In the Pride Forest.
Kirino swung his sword toward the sabertooth. A dim glow matching the shivering demeanor of the blade glittered through the air as it pierced the big cat’s tough skin and executed it. As he retracted the sword, he turned his whole body which caused his black cloak to flutter.
Since the sabertooth’s blood was warm, his sword steamed slightly. He couldn’t even use it without wearing gloves because the chill was uncomfortable. It was a good sword though, giving him a slow effect to the mobs he attacks; they attack and move 25% slower when hit by the sword for 5 seconds. The effect didn’t stack, but since he attacked quickly it would be reapplied often.
As Kirino flourished the sword and sheathed it, his party composed of 5 girls and only 1 other guy cheered for him.
“So cool!”
“Kirino is the best!”
“How is everyone’s level?” Kirino asked.
“We need to kill just a few more for me to catch up,” Asura said, brushing her golden hair behind her ear.
“What about you, uh…”
“Flein,” the samurai replied.
“Right, Flein, of course. Are you about to level up?”
“Well, I actually…” he began to explain when Kirino released a huge yawn. After Kirino apologized, Flein picked up his sentence where he left off.
“I actually need-”
This time, Kirino completely interrupted the samurai. “That’s cool. So hey, listen up: Asura needs a few more kills to level up so watch me kill more sabertooths.”
“I’ve got your back, brother!” His step sister called out, raising her healing staff.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’m so awesome; my health regenerates at a faster rate than the mobs hurt me!”
“Wow,” the fan girls in the background commented. “He’s so amazing!”
That wasn’t completely true: his health regeneration was high because of his cloak but the only reason he didn’t need a healer was because sabertooths often hunt by themselves. In a one versus one, he wouldn’t face much struggle. He grew up practicing kendo as well, which actually helps with fighting in-game.
“Someone bust out the Applewood Whiskey,” he called out as he finished slaying one of the last sabertooths. “It’s time for-”
A scream rang behind him. Upon looking, he saw a sabertooth had snuck up behind his party and was preparing to attack. Though they could fight it, they instead called for help.
“Help, Kirino!”
Kirino dashed forward and began to strike down the beast. When it fell, he found himself breathing heavily and his limbs were growing tired.
“You saved me, Kirino,” Asura said. She leaned forward and kissed her boyfriend on his cheek. His step sister’s eyes waved uncomfortably.
“D-do you need heals?” Subaru asked.
“Well, I am starting to feel tired. So sure.”
Just as Subaru finished healing Kirino, his attention drew to the trees. They were shaking and footsteps were growing louder. This didn’t seem to be an ordinary sabertooth…
Out of the shadows emerged a sabertooth that was twice as big as a regular mob. At 14 years old, Kirino was roughly 5 feet, 5 inches tall. This beast was twice as tall!
He immediately recognized it as Chazo, the sabertooth boss.
Most sabertooths had brown fur, but this beast’s fur was white with black stripes. Its two teeth at the front of its mouth was almost the size of two short swords as opposed to the dagger-sized regular sabertooth’s. It wore some sort of golden ring around one of its teeth, woven bands around its hind legs, and a tribal beaded necklace around its neck.
Kirino was in awe. Chazo was a rare spawn, so he didn’t expect to see it his first time hunting in the Pride Forest. Normal sabertooths were level 55, but this boss was level 85!
.……….…..…..….
One of the perks to asking Jenovine to follow him was that Orion had access to a portable kitchen kit: a campfire and a black pot with metal rods used to hover it over the fire.
What’s more is that Jenovine had summoned the kit out of thin air, which meant NPC’s had some sort of inventory. Now any time he found loot, he could give it to her and she would hang onto it until they wandered into a town and he sold it.
A tender chunk of beef slid into his mouth via a spoon, causing his mind to go blank for a moment of pleasure.
It was good!
One of the mechanics in the game was the ability to feel things. Not pain for when you die, of course. After all, nobody would want to play a game that makes you feel pain (probably).
But if Orion was to touch the ground, he would feel the dirt and grass on his hand as if it were real. Food with a quality of “good” or better could also be tasted. That was why he hadn’t been able to taste any of his dishes before; they were never of good quality. Players often didn’t cook at all because you needed to grind the mastery skill before you start tasting food, so it was easier to just buy it.
Unfortunately even though Orion wanted to cook his own food, he couldn’t seem to make them right. They all turned into poor quality.
“Do you want me to teach you?” Jenovine asked him as they ate the stew together while sitting on the side of the dirt path.
“No, I think I just need recipes.”
“Should we buy one in the next town?”
“Well if I’m honest with you, I was hoping we would stumble on one. I wanted to hang onto as much gold as I could. But we might have to buy one.”
