In the middle of a jungle island’s clearing and surrounded by unfamiliar faces, Zayd’s expression was one of bewilderment. The clouds moved past the sun slowly, giving him a better look at the cloaked elf who fought side by side with Orcs.
“Why do you have a laser gun?!” Zayd asked abruptly.
The elf’s brow furrowed at the inquiry, but she quickly regained her composure and responded.
“How do you-it doesn’t matter right now. Since you have taken our side, I advise you to get on your feet and take point!”
“...Alright, but I’m going to be asking again.”
She nodded and charged back to the adventurers with an inhuman speed that produced a gust of wind. Her gigantic laser cannon collapsed back into her cloak’s sleeve while steam came off it.
It seemed like with her help, the Orcs would win this fight even without Zayd’s assistance. On the other hand, Zayd himself was in a bad position as three of the remaining Adventurers came running straight toward him.
“Let’s go after the scrawny one.”
“Compared to the Orcs and that Elf with the crazy weapon he should be a lot easier to deal with.”
“Yeah, he’s the lowest level after all.”
The jeers of the three Adventurers did nothing to assuage Zayd's worry.
‘Wait, they can see my level?! Oh right, that was a feature of Chronicle Odyssey.’
The adventurers reached him and swung their weapons wildly at Zayd who deftly avoided all their attacks. They were surprised by this and so was Zayd, who decided to peek at their levels as well.
Saturio Acacius Sea Stalion Adventurer Lv. 5
Petrus Herma Sea Stallion Adventurer Lv. 4
Hegio Indus Sea Stallion Adventurer Lv. 8
‘Hold on, their levels range from 4 to 8 and their technique is sloppy at best. I might be able to handle them.’
Zayd avoided all the attacks and countered with his own but to little effect. He could anticipate their movements to avoid their attacks despite their superior speed, but his strength still was not enough to deal any real damage to them.
“Dammit…this isn’t going to cut it. But, maybe a stronger weapon would change that.”
Zayd ran away from the trio of adventurers.
They followed after him and he sprinted behind a large obsidian boulder on the edge of the jungle. The group hesitated at first in fear that it was a trap. While they were bickering over who would check first, Zayd analyzed the boulder that was blocking him from their view.
‘This rock looks like it’s made out of adamantine, that's the fifth strongest material in the game. If I could turn this into a weapon with my system patch power, I’ll be able to deal with those fodder even with me being a level 0.’
Zayd quickly traced a Patch over the boulder and a menu came up.
Status Dungeon Item Quest
‘Status, Dungeon, Item, and Quest. Not sure what they mean exactly, but Item seems like the obvious pick for this situation.’
A submenu popped up after he clicked on Item with the only choice being listed simply as Mace. Hearing silence from the adventurers alerted him that he had run out of time and he quickly selected the option.
A boulder was there one moment and gone the next. In the air, an obsidian mace fell down and Zayd grabbed it speechlessly.
The scraggly bearded adventurer named Hegio that tracked him down looked dumbfounded before shaking his head.
“A mirage spell? Hmph, looks like you’re all out of mana now though…and luck.” With a confident smirk, he lunged at Zayd with a shortsword. Feeling the weight of his new weapon in hand, Zayd’s face stiffened, and he knocked away the adventurer as if he was swatting a fly.
“Now, this feels a lot better.”
Zayd made a stance with both maces and rushed to the other two adventurers. They were felled instantly. He then entered the fray with the others.
“Hold on, you’re too low-leveled to be taking on that many…” The Dark Elf's words fell on deaf ears and Zayd made quick work of the human warriors, one right after the other. He was like a blur as he moved through the battlefield attacking every single enemy that got in his way. In a matter of moments, most of the adventurers were too wounded to continue the fight. It seemed a victory for the Orcs would be assured.
“Not so fast, Wanderer!” One of the adventurers called out. He had brown hair, green eyes, and a large scar running across his neck and chin. His higher quality equipment and garb tipped Zayd off to the man being the leader of this band of warriors.
With their back crushed under his foot, a bloody Orc had the Warrior Leader’s longsword held over their head.
Stolen novel; please report.
“You and that oddball Elf, what are you doing getting in the way of our expedition? All me and my men were trying to do was get some monster drops to take back home with us.”
“...We avoid human settlements and you were the ones who invaded our lands.” The trampled Orc uttered out in a guttural voice. “Please…just leave my people alon-”
The Orc was interrupted by a stomp to his back that knocked the wind out of him.
“Don’t tell me you two are falling for this drivel. The first thing Adventurers have to learn is how to not trust anything a Monster says no matter how convincing it is.”
“When it was a game, I used to treat killing Orcs like it was nothing, but this isn’t a game anymore. It’s not really about trusting anyone, I’d just rather not see anyone die here.’ Zayd glared at the Warrior Leader.
“The Orcs have no business with you, so just leave them alone in peace.”
“This is our business. Do you know how long it took to reach this island? If we go back empty-handed at this point we’ll end up being thrown out of our guild.” The man said sincerely. He truly did not see killing beings that could reason and converse with him any differently than hunting game.
‘This place is so messed up. Is this why the Admin sent me here?’
“Then, you need to prepare to find a new guild.” Zayd raised a mace at him.
