[Second Phase of Skeleritter Battle has commenced.]This is when the third calamity-cla.s.s boss monster reveals its true powers: instead of using minions to fight for it, it now absorbs the power of all its minions and condenses them into itself, creating a single, powerful monster.
Instead of being able to handle ma.s.sive amounts of enemies, it is now tailored for single combat.
"You"ve got to do this!"
With a monster like that in front of him, Jake Smithson could only scream silently: he couldn"t afford to be sentimental at this moment.
He couldn"t afford anything at the moment, given that the Skeleritter was constantly attacking him.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit!"
All he could do was defend, dodge, and pray the Griefen could keep him from taking a lethal wound.
His guard was broken by a slash that nearly wrenched his weapon from his hands, and Jake saw that the end was near…
…and then a flaming sword smashed against the Skeleritter from the side, sending it flying some distance away.
Jake turned to see Liam still in a stance; that last attack – apparently his strongest – only bought them a few moments of time.
"If he didn"t make it in time, this thing might have killed me!" Jake thought as Liam leaped into action without a second thought and struck the monster with the best skill in his a.r.s.enal.
The Skeleritter"s second phase was truly fearsome – it was designed to defeat adventurers who thought they were too good to fight without a party.
It was why Liam was able to hit it; the monster seemed to focus on attacking one adventurer at a time.
The sad thing is that the other adventurers in Brino didn"t have the power to handle something of this magnitude yet: the Skeleritter showing up so early caused the adventurers in the 11th Tutorial Area to be totally unprepared and insufficiently leveled to handle the fight.
In a way, this whole mess was Jake Smithson"s fault: to satisfy his appet.i.te for shopping, he went and defeated a calamity-cla.s.s boss monster on his own.
Of course, he didn"t know that.
"How long do we have left?" Jake asked his quest monitor, as he used the momentary reprieve from the Skeleritter"s power he was granted to see how much time was left in his wager.
[Time remaining: 22 hours, 52 minutes, 34 seconds]
"G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" Jake thought, despair beginning to overtake him. "I don"t have enough time left to recover my wounds and get myself ready to deal with him again."
At this point, Jake was at his wit"s end: to the point where he started to talk to his equipment.
"Come on, Swiftstone, give me a sign!" Jake thought while giving his weapon a look best reserved for a man seeing his lover off at the airport.
Thankfully, the despair sharpened his previously-distracted mind, allowing an idea to pa.s.s through.
"I"d kick myself right now but that guy might find me and kill me! Why didn"t I come up with this sooner?"
Was the loss of his bed and couch the cause of his distraction?
The fight against the Skeleritter and its minions?
Emmanuel showing up and getting shredded to bits on the Griefen after he caught him trying to give him a brand-new throat smile?
"It doesn"t matter anymore: it"s pointless.
Nothing is pointless!
And the reason is, I already paid off my 210,000 point debt!"
It was then that he remembered that he farmed skeletons for hours on end to gain 210,000 points, enough to pay off the debts he accrued on installment.
Since my installment account is back to a blank slate… I should buy something to beat this black Skeleritter with!
He took care of his installment purchases by making a single lump-sum payment of 210,000 points.
"This just means one thing.
I"M ALIVE AGAIN!
Back then, I ended up spending all my points on useless frivolities.
This time, I"m going to use all of it to get so strong that the only thing this Skeleritter can do is tuck its head between its legs and kiss its bony a.s.s goodbye!
From here on out, everything I spend is on weapons, skills, or consumables.
This is for my bed and my couch.
And for the wager.
Everything on installment will go towards that aim.
I still have 22 hours and 50 minutes left to spend with you, right? I"m going to withdraw for now, because I need to buy the things I need to challenge this guy again. Don"t worry, Swiftstone. I won"t let the bad guys take you away from me.
This is a bet I must not lose.
Let"s do this."
The idea is to make a strategic withdrawal, and spend as much time shopping as possible: every item, skill, and equipment in the catalog I need to defeat the Skeleritter"s upgraded form.
"Liam!" Jake called. "We need to retreat for now! We can"t win this. I"m going to bind him so you can get away!"
"What about you?"
"Don"t worry about me, I have a skill to catch up."
"I"m running due south! Catch up to me there!"
"Got it!"
As soon as he couldn"t see Liam retreating, the Skeleritter emerged from the shadows, its eyes glowing with hatred.
"Up to another round, champ?" Jake asked, his hands ready to deploy the Griefen at any moment.
The monster saw its target"s wounds and decided to play with its food a bit, approaching slowly, cracking its knife-like fingers as it knew the gesture would scare this adventurer.
But it didn"t happen.
"You idiot," Jake said, and activated the Griefen. "Don"t you ever learn?"
***
[Time remaining: 24 hours, 15 minutes, 12 seconds]
"Look at this! We only have 24 hours left," Veilon declared, pointing towards the time limit on the screen, after he let out a hearty laugh at the events transpiring before them.
"Unbelievable," Kelderian replied. "You"ve earned your reputation; I should have asked for your help sooner!"
There were only 24 hours left before the wager pa.s.sed, but there was still no indication that the battle against the calamity-cla.s.s monster Skeleritter moved into its second phase.
"They haven"t even started the second phase yet, how do you think he"ll win in a day? If you"re not strong enough to start the second phase in 48 hours, you won"t be strong enough to win even if you start the second phase with 24 hours left – the Skeleritter becomes something completely different during Phase 2."
