End Online: Volume 3 (4 page)

“I think.” I spoke up as
we stopped for a moment of rest and recovery, “That we have finally reached the
boss.”

“Indeed, I wonder what
kind it is.” Mason ponders aloud at my statement.

“What kind?”

“Well, just like players,
there are two kinds of bosses. There are those that specialize in strength and
crushing everything around them, and then there are the ones that focus on
speed. The bosses with speed are the worst to deal with, not only are they
incredibly faster than any player can be, they have inhuman reaction speeds.
This is the main reason why next to no players fight with speed.”

“That does make sense, a
computer program wouldn’t be limited by a brains reaction speed, but instead by
the computer’s processing speed.”

Nodding our heads at each
other, Mason and I got caught up in our own little world. Until, Matrix spoke
up at least.

“I think we should, umm…
Go in and do this.”

He seems a little nervous
but we agree on his words and move forward to the large double door.

“Matrix,” I ask before
proceeding any further, “If you are a magic swordsman and have magic skills,
why didn’t you get a skill for healing magic rather than picking locks?”

The question isn’t really
relevant, but it has been bugging me for quite some time.

“Umm, that is, well…
Healing magic is more for stuff like paladins. And umm, lockpicking gives me a
really high dexterity bonus. It’s good for wielding swords.”

I see, a little bit
strange, but I get where he is coming from.

I put my weight onto the
doors and they easily slide open. Clearly, there was no point in locking these
doors.

Inside is a large round
room, fifty meters in diameter. A light mist covers the entire area, except
unlike the previous mist, this on stays in position and swirls around us as we
move.

There are torches burning
dimly around the walls, filling the entire area with an eerie light. It is hard
to imagine that this strange room is a part of the jail.

In the centre of the room
is a two and a half meter tall, menacing pitch black suit of armour wielding an
ordinary looking round sword and shield.

If this was my first
dungeon, I would no doubt walk up to it unaware. However, from my experience, I
already know that is the boss.

“”Analyse!”” Both Mason
and I examine the boss at the same time.

I am not the same player I
was when I entered this dungeon. Fighting the endless amounts of undead while
being lost in the labyrinth, and especially combating all those superior undead
in the prison confines. I have killed more than the rest, and with my agility
still growing thanks to my class skill effect, I have reached level 97.

“Let’s go!”

I call out to the others,
as I become the first person to enter the battle with this boss.

I leave an afterimage
behind to confuse the boss as I close the distance between us. Unleash a lethal
blow to the bosses neck, a metallic clang resounds as the force of hitting a
solid wall transmits up my arms.

Somehow, the boss raised
its shield and blocked me.

Not understanding how it
could do that when it couldn’t possibly see me, I am at a loss for words.

I just back not a moment
too soon as Law swings its sword down at me. The sword may look ordinary, but
it gave off a nightmarishly menacing aura with that swing.

I make some distance between
us and try circling the boss before charging. At this moment Fen and Mason
start launching their projectiles attacks. A few got through its defence, but
most of the attacks were blocked, resulting in its health dropping by only a
few percent.

I charge in from the side
ahead of my mirage and attack, which is once again blocked. I don’t understand
how it is seeing through my attacks.

Law counter attacks by
swinging his ordinary looking sword again, I try to distance myself but the
blade slightly grazes my chest.

As soon as it did, the
whole world went dark.

‘Tch! Blind!’

“Everyone, be careful. Its
blade has a ‘blind’ enchantment.”

Twenty seconds pass before
the world returns to my vision. The others are barraging Law with ranged
attacks while Matrix gets up close and personal. I didn’t really pay much
attention to it before, but he is incredibly skillful with a sword. He must
either have a monstrous dexterity stat, or possibly train with the sword in
real life.

Law’s health drops to
eighty five percent as Matrix casts a fire spell onto his blade, wrapping it in
flames. Although, this time there is no chant.

‘I knew it! So your
chant was just trash talk!’ 
I
convicted him in my mind.

Even when the boss blocked
one of the magic swordsman’s attacks, the fire would flicker past the shield
and do damage anyway. Strangely enough, the boss still hasn’t actually moved
from his starting position. He turns around, but that is about it.

