As I walked along the dirt road between Athua and Farro, I began to think about my long term plan. This plan has been changing whenever anything major happened, such as my training with Kelly or the revelation from Nuoda. However, it was still important to keep in mind what my objectives were.
Currently, I wanted to make my way past Farro and to the elven lands. The reason for this was partly nostalgia, as one of my parents were elven. More to the point, however, is that the elven kingdom is on the western coast of the continent, making it a regular battlefield against the demonic armies. If I go there, I will have the best chance to get stronger out of anywhere in the world.
As for my former player who had become a dragon, he was currently my primary reason to seek out such strength. As long as he was in the game, there was nothing that would stop him from eventually hunting me down. As a dragon, he had the ability to cover great distances with ease, and a very high ceiling for how strong he could become with little effort.
If I was not stronger than him, it would be easy for him to hunt me down and kill me over and over again until my traits dropped. If I was lucky enough for my negative to drop first, it would be like removing my shackles, allowing me to fight with both martial and magic techniques without any restrictions. However… if it was my positive trait that dropped first, I would not only be unable to use any magic, but I would not have enough of a magic stat to even use any of my martial skills. Obviously, I was not willing to take such a gamble.
To take care of this, there were two avenues that I could take. The first was to force the dragon to stop playing the game by defeating him repeatedly and breaking his spirit. This was… not easy, but doable. The second method was just to ensure that I was always stronger than him. Also not easy, but equally possible.
The problem was that both methods were bound to attract the attention of other players. Whether he got mad and complained about it to the players, or they just naturally took notice of a half-orc repeatedly slaying a dragon, it was inevitable that people would focus their attention on me. For this reason, my ultimate goal had to be becoming as strong as I could.
As I was walking along, I remembered that I hadn’t yet enchanted any of my new equipment. Now that I had evolved all of my skills that were close to evolution, other than Ki Projection and Sturdy Hand, it was time to do just that… once I got somewhere a bit more secluded. The last thing I wanted was for monsters to attack me while I was working on my enchantments.
Thus, I focused, using my Flicker Step to travel dozens of meters with every step, and Scout to observe the surroundings. When the guard said that there were monsters along the road, I was not expecting it to be this crowded. Especially given that he said that players travel back and forth regularly. Maybe they simply don’t take the road?
I grit my teeth, pushing my Flicker Step further. Every step, the surroundings began to distort, until I could no longer see the dryads and elementals. Instead… there were large snakes and spiked lizards the size of horses. Circling overhead, there were flocks of large birds that would occasionally swoop down to attack the snakes.
At this rate, I thought that I might not find a place to rest until reaching the next city. However, just as I was thinking that, I heard the sound of battle from ahead. Did I finally catch up with the players?
Thinking that, I followed the source of the sound, and discovered a group of nearly thirty players fighting against the large lizards. They were grouped together in sets of ten, each composed of three archers or mages, two healers, two tanks, and three melee fighters. Well, aside from one group that seemed to have lost one of their tanks.
On each of their chests was an emblem of a radiant sun, a common charm that people used as a guild badge. These charms didn’t usually have very powerful abilities, but charms were rare to drop to begin with, so players didn’t seem to mind using them to display their guild allegiance.
I wonder if they’re making anything like that for the Successors? I thought to myself. Each of the three groups were trying to take on one of the large lizards, getting me curious as to their levels. Thus, I cast my Observe onto one of the lizards.
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Thornback Dragonewt – Level 72 Skills: Thorn Shot, Poison Breath, Ground Stomp, Enrage, Harden Common Loot: Thorn Shell, Dragonewt Blood, Dragonewt Scale, Dragonewt Bones, Dragonewt Meat |
Over level seventy? My eyes widened slightly, and I was surprised to see that players had already progressed to such a level. Without testing myself against a similar monster, I didn’t know how I would fare against them, but now I could understand why they were fighting in such groups.
This made me all the more anxious to enchant my equipment, as without doing so I was far weaker in combat than I could be. Taking a deep breath, I decided to watch them from a distance while enchanting my gear, given that the focus for the monsters would be on them. Even if there was something able to see me, it would see that group first.
Okay… now what do I actually want to put on my gear? That was the big question that I hadn’t been able to answer yet. I knew that I wanted to apply my Duke of All Trades-X to every piece of my armor, but that still left four slots on every time. Thus, I sat down on the side of the road to think, listening to the sounds of the group fighting nearby.
For my boots, I need Ghost-X and Flicker Step. The last two slots for that can be… Shadow Plate and Crystal Wall? I nodded my head slightly, deciding to apply the enchantments. For each one, I retrieved one of the magic stones that I had purchased from Hammerhead to use as a focus. The Duke of All Trades skill was applied without any problems, but… the Ghost-X enchantment failed, wasting a slot from the item. I decided to abandon Shadow Plate on this piece of gear, as it was only really useful during the night, and tried again. This time, the other enchantments all managed to apply properly.
