Virtual Reality : Dystopian Tales Online

004.3 | The Crystal Forrest

Once the first boss is defeated, the chance of getting the other two bosses is fifty-fifty. Since there is only one main boss on a neutral floor, it is either they will get the floor's boss for the second summoning or the deviant one will appear. Or, in some cases, they would summon the two of them. Either way, even if they won't be able to defeat it, they could still get past the floor. 

The requirement for the second required a lot of killings. Other than the twenty distance-archers, they also have to finish about thirty battle warrior golems and fifty normal golems. Once done, the players have to ignite five will-o-wisps to call the boss' attention. Killing the golem subordinates is easy but collecting the will-o-wisps is very annoying. 

 Even though this is the neutral ground, nobody could erase the fact that it is still a high-level dungeon. It is supposed to be difficult to clear. It would be disrespectful for the powerful species belonging to the higher leveled floors to be easily provoked by killing their underlings.

The will-o-wisps mentioned are almost the same in any fiction book. It has the blue fiery color orb-shaped torch fire that can be recognized by a glance. As what mythology tells, the will-o-wisps are spirits of ghosts that are often found to be roaming around swamps, marshes, or secluded forests. 

They are also called 'foolish spirits' and live quite a carefree existence inside the game. However, though these creatures look so leisurely, they are very quick to escape and almost undetectable by other races. Even high-leveled players won't consider catching wisps as a child's play. 

Well, the will-o-wisp indeed signified something unachievable. 

In the game, the will-o-wisps are called [IGNIS FATUUS]. Contrary to the origin of the will-o-wisps, the settings in the game told a story of old age immortals that died and was trapped within the Crystal Forest. These immortals are attracted by the power and beauty of the forest and thus have been pulled in. The reason why the Crystal Forest has dense mana is due to the sucked power from these immortals. 

Anyways, it explained how these will-o-wisps are difficult to catch. 

Leon-36 can easily detect a will-o-wisp, but that would be difficult for Aud-01 who can’t sense magic. Generally, will-o-wisps are generated through the accumulation of thick mana to form a conscious spirit. Then, anyone who can consume mana directly will be able to detect them. 

However, other races such as the Humanoid and Beasts could never sense these powers. They might be able to know its existence and uses it for some magic spells but that would be the limitation. Aud-01 that is totally indifferent to such a thing will not be able to catch the will-o-wisps. 

Well, it is not that he can't do it. It is just inefficient. 

And so, Leon-36 tacitly took the responsibility of catching these spirits while Aud-01 will work on the other requirements.

Like the usual, Aud-01 easily eliminated the enemies in the fastest time using his skills in analyzing positions and enemy formations. Even with the game system's high functioning game organization, Aud-01 could easily c***k the formation. A single player that is capable of handling such high-intensity battles could really hold a good place in the high ranks. 

If he can kill two birds with one stone, then he won't be reckless to throw two stones. Unfortunately, there are only two of them so nobody can witness such flawless gameplay. His smooth movement plus perfect body coordination allowed him to move in between his enemies killing five golems in one strike. 

A combination of spinning, jumping, and jabbing the opponent with his battle lance constituted a lot of actions. Ignoring the state inside the game world, the person playing as Aud-01 must have an excellent eye balance and quick reaction speed. He must have been furiously clicking and clack his keyboard while his eyes glued to the screen. 

At this point, none of the two uttered a single word. Even Aud-01 remained quiet as sounds of the monsters being slashed filled their ears. It is quite peaceful if one would ignore the reason for such silence. 

Usually, in this kind of speed run, Aud-01 would be talking about... anything. Despite his adorable shy-looking appearance, this guy is a natural chatterbox. If Shin could make professors in their university shut up, Aud-01 is more capable of igniting an enemy's camp by just his talking. If not for his sore throat, he must have been talking about the cat he saw on his window this morning. 

Of course, he is still a responsible leader, so he gives command now and then. Now that he had this handicap, it did not stop them from properly coordinating.  Leon-36 understands Aud-01 best when it comes to planning. The reason why he got recruited is due to this thinking of reading the same page and drinking the same cup of tea. 

All they have to do is glance at each other as if that one look is enough for a conversation.

Five minutes have passed and Aud-01 is almost half of the requirement. Leon-36 is still scouting around, quickly transferring grounds to gather the will-o-wisps. He already has three at hand. Two more and he will help Aud-01 on his part.

