arrow made the bush groan and crawl toward us.

"That slow? I can take that thing down all by myself!"

"Isn't that too serious a claim for a "very small creature"?"

The beastfolk, who was based on some kind of boar-like animal, but with a knack for dexterity and stealth and therefore resembled an upright, hairy piglet, muttered something, but when he saw the speed with which the bush was throwing trapping vines in all directions, he backed off.

"Camp. Camp. Camp."

Three fires surrounded the monster, and it began to twist in place, looking for a way out. Old trick. I used it many times, but this was the first time my groupmates had seen it.

"Pal, you're the smart one, give me a plot, eh?"

"Isekai."

"What?"

"An isekai. He falls through time and finds himself on the eve of terrible events."

"Come on... it's been written about so many times."

"In our time. He has to have time to restructure the economy in order to HAVE IT IN TIME! He's introducing green hamburgers and salty coke..."

"Why?"

"In the future, they know that all our woes come from a lack of good nutrition. And what could be tastier than a salted cola? In two or three weeks, he sets up mass production of these unique, always in-demand products; in another month, he becomes well very rich!"

"And when will he start teaching everyone?"

"He can't teach them all. First, he will rush to the most efficient manager of our century - the Deputy Minister of the Forest Industry!"

"Is he a fool?"

"He is armed with knowledge from the future! And they know better than us sinners who is who! Then he marries a beautiful girl from an old oligarch family!"

"I want one too!"

"You don't have a green hamburger, but he does! And it's on his coat of arms! The deputy minister starts reforming the economy, preparing it for a shake-up!"

"Pal, what kind of pills are you taking?"

"Nourishing. Our hero then goes to the reception to tell the Garant of Constitution everything he needs to defeat the enemy."

"Shit, you can't get through to a house manager here, and the isekai..."

"Jha, he has a Purpose. Then there's love, intrigue, lots of money, a bit of a scuffle for fun, and a happy ending. You'll get over it. Piggy, don't sleep. Cut the beast's paws off!"

"I can't keep up! And don't call me that!"

"Then why did you become a beastfolk?"

"Girls love teddies!"

"Aren't you a pig?"

"Put a bow on your neck!"

"Nika, will you embroider me a bow?"

"Ten gold coins!"

"Eh, I'll never be handsome!"

"Gain weight. You'll be delicious!"

The creatures were being taken down without stopping. Jha's bow, mine, and the mercenary's crossbows, and the creature would get to us with half a life, then be gone in two or three strikes. I had to get Piglet (such an honorific name given to the mercenary) to lure the distant monsters out at us while the three of us beat the nearer one. The creatures were about level forty, and Nika was only commenting contentedly on the process, which was clearly going faster than in the dungeon.

Suddenly she froze.

"Nika?"

Silence.

"Piglet, stand by. Cut off the connection, probably cover her."

Jha and I started hitting another creature, and once we'd finished, I turned to Nika.

"How's she doing, is she frozen off?"

Silence. Now our mercenary stood motionless.

"Pal, should I check?"

"Stop! I'll do it myself."

Slowly, one step at a time, I began to approach the motionless groupmates. They were frozen in the same posture, with the same expression on their faces. But they were breathing, and the status on the group menu showed that they were online and alive. So, a trap. Probably. Player-provided or local? Never heard of it.

Nika and Piglet are standing... not falling, so they're not hurt... Yeah, what am I saying? They've got full HP in their status. Hands down, face expressionless as if the connection had been severed. It's like they're... out of character control. Yeah. What else do they have in common? I took another step.

"Pal?"

"Stay there! There's a trap."

They're also looking at the same point. At that bump over there.

Looking?!

I covered half of my visor with my palm, and with my other hand, I covered the view of the bump. So, what have I got? Nothing. Oh, no, I've got Jha.

"See what I'm pointing at?"

"Yeah. A trap?"

"Is there anything exploding?"

"Now... I'm hitting it!"

The explosion ripped the bump off, which must have been an essence-filled arrow. Well done, Jah, not stingy. Such arrows are very expensive!

"Ugh... Fucking hell! What the fuck? Fuck, I was about to end up in a cemetery!"

Nika and Piglet spoke simultaneously.

I walked over to the bump.

A frog. A small, torn-in-half frog. With big yellow eyes.

"What a bastard! One look and "Loss of Character Control"! I've never heard of that!"

"It's the Slow Streams, baby! Anything can happen here!"

"Yeah, there's nothing to hold back the imagination here."

I should remember that.

"There's no way a thing like that could just show up here! It must be a quest thing!"

"How do you know?"

"Paladin, I'm a second-year student of the Faculty of Mechanics! I know all the mysteries of the universe! There's nothing I don't know!"

"Why do women always go to the toilet in the company?"

"Damn. I'm convinced. Nika, why?"

"You're too young for that kind of revelation. I call a shotgun for that monster! Just gonna turn on virt."

The fact that Nika also has a virt I noted almost without interest. She's clearly a re-rolled from tops, and tops have virt much more often than the "sandbox" of the primary city.

The next "hypnofrog" I hit by shielding myself. It wasn't even interesting; I walked over, blocking her view, and hit her, and that was it. The next one was finished off by Nika, who had suddenly changed her fighting style and appearance.

She must have triggered the fusion as a pillar of fire appeared in place of the girl in the priest's robes, turning blue in a moment. It did not resemble a temple flame much, more like a fire over a gas burner, but it was effective. The shaman priestess's fighting style was something of a dance. She would dodge the usual monsters' blows, but she jumped up and pressed her body against the foe, causing the victim to be engulfed in flames in an instant. And I was showing off my "camp"! Sometimes Nika would wave her hand, sending a shower of sparks twenty paces away. Nothing like the priests' combat tactics, but very effective. Well, until she ran into some water monster who wasn't the least bit intimidated by the fire. Quickly shielding the priestess who had begun to extinguish, I kicked the creature away with a leg kick and quickly shinned away.

"Nika, if we're pumping you, you'd better stand at the back and eat your exp!"

"Paladin, you're such a dullard! What do you do for a living?"

"At the city pawnshop, as an appraiser."

"Ouch. Paladin-cannibal?"

"What, if you're a cannibal, you can't be a good person?"

Nika hesitated and was silent for two minutes. I was getting worried.

"I guess it's possible. But it's hard. Being kind with food?"

There are all kinds of philosophers in the virtual world...

"Pal, boss!"

"There's a little frog!"

The five-metre-high creature did not jump, but skittered over the streams, going somewhere towards the edge of the valley.

"So, group, shall we go for the boss? Or should we just forget it? Why would we want to do that?"

A second of silence and a united roar:

"I fight because I fight!"

"I'm fighting for MacRage!"

"Gold! Blood!"

The last shriek belonged to Nika. Immediately she asked a question:

"Pal, what are you going to fight for?"

"Me? There must be at least one hero among you. Or you'll die in obscurity!" I didn't know why I'd said that, but Jha gasped, and Piglet shouted: "Hail to the Light!"

I was the only one to finish the boss off. He nailed Nika first, trampling her into the creek water, Jah froze in a block of magic ice, and Piglet was killed by a direct hit from his spiky tongue.

But I made it, and the boss's skin fell out.

A simple toad skin that can be used in a craft.

Apparently, not all legends are lying.

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