He wasn't sure how much time had passed since the boss fight had ended, but everything still hurt when he woke up. He could hear Peggy and Myra talking in the background. There was something draped over him and when he opened in eyes, was surprised to see it was Peggy's rain jacket as if it were a blanket. His brain hurt too much for him to be able to focus on any of what Peggy and Myra were saying, but the slightest shift of his weight on the ground cause Myra to stop talking and call out.
"Yo, Owen get up, we have a little more than 12 hours left, let's get moving if you're up." Groaning he forced himself up and into a sitting position, blinking rapidly to try and clear the grogginess. Blinking in his vision as the only thing not blurred slightly was his still blinking notifications. Opening up his system menu he smiled at the first message.
*Congratulations, you and your party members have cleared the hidden boss 'Herald of the Zodiac' Level 10. 333 experience gained. You have gained 2 level(s). You have 2 unallocated stat point(s).*
He was feeling ecstatic, but realized that something wasn't right with the experience gained and levels earned. However, the next notification made it make a lot more sense.
*You have accrued 150 experience debt for using the memories of the emperor. Experience will again begin to be earned after paying off the 150 experience debt. 150 experience has been paid.*
Sighing, he supposed being alive for another day was worth the 150 experience so he just shook his head. He got up an stretched, he was already far too used to sleeping on the ground in his mind and was looking forward to being able to sleep in his bed again soon. But then a thought occurred to him, "Do you guys think that when this is done we will get to go home?"
Peggy was the only one to turn to face him, but the look on her face said oh you poor thing. Myra on the other hand spoke the words out loud. "Boo hoo, probably not, plus why would you even want to go back, I mean unless life was going really well for you already. I'm not about to be rushing back to pay off student loans I'll have for the rest of my life." Owen nodded his head in agreement.
He wasn't in a big rush to get back to the real world either. His dad was the only reason he had any interest in it, this world had been a chance to start new and even if it was 90% terrifying, he was still having fun often enough. The three of them had grabbed their things and prepared to leave, as they began to leave the chamber a barrier formed in front of it.
All three of them jumped to the ready, preparing weapons and skills, but nothing moved in the chamber. Confused Owen tried using what had easily become his favorite skill, Polymath's keen eye. Nothing showed up on any of his system panels, but he did see a glint near the corpse of the Herald. Running over to it, he ignored the warning shouts from Peggy and Myra. Something that had appeared on the corpse of the Herald were different tattoos that had quickly begun to fade, each was a representation of one of the zodiac.
As the tattoos fully faded it looked like they melted out of his skin and several small rings appeared. Waving Peggy and Myra over, he picked every one of the twelve rings off of the ground and began inspecting them.
*Ring of the Ox. Grants an additional 10% in any one stat of choice.*
He shared the info, before scanning the rest of them, but was slightly disappointed that every single ring had the exact same effect. He shared all of the system panels anyways as Peggy and Myra were looking through them.
"I feel like it's weird to say, but I'm not really a ring person, even if the effect is nice." Myra mumbled. Peggy meanwhile had place at least one of the rings on each of her fingers but then frowned. "I don't mind the look, but I guess it's limited to 1 per person. The first one I put on gave me a prompt to select a stat to buff, but when I put another one of the rings on, I didn't give me a prompt."
She showed off the ring with the stat buff, it didn't look any different to the others, but it looked like she had to give it a considerable amount of effort to remove.
She passed it to Owen who inspected it *Ring of the Rat. Grants an additional 10% in any one stat of choice. This item has been bound.* Owen tried putting it on and flexed his fingers as the ring fit snug, he checked for the buff, but as soon as he had opened his system screen, the ring blazed a white hot. He felt like his hand was going to melt off and he started shouting while trying to pull the ring off. Peggy moved forward quickly and grabbed the ring off of his finger and gave him a quizzical but worried look.
"As soon as I tried to check my status, it started burning hotter than anything I've ever felt, it wouldn't let me remove it either." Owen complained still rubbing his finger. The pain had instantly vanished once the ring was removed, but he couldn't help but to continue to check it for burns. "Did it say why it was burning you, or did it just start burning after a while." Myra asked, while fitting the snake ring onto her own finger.
"Yeah, I inspected it and it had said it had already been bound, but I was curious to see if I could still get the bonus." He shared the message he got when he first inspected it and Peggy nodded. "Well at least we know it can't get stolen, but what do we want to do with the other 9 rings? We could bring them with us and try to see if anyone else that's finished would like one?" Peggy looked to both Myra and Owen and she had taken the last nine rings from Owen after he had picked the monkey ring.
Myra seemed to give it some actual thought, but Owen shrugged. "I don't know if I like that we risked our lives for these and are just going to give them away, but I suppose if we can't use them, we might as well give them out, but I'd like to hold onto at least one more. My dad is somewhere in the tutorial rounds, though I'm not sure where, It'd be cool to give him one."
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Myra gave him a heavy clap on the back, "It's good to see the perv is a family man at least. Peggy we should also probably set some aside for our parents, can't let ourselves get outdone by this guy." Myra gave a wide grin and Owen gave a meek smile back. He wasn't super cool with being considered a pervert, but he could tell that Myra was joking, at least probably.
Myra ended up being hesitantly okay with giving out some of the rings to people that were cool who had also reached the peak. And they were able to leave the chamber without issue now. Owen had decided to have his ring boost his mana stat, which had only hit 9, however looking at his total pool it did seemed to have some effect. Equipping the ring had kept his mana stat at 9, but when he looked at his HP and MP he was a little surprised.
