He swung his spear with a desire he’d never seen in his eyes before. Green had always seemed to lack purpose in life, and always got horrible grades in everything besides physical education, and science. He was surprised to watch him use his head to even battle his enemies. In the dojo, he’d always used to try to use simple grappling techniques, but against the bandits he seemed to use every move in his arsenal.
As he swiped through the last zombie bandit, a large figure burst out of the ground jumping thirty feet into the air. It had twenty swords on strings causing Alfred to gulp. It immediately tossed out all thirty swords as he activated Stealth Walk. A large shield manifested in front of Wanda before the blade smashed into it. She immediately got sent flying back as Alfred reappeared behind the trees.
Lacy couldn’t believe it and immediately restored the 1 / 10th of the health Wanda lost. A large ruckus began as hundreds of attacks assailed the monster.
Berk was a weapon’s expert, and sent out dozens of daggers into the foe. It stood twenty five feet tall, and had plated armor with the swords floating on its back. It had a red mask covering a pair of obsidian eyes that made it look like the incarnation of the devil.
Alfred jumped into the sky and dodged another large blade before he landed behind Wanda and Lacy.
“That’s a ridiculous skill,” Alfred said, sweat once again pouring down his head. “Wanda… I’m afraid I’m going to take Green’s place on your ass for a while.”
“Very funny…” Lacy said, sending out a series of [Light Arrows]. The hp bar of the boss went down at a rate of about 1000 health per minute. It had 10,000 health and caused them a great deal of trouble. Every few minutes, the swords would get motored back to it, and then be sent out again. This time, Wanda took the brunt force from it with out dropping to her knees.
Five minutes after the fight began, it turned red and disappeared. It caught everyone off guard, including Green, who’d payed a large amount to get information on a Hard Dungeon.
“It’s probably going to reappear soon! I’m sorry… this wasn’t in the post that I Paid to access!”
“Alfred… activate your hiding ability as well… If it went after the strongest before… It’s probably going to go after the weakest now!”
Alfred didn’t even say a word in reply before he activated Stealth Walk. It luckily leveled up to level 3, and he had three minutes of safety. A large red cloud of gas appeared right behind Lacy and swiped down swiftly. Wanda raised her shield and stood in front of her, bursting against the ground from the monsters attack and sending a large amount of rocks bursting into the distance.
One of those stones smacked into Alfred’s legs sending him stumbling against the ground and deactivating his Stealth. The boss immediately jumped into the air and send three of its blades flying towards his position. Green manifested in a cloud of smoke and kicked Alfred away from the blows. One of the large blades crashed into his arm and sent Green spiraling off.
They finally got it together afterwards, and took out the remaining 2000 Health with Berk and Green doing the brunt of the damage. A piece of Green’s arm had been cut off, though, and when they reappeared back inside of the room all eight of them looked like they swallowed a frog. Alfred looked at his prompt with a look of disbelief in his eyes. He’d never almost died so many times in twenty minutes.
You’ve completed Carnage Mountain
Time for completion: 20:25
Mission Grade: B-
The bottom of Hermia Kingdom has been protected thanks to your combined efforts. You’ve earned the respect of the kingdom.
Respect in Hermia Kingdom has increased by 10 towards the Green Everest Guild…
Your Stealth Walk skill has leveled up
Skill level: 4
Effect: You can now hide in plain sight for Four minutes. I think you definitely earned it!
You’ve learned a new skill, Shadow Construct
Skill level: 1
Effect: Allows you to create semi-permanent followers out of the shadows. You can only use this skill on monsters that are below your level… Their attack is calculated by dividing their original attack by 5 and adding 1 / 10th of your intelligence to their main stat.
You’ve gained 12,500 (+9,375) experience for completing the Quest!
You received a 25% experience bonus for completing your first Hard Dungeon at level 11! 6x Level up… you’ve reached level 17! Aren’t you glad idiots sometimes succeed in life?
