by Way Woo
“He’s not going to be smiling when he sees us as strong as he is.”
“That’s so.”
One of their scouts pointed to a spot a third of the way up the mountain.
“He’s on the move. Should we follow?”
“Give it a minute or two – he might see us.”
It was after one minute became two, but before two minutes became five when Seamus gave the signal to advance.
They had crossed the plains and were about to begin climbing the mountain when a grisly sight came upon them: two corpses of Iron-Beaked Fantails, and no sign of Jake.
“Amazing. He’s already gotten two of them.”
“These birds are huge!”
“I could hold a pigeon in my hand back home. But this? This bird has wings as large as a grown man!”
“He probably swung that bat like crazy again.”
“Probably. We should hurry and get to the mountain and stop him from being so full of himself.”
They were halfway to the foot of the mountain in hot pursuit of the thing Jake was hiding, whether it was treasure or not, they did not care.
But some grunts quickly disavowed them of that notion.
“Incoming!” a scout shouted, and with practiced efficiency, Seamus had his guild mates ready for a fight quickly.
Despite their jealousy at Jake’s achievements, they were proud of gaining levels from the Werecrocodile boss fight, surviving that near-death experience, and were experienced enough to get ready.
What kind of trouble would one bird give them?
“Stay in formation!”
“Something’s in the sky going back around here.”
“Stick together. By the book, everyone!”
“It’s coming!”
Nothing could have prepared them for a gray blur that moved past most of the adventurers pressed up against the side of the mountain.
And then red blossomed, as a massive gash opened up along the arm of one of the adventurers as the Iron-Beak Fantail made a pass, opening up their archer’s leather armor like a hot knife through butter.
“My arm!”
The healers Seamus brought along were thankfully unharmed, but now that one of them was maimed with one attack, they needed some cover to keep their archer from going into shock – or worse.
The gray blur stopped for a moment, and Seamus could not believe how a pigeon could do this much damage to an arm.
It was at this point that they all figured it out – they had bitten off more than they could chew.
“Keep it together! Or we all die now!” Seamus screamed at his guild mates. “If we work together, we can kill it!”
It wasn’t that the pigeon’s dive was fast – it was – but you could see it coming some distance away, so you could dodge or plan a counterattack.
But with the situation of one of their strongest ranged attackers being maimed by a single pigeon, the need to cover the healers trying to keep the knight alive and in one piece, fear and panic began to spread through the party.
And the pigeon went back for another dive.
Though it hit nothing when it passed by this time, but the mental damage to Seamus’ guild mates was enough.
“You motherfuckers, get it together!” he yelled as he swung his hammer at the bird and was surprised with a metallic clang as he struck the Fantail’s beak.
“Holy shit!” he yelled as the impact nearly wrenched his arm out of his socket, and the Fantail went around for another pass towards him, its wings folded back, making it look like an avian javelin...
Seamus couldn’t help it.
He screamed.
...and at the last moment, something diverted it off course, returning the bird back to the sky.
Seamus opened his eyes to see two things: the Iron-Beak Fantail flying back for another pass, and the last person he wanted to see looking at the debacle their pursuit had been.
And with the oddest look on his face, Jake Smithson turned and walked away, leaving Seamus and his group at the mercy of the giant bird.
Episode 12
***
It was just a few minutes ago when Jake Smithson put the squawking, flapping pigeon out of its misery with a smack to its skull.
Who knew that its wings were its weak spot? Jake asked himself as he saw his points go from zero to a thousand. Well, that figures. Something this difficult would give this much incentive.
And now I have to hunt twenty-one more of them to afford the package I want – but it’s not going to be a walk in the park, pun intended, because I’m hunting flyers now.
Wouldn’t you know it, I don’t have anything to throw or shoot.
Another one of those Iron-Beaked Fantails saw him and swooped downward.
The only efficient way I can do this is by playing chicken – har dee har har – with these giant pigeons.
He had long since ripped his shirt up into strips and used them as makeshift bandages – despite his physical defense going up to 4, those sharp beaks still cut him open in places.
Granted, those cuts weren’t deep, but they did warrant him having to bandage himself up lest he collapse from blood loss.
But knowing what he did now after taking out the first Fantail would really help when facing the second… third… and fourth.
Good news is that the defense package I bought really helped. I still have to keep it together.
They’re fast, though. Breaking their wings will mean I’ll have to time my swings perfectly, kinda like those arcade ticket machines. A bat’s a bad choice for hunting birds, and a wooden one at that, too. But, as they always say, nothing worthwhile comes easy.
I’ll just have to hit them as they pass me by.
He tightened the bandages on his arms as soon as he was finished with the second fantail, using the beak from the first fantail he killed to pry off the beak from the second one’s skull.
Just three so far, he noted, before looking to the sky and seeing it already beginning to turn orange. I’m going to have to pace myself from this point onward.
It’s been quite a long time since the sky began to turn dark. Different day and night cycle from Earth... I get it.