“Well monsters aren’t going to drop pieces of paper that tell you how to cook. We’ve been together for a month now and all you’ve done in grind monsters.”
It was true, other than his therapist visits almost all of his time had been put into Genesis. Ever since Jenovine joined him, he had focused on grinding to get to a high level in hopes to be able to solo bosses.
In three months, he had gained 50 levels!
Just then, a scream reached them. Orion immediately rushed into the forest as if by habit. Jenovine’s reaction was slightly slower, but she was very fast and caught up quickly.
There were few mobs roaming around, so they managed to dodge them well enough. Soon they found the source of the scream: a party of seven hanging around fighting an enormous sabertooth.
“Switch!” A man cloaked in black shouted. Following his orders, a beautiful golden-haired woman dashed forward and launched a fury of sword strikes.
When the same man yelled “Switch” another time, he ran around it and continuously struck it’s legs while the woman retreated.
“What is he saying? What does ‘Switch’ mean?” Orion asked Jenovine.
“No idea,” she admitted.
It didn’t appear as if the maneuver had any effect whatsoever. Even though one stopped attacking, the boss stayed aggro’d on the same person until losing interest. All that means is that they are losing the amount of damage per second they were putting out.
When fighting mobs, the beast or monster always goes for the person dealing the most damage unless someone uses a skill that is specifically for drawing its attention. If the idea was to continuously switch the mob’s agro, all they had to do would be to fluctuate the damage per second each person put out.
Or, more practically, have a tank on hand so that aggression doesn’t become a problem.
This idea of “Switch” only resulted in dealing, for example, 100 damage per second as opposed to dealing 1000 damage per second simply because it looks or sounds cool.
Only when both players grew weary, cut up, and bloody (showing the physical attributes of being low on health) did the rest of the party join them.
But it appeared that the monster was too strong. Their team was well equipped but Orion drew the simple conclusion that they were simply under-leveled.
“Oh, I remembered something: that’s actually a mob boss named Chazo, so it’s much stronger than normal sabertooths in the area. Should we help?” Jenovine said.
“Probably not. If they lose, they will just respawn. I, personally, would prefer to not go through dying again.”
“Get back!” The black swordsman commanded. A fire burned deep in the man’s eyes.
Orion tilted his head. It’s not like the stranger could take on the beast himself… right?
Just then, the swordsman activated a skill that summoned another sword from thin air. He began to attack more furiously and was screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Damn that kid is loud,” Orion said, sticking his fingers in his ears.
Chazo swung his right claw forward in a swift attack, slashing the swordsman’s chest. The man cried out and flew a few feet back.
“Kirino!” his party yelled.
Two of the many women rushed forward to his aid. The golden haired girl from before took a defensive stance between the swordsman and Chazo. The other girl, a black haired girl carrying a wooden healing staff, knelt by Kirino.
“Let me heal you!” the healer was saying, pointing the staff towards Kirino. He continued to lie on the ground and raised a hand.
“It’s no use,” he said weakly. “I’m dying.”
Orion assumed that meant he was under 10% of his health. When a player reaches that low, they will continue to bleed out until their health reaches 0.
“That’s why I should-”
“You must go, Subaru.”
Kirino stroked her cheek gently and some tears dripped from her eyes. Orion looked around and noticed that everyone in the party were growing misty eyed, ready to burst out in bawls.
“What the hell is happening,” Orion muttered. To his left Jenovine shrugged, equally confused. NPCs are lost forever if they die, but even Jenovine and all other NPCs knew that players would revive at the nearest town.
“Brother,” the healer cried.
“Oh my god,” Orion said, emerging from the trees. “Just accept the damn healing.”
“But-” Kirino began to retort.
“Do it!”
Kirino looked to Subaru and hesitantly nodded, letting her heal his health enough so that he wasn’t bleeding out anymore.
“We can’t win,” the swordsman explained, standing now. Chazo stood a few feet away with its head low to the ground, ready to attack if anyone came near or provoked it further.
“I’ll help you.”
Kirino examined Orion’s gear and seemed unconvinced. After all even though Orion was probably a higher level than them, his gear said otherwise. It was simple leather armor and an iron chest plate; gear for a level 30 or 40.
“Chazo isn’t attacking right now, right? That means unless we get close or attack it, it won’t attack us. It’s gaining its health back at a rapid rate, though, so we can’t really use it as a strategy. But it does give me time to think.”
“But it attacked us first,” the golden haired girl stated.
“You must have been standing in its spawn zone, so when it appeared it automatically attacked.”
“Well we can heal up now and then continue the fight just like before!” Kirino suggested, appearing hopeful.
“No, I’m taking over,” Orion said. The fight he witnessed before was pitiful and he wanted no part of it.