“Such a snide remark,” Alfred coughed, wiping the sweat off his head. “Are you guys alright…. Lacy…. Wanda… g-g…Green…”
“We’re fine… Nice to see you got a windfall… sorry about that Alfred… I saw on the forum a guild known as Strange Lives had cleared that dungeon with ease… I didn’t think you’d almost die…”
“Well… I made it to level 17…” Alfred took a deep breath. “Now all I have to do is make It thirteen more levels right… How many more hard dungeons can we do today before we hit the limit?”
“Two,” Lacy said, her face still pale. She’d been staring at Alfred as the blade burst towards him. If Green didn’t reach him in time, he’d be dead right now… In a million pieces in the bottom of the pile.
“However, let’s not take any more risks… Why don’t we do a few normal dungeons…”
“It’s not up to you,” Berk said, folding his arms. “Listen… we need to all reach level 35 anyways or we’re toast in the Dream dungeon… if we don’t take a few risks, we’re going to never make it to our goal.”
“I’m fine, Lacy,” Alfred said, getting up. “However, I obviously need to purchase some new gear… I take it not all the Hard Dungeons are that easy…”
“That was actually one of the tougher ones,” Wanda grunted… “Whomever sold you that information clearly wanted us to fail,” Wanda pointed to Green. “It looks like we can’t even trust the Forum anymore!”
Green nodded his head before he got up and flicked aside the brown strands of hair curling into his eyes. He still had blood on his arm that had dried onto his armor from the last attack. He obviously knew they had been setup, but the information still contained many grains of truth! It still was better than doing a hard mission with only the prompt.
“Anyways… Alfred… It’s up to you… do you want to do another hard dungeon, or do a few normal… I understand if you’re afraid, but for every risk we don’t take now…”
“I’m one for taking risks… if you already watched the videos… Maybe I’m an idiot, but I Sense something much worse on the horizon… These ‘Light Bringers’ seem to thrive on surprises… I wouldn’t even be surprised if they were the ones who put the post on that forum…”
“It would make it a horrible experiment if they interfered though,” A man named Nick who hadn’t talked the entire time piped up. He had on thick glasses and a large sword on his back. He’d been level 31 and had just leveled up to 32 as a blade master. “You can only have a true experiment if you don’t interfere…”
“I trust my instincts,” Alfred replied… “Anyways… If you guys don’t Mind I need a break… Since I left the guild, there shouldn’t be anyway Vera can see my level right?”
“Nope,” Lacy said, “As long as you hid it, and she doesn’t have a ridiculously high level of perception you should be fine…”
“Thanks… That okay Green?” Alfred sounded a little bit more respectful. “How’s your arm? It feel better?”
“Don’t patronize me… Alfred… We’ll do a mission again in one hour… I saw Vera on the way up, but she didn’t see me…. She was heading towards Chaos Road’s Guild House outside of the city…”
Alfred felt a tiny bit confused at how he knew such a specific piece of information. He turned to look at Lacy as she approvingly nodded her head. He then waved leaving the five Green Everest members in his bungalow. He felt surprised that the once endless flame of hatred towards Green had dwindled to that of a small wick. It still hurt to look at him, and he still felt rage,
but perhaps he had a good quality besides his craggy jaw, and buff physique.
Lacy followed him outside as he went to check in Vera’s mission Center to make sure she didn’t arrive back. They head out together and made it to town before Alfred tried to send her a message.
This person has had her chat disabled…
Alfred looked down in disbelief. How could a person’s chat have gotten disabled?
Chapter 13: Enebriated
Lacy tried to send Vera a chat message as well and received the same message. They had no choice but to follow Green’s lead and went to an undisclosed location right outside of Larimar Kingdom. There were two massive Bulwarks that made the guild house of Chaos Road look especially imposing. A few people he recognized from the Guild Welcoming Party were outside. Cherry, on the other hand, was sitting by a series of large Fir Trees with an even sadder look than he’d expected.