He was just about done with stashing the important loot he had just recently acquired into his inventory when he heard some familiar voices below, just as the first stars were beginning to show up in the sky.
“You motherfuckers! Keep it together!”
This sounds familiar, he thought as he made his way down to the base of Mount Mushin, where the voices where coming from.
It wasn’t that far from where he was – about two hundred meters or a minute’s worth of running – and from his vantage point he could see a bunch of people gathered near the base.
Their faces were familiar: Seamus and his mostly female entourage and/or hangers-on – who were giving him grief earlier in the morning.
The women looks like they’re healing one of their own, Jake observed, and stopped when he saw just how bad it was. That looks nasty. Seems like one of them was nearly maimed by a Fantail’s attack.
And all this was due to just one of these pigeons.
...I wouldn’t blame them. Based on what’s going on, Seamus and the other two front liners are defending the healers, the pigeon struck their only ranged attacker, and the healers can’t help shoot down the bird if they’re too busy putting Humpty Dumpty back together.
The fantail made another pass, and Seamus screamed out loud.
That was a scream for help if I ever heard one, Jake thought, and he was already moving.
In times like these, people tend to help out in situations like these; it’s not easy to turn your back on people who have been severely hurt.
Also, the adventurers here were living normal lives not too long ago.
Yet, as he was taking steps down the hill, he was suddenly struck with some doubts.
Should I help them after all the grief they put me through in Brino?
Jake had to give a b
rief thought to help Seamus and his party. After all, he was just an ordinary company man on a nine-to-five job trying to feed his shopping addiction just a few days ago.
I could spare them a moment.
But I don’t want to.
He was reminded of the time at work when a manager took the credit for all his hard work.
Jake knew from his experiences that sometimes people repay your kindness with treachery.
Based on what he saw from Seamus and his hangers-on, they sounded like the same kind of people…
…and the urge to help them somewhat faded as he saw the archer finally stand up and take up the bow in her hands.
She’s not in good shape, but in good enough shape to take a shot at the bird. The question is, is the rest of this dumb bloke’s team good enough to work together after this scare?
He saw them in formation, and the healers already had a few potions on their belt in reserve just in case the line was broken.
Looks like I’m not helping them, after all.
(Let them suffer a bit.)
For all their panic, they recovered well enough.
(They’re bait.)
As he turned his back to them, he could hear Seamus’ screams of obscenities at him as the bird passed by again. The sound of pistols shooting and arrows flying in the air gave Jake confidence that he made the right choice.
“You won’t get anywhere with people babysitting you, not in this world,” he said, before heading further up the mountain to hunt more of the Iron-Beak Fantails. “Besides, if I helped you, you’d get in the way of my farming.”
***
He could almost hear the angels singing when he finally put his hands around the hilt of his brand-new Swiftstone Sword.
The sensation flowing through him was not unlike falling in love – his face was flushed, his heart was beating a mile a minute, his eyes were filled with sparkles… and his attempts to lift the thing were not working.
“Wait, what the fuck’s going on here?” Jake cried out as he tried to pull the sword from his inventory.
Emphasis on try, as after several futile minutes, the only thing he managed to pull was his shoulder.
It took him a moment to understand why after checking the item information.
[Swiftstone Sword
Required Strength: 40]
“You’ve GOT to be shitting me! All this effort for a sword I can’t lift with my stats right now?!”
After closing his inventory and looking towards the skyline of Mount Mushin, he calmed down a bit.
“Well, even my meager salary couldn’t cut it with my shopping habit – I needed to work part-time and overtime if I wanted something quickly,” he whispered to the early morning air. “This needs a plan of some sort: and that plan is to gain the 40 Strength I need to use this brand-new Swiftstone Sword of mine!”
Nobody heard him make the grand declaration, but the plan itself was simple enough: gain a ton of points and buy enough Opus of Strength books to get to 40.
If Jake thought 16 was enough Strength for now, the sword in his inventory said otherwise – thus the plan.
“Looks like I have nothing to offer the Hero Shop but my blood, toil, tears and sweat,” he said, his mind now made up. “No going back to town until my strength is enough – and that is that!”
What Jake didn’t realize was that if he did go through with his plan to grind until he had enough for 40 strength, it would make him one of the strongest adventurers in Nohas, period.
He needed 24 strength to get to where he wanted to be, and that was the equivalent of eight levels gained.
Fortunately for him, Mount Mushin wasn’t just home to the Iron-Beaked Fantails, there were also a bunch of other monsters skulking around the caverns and mountain trails.
Jake pulled out his bat from the troll he recently took down with a carefully placed shot to the neck, saw the points he gained, and shook his head.
“Not enough.”
He turned to the other troll, which was by now beginning to back away from him, its multiple eyes shining with fear.
“Never enough.”
The troll backed to the edge of the mountain trail, and one swing to its chest combined with a little thing called gravity gave Jake another bunch of points he needed.
“I need MORE!” he bellowed to the heavens.