“This is Asura,” the swordsman waved a hand towards the golden haired girl. “She’s probably stronger than me.”
“Then why were you holding her back and trying to do everything yourself?”
“Er… ah… well… because I’m the man!”
“That’s just stupid.”
“What about you, then?” Kirino retorted, nodding towards Jenovine who remained by the trees. “Your maid girlfriend is over there and you’re over here.”
“Don’t worry about her. Also, why did you not use your dual swords until near the end?”
“Because…”
“For dramatic effect? Yeah, don’t kid yourself. When we go back in, use all your skills.”
Before Kirino could reply, Orion moved on to talking to the rest of the team. “Tank. Focus on using your skills that draw it’s aggression, got it?”
The samurai shot a thumbs up. “Name’s Flein.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Cool. How many healers do we have?”
Subaru and one more girl raised their hands. The second healer looked as if to be only thirteen years old. Orion wondered if that was what they called “loli”.
“You,” he said pointing to Subaru. “Are your skills area of effect or single target?”
“Single target.”
“And you?” he asked the loli-girl.
“A-a-area of effect!”
“Subaru, focus solely on healing the tank. That means we can use our other healer for healing the rest of us. Flein, you’ll be facing it head on with Subaru behind you. That leaves all of us behind it and away from its claw attack that just knocked your leader on his ass. Eventually Flein will lose its aggro, but as I saw before Kirino and Asura can handle its attacks for a while. At least until Flein’s skills get off cooldown.”
“Gotcha!” they all said.
The battle began.
“Battle Cry!”
“Phantom Strike!”
“Blessings!”
For ten minutes, the group battled Chazo. It mostly went as Orion planned, only Flein often lost the boss’ aggression more often than he predicted. Luckily they had two healers, so nobody was too injured. However, it eventually revealed a new attack.
Chazo waved his tail behind him, forcing a fierce gust of wind to stagger the damage dealers behind him. Once he regained his composure, Orion noticed a red text appear and fade after a couple seconds.
Your strength and defense has lowered!
A de-buff!
There was a mage in the team, but everyone else relied on strength. Plus the samurai tanking Chazo’s attacks was thrown off as well, probably just out of surprise.
Chazo spun around and swung his razor-sharp claws at Orion’s team, causing them all to fly backwards.
Orion tumbled into a roll and landed on his knees, ready to fight again. However, the weaker players were out of breath and struggling to stand.
“Heal them!” Orion ordered, and the loli-girl used a trembling hand to chug a blue potion before beginning to heal the team. The only problem was that the healing would take time.
Chazo had focused back on Flein, who was struggling to defend. Even with a healer, he wouldn’t last long without damage dealers behind the boss to draw its attention while the tank’s skills were on cooldown.
As his eyes watched the samurai battle the sabertooth boss, he noticed a sword lying on the ground. It was Kirino’s second sword, which was completely black so it stood out amongst the grass. He must have dropped it after the team was attacked.
Kirino’s sword would deal more damage than his own sword, and every bit of damage counted if he wanted to withstand a one on one fight with Chazo, even if the fight only lasted a few seconds.
Orion sprinted forward and swept the sword from the ground.
Text appeared in front of him.
You have lost 25 fame!
Of course, picking something off the ground is still stealing if it belongs to another player. However, he accumulated an impressive amount of fame due to the quest fighting Duke Wilde. He had 200 fame, which made NPCs nicer, prices lower, and certain quests available. Usually you wouldn’t reach that amount until you were at least level 100.
But he was too invested in this fight to care about 25 fame!
Once he reached the beast, he swung the sword at its legs.
Chazo roared and faced Orion. Then it lifted its paw up high in the air.
“Shrouded!” Orion called.
A sliver of silver in the form of an orb appeared around Orion. The barrier would protect him from 1000 physical or magical damage. But as the cost, his mana dropped by 3/4ths!
It was a mana-hungry skill and the cooldown was 60 seconds, but it was necessary. If he didn’t help Klein, the samurai would fall too quickly and Chazo’s health would reset.
The claws clashed against the orb and forced the boss’ claw to fly back into the air. The barrier shattered and though the attack deflected, Orion still took enough damage to put him at 25% health.
Chazo prepared for a second attack.
“Battle cry!”
Chazo’s attention was drawn back to Flein.
After a second rotation, resulting in Orion falling to 15% health, the rest of the team arrived to help and he began to receive the area-of-effect heals.
“Same plan as before!” he told them.
They began to deal consistent damage again, chunking Chazo’s health by 10% before its tail moved to the left.
This time, Orion’s attention to detail spotted it.
“Duck!”
Everyone around Orion dropped to their stomachs, allowing Chazo’s tail to swoop above them. The wind nearly blew everyone over, but they managed to dodge the de-buff and resume the attack.