"Indeed, it"s like a different battle entirely."
24 hours is not a short time.
Nevertheless, the reason for Veilon"s confidence is because the second phase of the Skeleritter fight hasn"t even started yet.
Its true power only manifests in the second phase; the first phase is nothing more than a warm-up for the adventurers.
The true battle hasn"t even started.
Still, though, 48 hours to warm up for it? It might be too much just to warm up for a boss fight like this, but given its power… you"re going to spend too much on the game.
"Now, all that remains is getting the Swiftstone back," Veilon declared confidently, as he had another wager in the bag, as befits his t.i.tle as the G.o.d of Gambling.
"Was it too much to deal with a third disaster-cla.s.s enemy at this point?" Kelderian asked, thinking that if all the adventurers worked together, this might have been averted.
In the first place, disaster-cla.s.s enemies aren"t meant to be faced alone: every adventurer must work together against it.
The only aberration here is Jake Smithson, who took a boat to the Isle of Deceit and singlehandedly took down the second calamity-cla.s.s enemy , the Cherry-Sh.e.l.l Snapper.
Now, though, the second phase of the Skeleritter seemed like it was too much even for Jake Smithson to handle, truly living up to its designation as a calamity-cla.s.s enemy.
"We gave the drinks away for free, right? This wager is fair enough, wouldn"t you agree?" Veilon asked, wanting his wagers he offered to be recognized as fair.
"Of course," Kelderian concurred. "He didn"t have to take the drinks, but that"s a fair deal. There you go; that"s how the wager works."
It was one of those quirks the Hero Shop staff adopted as a way to decompress from days of angry customers and refund demands.
It wasn"t a waste of social life… it totally wasn"t.
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"After the sword, what else should I take from you? The armor? The diamond ring? Gold necklace? Baby, I"m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it off!"
Veilon"s confidence at Kelderian"s answer was showing, because he was now looking forward to stripping this Smithson fellow of all his equipment.
That was when the notification appeared.
[Second Phase of Skeleritter battle has commenced.]
Kelderian coughed, because Veilon was caught halfway in a dance pose when the notification alert came.
"Right," he said.
An awkward moment pa.s.sed before Veilon straightened himself out and coughed as well.
Unlike before, all the enthusiasm was gone from his voice.
He was now in total business-minded mode.
"It"s okay, we just started the second phase."
"That"s…" Kelderian asked anxiously, "that"s right, isn"t it?"
"He"s too strong to catch him in 24 hours, we need time to get everything ready so he fails."
"Yes, he started the second phase within 48 hours. We"re still on schedule; don"t worry!"Veilon answered in an attempt torea.s.sure Kelderian.
One hour later, another notification appeared.
This one carried a very portentous weight, almost as if this Jake Smithson found himself in Veilon"smaze, and solved it by hammering down the walls in his path.
[Lump-sum payment of 210,000 points received.]
Veilon"s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"What?! You paid for all two-hundred and ten thousand points all at once?"
Kelderian, meanwhile, was thinking a mile a minute.
"This doesn"t make any sense.
How can he already pay back 210,000 points?
How long has it been since he used 210,000points to buy all those items?
Getting to this level would require him to hunt nonstop, and he hasn"t even defeated the Skeleritter yet!
What"s going on here?"
"Even I wouldn"t have the time to gather all those points...?" Kelderian asked aloud, thinking of this in a completely erroneous way, as they weren"t able to directly see the means by which Jake could collect points.
Which leads one to wonder: how would they react if they knew that Jake had acc.u.mulated all those points by exploiting the Skeleritter"s ability to resurrect its minions and killing the skeletons over and over again as fast as they were being rea.s.sembled through the Skeleritter"s power?
Kelderian would have probably put in his two days" notice and check himself into the hospital on the Hero Shop"s penny, citing extreme job-related stress as the source of his physical condition.
Kelderian"s thoughts were interrupted by his boss.
"Wait a d.a.m.n minute," Veilon said, trying to maintain his facade of calm in front of a subordinate. "If you pay off all your installments through a single lump sum, your monthly credit limit is reset accordingly, right?"
"That"s right, sir."
"So that means he"s going to be able to buy 210,000 points worth of items from the Hero Shop right now?"
"That"s..." Kelderian replied, his very being rebelling against giving the correct answer before willpower prevailed, "that"s right."
Veilon"s pupils shrunk to pinp.r.i.c.ks as he realized both the reason for Kelderian"s hopeless tone and what had just happened were one and the same.
"What kind of thing is this –" Veilon trailed off, his horrified voice only returning after a superhuman effort, "if you spend 210,000 points… you can kiss this game"s balance goodbye!"
Neither of them had any time to digest that information further, because at that point, the notifications started coming in.
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
"Stop!"
"Stop buying!"
Six notifications in a row were enough to get them to scream at the screen for this abomination to stop.
"No more orders!
I don"t want to hear any more orders!"
Thankfully, the notifications stopped when they screamed.
Both of them collapsed onto their chairs, pulling out handkerchiefs to wipe away the cold sweat from their foreheads, despite the conference room being well air-conditioned.
Veilon and Kelderian breathed a momentary sigh of relief.
And then, both their eyes widened, as before them, an influx of notifications suddenly turned into a tidal wave of orders.
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
[Order processed.]
The notifications filled the screen.
"No! NO!"
"Shut up… SHUT UP!"
Veilon"s face was now set in a rictus of despair, much like Kelderian did when he first saw him.
***