End Online: Volume 5 Read online

  I don’t show this in front of everyone else, but I am starting to value spending time with them. I wonder if this is how I felt before I lost my memories.

  Lost and Fen are the first to leave, logging off at the same time. Mason and Matrix are the second, mentioning that they will be online again tomorrow if Sir Laurence and I are available.

  The knight in silver armor silently sits next to me even when everyone else is gone. I notice him occasionally glancing in my direction, but he makes no move to start a conversation.

  I stand up to leave the inn and Sir Laurence immediately follows behind me. I scowl, but don’t tell him to leave. Despite how irritating I find him to be, I prefer even his company over being alone.

  Seeing how adamant he is to stay with me, I head toward an NPC-run adventurer’s guild where you can get small quests from the notice board. The sun begins to sink into the horizon by the time I manage to get through the crowded streets between the inn and the guild.

  I grab my hair and tie it up behind my head to keep it out of my face. I don’t know exactly how I tie it up as the memory eludes me, but the movements come naturally to my hands as if I have been doing it my entire life. Sir Laurence gives me an odd look as I tie it up, but a single glare is enough to cause him to turn his head.

  In front of me is the request board. Well, it is called a request board, but it is practically as large as a wall with hundreds of requests pinned to it. I walk back and forth, finding three requests that are suitable to Sir Laurence’s and my levels. All three requests I pick are related to collecting a certain number of monster parts, and will reappear on the board within three hours for anyone else to choose.

  “It’s late. I will be logging off to get some actual sleep,” I say to Sir Laurence nonchalantly. “I will be back in twelve hours, if you want to quest with me.”

  “I will be waiting, my lady,” he replies with a deep bow.

  I glance at him once, before turning around and logging off.

  Outside of virtual reality, I lift the helmet off my head to reveal my rooms interior. My father is sitting there next to my bed, placing down the tablet he was using to watch me in the game.

  “Father, I have told you how much I dislike you sitting next to me while I am in virtual reality,” a hint of anger coloring my voice. “It’s really unnerving. Why can’t you simply log on yourself and join me?”

  “Verity, I have already told you how I have had my administrator rights stripped from me and turned into an ordinary player. And those damned fools from Idea Imagine are playing dumb as well! I will be back in their office next week to share a few words with them!”

  “Then just raise your player level. I can convince everyone in the party to let you join along. You only need to be level 50 to leave your starter kingdom.”

  “As if I have time for that.”

  “But you have time to sit next to me and stalk me through that tablet?”

  “I’m not going to argue with you about this. Go downstairs and wash up, I will have the maid cook something nutritious for you to eat.”

  I follow my father’s orders, but stroll downstairs in irritation. In the kitchen, a middle-aged lady welcomes me to the table and informs me that some food will be ready shortly.

  Ten minutes pass and she sets a small bowl of chicken soup with buttered bread on the side in front of me. It’s too late for dinner, so I only have something small to warm my stomach and help me sleep soundly.

  The rest of the night finishes relatively quickly and I find myself staring up at the ceiling from my bed, the moon gently shining in through the window. I pick up my phone and scroll through my contacts list. The number of contacts is truly pitiful; the other party members represent the majority of my phone book.

  I see Lost’s number, or Hollis in real life, and feel a strange urge to call it. I can’t describe this feeling, but it causes me to want to act on impulse.

  ‘What is going on with me? I saw him just recently, and I want to call him right now?’

  Restraining myself, I send a message asking when he will take his high school equivalency test. Unfortunately, it is nearly midnight, and I don’t get a reply before falling asleep.

  Three months later, I look back on all the time I have spent with Sir Laurence, and feel as if it has only been a couple of weeks. During that time, I have amassed a small fortune in loot, but my strength is relatively low, so it is up to Sir Laurence to carry it all for me. My level has increased to 186, which is still somewhat low compared to the rest of the party.

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

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

  -Mason-

  As the partly temporarily splits up, Matrix and I form our own sub group and head off from the inn together. Swordbreak is like a beehive of activity, and trying to get anywhere is an ordeal in itself.

  “What should we do now, little brother?” I ask Matrix.

  “We should try recording a few more videos. The electricity bill just came in the other day and dad has been… brooding over it. It would be nice to earn a little more and help out.”

  “Yeah, that would be good. I won’t be getting any of that other income either by the looks of things so a few videos will be best.”

  “What other income?”

  “Oh! Hah, don’t mind that. I was just thinking out loud. The question is, what can we record?”

  “Umm, a few dungeon runs, perhaps?”

  “Everyone does that, though. Urgh, what a dilemma.”

  Matrix and I try to brainstorm, but we can’t seem to come up with any prolific ideas. We end up choosing to do a typical dungeon run, except with a new, undiscovered dungeon.

  Finding new dungeons is incredibly difficult, and requires more of a natural talent or luck rather than skill. We go to one of the libraries in Swordbreak and I equip my ‘Literacy’ skill so I can decipher the books.

  We spend the next three weeks entirely in the library, our levels stagnating while I try to figure out the location to an undiscovered dungeon. I can almost feel the piled up dust weighing down on my shoulders and back when I finally come across some helpful information.

