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Chapter 144 - Vol. 3 - Chapter 9
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Since the alarm had been sent by the players, people began gathering at the lower floor of the tavern, even the simple people, the NPC who didn't escape this curiosity of checking what was going on.
Fayrene, Maryden and Vek also made their way downstairs to check on the situation outside, and didn't understand why those merchants wouldn't just stay inside their rooms. They couldn't do much against the monsters, and it is not as if they could escape from what she understood was a large-scale invasion of monsters.
Her arrival was noticed by the players who prepared their own strategy to fight against the "Insectoids", asking each other for potions and other resources, trading around between one another, and from the back of the base floor, the Innkeeper made his apparition together with a woman in her 30s, probably his partner.
"What's the reason for this commotion? Haven't I told you kids to leave me alone and have some sleep?"
"Innkeep, shut up and go back to sleep. We are under attack." commented a player when he heard the obnoxious man asking for the situation outside.
"Yea, that's right. Just go back to sleep, we'll wake you up when the Event is over."
Yet most players ignored the Innkeeper, viewing this situation quite serious, and once the plans were sorted out they moved out to check the situation on the ground, walking toward the Tavern's door, before hearing the Innkeeper shout at them.
"Wait! Don't open the door! What if some monsters lurk in the shadows and jump inside? You might be undying fucks, but I only have one life."
"Relax, I can't hear any signs of monsters outside."
Vek who was beside Fayrene, pulled on her sleeve, taking her attention away from the door.
"Mistress, monsters are around the building. I can smell them."
Fayrene's expression turned serious, and tried to stop the group of players who tried to check the situation outside, and the moment they did open the door, the shrieks of the monsters resounded out loud, scarring Maryden and the rest of merchants.
"CLOSE THE DOOR! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" shouted a merchant, shaking as if he was having Parkinson's Disease.
At that point in time with the monsters shrieks the head of an insectoid monster flew inside the tavern shocking the inhabitants and also the innkeeper whose face turned pale. Yet he still walked toward the monster's head, kicking it slowly to see if it was alive.
"Fucking hell, what's that monster? When I got my permit to build the tavern there was nothing mentioned about monsters." commented the Innkeeper when he saw it was safe to deal with the decapitated head.
The players who saw how the head still didn't disappear, concluded in their group about the reason.
"It must be because of the Event. Once the Event is done, all those heads will disappear."
"Probably. Let's take full advantage and level up to the Top 10."
The innkeeper tried to get some answers, but the players already entered into the raiding mindset, taking turns while others returned in the tavern full of mortal wounds, bleeding a lot, getting to safety from their recklessness of fighting the monster wave.
"Hey, kid, are you alright? How did you lose your arm?" asked the innkeeper who went to take a cloth moving to help the player that was bleeding, covering himself in a pool of blood.
"Don't worry, I'll return to Titan and ask the priests to cast a spell on me so I recover the limb, for now help me stop the bleeding."
"Kid, you are sick in the head. YOU LOST A FUCKING ARM! How can you be so casual about it?"
"Well, it's not like it's the end of the world. If I ever want to recover my entire body there's a straightforward way. Get killed by the monsters."
"... You outlanders are simply buttshit crazy."
"Fetch me some wine, innkeep. I'll pay half the price, a price cut for protecting your shitty tavern."
"Fine, just stay there and don't move. At least maybe the blood will stop."
While this was going on, Fayrene was gazing at the player who suffered from the limb loss, and Vek tugged her robe once again looking at her with a gaze that she knew what he wanted to imply.
"No need to waste resources to help outlanders. Just a waste, keep it to yourself. Are you ready to see what we have on our hands?"
Keeping quiet, Vek simply nodded his head, and getting his response Fayrene started walking toward the tavern exit, while the minstrel started getting panicked.
"WAIT! Are you crazy? Didn't you see what happened to that person?"
"Something that shouldn't be of my concern. You can stay there if you want, it is not like I force you to accompany me."
Fayrene exited the tavern followed by Vek, leaving out Maryden that grasped on her flute, moving at the window to take a peek at what was going outside, barely able to see something from the dark, and seeing that her partners were no longer around her, she panicked and also stepped outside, welcomed by the winter's cold and the battle cries of the players.
"YOU ARE CRUEL! Why fight against those monsters?" cried the minstrel trying to keep up with Fayrene and Vek, who looked vigilantly around themselves.
"To grow and experience hardship. Only by doing this will I be able to achieve my dream." responded Fayrene without looking back at the minstrel running toward her.
Once Maryden got closer to Fayrene and Vek, who didn't advance much standing relatively close to the other players that began preparing themselves for the fight, she observed some of players fight against the monsters, working together to kill them..