The Warrior Leader groaned. “How about we have a deal then? Allow us to finish off all the unconscious Orcs lying around from the battle and we’ll leave the remaining ones alone, including this one. Sounds fair, right?”
“There’s no way…” Zayd glanced around and saw that other Orcs were similarly being held hostage. One of them was the female Orc he had seen shield another Orc with their body. Blood from their back could be seen smeared over their shoulders. Despite the resolve still within this Orc’s eyes, their expression was somber.
‘Shit! If I jump the gun now, they’ll be killed instantly. What do I do?’
Zayd lowered his weapons and placed them behind his back, inciting a sigh of relief from the Warrior Leader. He made another quick look around and made his decision.
“Alright, I’ll accept your terms.”
“Good, glad you finally came to your sense-” His sentence would never be finished as the adamantite mace that Zayd swung from behind his back slammed into his face and toppled him over. Taking advantage of his subordinates’ ensuing shock, the battle-ready Orcs attacked the other adventurers who were holding hostages and freed their captives.
The adventurers were decimated by the surprise attack and severely fatigued from the drawn-out battle. Firmly on the backfoot now, the Warrior Leader got up with a bruised face and bloody nose as he saw the disarray his group was in. He pulled out a glowing turquoise crystal that seemed to shimmer with star-like lights.
“Curse this, we’ll just have to report back what happened!” The warrior shouted as he addressed the other adventurers. “Men, we’ll try again another day. For now, grab your astral crystals and our injured as well. We're retreating!” The green-eyed man commanded this, and a few of the adventurers pulled out similar crystals to the one he had as they collected their fallen comrades. With a flash of light, every crystal activated its magical power and all the adventurers in the vicinity of the light vanished without a trace.
They had won.
***
After the battle, the Dark Elf and the Orcs led Zayd back to a village while carrying back the ones who were too wounded to walk. The village itself was a collection of large shabby huts enclosed with a tall fence made of logs.
“First off, my name is Cecilia Brook and I'm from outside of Isle. I suppose you have a lot of questions for me.” The woman announced as the two sat alone in a hut where Zayd had gotten his wounds haphazardly bandaged by an Orc that seemed to be the resident medic of the village.
“That’s putting it lightly. That laser gun means you’re not from Isle or the Nadir Zone, right?”
“Nadir Zone? Wait, I guess that’s what our original realm is called. I’m from the same place as you I think. This device is based off one from the Zoldai Zone which is like Earth but centuries ahead in terms of technological advancement. From you calling it a laser gun, I was able to discern that you weren’t from around here either.”
“If you aren’t from the Nadir Zone, how are you a dark elf? I’m pretty sure we didn’t have those there. Were you always like this?”
The green-haired woman shook her head causing her luxurious hair to sway mesmerizingly as she stared at Zayd with eyes that contained irises akin to stars.
“No, my body was altered into this form right before I arrived.” Cecilia explained. Zayd looked at her with a puzzled expression.
“That’s a little different from me. I was wondering whether you were summoned or whether you were reincarnated by having your mind put into a new body made here. You do have an idea of those concepts, right?” There was a hint of condescension in that last question.
“Summoning and reincarnation? Those are strange words to call teleportation and mind transference.” Cecilia said in irritation.
“Well, those were terms I saw all the time in anime and light novels.”
“I know what an anime is but a light novel? I’m not so sure we’re both from the same realm now.”
“Wait, don’t tell me you don’t even know what a light novel is? So much for having someone I can relate to here.” Zayd said dismissively.
The dark elf’s frustration reached a breaking point.“Hey, I was too busy pursuing a career as a software designer before to be worried about goofing off. I spent every day working my butt off at home and then the one day I decide to leave my house to run errands, the world goes to shit and I die!”
Zayd raised his hands in an attempt to defuse the situation.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to rattle you. Let’s start from the top, when exactly were you reincarnated?”
Cecilia sneered. “What’s the point of all these questions anyway? All that stuff is meaningless since we’re stuck here forever. It just serves to remind us of what we lost.” She curled her legs up to her chest and rested her head on her knees.
“Just when I was finally managing to forget home. You show up.”
“...Maybe that’s a good thing then. All we have left are the memories. Lose those and home is truly lost to us.” Zayd replied and she showed no response.
“Fine then, I’ll explain myself first. The name’s Zayd Naughton, former shipping company courier and the best player of a game called Chronicle Odyssey. I was just summoned to Isle, but the first time I met the Admin was about six years ago.”
The last few words from Zayd caused Ceciia’s long ears to perk up.
“About six years ago? That’s the same time he sent me here. There was a freak thunderstorm and an earthquake and I couldn’t make it out of the building I was in fast enough…”
‘Him?’ Zayd pondered this discrepancy but kept it to himself for now.
Cecilia pulled out some sort of device that displayed a holographic array of dates.
“Actually, going by my calendar, it’s been exactly six years ago since then with the year in this realm being 3016 E.O. Don’t ask what the ‘E.O.’ stands for, because I don’t know either.”
“That year doesn’t sound right for some reason.” The young man muttered before it hit him suddenly.
‘In-game, that’s an entire two years before the start of Chronicle Odyssey’s ‘Final Quest’. Was the game a vision of this realm’s future?’