Chapter 09: The Brawling Mage.

“Puni~~!”

The monster that appeared in front of us was a Punio, a blueish slime ball of a creature with the size larger than the average football. It was a Level 1 monster and basically just acted as an EXP fodder for newbies like me. And it seemed there were lots of newbies too along the main road outside the City of Asgardia.

“Double Strike!!” Elly let out a cry all of a sudden and attacked the Punio that was in front of us. Without hesitation, she unleashed her skills on that poor little creature. Though she was just a Level 1, she proved far too strong for it. As soon as she landed the hit, the Punio’s slimy body contorted and exploded. The gooey blue flesh stuck all over Elly and made a mess of her new costume. But that did not stop her. She was attacking yet another one straight away.

“Oi, Elly. Leave some for me too.”

And she did not even listen. She was attacking non-stop the other few Punios that was coming at her with a speed. Hopping around her, she disposed of the group with such ease. As soon as she killed all of them, she levelled up to Level 2. Half of the EXPs she gained was shared with me, though I had yet to level up myself.

“Ghost! I’ve levelled. Hurray!”

“Great job Elly!”

She just giggled at me as she looked happy with herself. Not even 5 minutes into our adventure, Elly had levelled up twice. That was quick. And I couldn’t be left behind too. I was too engrossed looking at some other players killing these Punios en-masse. Slashing, piercing, stabbing, smashing and magic bullets of fire or ice were the main methods how these players killed all the poor creatures.

It was like a mass Punio-cide. Once these blue slime balls appeared, they were wiped out quickly. There were hundreds of these monsters scattered around the wide road and it went extinct a few moments later. Too many players and not enough monster. Once the Punios respawned, it was all rinse and repeat. If I didn’t hurry up, I might lag behind Elly.

Suddenly, one of these monsters respawned next to where I stood. Immediately, it hopped to engage me in combat. Feeling a little excited, I welcomed it advances with an open arm. And a swinging leg too. I kicked the monster and it flew high up in the air and exploded. And with that, I earned myself 2 EXP. Yeah! My first kill of the game. However, there was no items drop.

Pitiful but nonetheless I was super excited. It had been a while since I had become a newbie and engrossed myself in destroying hapless slime ball that hopped around. It might be cute and cuddly, but it was my prey nonetheless. And I was not about to let go of easy preys like this. I ran towards a group of Punios, bypassing Elly who was surrounding herself with another group of 5 of them. I dashed and kicked the frontmost one with the same style earlier, leg swiped a couple more that was coming from the front and punched another two that was coming to my side.

All in all, I killed 5 Punios without breaking a sweat. I just extended 10 Stamina for all my effort and had not used any skill yet. And I levelled up immediately after that. However, I would not be spending any single stat points, reserving all the points until Level 10 and wham! Spam the stats increase that would accommodate my playing. What stats I have now was more than enough for me. No need for me to raise my stats just for the sake of raising it.

“Whoa… look at that noob. Ain’t he a magic user?!”

“Yeah! Looks like a poor one too. Why is he wrestling all those monster instead of using magic?”

“Hahaha. Perhaps he’s a noob, that’s why.”

A few sneers and jeers came my way from other players. Perhaps what they saw was a mage acting like a brawler, using bare-handed tactics instead of magic. Unfortunately, they were right about one thing though, I had no magic skills to be casted.

But whatever. I had fun fighting bare-handed. It was more fun going into the thick of action rather than firing at a safe distance hoping for an instant kill hit, or one kit KO. As I was finishing my next batch of Punio-bashing works, suddenly, I heard Elly screamed.

“Yaaarghh!!”

I turned my back and saw that she was surrounded by no less than 20 Punios. As they were ganging her up and attacking from all direction, I could not help but to laugh.

She was too eager and now had aggro-ed all the slime balls in the area towards her. Spamming her skills injudiciously had left her with low Stamina and even lower MP for her to cast any more skills. And now, all she could do was to waving her sword around in panic.

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“Ghost! Help me!”

She shouted for my help. I was still laughing at her when another Punio came from my back and I destroyed it into pieces with a roundhouse kick.

“Serve you right for fighting like an idiot!” I laughed at her misery. Her HP was slowly depleting and she was left with 25% HP now. And the monsters kept coming at her non-stop. And what made the scene even funnier was to see her crying while hacking away like a crazed blonde girl swatting at flies.

Looked like she just chewed more than she could eat and now she was in danger for that. Imagined, being ganged up by lowly enemies and died a miserable death like that. It could be made into a few good jokes later, but I couldn’t let this hapless and naïve girl to die on my watch. Though she was just an NPC, nonetheless a companion was a companion after all. And I would rather have her fighting alongside me for now.