*You have 500 out of 500 health points. You have 990 out of 990 mana points.*
It had only gone up 90 points, which made sense, his mana stat was technically 9.9 right now. Peggy seemed to find it interesting, but Myra just shrugged. "How else was it supposed to work?" Owen wasn't quite sure how to answer, so he didn't. They keep following their path back to when the originally split had been, talking about how the fight had gone and Owen tried his best to explain why the boss had singled him out.
He looked up at the sun slowly descending before speaking. "I don't think it was for any reason other than trying to take my skill. After you two had been knocked out, unfairly." He added while nodding towards Myra who scowled at him. "He had told me my skill was going to keep me from reaching the peak and that I should give it to him." "Has anyone ever believed that line ever?" Myra interrupted. "That's what I said! So, he offered to take it from me and a system window popped up. It said the boss offered a deal or something and asked if I wanted to accept."
"After that he seemed okay with trying to kill me and then you guys after. He made it seem like the only reason he left you guys alive was so that I would actually consider it." "We will just have to ask other people we meet if they had any similar experience with a boss. I was a little too uncomfortable that he was able to bend the barrier that blocked you from the fight."
The ever spawning enemies that they had originally fought continued to get in their way, but Owen recognized most of the enemies now as being specifically from the zodiac, though most controlled some type of extra ability. The only ones that gave the group any pause were when a trio of rooster blocked the path, all at level 6. Owen was terrified they would do that scream that the Herald had done, but when these ones screamed, it did tear up some ground and cause some minor injuries, but nothing like the Herald had done.
They were quickly cut down after that.
The rest of the path after that went by quickly, Owen gained enough experience to just be shy of level 10, he didn't feel bad about it though, both Peggy and Myra reached level 9 on the hike up, so he still felt a little proud to be ahead. They reached the peak and the sight was disheartening, they were the first ones there. Owen pulled up the countdown and frowned.
*Gain a minimum of 4 levels - Completed, Gain at least 1 combat skill - Completed, and reach the rest zone at the peak of the mountain in the center of the island - Completed. 9:40:35secs.*
Owen was a little worried something might be wrong with the location they picked, but the message said they had made it. The three of them decided to just take the first hour or so as a break and Owen spent the time meditating to calm himself down. He was a little sad when after and hour, his mana stat hadn't increased yet. He had to force himself to remember that he had been lucky so far and not to try and hope for more than he could work for.
He moved to begin doing pushups, but Myra walked over to stop him. "You've been looking antsy for a while now, you wanna spar?" Owen nodded and barely had time to dodge a punch Myra threw at him. The two of them danced across the peak as they both took turns throwing attack after attack. Owen had chosen not to use his spear, cause bringing a sharp piece over metal into a friendly spar felt like overkill.
They only sparred for a couple minutes before it had turned into Myra trying to chase down Owen, who had decided he had better luck tiring her out than to try to go head to head. Peggy was laughing while watching her sister chase down Owen, who had managed to stay ahead of her by just barely. "Myra tag me in!" She shouted and Myra gave a big grin and gave Peggy a high five. Owen who had hoped to be done at this point felt like crying, "Isn't this a little unfair?" He asked trying to appeal to the much more reasonable sister, but Peggy just nodded as she took out her rapier.
"Yeah, you're getting so much more training than us, so it's only fair we balance it out right?" Owen squared up to fight, but each of her movements were a blur, he was only barely able to tell what she was about to do because of his high perception and his agility barely managed to let him duck below a fast swipe of her blade.
This continued for a while and as he slowly became accustomed to how she attacked, he was able to start dodging in a way that didn't always leave him open to follow up attacks. He got better at attacking as well, as soon as he thought he was getting somewhere, Peggy turned around and He noticed Myra approaching. "Oh fuck me," he growled. He took a stance to prepare to fight against Myra again, but was immediately embarrassed when he saw the look of disgust on her face.
"Not in a million years pervert," she said, her face having a mocking grin and Owen had to think for a second before realizing what he had just said before. "No, I didn't mean it like tha.." He was cut off by needing to dodge a right hook from Myra who had gained much of her energy back in the time Peggy and Owen had fought. By the time Owen got a break, the sun had fully gone disappeared, several different sections of the flattened peak had begun to emit a soft glow, that illuminated small sections.
He looked at the countdown and almost broke down when he saw that there was still 9 hours left on the timer. It had felt like he had been sparring for hours and hours, every part of his body would probably agree that hours had passed, he felt like crying.
He was actually a little concerned that no one else had arrived yet and with it being as dark as it was, he would be surprised in anyone showed up during the dead of night. Another couple minutes passed before Myra and Peggy both came to sit down and cool off. "So no one else has showed up yet, maybe they are planning on climbing the mountain in the morning?" Myra said, but she didn't sound confident in the idea.
Neither Peggy or Owen said anything to disagree though and they sat in silence for a while before a thought suddenly came to Owen's mind. "Have either of you eaten or drank any water since arriving? I remember being hungry close to the beginning of it, but I haven't had anything to eat or drink since the system showed up and frankly, I don't really feel hungry now." Both Peggy and Myra seemed surprised, but both shook their heads.
"Now that you mention it, I don't think I ate anything for a couple hours even before the system so its probably been close to 3 days for me." Myra said shrugging. Peggy nodded, "It's about the same for me, no food or drink since the system." They talked then for a while more, before they fell asleep once more on the ground. Owen hated that he was getting use to it, but when he imagined sleeping in his bed again, he pictured Jared and Sara in it too and he sighed.
"I guess the floor isn't all bad."