Chapter 27

That’s Not A Monster

The next day until their fifth were full of struggles and it was here that Siva had made the biggest blunder of his career. He was now officially a B-rank Monster Hunter and also with it was the fact that it made their life along the mountains not only difficult, they’re already in the verge of quitting the mission.

Yesterday, they were having fun that they saw two large monsters and killed it. The finishing blows even went to be Siva’s privilege.

Now, he was flat eyed and regretting every bit of it.

But what can he do? What’s done is done. So instead of moping for it, he just had to face forward and move on since he doesn‘t have time to spare.

Apparently, the area near the top of the mountain was a place for B-ranked monsters. They were nesting there and for some good reason, they are all attracted to the smell of food coming their way. It was not even a surprise to learn that within this large area, only a few groups of people would actually dare go.

That’s because the monsters here are all B-ranked ones and only they are big, they’re also very vicious and needed careful attention to be able to defeat.

How they were able to only meet two of them on Siva’s agitated state? It could also be called luck.

When they finally reached the peak, it seemed that all worries and hardships, including his blunder and all their fatigue vanished from the sight of the view. There were the green fields, the forests, a river that was like a snake cutting the land towards the horizon, the Walled City of Hagonoy that seemed so small it was like a rock that was formed around a wall, and the view of the path they took, all of his exhaustion seem to vanish under nature‘s beautiful master piece.

Green overlapped with blue and brown. The land in the far side below hid the forests and plains, with the seemingly ocean like size of Yellow Brick Lake a small speck of water piece.

The river that connected the lake to the city was also an enormous view when seen from that side but from up here, it seemed just like a thread.

“Beautiful.” Beside Siva, Hawkeye commented.

Beside her was Samara and Agatha, taking pictures while Volt was busy doing mapping and.

At that point, Agatha took out four floating balls and it floated around behind her as if it was alive.

“What are those?” Siva asked her.

“Nanobots or most commonly known as Camera Balls.”

“For?”

“For taking videos and picture and also to record the mapped area that Volt is taking right now.”

Siva glanced at Volt and he was manipulating some sort of hologram panel. After a few moments, six small devices just like the ones around Agatha arrived and it joined Agatha’s palm sized nanobots.

At that moment, laser lights came and it became a map of the area in bluish 3D lines, hovering in front of them like a military tactical map.

Siva was amazed at the sight of it.

He never knew that such equipment existed inside the game. And when he asked how much those devices cost, he got the mind ruining answer, “Z20M each.”

And ever since then, he only watched and swallowed every question he wanted to asked. Just how much do they really earn for the past how many years doing their blog and hired adventurers job?

He could only guess.

Eventually, he got the explanation from Samara.

“These equipments are sponsored by our clients. One Nanobot, one client. We’ve been doing our job for the last two years inside the game. We already had lost ten nanobots due to surprise monster attacks and so we learned to only use them when in a clearing.”

“I see.” With sweat forming on his temples, Siva nod and accepts the fact that money making was a simple feat on these guys. Maybe I could do that too?

“The total area is one square kilometer.” Volt spoke up and he manipulated the 3D map. “There is a large lake over there but there is no cave around here.”

“But this is the top of the mountain right?”

Siva looked around on Agatha’s words and even him can see that there were already no place to climb up. It really is the top of the mountain.

The green fields, the bonsai trees, the brownish and green land was all there is around them.

Even if he had to say that the trees not too far away from them were entrance to the forest, he knew that on either side of this area, there would only be a cliff or the way down.

Then were we tricked?

—No.

A mission from an NPC is an absolute rule. Inside the game, there is no NPC that would lie when giving out a mission or a quest. Given as it may that a mission difficulty is a joke on its own, but a mission is still a mission. It was not designed to be a lie nor to trick the players into their own death.

Not unless…

As these thoughts entered his mind, a loud roar came to break the tranquil silence of the mountain top.

