Gray prepared a spell. The brackish water rippled underneath him as he raised his hand and gave Melody a damage buff. The paladin sliced a bear with her radiant sword and the creature fell into the swamp water with a splash. It huffed a couple of times. The bear’s body stayed there for a moment before its body dematerialized after a minute. Melody sheathed her blade and sighed. In her inventory, a jar of bear’s blood was added to a pile of 12.
“Getting bored, huh?” Gray asked. He could understand that some aspects of the grinding were tedious, but as low-levels they lacked easy access to gold. They had to gather everything themselves and couldn’t rely on the player markets to buy the stray materials that they needed.
“A little bit, but it’s kinda relaxing. Simple world enemies like this don’t have crazy mechanics. You can just kill them while thinking about things,” Melody shook her head.
“True, but I wish the drop rate was a little bit better. Strength potions will be useful for you when we go fight a world boss later on, so I wanted to stock up.”
“I've got 12 jars so far. How many do you want to have?”
“I want about fifty total. I got 15, so we just need like 23 more.”
“Sounds good.”
One of the defeated bears respawned in the Qualfo Swamp. The swamp was a dank place in which overcast was the constant. The swamp water was a dark green and reached past their ankles. Red leaves would fall from half-submerged mangroves into the water and float in a vortex pattern. After a few more minutes of farming the local wildlife, it went from overcast to raining.
A rolling fog made the bears harder to see.
Melody prepared herself to face another yellow-eyed bear. She tossed a Talik’s Javelin to get the beast’s attention. It roared and rose on its hind legs to swipe at her. When its paw reached the pinnacle, a brown-haired woman came up from behind and brought her axe down on its head. The bear fell and the warrior stood on top of her fallen quarry with her axe resting on her shoulder. She looked down on Melody. Her name was Maria Katastrophe. There was a bright red cut on her cheek.
“Hey!” Melody stretched out her arms. “You saw us attacking the bear. That was our mob. Just wait a bit until we finish up.”
Maria hopped off the bear’s body as it dematerialized like all fallen mobs and wiped her mouth with her arm. The swamp water splashed on the back of her fur armor. The armor was composed of faded metal and brown hide.
“We were the ones killing the bears in this zone,” Maria planted her axe in front of her. Gray saw the axe head disappear beneath the swamp water. “If anything, you two are the ones that are getting in our way.”
Gray saw another woman coming up behind Maria. Holding a flute close to her chest, the bard Kim Katastrophe stood behind Maria. She played a little song and an azure glow emanated from Maria. Her wounds burned bright and then disappeared.
Another bear spawned. Melody and Maria glanced at the fresh creature and back of each other. Then they ran at it. Weapons in hand, the two women demolished the bear in seconds. Gray realized that Melody landed the killing blow because they received enough exp to reach level 26.
“Dammit,” Maria grinded her teeth.
“Maria, maybe they might have been here first,” Kim tugged at her hand. “We can go do the nearby dungeon and come back later.”
“How about you two go off and find something better to do than to steal our spot and mobs,” Maria pointed at Melody.
“Your loot? We got 27-“
“29,” Gray corrected. They got lucky and got two jars of blood with Melody’s latest kill.
“29 Jars of blood. That just proves that we were here first. So go run along,” Melody shooed Maria away.
“I knew paladin was a braindead class,” Maria shrugged. “Guess the players must be just as simple-minded.”
“Simple-minded,” Melody gasped. Gray was impressed that they could keep the feud going from just simply playing keeps with the local wildlife. Melody stamped her feet. “You’re playing a berserker. Literally the dumb barbarian class! How can you call paladins braindead.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“You know what?”
“Yeah what?”
“Let’s settle this like fantasy heroes,” Maria raised her axe and pointed the head at Melody. “Let’s do PVP.”
“I thought the PVP update wasn’t here yet,” Gray titled his head. “They were gonna add a PVP area called Sax’zo.”
“Parties can PVP against each other if everyone involved agrees with it. We can fight right here and now. The winner of the fight gets to farm the bears.”
“Fine then. Let’s do this, Gray.” Melody raised her sword and shield.
“We didn’t even know PVP was in the game until she just told us.”
A notification popped up as Maria initiated a duel between both parties. Gray accepted the PVP and so did Kim. Melody and Maria squinted at each other for a few moments as a red number counted down the commencement of their battle. When the timer hit zero, Maria’s eyes turned completely red and entire body pulsed burned with volcanic aura. Melody raised her sword to sky and heavenly lightning came down to imbue her weapon with radiant wrath of Talik.