Next, my gloves. These need Assassinate, though I would really like to wait until it evolved again, but it’s nowhere near doing so. So… Duke of All Trades, Assassinate, Ki Projection, Counter Attack, and Sturdy Hands… let’s go with that.
Another five magic stones were used, and all of the enchantments applied properly this time. Though… most of them came out noticeably weaker than the ones on my boots. For my brigandine and leggings, I decided to use the same set of enchantments: Duke of All Trades, Shadow Plate, Crystal Wall, and Adrenaline Surge, saving the last slot for both in case I found a skill I really wanted to apply.
As for the results… I had to forgo Shadow Plate on both, and also Adrenaline Surge on my legs… My first attempts at each failed, as did my attempts to reapply them, leaving me with only three slots on my chest, and two on my legs…
Wrapping up my armor was my helmet, which I intended to enchant with Duke of All Trades, Scout, Detective Analysis, Killing Stare, and Greater Detect Weakness. Of those, I had to sacrifice the Detective Analysis due to another failure.
All that was left now was my sword, shield, and bow. The shield was easy, as I wanted to put both of my stat enhancing skills on, together with Crystal Wall, Shadow Plate, and Ki Projection. To my surprise, the Ki Projection applied to the shield seemed to fit especially well, or I just got really lucky. Either way, it made it so that it automatically released a pulse of energy proportional to any impact it received, up to the limits of my Mana.
I knew that I wanted Assassinate and Sunder on both of my weapons, but I decided to leave the other slots empty for now. I was bound to find skills that I wanted to put on them later.
Finally, I was done with my enchantment, and could already feel myself being stronger than before, once I activated all of the buffs now placed on my armor. Looking over at the nearby fights, I could tell that the guild had managed to kill a few more lizards, though not without loss. They had been forced to condense into two teams, losing their even distribution of roles as each team now only had one tank.
Shaking my head, I turned my head and prepared to leave. That is, until I noticed that one of the tanks looked familiar. It was a face that I had definitely seen before, but I couldn’t remember where at first. After studying him for a few moments, it hit me. I had actually killed him once, hadn’t I? This was the warrior that I had met at Brita, who had tried to ambush me together with his rogue friend.
Does that make this the Nine Suns or whatever they were called? I thought curiously, observing the groups again. Part of me wanted to get involved now, just to deal a fatal blow to them while they were occupied with these monsters.
No, no, don’t do that. I stopped myself as I was beginning to lift my bow. This new identity of mine has no reason to antagonize them. There’s no reason to create clues that could link me to the Drake that everyone is looking for.
Knowing the type of personality that they displayed before, this group would have been more than happy to hand over any information about me if there was a promise of a reward. Thus, although it would have felt incredibly justified to sneak attack them, it would ultimately hinder me in the long run
Grumbling, I stored my bow back in my inventory, turning to move along the path once again. As soon as I started walking, I noticed the difference in my abilities. My armor felt as light as a feather, my steps naturally carried me further, and I could not hear even the faintest sound from my footsteps, even when I deactivated my stealth skill. Of course, that deactivation was just long enough to confirm this fact.
As a final test, I made sure that I was far enough away from the other players that they wouldn’t spot me, and decided to test myself against the monster that they were all teaming up against. So, I found another Thornback Dragonewt off by itself, and pulled out my bow. Drawing the string, an arrow of ki appeared on the bow, which I immediately launched at the nearby monster.
The arrow dug into the monster’s head, causing it to roar in pain, but it did not fully penetrate the creature’s scales. However, I did notice something else that I found very interesting, and that was that my Ghost-X skill did not get turned off when I fired the arrow. I could tell that my presence was revealed, given that the monster began charging in my direction, but it was less because it saw me and more because it saw where the attack came from.
I ran off to the side, the dragonewt arriving at my previous location and thrashing its tail around to try to find me. Immediately, I reported my findings to Dana, telling her that stealth was not fully broken when one attacked using the Ghost-X skill, even if it was not an immediate kill.
Thanks to this, I had an idea of how I could fight, placing my bow back in my inventory. It would be easy to pepper it with arrows while staying on the move, but that would take too long, and the noise might attract the other players. Instead, I held my shield in one hand, leaving my other hand free.
One quick Flicker step brought me in front of the monster, and I clenched my fist hard, releasing a Killing Stare. This caused the monster’s eyes to widen, freezing up for a moment. I used this temporary pause to project a spike of ki on my fist, punching directly where my earlier arrow had struck.
I could feel its skull cracking beneath my armored fist, its head crashing into the ground below while its body slumped down. Satisfied, I nodded my head, content that I was at least as strong as a ten man team from that player guild. I didn’t know how they ranked compared to other players, but at least I knew that I could fairly easily handle a monster in the low seventies.
Reaching down to loot the dragonewt, I received… a single thorn shell, which was simply a smaller version of the shell that was on the monster’s back. Still, loot was loot, and it was worth forty silver coins each. Part of me was suddenly interested in hunting these monsters for loot as well, before shaking my head. Priorities, Drake. Get to Farrow, and then look for something to hunt.