“Duck, Elly!”

I dashed forward and jumped kick a few that were biting her. Standing in the middle of the angry mob of Punios, I made quick work out of them. 20 were fell in an instant. Since Elly left the attacking to me, her aggro had died down. Although I was the one aggro-ing now for her sake, it was not high enough for the whole bunch of them to come my way.

In fact, I went to look for more and unfortunately drowned in my adrenaline rage, killsteal-ed a few more Punios that the other players were attacking. Not only that it took them by surprise, I stole their EXP and for that, instead of receiving a warm and heroic welcome, I received curses. Bitter curses of people losing their mark to some weird and random strangers.

“Fuck you, noob! Don’t KS my monster!”

“Stop killstealing us!”

“Yeah, fuck off from our place!”

“You want me to kill you instead, punk?”

A bunch of them were angry at me alright. But hey, there were more Punios than one could have time for. The respawn rate was fast and the earlier players had probably levelled up and moved onto another place. No need to swear like an emo-punk. Or bitch, since the girls were prone to swearing as much as the boys did. I felt like I wanted to be a jerk and taunted them some more by KS-ing their monsters, but I would have to save it for another day. For another worthwhile monster to killsteal.

*****

I let Elly rest for a while as I took out a few more Punios that came our way. Fighting as a pair, both of us had no problem taking turns to aggro and kill groups of them with ease. And then, we continued on until both of us exhausted all our Stamina.

“Whoa. Look at that two couples. Must be crazy doing something like that.”

“If they want to kite, better use an archer. Not a melee attacker and a mage who can’t use magic.”

“It was lucky that they did not die. How stupid could they be surrounding themselves with a monster mob like that.”

It was not lucky, you arseholes newbies. It was my hard-trained techniques, unlike you people who just keep attacking and hacking without any proper techniques. Using a skill and calling it skilful was nonsense of the highest order. I had yet to use a single skill and killed much more than most of them did.

In fact, going bare-handed, I managed to create an area of effect or AOE attack. Grouping the monsters in a group of no less than 5, I took all of it in an instant with smooth flowing martial arts. Simple enough if you knew how. Judging by their initial reactions, I could safely have assumed that these players didn’t know feck all. And perhaps, they too were override with jealousy since I had been on a killing spree for a while. They were attacking a single Punio at a time, or at most a couple of them. A party of two would either take a single monster, ganging up on it or if they were braver, fought group of three instead.

“Fucking showoff!”

“Lousy mage who can’t use magic!”

“If this was a PK-Zone, I’ll PK you for real!”

Man, the newbies were just bitter players. More sneers, jeers coupled with a few more threats thrown at us and enough was enough. Both Elly and I had levelled up to 5 by now. By this time, it was better for us to find other monsters, rather than just this low levelled creature.

Better move elsewhere to farm different monsters for EXPs. And preferably one that would drop an item or two. The Punio was too much of a fodder monster for my liking. Easy to kill, but the EXP increase was too low after a while. And there were no item drops. No loots meant that there is no way to earn money.

We moved on towards a nearby forest in search of new monsters. And we had our luck this time as there were lesser players here. Perhaps it was dark and monsters at night were stronger. Players tend to avoid coming out and farm at night because of this.

The monster was at least 50% stronger and rare new and stronger species might spawn unknowingly at random. Rare monsters were at least 10 times stronger than their counterpart species, even during the day. At night, its strength would just increase by 20 times. Not an ideal place and time to farm when one was still a newbie. However, when there were risks involved, surely there would be a just reward for it too. Higher risks meant better rewards. Increased in EXP gained was a given.

And this was what I would always relish myself for; risks versus rewards. Personally, I found it exhilarating and full of life when overcoming odds such as this. This was what real gaming was all about and VR just made it better. Give me anything, any day. The stronger and more challenging, the better.

The moment we stepped into the forest, we were welcomed with a new monster. A bigger version of Punio called the Blue Punio. Well, it looked the same except for the size, which was three times bigger and twice faster. And a little deadlier too since it was a Level 8 monster or higher.

And there were Popo’s cousins too, the rabbits. Their long ears, some were droopy and some were straight, coupled with a pink button nose and cute whiskers made me chuckle for a little while. They looked like a carbon copy of Popo. Rabbits were between level 3-5, moved faster than the Blue Punios, making it harder for players to hit them accurately. But whether they were cute, fast or just plain bigger, I looked at them, all gleefully as how a hunter looked at a hapless new prey. Licking my lips, I gave out a big wide grin.

Sorry rabbits, but it was time to dig in.

“Yargh!!”

I gave out a battle cry as both Elly and I made into our first night of killing monsters.