End Online: Volume 3 (21 page)

'I only
have the one sleeping bag. I forgot to get one for Fen!'

Feeling
slightly guilty, I offer her my sleeping bag but the girl refuses it and says
it is for me to sleep in. She doesn't mention the fact that she will climb in
there as soon as I am asleep anyway.

Feeling
the end result is practically preordained, I voluntarily let her climb in just
before I fall asleep. Of course, I turn and face my back to her as I doze off.

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

I wake up
to a pair of arms wrapped tightly around me from behind.

'You are
meant to sleep with your back to me, idiot.'

We all
get up at relatively the same time, climbing out of our sleeping bags with half
asleep expressions. The others must have woken up a little earlier than I did,
considering the blushing faces they made at us.

"Cut
it out. Geez, you guys." I laugh while shaking my head at them.

The
journey from these fields of flowers to the northern forest takes up
approximately a full week in real life to reach. At the end of the second day,
in real life, I had finally spent enough time online for my player killer
status to dissipate. I had only personally killed two swordsmen, but Fen had
killed the third. As it turns out, anyone Fen kills counts as me killing them
considering she is my 'Companion'.

I had a
full thirty hours of time with the player killer status, ten hours per
swordsmen. Fortunately, I didn't run into many high level players. Those that I
did cross paths with stopped and looked at me with some consideration, but
decided to pass on it upon seeing that I was in a party of five.

During
the rest of the week, I lead the party through a massive amount of different
areas. Lush open fields slowly turned into honey scented forests and pollen
rich hills covered in small white and yellow flowers. There was one particular
dense tropical forest with a lot of mosquitoes and moisture in the air that
proved to be rather difficult for tread through.

That
rainforest contained strange little black monkey creatures, that while being
only level 30 each, were easily as fast as the Giant Hornets. If not faster.
The main concern with the monkeys isn't just their speed, but they had a habit
of stealing your belongings. Anything hanging from the hips, jewellery, and
even some stuff that was in the personal inventory.

I spent a
good day chasing one such monkey through the trees after it stole my 'Fire
Imbued Meridium Scramasax' barely hours after entering the area. I was once
again saved by Shai'en's miraculous archery skills as she managed to finally
hit it with an arrow from fifty meters away. Although this experience of
chasing the Monkey did manage to get my agility to raise by a further two
points at least, bringing it up to a total of 248 after my bonuses were added on.

During my
trip, I also checked my 'Nightingale Helmet' once the auction finished. With my
heart racing at a hundred miles an hour,  I read the total sale price of
$2,462! To be able to sell an in game item for such an exorbitant price, it is
almost like a dream.

We took a
lot of kills for ourselves while travelling and gained a few levels each, but
the elf still took most of the experience and continues to grow her level at an
alarming rate. It helps that she is fighting enemies immeasurably stronger than
what she could on her own, but she gained a further twenty levels, overtaking
both my and Fen's level.

She may
currently be more than ten levels above Fen. But I believe that in a contest of
strength between the two of them, the wolf girl would still win.

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

I look up
at the northern forest in front of us, awe shining in my eyes.

The
entire forest is constituted by humongous fifty meter tall, ancient pine trees.
A thin mist swirls and gently drift about throughout the forest, preventing
anyone from seeing beyond a few meters. Fortunately, we haven't entered the
area yet so are safe from the sight prevention.

Far off
in the distance to either side and some slightly behind are enormous snow
capped mountains. The forest seems to pulsate with a deep, icy chill that
covers the grass in frost and sends a shiver up my spine.

"This
is your home?" I say with a mild shock to the elf.

"Yes.
Although it has been corrupted by the evil of humans and become somewhat more
sinister, it is indeed my home."

"Somewhat
more sinister? This forest gives me the damn creeps, I wouldn't be surprised to
find the origin of all evil here, holed up in some old run down mansion with
doors that need oiling and windows that don't open."

"Huh?
What do you mean?"

"Never
mind, it's nothing." I shake my head at the elf. Of course she doesn't
understand the cliché, she is just an NPC in the end.

"We
need to be careful here."
 I
speak across the party chat, direct to everyone. 
"We have no idea
what is in there. How many bandits, monsters, or their levels. Keep an eye out
for anything suspicious."

I lead us
as we walk into the northern forest, the mist swirling around us as we disturb
the air currents with our movements. Thinking back to the 'Vexl Underground
Prison', I am already aware that my speed and the mirages of my body will be
useless in here thanks to my real body disturbing the mist while the fakes do
not.

"Lost,"
Shai'en whispers right next to my ear, "I saw some movement over
there."

She points
to the mist, through a pair of trees where the mist seems to be swirling
around. I cannot see anything. Almost as if she could see the future, four
torches suddenly appear from within the mist, slowly lighting up the
surroundings in a dull yellow glow.

The
figures of four humans in rough leather armour appear from inside the mist,
happily talking amongst themselves. Our entire party immediately duck behind
the large trunks of various pine trees in the area, hiding from their line of
sight.

"That
Jire'min. She is one stunning girl. I may even give up this cruel life just to
be with her."

"I
heard she has a husband though?"

"Oh?
Not anymore she doesn't. I took care of him three nights ago." Laughter
emanates from the group.

"You
could never give up this life. You enjoy it far too much!"