The cold wind became warm, the trees not too far away swayed and their leaves left a sound that bade an ominous feeling. That one loud roar changed their silent rest and they became aware that it was not just a normal monster.

“S-rank?” Siva asked and he held his fists that was already wearing Cassius Clay.

“I‘m not sure.” Volt answered and the five of them went back to back with each other.

The strong wind came shaking the trees more. The hot air surrounded them like a hurricane, a loud sound that came like a roar came down from the east side.

The roar became louder, seeming to close in on them from the grey cloud sky.

At this moment, Siva’s eyes weren’t joking when he saw a silhouette of a large winged monster coming down at their direction. And then, as a reflex, he yelled out to dodge and the five of them scattered as the large shadow crashed where they stood.

The ear deafening explosion created clouds of dust and the ground shook wildly.

But when Siva raised his head, what he saw was just enough to put his nightmares to shame. Dark skin, gold yellow eyes, two whiskers, clawed wings that span at least seventy to eighty meters, a body that looked like a malamute but with a toughed up physique and vicious looking appearance, its bright golden eyes glaring at them, a low sounding growl coming from its direction, like a mother cat’s growl when you’re touching her babies, only louder and more terrifyingly sounding from around twenty meters away…

He was sure now, this isn’t a monster.

This is a dragon.

All his hairs stood, gooseflesh crawled from his legs to his nape, sending a chill down to his spine telling him to run away.

And at that short pause, it roared and the dust clouds vanished from the surroundings, revealing the creature in the middle of the crater he made a few moments ago.

“Oh no…” Siva looked at Hawkeye who was caving in on where she landed after she dodged. She was the nearest to him so he heard her voice that sounded really scared.

He looked around and saw Agatha’s frozen state from his right while Samara from behind the dragon nodded at him and pointed at the direction where they came from.

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She recovered fast, that was admirable.

But where’s Volt?

As his eyes wandered more, Siva heard Hawkeye’s scream from his left side.

“Kuya!”

Siva followed her gaze and saw Volt at the dragon’s tail, pressed down by its sheer weight and struggling.

The dragon leaned back and saw him, he froze there and the dragon raised his spiked tail and acted as if he was about to finish Volt.

“No!”

Siva screamed and dashed forward.

He used air jump to boost his momentum and his own agility to close the gap in two seconds. But the tail was faster and he knew he won’t make it. But then two pillars of bluish white light came from behind and hit the tail, the dragon was hurt that it stood up. It glared on its attacker and Samara immediately activated her Float magic to escape, stepping back thirty meters in just four easy steps.

“Kuya!” Hawkeye screamed and Volt jumped away towards Agatha who then healed him using contact healing magic, First Aid. It was a tier 2 magic using less MNA and heals almost as much as the 10MNA costing healing magic.

“Shit! I thought I was going to die!” Volt held his chest as he was helped by Agatha to stand up. “Thanks Agatha.”

“It‘s alright. But more importantly, we have to get out of here. That‘s a Forest Dragon!”

“Yeah…”

The two was around fifty meters away from Siva but instead of slowing down or stopping, he punched the dragon on its body, the highest he can jump, and it was now glaring at him with angry eyes.

“Go!” He screamed on the party voice chat over the small ear set of the communicator. “I‘ll buy you guys some time! Go! Get away!”

Then he punched again as he used another Air Jump to hit the dragon’s chest. Its bearing was like that of a proud lion. When it reacted to Samara’s attack, its pose was that of an angered wild beast. But the most vexing thing it did wasn’t to attack back but instead, it studied his attacker, just like what it’s doing right now.

The dragon only roared as a retaliation to Siva but it was still enough to knock him back 10 meters.

“Siva!” Screamed Agatha but Siva only rebuked her.

“Don‘t just stand there! Go!”

As he screamed, the dragon’s attention was now solely focused on him and it was here that it flapped its wings as if acknowledging that fact.