He walked towards her with Lacy as the three men standing guard glared at them. He knew he’d left the guild, but he felt like they were staring daggers into his heart. Cherry tilted her head up when he arrived by her side.
“So… you’re here for Vera, right…” Cherry said with a frown… “She came here drunk with Grant and went into the basement… she looked pretty tipsy… Tipsier than we used to go to the boardwalk…”
“That doesn’t sound like here… How could she get drunk in forty minutes… It has been an hour tops since we last saw her,” Alfred looked worriedly towards the basement… “What kind of look did she have on her face?”
“She looked really drunk… What do you want me to tell you? She looked like she wanted to get rammed?” Cherry crossed her arms. “All I know is you left the guild, and only guild members are welcome…”
“Cherry… Vera wouldn’t just go with anyone into a basement… She had a three-week rule… First week kiss… Second week… I don’t want to talk about this…. You mind taking us downstairs?”
Lacy nodded her head as Cherry tried to figure out what to do. She got up and wiped off her blue pants and black shirt before she sent Alfred a party request. He quickly accepted it before Cherry indicated to walk forward, putting two of her fingers in her mouth before she let out a sharp whistle.
The three men standing by the doorway huddled over as Cherry spent a few minutes explaining how Alfred had accidentally deleted himself from the guild. Their incensed expressions were soon replaced by merriment as Alfred remained mostly silent. However, he began to hear a high-pitched sound. He grinded his fist as he kept a smile on his face. Following Cherry forward, she knocked on the basement outside the compound as the three guards went back to their posts.
“He might be in the middle of something, Alfred… If you want to know thing about Grant, it’s that he likes a long time with his girls…”
“Again, Vera isn’t like that,” Alfred whispered, “Lacy cast a few buffs on me and get ready to attack. The first day I saw Grant around Vera I knew he wasn’t good news.”
“I’m not going to say no to attacking him… However, it will start a guild war if I attack a guild leader… Green isn’t going to be to happy—”
“This is Vera damn it! I’ll destroy this guild myself in a couple of weeks if he did anything to her…” Alfred looked at Cherry and paused. His whisper had broken into a shrill comment and a few of the guards turned towards him.
The doorway finally opened as grant came outside with his shirt off. Alfred immediately held his breath as Grant laughed and walked up the stairs. He had a look of shock on his face, but didn’t seem surprised until he turned and saw Lacy standing beside him.
“She’s not allowed to be here Cherry… Unless she’s planning to joi—”
“Where’s Vera,” Alfred said, in as kind of a voice as he could muster. “I told her we’d do party missions today, and didn’t expect to see her gone for so long.”
“You could’ve messaged her through the guild chat if you hadn’t left… She’s resting right now… You can’t disturb her unfortunately…. However, if you like I can keep you company.”
“Move,” Alfred said, glaring at him as Lacy spread her arms and prepared a [Light Arrow]. “She never sleeps in the day time… Not even after… what ever you two guys did!”
Grant held up his hands and laughed as his guards raced over. Cherry took out her sword and pointed it at them. It began to glow brightly as they approached. She still had the second highest level in the guild, and she also knew Vera since she was a kid.
“Sorry, but you’re letting us go downstairs,” Cherry said, “I’m not one for talking much, but he’s right… Move and let us down there, or I’m quitting the guild.”
“She’s going to be upset,” Grant pushed his rhetoric. “Listen… I’ll have her come meet you in a couple of hours when she’s less inebriated okay… as a fellow fighter, you don’ t want to fight me outside of a duel…”
Alfred activated stealth Walk and disappeared patting Lacy on the shoulder as he rushed backwards. Grant slammed down his hands sending out an AOE attack of chains and knives, making Cherry jump back as he slammed shut the doorway with his other hand.