  “Matrix! Here it is! Chapter 32 of ‘History of Nell Forger’. It describes how the adventurer came across this hidden tomb in the south by chance. Apparently, he used an arrowhead to flick a switch hidden in between a few rocks. I doubt anyone would have discovered this dungeon by chance!”

  “That’s awesome, bro! Umm, we should head off immediately!”

  I pay the librarian to use her ‘Scribe’ skill and copy the description of the dungeon for me onto a scroll. Depositing the parchment into my inventory, Mason and I leave the library and make our way out of the city.

  The south gate of Swordbreak is only a hundred meters in front of me, yet I can’t reach it because the thousands of players in between are like a swarm of locusts covering everything. I had heard rumors about the south gate being the busiest place of the city before, but I never really took them to heart. At least, not until now.

  “Big bro, I just had an idea,” Matrix’s face lights up as he says it. “Why don’t we record the journey to the dungeon? The first obstacle can be right here!”

  “Ahaha, that’s very funny… No, wait. That actually might not be a bad idea! Quickly, we have to backtrack our steps and get out of this crowd.”

  “Why?”

  “The video shouldn’t start with us stuck in this crowd, but should show us running into it.”

  “That’s brilliant big bro! I’m so proud of you!”

  Following my plan, we turn around and force our way out of the crowd, leaving a few angry players in our wake. A few more hours are also wasted, but at least we get what we came for. The start of my video is explaining about the discovery of the hidden information, and immediately getting stuck in the crowd at the edge of the city. I even curse as if I am caught by surprise and displeased.

  Over the next two days, Mat
rix and I deliberately steer ourselves into trouble, creating an eventful video of our journey to the hidden tomb. I label it as part one of the dungeon crawl, opening the tomb with an arrow and entering at the very end of the video in hopes of creating some suspense for the next video.

  We head into the dungeon the very next day, before I finish compiling the video. I do not wish for players to find out about the dungeon before we have even finished going through it.

  The interior is completely decayed and decrepit, with crumbling brick walls and flickering torches that are nearly burned out. The air is stale and difficult to breath. The decay of the tomb and stagnation of the air sets off alarms in my mind.

  “Not good, Matrix. Get your antidotes ready, I have a bad feeling about this tomb and I hope poison is the worst of it.”

  “Okay!”

  We pass through several large rooms before the enemies start coming. Swarms of festering zombies start crawling out of holes in the walls, falling onto the ground before standing up and stumbling over one another toward us. As I had feared, they are indeed highly poisonous.

  The enemies are level 160 and called ‘Noxious Guards’, and one manages to swat Matrix, infecting him with the toxicity. Matrix’s health starts to plummet, forcing him to consume a total of three antidotes to rid himself of the poison.

  Beyond the room where the ‘Noxious Guards’ crawled out of the walls is the interior of a massive cathedral. Oddly, there are no windows, only cracked brick walls and a large, domed ceiling covered in moss with vines hanging down.

  Matrix and I are completely stunned at the sight. For such a large area to go undiscovered for so long is incredible. I’m so excited; this video is going to get so much attention!

  I catch a low groan in the distance, and I turn to face the noise. My excitement dulls slightly when I see nearly two hundred ‘Noxious Guards’ wandering over toward us.

  “Matrix, brace up. The zombie apocalypse is coming, and it’s completely lacking in coordination,” I joke when I notice the zombies bumping into one another and obstructing the entire group.

  We do our utmost to flank the enemies while picking them off one or two at a time. This isn’t the fastest or the most honorable method, but it is effective.

  We walk up a staircase along the side of the wall to a second story balcony running the circumference of the room. The zombies on the balcony are the most dangerous ones yet, not due to them being stronger than the rest, but because when they stumble they fall down the narrow staircase at maximum speed and are extremely difficult to dodge.

  Along the balcony, there are several doors leading to elsewhere in the cathedral. Matrix and I enter each and every one before moving onto the next. Some doors end in small rooms, and we are lucky to find an ornamental chest containing some crafting materials in one, and a level 180 long sword and shield set which radiates with a faint blue light. These items are ‘Unique’ and of considerable value to other players.

  I plan to put the sword and shield up for auction when I get the chance for a bit of extra money. I’m not as excited to sell equipment as Lost is, but that is mainly due to the concern that items I list for sale never gather much interest. I can’t help but sigh at my bad luck.

  “Big Bro, what’s wrong?” Matrix asks me after noticing my sigh.

  “Hah, it’s nothing. I’m just reflecting on a few things.”

  “I see… umm, you would tell me if there was anything wrong, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course I would, little bro!”

  Seeing Matrix’s expression relax, I continue leading us through the dungeon, one room at a time. Several hours pass by and there are still several areas that we have not explored. Entering through a large double door inlaid with more rust than iron, we find ourselves in a small corridor-like room that is no more than ten meters wide and forty meters long. The strangest part of the room is that the walls have decayed twice as much as the rest of the structure.

  My mind is slow to process the change in atmosphere before the door behind me silently closes and locks. There isn’t a single zombie in this room, but suddenly a large amount of purple-black smoke drifts down from the ceiling before coalescing. Smoke continues to pour into the room without any sign of slowing down, yet the condensed mass at the other side of the room is gradually shrinking.