Just as
they were distracted, I creep around the tree trunk until I can see them and
breath the words "Creature analyse", bringing up their data.

'What's
with that enormous health?!' 
I scream
in shock inside my head.

"They
are level 115, have an enormous amount of health, and appear to be close combat
specialists."  
I spread the
information over the party chat, informing them of what I can tell from my analysis.

"I
don't think we should have any problems dealing with only four of them
though." 
Mason speaks back across
the chat.

"No,
we should be fine. Fen, you and I will take the two on the right. Mason, Matrix
and Shai'en will take the two on the left hand side."

Without
any notice, the bandits stop walking and two of them speak up in sync.

"Something,
or someone powerful is here. Be careful and take them out." They say in
voices just loud enough that we could hear them too.

'Shit,
they fell under the effects of my 'Intimidating Aura'!'

Even
though I don't give anyone the signal to move. As soon as I take action, so
does everyone else.

I dash
straight at the group, with Fen's ice attacks backing me up, and launch an all
out assault against the first bandit I can reach. Mason and Shai'en send down a
barrage of arrows on the far two bandits, keeping them away from the rest of
the group.

Mason's
bow glows sky blue, and a single arrow launched into the sky, brings down tens
of arrows in a five meter radius on the enemy. Shai'en body start to emanate a
faint blue and gold aura as she uses magic with a new spell she learnt.
 She simply draws back the bowstring and a thin arrow of highly condensed
wind forms almost instantly.

This is
different from Mason's sacred art 'Sky Piercer', which will fire an arrow of
wind, only to dissipate and launch hundreds of wind blades in every direction.
These wind arrows of hers maintain their condensed form and have an incredibly
high armour penetration. I suspect they could even pierce through most shields.
The best part is, while using minimal mana and not having to prepare arrows,
she can continuously launch these arrows at a frightening speed.

"The
land is my strength, the magma beneath the earth turns and provides it's fiery power
to my strike. Feel the wrath of my inferno. Flame Blade." Matrix, devoid
of all shame, sings out another one of his bogus incantations while using an
advanced spell.

His
entire sword roars as an inferno of flames erupt along the length of its blade
. The flames condense and continue after the tip of the sword as well,
extending the weapons length by a full meter. Kicking off from the ground, his
fiery swords arcs through the air and tears through the bandits.

'How can
that guy be so nervous most of the time. But when it comes to reciting self
scripted poetry, it is like he is a completely different person.' 
I thought to myself.

Seeing
everyone going all out, how can I possibly do any less. I spread out my mental
senses and visualize eight different clones of myself.

Allowing
my vision to shift to another perspective, my original body dissolves in the
wind as I reappear elsewhere along with seven false images of myself.

I rush at
the nearly dead bandits and launch one attack after another. My throwing knives
are sent piercing through the air only moments before my short sword glide
towards throats, the shoulder tendons and the achilles tendon. Each and every
one of my blows is critical, crippling, or both. While at the same time, my
attacks travel at such of a speed they practically negate the opponent’s
defensive rating.

The
bandits also start their counter attack. They manage to split up right before
death and escape the area of effect attacks. Using the trees as cover, they
make it near impossible to hit them with ranged attacks. Even when Shai'en
unleashes one of her magical wind arrows at them, they somehow manage to use a
tree to intercept the projectile.

Dodging
back and forth, they eliminate four of my mirages in a single attack.

'At least
they are under my 'aggro' and will not attack the others like this.' 
I silently chuckle in my mind.

The
bandits, while not being of any significantly large level, are incredibly
cunning. They split up and use the surrounding woods to their advantage for
cover, while converging and attacking from multiple directions shortly after.

We do
land the occasional attack on them. Thankfully, due to our initial surprise
attack taking away the majority of their health, they slowly die one at a time.

While the
battle seemed to take a long time. In reality,  it was only a total of
four minutes. We spent most of our mana and stamina, but everyone only lost
about fifteen percent of their health while I was already down to forty percent
health remaining.

"They
weren't so tough. And they drop fantastic experience too!" Mason was
overjoyed by the amount of experience he gained from killing just one bandit.
With one kill, he instantly gained seven percent towards his next level.

"Umm..
Their attacks were rather, umm, weak." Matrix nervously says while looking
around bashfully.

"What
are you guys talking about!" I shout at the brothers shamelessly,
"They were simply aiming all of their attacks at me!"

"Psh,
what are you talking about? You got to kill two didn't you? It is only fair to
pay the appropriate price for getting the most experience." Mason
complains in a mocking tone.

Ignoring
the two, I simply lead our party further into the northern forest and the
strange, chilling mist.

we
encounter three more successive groups of bandits, each larger than the last.
The second company of bandits were somewhat troublesome as we didn't manage to
land a sneak attack on them and I was nearly killed thanks to my 'aggro'
affecting four of the five bandits.

The third
group was not so much of a hassle, we learnt how important it was to deal that
initial strike and wipe out as many as we could. If we concentrated our attacks
right, we could instantly wipe out three bandits while ignoring the others.

A fourth
and fifth battle proceeded in turn. the deeper we got, the more bandits that we
came across and the more frequently they appeared. If it was not for me picking
up a large amount of medicinal herbs on the way, I would have been in trouble
quite some time ago. Nobody else even seemed remotely concerned about death
after seeing how I am basically the only one being attacked.