Book 4, Chapter 5
Elfy
The same pentagram appeared under my lance,[Tail Spike of the Dark Dragon Lord], which has been leaning on a tombstone. Itsunk into the ground as if it"s standing in a swamp.
The pentagram below me gotbrighter. I slowly raised my hand, with the grip of the lance following my palm.Then I grabbed the lance and pulled it out in a flash.
I found this move when I was trying random things out in boredom---Ican call back my Dark Dragon Lord parts as long as I still possess more thanhalf of them. Apart from being useful (I don"t need to worry about missingany equipment parts), one other thing is that I can play cool in frontof others, like this.
"NightShade!"
I jumped high as a black portal appeared behind me. Night Shadesprinted out of it with some lightening sparks around his horn, he accurately caught meon his back.
"Let"s do this."
Hawkwhistled. "Ooh, looks like I found myself one heck of an opponent today! That"sa nightmare, right?"
"Goodeye." I gave Night Shade a pat on the neck.
*Snoooort*
Aw come on.
"Watchit. He"s fast and is pretty violent."
Hawktouched his unicorn too. "Just about right. My Sunlight is about thesame--fast, bad temper."
"Charge!"We yelled at exact the same time. Now I want him as a partner even more.
Hawkwasn"t lying, Sunlight is surely fast. But his direction is too straightforward. Whenwe"re about to clash, Night Shade feinted to one side and dodged the attack byrushing to the other. I knew Night Shade"s plan all along, so I wasn"t using myshield at all. I was holding my lance diagonally to give him a poke for goodfrom the flank.
Sunlighthalted abruptly and almost did a forward flip due too his high speed. WhileHawk tried very hard to balance himself--he was pointing his lance and shielddead towards ahead, expecting a hard collision with me. Though he still felldown from Sunlight because of that awkward positioning. It"s a fatal mistakefor a rider to fall from his horse during combat, but this time it saved hislife--now I can"t hit him.
Sunlight raced back to Hawk upon hearing his call. Heskillfully got mounted and charged at me again.
Iasked Night Shade to turn around and face him too. Sunlight is charging slowerthan before, probably to prevent me from tricking him again. And this is what I"mwaiting for.
"[Heart Piercer]!"
The spear head exploded into five and launched towards Hawk.After some metal clashing noises, Sunlight galloped past me without anyone on hisback. Hawk is now standing several meters away, holding his shield with fiveholes on it. The five spear heads locked themselves onto his body, each with ared colored steel wire connected to it, all the way towards the lance in my hand.My HP bar is filling up--the wires are draining Hawk"s health.
Herealized it too and tried to pull off the stings. But when he touched the firstone, an electric arc went from my end to him and shocked him back. He stillknocked the head off him though. He quickly pried away the other spear headsusing his own weapon. When the last head fell to the ground, the wires began toretract themselves. The five spear heads combined into one and returned to mylance.
This is the first time I tried this skill, and man it"s dandy!
"The h.e.l.l is that attack??" Hawk struggled up using his lance as a walkingstick.
"That was the most horrible weapon I ever seen." He waved his broken shield. " I give up! I gonna lose it for sure if you use any more ofthose moves."
"Howmuch damage did I do to you?"
"3000on the first hit. 500 HP drained away, and 200 more with that shock. I only gotlike 20 HP left. For cheese"s sake! My shield defense is above 2k you know! Andthat was a successful block! It went through like paper! Are you sure you"reonly 313? I"m 443 by the way. I don"t meet many people who can even break mydefense. I killed like 10 people in that fight when a hundred are trying toattack me. Do you get traps and tricks all over your body? "
"Well,not really. That was actually the first time I use the skill. Oh, I kinda usedyou as practice, sorry about that... But you"re quite good. I"ll send you out of here."
Iteleported Hawk to the Storm Cloud city. Well, a certain distance away from thecity at least. Any closer and I"ll have to speak with the guards again.
Hawksent a whisper to his girlfriend to come here, so we waited. Idon"t think we should just stand here so I tried to recruit him.
"Hey Hawk,that was impressive. Can you help me level up when you have the time?"
"Ah ha-ha. Me? Help you? You should be the one helping me. You get less EXP whencarried by someone higher than you because you either kill low level monsters andget little EXP, or try to kill high level monsters when the weaker player tendsto die a lot AND get little EXP. Not many people are willing to help low levelplayers unless they"re good friends. Buuut if you can help me, I believe mylevel will just go skyrocket. You"re more powerful so we can go againstmonsters much much higher than us. So...will ya?"
"Deal.Let"s do it together. By the way, you"re not going to repair your stuff?" Ipointed at those holes on his shield.
"Oh.This..." He gave it a glance. "My golden set recovers durabilityon its own when I equip it as a whole. I don"t need to worry about repairing it."
"Really?"I looked at his gear with stars in my eyes. "Awww, why no such convenientattribute on my equipment..."
