*'Shun'*
Fields glistened in the twilight of sunset, as my group and I were near a forest east of Skimmington to level up. There were five of us, three being in close combat with the goblins we competed with and the other two were behind them, trying to snipe them with magic and arrows. I was the archer, with one specific goblin about fifty meters off that I was aiming for. I drew back the arrow...
And I heard a ping, which threw off my aim dramatically. The goblin in my sights soon caught up to me and I was forced into another annoying sword fight.
Using my cumbersome great-sword, the blade soon collided with the goblin's skull and went right through. With a bitter tone, I looked at the ping to find out it was Hiiro and accepted the call.
"Hey Shun, sorry if I'm interrupting something. I just finished, so do you still need me?" he said, his tone surprising containing intrigue rather than the pure annoyance he usually expresses.
Backing off from the action, I explained our position, "Yeah if you don't mind. We started training in whilst waiting for you, so we should be at the required level when you come. We'll meet you in about half an hour at the south exit of Skimmington if you can. Since there's a nearby dungeon called 'Ya-avich's dungeon' which we picked to be our first. One of our members has a 'Herbalism' subclass and there's a skill in it that allows us to examine the mob levels. Their levels seemed to be around the twenty/thirty mark, and we're mostly around level twenty border. So we're grinding be..." I cut myself off, realizing the call was already canceled.
I shrugged it off, announcing the news to my four companions, "Okay guys, my friend's finally done and can become our healer when we go in."
"Huh... Wait, do we really need a healer? I read up that they really aren't necessary considering we have two samurais," a male voice said. It belonged to Nx30t, an assassin currently killing three low health bandits with his two swords.
"Yeah, but didn't we decide that their focus should be elsewhere? I mean, those mobs were about this level and we're still struggling to get kills with all of our attention. Maybe having two more swords will be a good thing," a female voice added. This one belonging to Troll73, a samurai currently holding off six more goblins which encircled her.
"She's right Nx, I think I'd prefer to fight rather than be forced to heal. So anyway, how strong's your friend Oro? Scorch!" NarutoLoverEXT added in, sounding more suspicious with her tone than curious. With a key word said, a line of fire connected with two of the goblins Troll was facing. It enveloped them in an intense flame that fried their remaining health instantaneously.
"I'm not sure EXT... I know that he's already got his ID, so he's probably higher than us. He also just beat another dungeon solo. But... that's all I know," I started to aim my bow mid-sentence which caused me to slow my speech in concentration. I managed to hit a goblin's head whilst finishing, but it had a sliver of health remaining which disappointed me.
"Huh, a solo player. Well, I hear that the Sky_Dogs got someone to level sixty, so I guess that the limit but... Well, let's hope he's not that high then, otherwise, he might scare mobs away," Nx30t stated, rushing over to cover Troll's position.
"I wouldn't be so sure Nx. If you knew him like I did, you'd probably say the opposite. But he's usually not one to hang around boring areas in my experience, so it should be fine regardless," I replied, attempting to soften their doubts as I took aim again.
"Well, as long as he doesn't take the pointless XP then I don't mind. He's a healer anyway, right?" EXT asked cautiously.
"He didn't say he's not, so who knows? We can ask him when we meet him. Anyway, is that it?" I answered, shrugging as I looked around the now empty battlefield.
"Should be, so let's move on further. Wait, does anyone need a potion before we do?" Nx replied. Nobody said yes, so we quickly moved on.
We defeated the remaining goblins, before getting quiet to listen out for any more possible enemies to make their moves. Nothing. So we shared our loot before moving to another area to do the same thing. We did this for a while, eventually achieving our goal of becoming about level twenty-five.
-
"Um... Are you DokiDoki19?" I asked a boy standing at the south entrance. They wore a robe synonymous with being a healer but... their eyes were the point of confusion. In real life, Hiiro's always seemed dead inside. But the boy's... t-they sparkled elegantly with the fading sunlight. If I had to sum it up, I'd say that this boy seemed way too 'cute' to be the Hiiro I knew, and the others quickly caught onto this cuteness with minor blushing or all out gushing at him.
"Yeah, you're Orokami, right? I could use real names, but that's taboo in-game," he replied, his voice and sarcastic tone made me end my confusion.
"My, my, my... Aren't you a cutie?" EXT spouted, blushing and turning away from Hiiro's intense gaze that followed.
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"Sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm DokiDoki19, please call me 'Doki' for ease. Anyway, I'm a friend of Orokami's IRL and a solo healer, you are?" Hiiro replied.
"Wait... A solo healer, how's that possible?" Nx interrupted, soon mumbling something that I doubt anyone else heard.
"I'm Herbalist, so tame. I used to use my staff to hit stuff, but that started to take too long for me. I'm level 54 right now but don't worry about me stealing XP, I'll only summon in the direst circumstance and heal only when necessary. Anyway, you guys are?" he said succinctly, quickly changing the topic and his eyes scowled my group members.