Law seemed to fidget a
little as Matrix came in for another attack. Right after he started to swing,
the boss turned into a blur. Circling the swordsman with an unparalleled speed,
it quickly got behind him and tried to cleave him in two.

I seem to notice the
trailing behind the boss’s movements, the mist gets disturbed. trails of whirlpools
form in the mist wherever he moves.

‘Of course, that is
how it knew where I was attacking from! My real body disturbs the mist as I
travel through it.’

Matrix, realizing the
danger he is in, followed through with his original attack and swung the sword
over his head, blocking at least some of the attack by the boss.

“Matrix!” Mason called out
from near the door, “It is a speed type! We need to use
that
!”

Making up my mind, I
charge directly at Law, who readies its shield in wait for me. It is the same
attack as the previous two, except, this time I also use ‘Backstab’

Right when I am about to
hit its shield, the image of me disperses and becomes one with the mist.
Meanwhile, I appear from behind law and start attacking with sacred arts. With
no care for conserving stamina, I go from using ‘Cross X’, to ‘Triple Thrust’,
to once again using ‘Backstab’.

My stamina completely
drains in minutes, forcing me to momentarily retreat. Law’s health has finally
dropped down below half way, and is currently having its movements restrained
by Fen’s ice bolts. Mason is shooting arrows at it too, but they are mostly
ineffective.

Matrix, standing next to
Mason, catches my eye. His sword is now not only covered in fire, but also a
crackling lightning. Yet for some reason, he is still chanting.

“- For thou art not yet
prepared for battle, allow for thy weariness to heal and strength to grow.
Allow thy to leave this place. Rabbit Flight!”

‘Rabbit Flight? Isn’t
that a high class wind spell to escape any situation. I hear the chant is
pretty long, but once finished, escape is nearly guaranteed.’

Showing a little
scepticism at what Matrix was planning to do with a spell for escaping, I watch
him slowly crouch down and bring his sword behind him.

The magic swordsman
suddenly swings his sword, as if striking, from fifteen meters away. As he
reaches the middle of his swing, Matrix dashes forward.

Directly in front of my
eyes, he disappeared.

And immediately behind the
boss, he reappeared.

The mist didn’t even get
disturbed until after the attack was finished. Such a high speed attack was
even beyond me.

The boss went down to its
knees, before falling face first on the ground. Forty percent of its health,
gone in the blink of an eye!

“W-What the hell was
that!?” I stammer at Matrix, who seems nervous under my scrutiny.

-Lost-

Matrix gives an
embarrassed look as I am stunned at his attack just now. In a heartbeat, he
traversed nearly half this room and dealt a final critical strike on the boss, Overseer
‘Law’.

“Umm… It is kind of our
finishing move.”

These two are clearly
stronger than they first appeared. I wonder if Mason has a finishing move like
this as well. Glancing over at him, he looks away from me while scratching his
jaw.

Even Fen over there is
surprised, showing interest in the first thing other than me or food.

With nothing else to say,
I let out a sigh.

“Lost,” Matrix calls out,
“There is the loot from the boss still. Umm… I should probably take the umm…
Sword. I will get the most out of it. Would you take the armour and half the
gold?”

“Yeah, that should be
fine.”

It is a fair deal. I don’t
get to compare the armour and the sword, but if one was better than the other.
There would be no way to evenly share the loot in the first place.

Matrix removes a pitch
black helmet and seventy four gold coins from his inventory, handing them over
to me. A few weeks ago, this amount of coins was a staggering amount. But with
the near seven hundred I have gained while being in this dungeon, it doesn’t
have as big of an impact.

Taking hold of the helmet
I inspect the item.

I would not call it
incredible, but it is definitely a good item with a unique rarity. As my
thoughts wander towards putting it up for auction and trying to guess how much
it will sell for, I recall the fact that I can finally equip the sword I
received from defeating the goblin boss, Grigor.

Pulling up my status
first, I check to see how much my stats have grown.