“We won‘t leave you here!” Yelled Hawkeye as she let go of four arrows almost simultaneously. “You‘ll die if we leave you here!”

“I have another ability. I can escape from here! Just go!” On Siva’s words, Volt pulled Agatha and his sister to the opposite direction. Volt’s and Siva’s eyes met, he nodded to him, and Volt curled his brows as he pursed his lips while pulling them away.

“But Kuya!”

“Stop it!” Volt’s voice sounded scolding. His face is firm, his grip was tight. Hawkeye had never seen this side of her brother before, even in real life when he’s scolding her for her mistakes. “This isn’t something to be arguing about.”

She wanted to say, this is just a game.

But when she looked back on Siva’s direction, as he was about to come face to face with a dragon, his eyes fierce, his expression stern, she felt that something was not right.

And it was here that she remembered Siva‘s —Rex’s sad face when she heard that story.

For his brother…

For him, this world is not just a game, everything he did here concerned his brother’s life. His life.

Even so.

She argued to herself.

What’s wrong about fighting a dragon? Yes it may hurt, but that’s just how far it could go, right? So why are we retreating on such a good game and all? Such loss for an experience…

Unable to process the reason why, Hawkeye pulled her arm that made Agatha and Volt stop.

“This is just a game!” She screamed. “Let‘s go and fight. If we die, we can just start over again!”

“Stop it!” Volt rebuked. “I said this is not something to be arguing about.”

“But we can defeat that monster if we…”

“No we can‘t!” Volt yelled and Hawkeye fell silent as she met his gaze. “We can‘t even defeat an S-rank monster without exerting full effort and almost dying, to the point that even Agatha had to join the fight. How can you even say that we can defeat a dragon?”

Hawkeye was speechless. And it was at that moment that Samara landed, with her cannons floating casually beside her, and spoke up between her breaths.

“I think I know where the cave is!” At that, Agatha, Volt and Hawkeye waited for her to speak up as her expression changed from urgent to anxious. “But we’ll have to rely on Siva‘s help to get there.”

“Why?” Agatha asked.

“It‘s hidden between those clouds. There was a small floating island in there. I just happen to see some weird looking vines going up so I landed on that realization.”

“And?” Volt prompted.

“And the dragon made it its nest. We can‘t get there without a distraction.”

Hawkeye was still silent but she realized why they had to go on Siva’s command. In his mind, he wanted to complete the mission, that’s why he had to go and be the distraction so that they can find the cave.

And now that they had a clue to where it is, all the more he can’t leave his fight with the dragon.

But then again, if he’s doing it for his brother, if he dies…

“What about Siva?” Hawkeye spoke. “We can‘t just leave him alone to fight that monster! He will die!”

“No he won‘t!” Samara answered her.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because before I left there, I saw how his attacks were hurting the monster.”

At that, Hawkeye looked at her brother. “Ah!”

“You get it now?” Volt smiled and she followed.

“What? What are you talking about?” Agatha was left dumbstruck, unable to follow their conversation.

Then, Volt looked back at the direction of their fight with a look that spoke of an unspoken sentence. And he opened his mouth, saying, “He had this ability to lower the enemy‘s defenses. So no matter how much strong a monster is…”

“He can always bring it down to its knees.”

Volt look at his sister and smiled. Samara nodded as their eyes met and she pulled Agatha with her and flew.

“Wait, wait! Where are we going?” Agatha clung on to her tightly as she wasn’t affected by Samara’s Float.

“Heal him.” Samara told her. “If my observations are correct, he may be able to lower the enemy‘s defenses but their attack’s damage is still normal.”

At that, Agatha pursed her lips. She could only hope that Siva could last. Healing Magic can regenerate HP, reduces pain, and heal wounds, but it can’t take away fatigue during the fight. And that’s what actually wears down Volt and the others. What more is a Hyper Melee combatant like Siva?

She could only imagine how it was, thus, she could only purse her lips and hope he’s okay.