The clearing went smoothly despite them lacking members. Usually, Leon-36 never moves around and will just stay in one place. He is a magician so it is not necessary for him to run around. At most, he would be in a stationary position, spewing supports spells or whatever. Together with him would be one of the twins, Marlene, who is an Elven Druid. She is responsible for checking the group's health status and heal them whenever needed. 

Leon-36 can also cast healing magic but don't expect that it will give a huge impact. Due to his main archetype, Necromancer, it's highly impossible for him to heal someone successfully. He is supposed to be summoning dark forces than giving life. So his responsibility covers support magic to enhance his teammate's prowess or do some DPS attack magic. 

The Tank group belongs to Aud-01, Shin-18, and Frass-02. These people are very good in combat and pulling the aggro. They have their own formation, called the [B-Delta] or tagged as a Bermuda Triangle by the other players (because a Triangle also means Delta). Once the enemy is inside the B-Delta, it means instant death. Nobody has ever escaped from this triangle making these three the strongest vanguards of the group.

Marcus and Alexandria are both long rangers. Often, Marcus stays beside Leon-36 to attack. He is an Elven with the main archetype of an archer. Sending unlimited magical spears is his specialty. He might appear less appealing but among the group, Marcus got the best score on the accuracy skill in target shooting. Don't be persuaded his child look as this kid could use every weapon with abnormal efficiency. 

He is not best in direct combat missions but very useful in assassin-type jobs. Nobody was able to beat his record of the most number of targets killed when there was an event game that required stealth. Even his team members are surprised by his accuracy.

The other member, Alexandria, acts as the background and responsible for guarding the rear. She belongs to the humanoid race having Cavalier as her main archetype. Being tagged as a knight, she protects the group from outer enemies especially the healers and the long-range shooters. She is allowed to overlook the vanguards who are not the least weak to be damaged easily.

Her presence is not much in the group but this is the type of character Aud-01 wanted her to have. Many people created rumors how Alexandria is the most useless person in the group. She doesn't have a high level and has no redeeming features. Yet, Aud-01 just ignored them. 

He doesn't care. In any case, Alexandria played a huge factor in the group. After all, nobody would easily leave their back to anyone. Alexandria standing as their back character openly explains how his members trusted her in protecting them from unforeseen attacks. 

Taking one smooth slide, Leon-36 caught the last will-o-wisp they need. The blue orb that emits a bright light but totally harmless tried to escape but Leon-36 grasped its fire tail tightly. The spirit could not be harmed anyways so it simply resigned to its fate and joined the other wisps the Elven caught. The five brightly colored fires rested on Leon-36's shoulders like birds.

Successfully obtaining the materials, Leon-36 went back to see the situation on the other side. Twitching a smile, he saw the expected result he thought will appear. Like in any other raid, leave Aud-01 alone for a few minutes, and later you will only see the heaps of monsters killed by the player.

"Whoa, isn't he strong?" Leon loudly commented, imitating a fangirl expression. 

Aud-01 finished his last kill by striking one normal golem on the chest with a thwack sound before it fell to the ground. He has good ears and heard Leon-36's mocking very well. He wasn't the least embarrassed as he placed his hands on his lips and made a smug expression. 

"Of course, I am. If not, why would I be worthy to be your leader," Aud-01 narcissistically admitted. 

Leon-36 snorted as he approached the player and showed the will-o-wisps. The blue light flickered under their possession. Aud-01 opened his satchel to get a special ignition reagent to affect the will-o-wisps. The wills cried in agony by just giving it one drop, causing their fires to be lit in bright b****y red.

Once again, the stage changed its status. The ground-shaking phenomenon repeated with the fog following, spreading between trees at a faster rate. This time, it made the whole place in zero visibility making it hard to see distances. An addition to the effects is the reddening of the sky to a b****y red color.

They freed the wills when the boss came out. The Will-o-wisps held no value and just objects roaming around with an existence complying for the purpose of completing a requirement. The wills escaped at an amazing speed once released, hiding while the effect of the fog is still there.

The second boss is called the Deviant Spawn Frost. Ah, so the one they summoned is the weird boss. 

Unlike the first boss, this deviant spawn is famous for teleporting, jumping, running, and attacking, as if a baby trying to play hide and seek. Its teleporting has no pattern at all. Just appearing and would be gone after a second. 

Sometimes, this boss will appear arrogant, ignoring the players. Even if it was attacked, the boss will just be motionless letting people attack it freely. Even in Red Rage and Blood Cry, it will remain still. 

There are also times when this Deviant Spawn Frost Giant will aggressively start swinging its arms around, flailing it, spinning, giving the players a hard time to come closer to give damage. If the party doing the raid has no long-range players, this will become a hard-to-defeat boss to them. Well, they can still get close and win. It's just that they have to be super fast in typing the commands while keeping the balance around.