"How many of those monsters have appeared?" asked Fayrene, the woman that approached her at the counter, Sera, whose level was 60, leveling up once since she last saw her.
"Who knows. But if this info will help you, from what the ones who got killed remarked, about 200, maybe even more. Are you playing solo?"
"Mhm, with my partner here."
"I see, then good luck."
Fayrene nodded her head in an amicable way, and before she even stepped inside, she saw other groups of people making their way at the position most players were gathered, with one particular player making his presence felt stronger, the brown haired man with leather armor and broadsword who stood tall.
"It's Fang and his Watch Dogs." commented the players who recognised Fang and his guild.
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Fang looked at the grouped players, and with his breath haggard, he raised his hand to grab their attention before saying.
*Hah* *Hah* "Guys, can you please give me some attention?"
Everyone quieted down, and allowed Fang who give a quick peek at his back, to start telling what he knew about the situation, since the entire monster wave began, and how strong the monsters were compared to him and his guildmates, making it difficult for them to deal by themselves with the large monstrous insects.
"With everything that I have mentioned, about the monsters abilities and defenses, their structure, I would like to propose to everyone that we are forming a raid party. We have gathered around 26 of us, plenty enough to keep up with the flow of monsters that will descend minutes away."
Whispers began resounding around the courtyard of the tavern, and moments later, after having the main idea of what was going on, believing Fang story, the players started accepting his party invitation, beginning forming a large Raid party.
"To think I will team up with you Fang. I guess you live to experience new things." remarked Sera, glancing at Fang from where she was, who later accepted his invitation, bringing along her entire party of four guys, all guys.
"Leader, stop being so mean. Come on show a smile." said a middle-aged guy with black hair and wearing various pieces of armor from Plate Armor to Leather Armor while his sword was a Broadsword.
"Bernard, not now. We are in a serious situation. We keep the same fighting structure. You Bernard keep tanking the monsters, Eric, you are our clutch healer, Jose, Loop with me will deal the DPS."
"Understood, Sera." replied the middle-aged man, who turned toward the guy wearing a robe with a staff in his hand, called Eric.
"You better keep me alive, or I will nag you at work."
"How many times have I not saved your ass from getting yourself killed since entering Satisfy? Just don't get in your head to pull to many monsters or I will let you die and save Sera."
"Tsk, you old bastard."
Fayrene who listened to the bickering of those guys that from her understanding were part of Sera's Party, thought about how could those people not get along and still cooperate, but then as she was staring toward the forest, the alarm of the notification rang.
A new notification window appeared in front of her, which came from the one called Fang, who she remembered as the guy who guided her toward the tavern.
[User Fang has invited you to the Raid Party 'Monster Wave Festival']
'Should I accept it? I shouldn't be in danger of giving myself away, since I can turn off the thing showing my information to other people. Let's first turn it off, and I will get along with the rest.'
She opened her system option, and after one minute of looking around she finally found what she was looking for, a small setting that was rather important for her in those moments that she turned on, following Mathias tutorials of how to be seen as mysterious and intriguing from the perspective of the players.
[You have accepted the invasion.]
What happened next for Fayrene was being flooded by the high paced chatting messages that were happening in the new chat box belonging to the Raid chat. She didn't understand how those people could speak so fast in those chat-boxes, and instead of worrying about saying something that might give her away, she closed that communication system.
Turning to Vek and Maryden she noticed that they were also in the party, as if when she accepted they were brought in the same ship.
"Good, all of you accepted. It will be far easier to work in a team, and help each other maybe with buffs and heals if one is closer to death. But what matters the most is to stay grouped up, at least 3 together. If you don't have a partner, go search for it."
Fayrene had her own group, and in a reclused way, she walked with Vek away from the group, where she asked the small creature.
"It seems those people dealt with the monsters surrounding the tavern. But there should be more outside, in the forest."
"Yea, surprisingly they actually dealt with all the monsters around the tavern."
"How far are they compared to us? I can feel their presence, but still can't see them even if I use my magic."
"I can't see them in my range." some more seconds passed since he mentioned that, and with the tremors in the ground getting stronger, Fayrene finally got her answers from Vek.
"Yea, they are here. They look like insects with huge bodies of lizards, just like that person has mentioned and have heads similar to the monster that got inside the tavern."
It took for Fang 30 seconds to feel the monsters since he escaped from them, and immediately he began rallying up the players, bringing them courage to act against this high number of monsters.
"You got nothing to fear guys. Those are just dumb insects that are easy to fight. Be mindful of where you are standing and watch their front legs because those can attack you.
I wish you good luck, and let's start the leveling up."
"YESSSS!!!"