  It isn’t long before the densest concentration of purple-black smoke begins to become solid. I watch as a slim, meter and a half tall figure takes shape. The smoke suddenly stops flooding the room, and as the figure absorbs the last of the gas in the air it opens two red eyes and looks directly at us.

  ‘It’s a boss! But it is so small. How strange,’ I think to myself while studying the enemy.

  “Big bro, that isn’t the, umm, final boss of the dungeon, is it?”

  “No, I don’t believe it is. This should be some form of sub-boss. Be careful, I don’t think this enemy will be as slow as all the ‘Noxious Guards’ throughout the dungeon.”

  Matrix nods his head in response. I don’t have an analysis skill like Lost so I can’t tell what level the boss is, but I am quite adept at comparing their strength against ours and determining our chance of winning.

  The boss suddenly moves, dashing toward us at a frightening speed. Matrix moves to engage the boss directly while I move around the side to flank it. With my high dexterity and all the bonuses from the ‘Grand Elven Highbow’, nearly every single one of my arrows should hit.

  I fire off three arrows in quick succession and gape in surprise as two out of the three miss. I recover and attack with another two arrows before the boss reaches Matrix and find that again, only one arrow hits the target.

  I notice that the boss moves with a strange rhythm, first moving fast, then slow, and once again moving fast. This process continues to repeat itself at a consistent pace, yet it is still difficult to keep track of.

  The boss creates a long purple-black whip in its hand out of the same condensed gas its body is formed from. It swings the weapon toward Matrix who prepares to raise his sword and parry the tendril like whip. The boss’s strange movements catch Matrix completely off guard as the whip arches toward him slowly at first, before the speed of the attack dramatically increases. As a result, Matrix completely misses the chance to parry the attack and is hit across the shoulder.

  A small sonic boom erupts from where the tip of the whip cracked across Matrix’s chest and even at a distance I feel the shockwave that follows. Matrix, unable to parry and at ground zero, is blown back and into the wall ten meters behind him.

  ‘Not good!’ My instincts start screaming toward me about how low our chances of victory are. ‘We barely have a 20% chance of victory at best!’

  “Matrix! Are you okay?!” I call out to my little brother, who remains sitting against the wall where he fell.

  “Yeah, big bro! I’m fine! Just, umm, a little surprised!”

  “He moves with a strange rhythm which interchanges between fast and slow, be careful!”

  “Okay!”

  The boss turns toward me and approaches thanks to my shouts attracting its attention, but Matrix quickly stands up and activates a sacred art to draw its aggro again.

  Trying to match my attack with the boss’s movements, I launch another three arrows at it. Two out of three arrows hit this time which is certainly better than before, but still somewhat lacking.

  Rather than trying to parry the whip attacks, Mason focuses completely on dodging out of the the whip’s trajectory, chanting his magic at the same time.

  “Flame waves in the wind as the wind nourishes the fire. The cycle of Yin and Yang becomes complete at the tip of the sword and extends forth. Flame Waves!”

  Matrix’s sword slashes through the air with pinpoint precision. As it swings, flames lick the blade of the weapon and fly from the swordpoint as a blade of flame. The blade of flame cuts through the air in the same direction that the sword swings, creating a line of red sparks and sharp flames from Mason to the boss. He swing
s the sword several times in succession, each creating its own flame blade.

  My eyebrows knit together as I stand there motionless and mouth agape after hearing his ridiculous, self-made poetry. He has been doing this ever since we were trying to do something different to have my videos stand out from the rest and become more popular. The first two videos with his shameless chanting showed some results, but there was nothing after that.

  Despite how many times I tell him to cut it out, he still persists. He is so proficient in magic that he doesn’t even need to call out the chant at all. He could save himself a great deal of time if he simply listens to me and starts using magic silently.

  Matrix’s flame blades pass through the boss with little resistance, most likely due to the fact that it is made from a condensed gas. At least the boss takes damage, it’s health bar becoming visible despite still appearing to be full.

  Matrix holds the boss’s attention consistently, healing himself when needed, dodging rather than attempting to parry, and occasionally responding with a long distance magic attack. My accuracy continues to increase as well, with nine out of ten arrows now hitting the boss.

  Half of my of arrows are gone, stuck all along the walls after passing through the boss. There is even an arrow sticking out of Matrix’s hip which, despite his understanding, I feel incredibly guilty about.

  I decide I will call the boss ‘Gas Child’ for easy reference. His health finally falls below half and the visible health bar turns orange. At this point, there is a distinctive change. He suddenly enlarges and his form vanishes as he disperses. Even the health bar vanishes from sight as the area begins to fill with purple-black smoke. Smoke fills every corner of the room, attacking both Matrix and I at the same time and leaving no room to dodge. The damage to my health isn’t too bad, but a message appears that causes my chest to constrict.

  'Grand Elven Bow' Durability has fallen below 10%:

  ~ Damage has been reduced by 40%

  ~ Attack speed has been reduced by 40%

  'Orcish Gauntlets of Archery' Durability has fallen below 10%