Maria jumped into the air and drew her axe downward. Melody dropped her shield onto the ground as she used both hands to hold her sword. Axe and sword met. A crater in the ground formed underneath the clash of their weapons. Swamp water came down like rain and the soil was cracked.
Gray walked over to Kim who was reacting to the battle with an agape jaw. Gray scratched his cheek.
“She’s not usually like this. She’s chill,” Gray coughed. “I swear.”
“Oh, Maria’s chill too,” Kim clasped her hands together. “We’ve been just trying to farm potions since she’s an alchemist.”
Maria and Melody growled at each other.
“Yeah, I’m an alchemist too.”
Melody rolled on the ground to pick up her shield. She blocked an attack and then counterattacked by bashing Maria’s face with her shield. Maria responded by grabbing Melody by the neck and slamming her into the ground. Since the bear population was no longer being hunted, many of them had returned to the land and were galumphing around.
“Why don’t we just kill the bears and divide up the total until we both have enough,” Gray suggested.
“That sounds like a good idea. Hey Maria…” Kim trailed off. Melody had fully given up on her sword and shield. Maria’s axe was lodged into a mangrove’s trunk. The two of them were just boxing at this point in their duel. “Let’s just do it ourselves for now.”
“Right…”
Gray and Kim used their combined strength to farm the bears. Neither Melody nor Maria noticed this as they were locked in a deathmatch. Finally, Gray and Kim got enough jars of bear blood. They split it equally. Maria and Melody were still in their battle as the two of them were tanks. As a result, their health drained slowly. They also weren’t using real attacks that were registered by the game. Neither Berserker nor Paladin had attacks that involved punching the enemy. No damage popped up when they performed their impromptu wrestling moves.
“Funny how you can still trade with someone when you’re actively in PVP,” Kim said.
“Yeah. That is weird,” Gray noticed a notification that stated that a player recently accepted to partake in PVP. He looked from side to side and then finally saw a black-haired woman with a red bandana.
“Finally, some PVP!” A woman came into the zone with a flaming flying kick and struck Gray in the stomach. He was sent flying into a tree and then tumbled into the swamp water.
Maria had Melody in a chokehold when they both looked up to see the random attacker. Kim walked over to Gray. She tried to heal his wounds, but they weren’t in the same party. Gray rose from the swamp water with twigs and red leaves in his air.
“I wasn’t doing PVP,” Gray said.
“All right, who’s next,” The newcomer tightened the bandages on her hands and cracked her knuckles. Her name was Kelsy. Gray turned off PVP immediately when he got up on his feet to make sure she didn’t go after him again.
“Wait,” Kelsy slumped her shoulder. “Are you guys done?”
“We never should have started,” Kim sighed.
“Yeah well. I was getting bored anyways,” Maria ripped out her axe from the mangrove.
“Same,” Melody crossed her arms. “Who just randomly attacks someone, anyways?”
“I thought you were guys doing PVP,” Kelsy shrugged.
“It was between me and the paladin,” Maria said.
“Stop being so dramatic,” Kim facepalmed. “Besides, we got the jars of blood. Equal amount for both sides. We can go do anything else.”
“Really?” Melody turned to Gray. “You have 50?”
“Yup, we killed the bears while you two punched each other.”
“Oh…”
“It was her fault,” Maria crossed her arms. “I mean she was probably the one that came up with the name. ‘Daybreak’ is such a cheesy name.”
”It won’t matter what you,” Melody pointed at Maria. “The Daybreak guild will have its name known across the server.”
“We’ll make a better guild than you’ll ever know!” Maria screamed as Kim dragged her away. “The Squall Guild will be famous!”
“We’re gonna clear all the dungeons. All the encounters. All the raids!”
“Now, now. We don’t want to waste any more time doing PVP,” Gray pulled Melody by the hand. “Bye Kim.”
“Bye Gray.”
“So nobody wants to even try some PVP?” Kelsy pushed her index fingers together and pouted. Everyone ignored her.
The bard dragged away her berserker and the seer dragged away his paladin. Kelsy was left in the recovering battlefield. She turned to the endless supply of bears that the swamp could offer. She shrugged and disappeared by the swamp's fog.