***
Meanwhile, in a familiar back office, more pandemonium was ongoing.
“Kelderian!” one of the analysts said. “We have another problem!”
The current head of the Nohas back office walked over to his subordinate with the solemn gait of a convict walking to the executioner’s axe.
“What is it this time?”
The analyst showed him the logs.
“Well that’s just fine and dandy,” Keldarian declared after raising his hand to silence the room, sarcasm dripping from his voice as he made the declaration. “Our friendly neighborhood hacker just got himself a Swiftstone.”
Once more, pandemonium ensued in the office.
“Are you fucking kidding?”
Kelderian never bothered to call out the analyst’s language; he felt the same way.
“We put a timed sale on purpose.”
“How could he buy it in so short a time?”
“What the hell is that guy, already collecting that much points?”
“Besides, he had to get the parts too. The Iron-Beaked Fantails are a good two tiers ahead of the goblins and orcs they should be fighting.”
“I have no clue,” Kelderian said, quieting his staff. “Let’s check the logs, something seems to be off.”
Kelderian and his analysts had agreed on one thing from the moment they began damage control: it was the Werecrocodile that served as the flashpoint that led to this near catastrophe.
Because of Jake defeating the Werecrocodile ahead of schedule, he was able to get 10,000 points and purchase the physical defense tomes to be able to hunt monsters two tiers above his stat line.
Wouldn’t you know it, due to this, the balance of power among the adventurers was already beginning to unravel starting from that point.
“Damn it… the dimension managers might give us crap about this. Are monsters weaker in this area than others? Are the monster’s powers sealed and downgraded?” an analyst intern asked.
“No… that’s not possible. Our beta testing team checked and re-checked that the way to earn points or the difficulty is the same across all dimensions. “
“Then what the hell is that guy?” the senior analyst asked.
“Maybe it's one of those once-in-a-generation geniuses?” Kelderian’s assistant asked. “If that’s the case, then it would make sense for him to be able to connect to the Hero Shop despite it still being in beta.”
“Yes, he must be a genius of some sort. Damn our luck,“ Kelderian fumed, just as he and his team mistook the shopping addict for a Renaissance man.
“So what should we do?” the Customer Delight Operative asked. “This guy has been asking me questions continually via our 1:1 inquiry system. Should I ignore him, then?”
“No, that’s not what we do here!” Kelderian replied, aghast that his subordinate would even consider such a thing. “We’re a service provider. This is what we do. What do you think management will do if they see you ignoring a customer? But yes, we do need to do something about this.“
“What kind of something?”
“We’ll have to take action.”
“What kind of action?”
“Something long-term,” Kelderian replied. “Something that will take him a long time to buy. If he spends a long time trying to buy one thing, we will buy time for other adventurers to catch up to him.”
“What kinds of items we do have for such plan?”
“He purchased the Swiftstone Sword right now, correct? Let’s bring out the ‘Cherry Blossom Weapon Art Set’.“
“Oh! I know that one. It’s from the dimension with your cousin heading the back offi
ce, right sir?” the intern asked.
Kelderian suddenly grew a tic as he explained it. “Yes… that’s exactly the one. Over there, it’s a legendary manual containing rules on how to wield the blade masterfully. However, in THIS world, the set only enhances swords that require high Agility, not high Strength. We’ll give him all the freaking time in the world to save for it so he doesn’t rush to get it and buy us the time we need.”
“Isn’t this a white elephant, sir? The Swiftstone is a sword whose power depends on its user’s Strength.”
“You’re right!” Kelderian declared. “It’s not just a white elephant, it’s the WHITEST elephant across all dimensions!”
***
The intern read the description of the item.
The Cherry Blossom Weapon Art Set was based off a fantasy dimension that operated quite differently from Nohas.
It revolved around a secret group of swordsmen who honed their skill and hid their secrets of swordsmanship in flowing poetry describing flowers.
The school was named such because their most secret arts were hidden in odes to cherry blossoms– the flower that symbolizes the impermanence of life.
Not only did this have an exorbitant cost, it was also not beginner friendly.
When learned, this skill was good enough to be used outside of the beginner’s zone. When mastered… the world’s your oyster.
Even if a player had accessed the Black Label Hero Shop, he wouldn’t be able to find it if he sought it out.
***
“Not everyone can get that item,” the intern said after reading the description.
“That's what matters!” the senior analyst said. “First, to qualify for purchasing the skill, you need to finish the ‘Impermanence of Cherry Blossoms’ sub-quest by submitting sixteen Cherry Blossom Fragments. You’ll need to acquire them by getting the Cherry Blossom itself, which is a rare drop, I might add, and you have to throw that Cherry Blossom into the air and THEN slice it into sixteen pieces… in midair!”
The analyst took a breath before continuing.
“You think our resident genius is going to get that easily with a sword as large as the Swiftstone? He can, but it’s going to take him a HELL of a long time to do so, enough time for other adventurers to catch up and balance Nohas again!”