“Phantom Strike!”
“Fury Strike!”
“Lightning Bolt!”
With the occasional command of “Duck”, Orion managed to lead the team to chunking the boss’ health below 25%.
The sabertooth suddenly roared, but it wasn’t a regular roar; it was loud enough to shake the ground and the trees. Across the field, Orion saw Flein fly back against his will into the forest and out of sight. At the same time, two sabertooths lept from cover.
Shit! Think fast!
The sabertooth to the left had a sword symbol floating above its head; the one to the right had some sort of open book which gave extra spell damage.
“Kirino, stay with me! We’re going to keep the boss busy! Loli, stay and heal us at the same time! Asura, take Subaru and fight the sabertooth on the left!
The loli-girl’s face flushed when she heard the nickname. “L-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-”
But Orion didn’t give her time to object to being called “Loli” as he had more orders.
“Everyone else, the three of you should be able to take the sabertooth on the right!”
Orion didn’t much enjoy Kirino’s company but based on what he’d seen before, he would be able to help tank some of Chazo’s attacks.
“Shrouded!”
Orion shielded most of the first attack. Because Kirino dealt more damage than him, Chazo’s attention soon focused on the swordsman instead. With one strike, Kirino was thrown back.
Orion’s skill didn’t come off cooldown soon enough to block the first attack, so he was soon thrown back as well.
However, at that time Kirino was rushing back into the fight.
Once Orion regained his composure and ran into battle, Kirino was hit back again. It was like the sabertooth was playing with a pinball machine.
This time, Orion’s barrier had come back off of cooldown.
“Shrouded!”
The attack was deflected, but neither one of them could take another direct hit. It was then that Asura lept into battle and Subaru helped with healing as well. Since she was a skilled swordsman, she dealt more damage per second than Orion and Chazo focused his attention on her.
She was able to survive a hit and the rest of the damage dealers soon finished slaying the other sabertooth add.
They all took some damage, but with their numbers they were able to stall until Flein found his way back.
“Battle cry!” he shouted.
Chazo’s aggression was pulled towards the samurai and they were able to resume the assault. Even though it was a video game, Orion could feel sweat drip from his brow and was out of breath. But he couldn’t ease up.
Luckily the boss didn’t summon any more minor creatures and after another dodge from its tail, Chazo’s health reached 0.
The giant sabertooth raised its head and cried out before collapsed to the ground, causing dirt to swarm over all the players.
+25000 EXP!
Level up!
Level up!
Orion could finally release a heavy sigh. His second boss, Chazo the Sabertooth, was a successful victory.
And it only took an hour!
He approached the corpse of the beast. A small window popped up revealing one item: a bonetooth necklace. He retrieved it and examined it.
Item Obtained: Bonetooth Necklace
A unique trophy obtained from Chazo the Sabertooth. Given only to those worthy.
Only to those worthy?
Orion took another look, this time through his inventory like he was ready to put it on.
Bonetooth Necklace Durablity: 100/100
Effects
+10 Fame
+50 Health
+Leadership
‘Leadership? What the hell is that?’
Orion looked around at the players celebrating their victory. It didn’t appear that anyone else received the item, so had the game somehow knew he was leading the assault and gave the item to him as a reward? He equipped it and decided to do research on what “leadership” was later.
As he turned to leave, Kirino stopped him.
“Hey,” the swordsman said. “Can we add you on our friends list?”
“Uh… no thanks.”
“Come on, please? You can travel around with us; you and your maid friend!”
“I prefer to roll solo, but thanks.”
“Well, can I have my sword back?”
“Hey, look over there!” Orion shouted suddenly, pointing in the opposite direction. “A possible addition to a fan club, damsel-in-distress!”
Kirino excitingly spun around to look for who Orion was talking about, but saw no one. When he turned back, Orion was gone.
“You’re going to keep his sword?” Jenovine asked as they returned to the dirt path they had been traveling before.
“Hell yes, I lost 25 fame picking this thing up. I’m not about to just give it back.”
“Does it do anything special?”
Orion opened his inventory and examined the sword.
Obsidian Sword Durablity: 65/100 Damage: 32
Requirements: 100 Agility
Effects
+25 Strength
+25 Dexterity
+50 Agility
Sells to merchants for 200% more gold than to shopkeepers.
“Pretty impressive,” Orion admitted. “But it looks like it’s more of a sword than you would use with a second sword, like how that kid was using it while dual wielding. I’ve been using a low level sword to save money, so I’ll be able to use it for now. Later I’ll sell it and try to buy a better sword with the gold.”
“Where to next, then?”
“Next? Hm… I guess now we should go to the coast.” He looked to Jenovine and smiled. “There’s a lot more islands and countries waiting for us!”