"Huh... Well, I'm Nx30t, an assassin who also has Herbalism. I gather you know Orokami, so I'll name the rest. The mage over there is NarutoLover EXT, the female samurai is Troll73 and the other samurai is Hahaha933 from the clan we're wanting to enter. We just need an ID to actually join them, hence we're doing this," Nx said, pointing to all the members, par me, in turn.
"Can you confirm his level Nx? It seems like an ego boosting lie to me," Troll asked, clearly doubting Hiiro's story.
"I confirm his level. It's his class that's the lie... he's really a succubus," Nx answered quickly.
""""Eh!?"""" Troll, Ha, EXT and I all exclaimed in sync, all of us seemed confused at the unexpected news.
"I never said my class was a healer, I just heal using a specific skill from my class. Should we get going, or shall we discuss this integral point in even more detail?" he explained coldly before sarcastically taunting everyone to move on.
"He's right. We have everyone so let's go," I said, attempting to reason my friend's dickish attitude.
"Yeah... So who has the map again? I think it was still in Troll's hands," Ha asked, looking at Troll as he reminded her.
"Map?" Hiiro asked, tilting his head in confusion at the pretty obvious point.
"Yeah, it's a thing that shows the entire area and directions. We brought from the library. Troll has the Explorer subclass, so tells us where to go," Nx explained.
"Go to options, there's a mini-map option that makes cartography skills pointless outside of a dungeon," Hiiro replied succinctly.
There was doubt at first, but after looking at this menu, we eventually all found the option and activated it. We set our location. And as tears fell from the corner of Troll's eyes, we found the way to the dungeon.
-
We eventually traversed the path shrouded in the night, defeating a few bandits as we got to the door we visited before. The nameplate saying 'Ya'avich's Dungeon'.
"By the way, what is 'Ya'avich'?" I asked curiously.
"It's the bosses name, probably... Both of the dungeons I've completed had the same naming system. Well then. Anything you guys need to do before going in, or is it fine to go now?" Hiiro answered, changing the topic yet again.
"Sorry, mind if I check my stats? I might've forgotten to change them," I responded, EXT and Ha doing the same as the others waited.
Stats Level 23 AP 2800/2800 Defense 51 Damage 73 HP 1800/1800 Speed 28 Stamina 33 Spare 0
'Oh, right... I did remember to change it after all then,' I reminded myself, looking gleefully at my high HP value.
"Okay, seems like I'm ready," I announced. The other two followed with similar conclusions after checking that their own stats were in order.
Without further ado, we heaved open the creaky door and continued into the dim corridors that were there.
-
We sneaked down the linear corridor, which was illuminated just enough to see in, whilst talking over things.
"So Doki, why did you pick Succubus? I mean, I doubt you're bad, but isn't that the second worst class?" Ha asked Doki out of the blue.
"I picked it because it was interesting. I mean, this attraction boost skill is kind of annoying and it doesn't really have many good magic attacks. But I've grown to like the snares and getting near infinite HP out of letting my mobs kill stuff. It's really good at ambushing, and with blood transfusion, I can heal people when I get health. But I obviously need health to do that..." Doki explained, cutting himself off before he started preaching. He was remarkably clear, considering I can barely hear him most of the time, even when he stands next to me.
I shook this doubt off, and changed the topic, "Here's another question Doki. Why did you accept my request? You know that you're way more powerful than the foes here, so doesn't it do very little to you?"
"Well, I didn't really have anything better to do. There are also some skills that get XP every time you use then, which I'd like to get better with. Like Object examination with Herbalism," he answered, a bit of impatience revealing itself in his tone.
"So... is Doki this cute IRL Oro?" EXT asked, clearly having her priorities straight.
"No. It's a damn Succubus class skill I use unless you find a mask wearing nerd with half a face romantic," Hiiro begrudgingly admitted.
Everyone became speechless at his response, the spark from EXT's eyes immediately left, as we all thought about how stupid that skill was. Without any enemies to interrupt us, the atmosphere surround us became thick and cold.
This finally stopped once we reached an intersection. There were three directions that opened themselves up, all looking identical to the way we came from. because of the fact that we couldn't see very far down each of them, we soon turned to our minimaps.
"Wait, why is the minimap blank?" I asked.
"It's blank for us now because we're in a dungeon. This is why I said that Cartography skills aren't completely useless, just outside of dungeons," Hiiro answered.
"Ah, I'll use one then. Locate Exit!" Troll said, soon pointing down the path we just went down.
"Try 'Locate Staircase'," Hiiro prompted.
"Oh, okay. Locate Staircase," she repeated, soon pointing to the left corridor. "Set target, staircase."
Nx butted in, asking, "Wait, why 'staircase'?"
Hiiro sighed before continuing, "There's a staircase at the end of every floor which leads onto the next. So if we follow this way, we'll be going the fastest way through the dungeon, although it may get confusing next time..."
"Hm... Well, do we want to grind or get through this floor quickly?" Troll asked before starting a vote.
-
With a four to two vote, we headed right.