Just looking at my agility
seems unreal, almost as if the stat is broken. It is apparently common
knowledge that by getting the base value of a stat over one hundred will place
you in the top tier of players. Yet, mine is nearly at two hundred.

Unequipping my ‘Brittle
Steel Wakizashi’, the weaker of the two swords, I equip the new ‘Fire Imbued
Meridium Scramasax’.

I practice for a moment to
get used to the new weapon. Yet, it proves to be impossible. It is not a
situation where I find difficulty wielding it, but more the issue that it
weighs twice as much as the other blade, throwing my balance off.

However, I feel the
impulsive urge to use the new weapon so I keep it equipped.

Considering this weapon
doesn’t have a sheath, I place it through my belt.

“Lost! How have
things been!? Sorry I didn’t contact you earlier, I have been a little busy. Me
and Sir Laurence are training around Grenton while we wait for you to catch up.
Are you nearly done?”

Verde’s voice enters my
head completely unexpected, causing a momentary loss of words.

“Ah, Verde. It’s
fine. We just finished the boss battle now and are about to leave the dungeon.
What happened to that suspicious individual who was following you?”

“We? As in you and
Fen? Oh, he disappeared as soon as we reached Grenton.”

“There are two others
as well. A pair of brothers we met when I logged back on.”

“Hey, we should probably
head off now. What are you daydreaming about?”

Mason interrupts the
conversation, disrupting my current thought.

“Yeah,” I reply to the
man, “let’s head off.”

“Sorry Verde, I have
to head off now. I will meet you in Grenton.”

“Okay! I will wait
here for you!”

She seems to be rather
energetic, I wonder if something happened?

With Fen grabbing me by
the arm, she start trotting off to catch up to the other two with me in tow.
They both see her clinging to my arm, and with shy expressions, deliberately
look the other way.

I have long since stopped
caring about this type of behaviour from her. After all, I have had to put up
with her somehow climbing into my sleeping bag overnight. Fortunately I still
have the one that Prince Charming lent me, but I do really need to buy one of
my own. And one for Fen.

Even once we caught up to
the other two she continued to cling to my arm. Walking out of the boss room, I
could feel something soft pressing against the limb in the wolf girl’s clutch.

“Fen,” I furrow my brow as
I think of the best words to use, “Do you know what a bra is?”

“A… Bra..?” She tilts her
head, genuinely puzzled.

“I thought that may be the
case…” A sigh escapes my lips. I am not going to even try explaining to her
what a bra is. That kind of discussion is well out of my expertise.

Come to think of it. Can
you even buy bra’s in this game? Don’t people in medieval fantasy worlds
usually wrap up their chests in bandages and such? I never really considered
this, players are automatically given standard undergarments anyway.

All I need to do is focus
on the fact that she is an NPC, despite how lifelike she seems. This is the
only way that I can ignore the indecent things she does.

Back in the north prison
wing, there are a couple of skeletons that have respawned.

“Leave this one to me.”
Stepping in front of everyone, Fen releases my arm as I go to test out the new
sword.

I exert power in my legs,
I close the twenty meter distance in less than a second. The air around me
still vibrating from me passing through.

I slash the weapon through
the skeleton’s hip, encountering no resistance at all. As it passes through,
small flames lick from the red line caused by the attack on the monsters body.

Everyone silently stares
at the skeleton in as much shock as I am in. That one attack removed over half
of its health, an undead monster over level 150.

The skeleton stumbles a
little after my attack, but before it can recover I return and do a critical
hit on the back of its neck. The skeleton collapses into a pile of bones,
leaving behind bone dust and a sub par steel longsword as loot.

“Lost!” Mason called out
in astonishment, “I think I should be the one to ask this time. What the hell
was that!?”

“Hah, you tell me your
secrets and I’ll tell you mine. I’m more interested in that attack you used to
finish the boss.

“Our attack is simple,
beef up an attack with as many enchants as possible, then strike. We
incorporate the ‘Rabbit Flight’ spell to achieve enough speed to cut through
the armour rating and also prevent them from dodging.”