But among these acts, the hardest play this Frost Giant pranked the players is that time when one of the guilds decided to set a record but just then get mocked by the second boss. It was the time of the Arcana (once again), with both long-range and close combat members in the group, doing the quest. 

They thought that handling the Deviant Spawn Frost would be easy if they put all kinds of combat range in their group. But the plan failed when this Frost Giant started teleporting every second, giving headaches to the players.

Eventually, they left the floor at that time, not wishing to face the all-out teleportation of Deviant Spawn Frost again. The place considered as the Elven's paradise had become the area of pure hatred and resentment. Whenever the Arcana Guild goes camping around this floor, they would suddenly become mad dogs ready to commit a m******e.

Leon-36 murmured a prayer that this boss will not do that disaster again.

One big foot took a step forward. Unlike earlier, Aud-01 didn't advance. He waited for the monster to fully appear in front of them. Seeing the scene from the back of these players, a humungous crystal golem appeared, steam releasing to any parts of its body. A strong gust of wind clapped the figure, removing the fog surrounding it.

One could just simply admire the beauty of this Deviant Spawn Frost Giant. With a body of white shining crystals, it shone with the light reflecting a myriad of colors. It is both blinding and admirable, almost stunning. How could a beast show such mere beauty?

However, not affected by the spell, Aud-01 started heading towards the giant maneuvering his lance again. Leon-36 aimed to follow when suddenly he saw the giant move. If ever it remained the same, that will be used as an indication that he will not move throughout the act. But it seems like this one is going to move all the way out.

The giant's movement is slow, like a door creaking, that Aud-01's movement is too fast for it. Without an interception, he managed to land some attack decreasing the giant's health to one-third. Leon-36 continued with the same technique, attacking from the back using skills than mana. Aud-01 climbs upward high by running on the crystals going up, the smoke following his back, and flies out when he reached the beast's head. One strike of the lance on the top, creating a c***k, making the giant howl.

The health decreased to half, however, he didn't stay and quickly took a step back. It was a wise decision because the giant suddenly gained speed that slapped its head trying to catch the player. Leon-36 didn't anticipate the move. He decided to approach Aud-01 who landed on the nearby tree.

"What the hell is that?" The elf asked.

However, Aud-01 didn't give him an answer. He's not expecting an answer anyway. They both stared at the giant again who is currently slapping its own head while howling. The deviant spawn didn't look at them or searched for them. It was just there, standing, filling the whole place with its slapping sound. 

Ah, another oddball, Leon thought. 

Aud-01 opened his satchel alerting Leon-36. Aud-01 never opens his inventory whenever in a game. 

While looking, Leon-36 noticed the lance that he is holding. By just looking at it, one of the sharp edges broke leaving only a pair of tiny shards. Crystals are forming around, a crystal that grows whenever MP is used. It looks like a parasite from the Giant infested the lance. In no way of using it again, Aud-01 would rather change weapon and purify it than breaking it whole.

Well, Aud-01 only uses the lance whenever it is an easy-to-defeat enemy.  He just took out another weapon from it: A sickle.

The player hops down from the tree and looked at Leon-36.

"What?" He asked.

Aud-01 can't speak right now so he only showed his thumbs up. Leon-36 nodded, understanding the message behind the sign. The player went out to start attacking again while he waited. In some games, situations where there are battles in Arena, it is common to eavesdrop whenever matches between great guilds happen. Aud-01 created a series of sign language that only Sora and a few friends can understand.

The fight between the giant and the players continued. The leading player will do the close attacks while the long-range player will stay in one place. It continued at some point until Aud-01 announced the new signal. Alert, Leon-36 switched position, activating a speedrunner skill to approach the giant frost. He chanted some magic using the mana, aiming the tip forward. Aud-01 waited for to it arrives. He waited for to-

"Ahhh!"

The spell did not arrive. Rather, a loud shout was heard from the other line. Aud-01 didn't know what happened but he quickly replaced Leon-36. At such times when unforeseen events occur, Aud-01 has the ability to easily fill in the position. The expected spell didn't arrive so he just simply threw some attacks with the equivalent amount of damage.

On the other hand, Leon almost had a heart attack while strongly clinging to the chair he has been sitting in. In front of him would be the laptop he is using for the game that is currently on the play. On the table are the things he brought and the untouched snack he bought. What made him look so terrified and surprised?

"Ah... Aren't you cheating on me?" Another voice asked.