Cherry tumbled on the floor as a white shield glimmered in front of Lacy. She’d just turned level 30 on the last hell mission, and had a set of rare equipment with a protective shield. She immediately jumped back as GRAnt charged towards her. A small circle appeared underneath his feet right outside of the basement door. Alfred didn’t know what that was, but he wasn’t going to run into it.
The three guards ,which included one mage and two sword tempests ran into the fray and split between Lacy and Cherry. Cherry was a sword tempest as well, and had the ability to cast magic using her weapon. She cut forward with her sword and sent out ten attacks at the two incoming foes. The one swordsmith on her flank got sent back skidding against the floor as Alfred found a small port window to the basement on the side of the tower. He saw Vera with a rope around her neck, laying against the floor with a strange expression.
Immediately, he rushed forward with his stealth still activated as Grant brute armed Lacy and sent her tumbling against the ground. Even with their level difference, Alfred appeared behind grant and immediately grabbed hold of his neck and sliced across. A thick red blood trickled down his neck as he grabbed at it and struggled to breathe.
Grant has taken 1500 damage (critical x8) (Stunned)
You’ve learned a new technique, Vital Target, novice
Skill level: 1
Effect: When you hit a vital you will deal 2.5% more damage.
Alfred disabled his UI as Grant stumbled back to his feet. He saw Alfred walking towards the sealed basement doorway as a bright light covered his body from a [Restoration] cast by a healer in his guild. Grant’s health slowly restored to full as Lacy stood back and dropped her light bow. She didn’t want to start an all out war with Chaos Road, and Alfred already made his way into the basement.
Grant tried to understand what happened. Even with a critical attack, Alfred shouldn’t have been past level 11, so the damage he received seemed insane.
He coughed up what felt like a part of entrails as a Healer appeared by his side. By the time he recovered, he already saw Alfred with Vera in his hands. She had a rope laced around her head and neck. Grant looked aghast seeing her taken out into the open.
“It’s not what it looks… li-like…” Grant said, trying to use his throat muscles, but unable to finish a full sentence… “She wanted to be tied up… You’ve seen her right? She loves to party, and drink…. I…”
“Kill him,” Alfred said, pointing to Cherry and the rest of his guild mates. “I don’t care if you’re part of his guild or not… Look what he did to a beautiful woman!”
Vera’s clothes had been torn off, and all that remained was her partially remaining bra plus a set of torn lacy stockings. A little bow was wrapped around her mouth, and a rope extended from her neck to her arms and then to her legs. Alfred hadn’t yet removed it because he wanted to make sure they unde
rstood what kind of guild leader they had.
Cherry didn’t show any hesitation and rushed forward burning with rage. Her guild mates hesitated before they did the same. Grant could only jump back before an arrow burst through his chest, sending him flying towards a fig tree with his arm fully penetrated.
“I… I’m sorry,” Cherry said, running up to Vera as the men in the guild walked towards Grant. “I… I didn’t think he’d do something like that… He’s taken girls downstairs before, but… this is so horrible.”
“It looks like he didn’t get a chance to start,” Alfred spit on the floor. “I hope you guys have someone you can report this too… I’m going to take her home now… You’re welcome to come by after…”
Cherry looked stunned as Grant screamed in the background. A few of his guildmates stabbed him consecutively before his body burst and disappeared from losing all his health. He’d reappear in town in a few minutes inside of the circle of light. When people died outside of hard missions, or dream territories, they’d respawn in town. It left Alfred with a nasty feeling in his stomach.
Lacy asked Alfred to put Vera down before she pointed her bangles at Vera. She used bangles as a healer to amplify her spells. She quickly cast a [Restoration] before Vera burst open her eyes as a trail of spittle dropped down her mouth. She looked hazy, but had regained much of her inner clarity from the healing magic coursing through her body…
“What happened…. You didn’t do anything stupid did you?” Vera said, opening her eyes and looking at Alfred… “The… that drink was nasty… What happened to Grant? Why does my back hurt?”
Heaven's Gate: Volume 1 (A LitRPG Adventure) Page 9