“Yes, but I know a little
bit about the ‘Rabbit Flight’ spell. A high class wind spell with an abnormally
long chant designed to allow you to escape from any monster. It isn’t supposed
to be possible to attack with it, so how did you do that?”

“You still haven’t told me
your secret. Along with how you create false images of you while you yourself
turn invisible.”

We pass through the door
leading into the central wing. The three stories above have slowly repopulated
with skeletons and zombies. Fen and Matrix are taking the lead and fighting all
the enemies while Mason and I follow behind, casually chatting to each other.

“I am one of those rare
people with a speed build. I attack at high speed to negate the opponent’s
armour defences.”

“I gathered that much, but
the damage you did to the skeleton was far too abnormal. All of a sudden when
you equipped that weapon your damage increased explosively. Is it the weapon,
is it related to how you create false images. It is far too mysterious.”

“Well, you still haven’t
told me how you can attack with a spell that shouldn’t be able to be used for
attack.”

Mason emits a sigh as he
gives away his secrets.

“Under normal
circumstances, it is true you cannot attack while using that spell. There is
wind pressure as soon as you start to move that blows your weapon back, ruining
any planned attack. At least, that is how my brother described it.

It turns out, if you can
execute the attack and move at the critical moment of the attack, you can
counter balance that force. However, that requires the perfect balance of
speed, power, sword angle, and other minute factors.”

“Interesting, interesting.
I see how it is done.”

“Well, now it’s your turn!
Cough it up, how can you do the things you do.”

“It’s nothing too
spectacular, I have a legendary class skill called the ‘White Warrior’. It has
a few benefits such as a high damage multiplier with my weapon proficiency, as
well the ability to create afterimages.”

“Legendary!? Incredible, I
wonder if I could get it too! Please, tell me what skills you need!”

I can feel the depressing
aura that emanates from my body as I think about that one particular skill that
was needed for this class skill.

“It’s not possible… You
need to have that devil skill…”

“Wait, what do you mean?
That devil skill?”

“Forget it. There is no
way you can get it. It is a skill that causes everyone to hate you, and nearly
every monster to become ‘aggro’ towards you. It still haunts me to this day” I
sink even further into my gloominess.

“What!? That’s a horrible
skill, I have noticed sometimes monsters would break off from everyone else and
attack you. I guess that skill is the reason. Why didn’t you just unequip it if
it was causing that much trouble?”

“You… Can’t… You can’t
unequip this particular skill”

‘Ah, maybe I should
just go grow mushrooms. Yeah, that can be my new job, a mushroom farmer.’

I start to drift off from
reality as Mason finally understands a little about the skill. Before I realize
it. We are back outside of the prison and within the dome shaped cavern. Just
to make me feel even more under the weather, the irritating maze is at the far
end, and approximately fifty zombies and skeletons are in between.

Almost like a drone, my
thought remains devoid of all thought while I rush at them from behind. My new
scramasax fells the first skeleton with a single strike. These guys are
definitely weaker than those in the prison below.

Everyone else joins in.
With ice bolts raining down and arrows flying around, Matrix joins the close
combat. I may be a little strange, but this kind of battle is starting to feel
‘normal’ to me.

With the battle finished,
we walk straight into the labyrinth.

With the mist in front of
us once again obstructing our vision and confusing our sense of direction, we
walked for hours…

***************************************************

“Thank god! We are finally
out!”

Mason flops himself onto
the ground and starts sniffing the grass.

“Ahh. The smell of
Spring!”

Carrying on with the old
mausoleum only a meter behind him, he is completely immersed in the overgrown foliage
that protects this place from being easily found. Come to think of it, the
foliage we cut through has already grown back. I wonder how long it takes for
the vines and bushes in this game to grow back.

Mason is still lying face
first on the ground, so rather than wait for him, I decide to cut through the
brush myself. I don’t use my weapon with the fire enchant in fear of starting a
fire. I sincerely doubt that it will happen, but just in case.

A few moments later we
reach the expanse of low hills covered by flowers of every spring colour. The
midday sun looks down on us, while the sounds of bees and birds frequently
enter the surroundings. To have fresh air again is truly refreshing, each
breath filling me with rejuvenated life.