The players casted their buffing spells, and began charging like madmen toward the incoming monster transgressors that moved like a flood of invasive bugs crawling on to devour things, making an image for the NPC's looking at this scene of a nightmarish dream.
Such was the terrifying situation Maryden was in when she saw for the first time such monsters that in her world only existed in the stories and songs of her seniors, and she got closer to Fayrene, grabbing hold of her black cloak.
"I don't know how to fight."
Fayrene remained silent as she glanced at the fight in front of her, where the War Cries started blasting around the range of the tavern, accompanied by the monster's shrieks.
She gave Maryden a short look seeing how she was shaking, clearly panicked and terrified by what she was seeing, but this didn't bother her too much for some reason, because deep down she was worrying about herself and how she should deal with the monsters and also keep her identity intact.
Apart from that, she was also slightly scared by those ugly monsters.
'I can't show that I am scared. What would Mat act if he saw such a monster wave. [Just ants, nothing to be scared off.] But those monsters are quite scary.'
"Mistress, I will also join the fight, some of those people will lose their lives since they are outnumbered."
"Be careful." replied Fayrene trying to sound as calm as possible, watching Vek whose feet started releasing black feathers and immediately disappearing from where he was, advancing in a swiftly to the battlefield, drawing his two daggers, the [Fang of the Enforcer] and another weapon that Mathias gifted him, that he bought from the Grand Market, called [Steelforged Dagger].
Both items had superior stats compared to what other players were using currently in this fight.
He was having in eyesight a group of 3 players that were surrounded by 9 monster who clearly outnumbered them slowly working on breaking their defenses, with one particular person who took the aggro being the lowest HP wise from the three.
When he thought he was dead for his mistake, the shriek of the monster closest to him rang in his ears, followed by the monster dropping down dead.
"[Life Robbery]"
"What just happened? Did Fang save us?"
Yet, it wasn't Fang, instead Vek that stepped from the corpse of the insectoid monster turning into gray fragments of light scattering around, which debunked a thought of the players. Thos monsters could turn into gray light, evaporating into nothingness.
The players who looked at the appearance of the small creature, immediately got spooked, entering into defensive mode, believing he was also a monster, but when they checked his name having the same color as someone belonging to their raid, breathed out relieved.
"Thanks."
"For nothing."
*SHRIEK*
The monsters placed all their aggro on Vek who killed one of them, and started their attacks, but the dragonwrought's speed exceeded what the beasts could muster, and as he dodged, he throwed one of his pocket knives from his special location, spreading his wings, and pushing himself at the side of the insectoid Endriago, calling once again his skill.
"[Life Robbery]"
The three guys looked at one another surprised by the skills Vek showed, and his high agility, but his comment reached their ears.
"Its defense is large, the technique Lord taught me failed. It should be because I didn't wound it heavily like the first one and I couldn't kill him from one attack."
Vek continued with his assault, where the groups of players assisted by him, returned the gesture and began their attacks on the monsters, starting what could be said to be a resource consuming fight.
.
Maryden who saw everything happening could only tremble while holding on Fayrene's cloak, and from nowhere woke herself with a large monster appearing from the side, charging at her and Fayrene, making her scream as if she was a banshee.
"Ahhhhhh, the monster is attacking us!"
Fayrene's ears buzzed with the minstrel's fearing scream, and turning her head at the monster in question that from the look of things bypassed the players barrier, charging directly at the tavern.
Extending her slender right hand that released a blinding white-purple light, before the monster could even touch her, a magic blade exited her palm slashing the monster in halves, splashing it's green blood and guts.
Maryden closed her eyes when she saw the monster almost getting to her, but then the shrieking cries of the dying monster got to her sensible ears.
Then when she no longer heard the monster, instinctively opened her eyes, only to be greeted by a veil of white-purple light around herself and Fayrene, with the ground being painted in the monster's blood.
"That beast was wounded before it got to us." remarked Fayrene who canceled her protective spell, walking forward to take a closer look at the split monster, lowering herself to touch its blood that stung her.
"Has poisonous properties."
[Ding! You have defeated Soldier Endrigo gaining the following rewards: 31.200 EXP, 3 gold, Endrega Blood Vial 1x]
The first monster she defeated gave her a decent amount of experience for a high level monster of level 70, and from how she killed the insectoid it calmed her for a tiny bit.
"You defeated the monster?"
"Who else could be next to you?"
"Only you."
"If it's so, try to get a hold of yourself. If you can't even handle this pressure, then when you'll be faced in such a situation alone, how will you act?"
"..."
"Sigh, I am not your mother to take care of you. You have to be strong, if not bodywise at least mental wise. Showing fear to those monsters will make you the first target they would wish to eat."
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