"Ohcome on. You like it? Let"s switch then. I"m the envious one right now!"
Ithought about that horrible repair fee I still owe Clark. Sigh.
"Everyonegot his own problems I guess. They say it"s easy to buy a nice car but hard to keep itin good condition. I"m in the same situation now, they look good but I don"thave the money to repair it!"
"Sohow much? I heard that you need really huge sum to repairArtifact. And some special materials too."
"Ugh.No, don"t remind me anymore. Someone paid for me anyway." I looked at the sky. "I"mnot sure I"ll ever repay the debt..."
"Someone did? Now that"s some serious friend you got there."
"Hawk!""Someone shouted.
"Elfy!Are you alright? Did they come after you?" Hawk embraced with a girl who"s alot smaller in size. When he straightened himself he lifted the girl off ground.
"Putme down you silly buffalo! Someone"s watching!"
Yup, that seems a smartgirl.
Hawk dropped her down with a red face.
"h.e.l.lo! I"m [Misty Elf], as in, a real Elf. Level422, Elven Archer. So you helped my love escape? Thank you very much!"
HerElven character has long, green hair, pointy facial features and delicate skin, justlike those exquisite elves in stories. She has a long bow behind her back and is wearingrattan protections. That sunny character though...They look like born couple.
"Niceknowing you. I"m [Ziri]. level 313 Divine Demon D&P Rider plus SoulManipulator."
She lowered her head for a moment before exclaiming: "You"re that numberone criminal Ziri! I knew I heard about you somewhere. How did you kill soooomany people in one day? Did you actually wipe out an entire city?"
"Ohhho ho I would like to try that if I can." I think I"mgetting affected by their style too. "So are you going to grind, or getsome revenge on those people?"
"Forgetabout those suckers. There are too many, we won"t win. Let"s go level up. Wealready wasted enough time today. We planned to get three levels before noon!"
To get 3 levels in one morning is easy jobfor me. I suppose it"s terribly hard for other people though. "Where arewe going then?"
"Definitelynot the same place in the morning...Let"s go to the Wonder Forest." Elfysuggested. "Be careful Ziri, the monsters will be higher leveled than you, justhide and share exp with us."
"Nah, leave him be. He"s a monster." Hawk commented.
"Whatdo you mean?"
"Wewere fighting just now. He almost one-shot me with one skill."
"...Awarrior, getting one-shot by someone 100 levels below? And those golden armorsyou"re wearing are not just decorations you know."
Hawkhanded over his shield, still with the five holes on it. "I got proof. Hedid this to me!"
"Ohmy. Whomade a Paladin shield with 2000+ defense into a pepper shaker?" She tossedthe shield back to him. "It"s decided then!"
Hum. Looks like Elfy is the decision maker here. I don"t know much about the places other thanthe Lost City so I just followed them without a word.
Theforest is quite near from the city. They seem familiar with the place enough.
Weavoided crowded areas and marched straight towards the center. We eventuallystopped at an open ground among the woods. According to Hawk, monsters sp.a.w.npretty fast around here and few people would come to such depth.
Wesoon encountered a pack of [Saw Teeth]. They look like ordinary wild boars withreally scary tusks.
Hawk explained: "They"re level 430, both high attackand high defense. But their HP is low, and can"t move fast. They usually stayin large groups."
I"mgoing to get them into my guild anyway so there"s no need to lay low. I justsummoned all of my companions and servants in one breath.
"Yah!!"
Hawkand Elfy jumped onto a tree.
"What are you doing? Get back. These are myfriends."
"Dra-dra-dra-dragon!"
Elfyclamped herself on the tree like a koala. "Several days ago a group ofpeople were fighting near the forest over a valuable gem. Then more peopleheard about it and came. The fight became an all-out brawl involving thousandsof people. Then a dragon pa.s.sed by, s.n.a.t.c.hed the gem away and wiped all playerswith a single fire breath. Hawk was there too, am I Right?"
"YeahI saw it! Thank G.o.d we didn"t get there too soon or we would be barbeque"d! Wedidn"t have much equipment back then. But the corpses left tons of them on theground, we sold them for some money, that"s how we got what we"re wearing now."
"Wellyou can get down here. This guy is still teenage, he can"t do that even if he wants to."
Hawkis still hugging the tree like dear. "Are you sure about that??"
Elfy:"I have...uh, right, dragonphobia!"
Iwalked around the tree. "Are you getting down or not?"
"NO!"
"Lasttime. Get back here."
"What-whatare you planning?"
Elfyis sure the smart one of the two. She soon realized my "evil intentions". Too late though.
I looked at Lucky. He nodded and gave the tree a poke.
Theyslipped from the shaking tree and fell. Two tentacles appeared out of theground and caught them.
Hawkstared at the thing and decided not to struggle. There is a green crystal ballat the tip of it, with two leaves around which move like eyelids. The wholestructure looks like a monster"s head. There"s even a mouth on it--some barbsthat shift like a meat grinder!