Tsurei

Today was a rare wonderful morning for Rei, today was a Monday, the day after their first break in the past month and for once, he was nicely rested, having gone to sleep early after a hectic night of drinking and games with his best friends, he woke up in the early morning without the slightest hint of a headache and feeling energised.

Glancing over to a corner of his HUD, he found that the time was still only around 9am, pretty good for him, it usually took a few more hours, considering that his schedule no longer required early classes, he could theoretically sleep as long as he wanted. The same went for the others though Takuma would opt to sleep the entirely morning and afternoon if he had his way.

Popping open the wooden window, he leaned on the edge and breathed in the fresh morning air whilst squinting his eyes against the bright sunshine of the rising sun that directly faced his window, looming over the huge circular city that was the town of the beginning.

As promised after the last quest against the Wind Wasp Queen, they engaged in a weekend long break where they didn’t do anything in particular, they simply stayed around in the town of beginnings relaxing, it wasn’t as if this world had a whole bunch of things useful for entertainment, nothing but swords and monsters, if you weren’t out there fighting and levelling up, there wasn’t really much else but sight-seeing.

On this simple morning, the four-man group were lounging around in the Silver Horned Inn, a modest little establishment like any other run by a little npc family.

“Well, isn’t this rare? You guys aren’t going out?” Rossa walked over, her red ponytail swinging behind her as she looked over at them with a small exasperated look, “What, did you guys give up already? Back to being shut ins?” a small mocking grin tugged on her face,

“Oi, that’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” Rei sighed, squinting at her from his table, “We’re just taking a break, a break!” he emphasised, “We decided to make weekends our days off,”

“Hm…” she mumbled seemingly not entirely convinced,

“It’s true!” Rei scowled with a pout at her lack of faith in their drive,

“Then? If it’s a day off, why are you just sitting around listlessly? It’s been a few hours now…” She put her hands on her hip and looked down at them with a confused tilt of her head,

“Well, I mean, it’s not like there’s a whole bunch to do around here…” Rei replied with a depressed sigh, it’s not like they had video games or tv to watch, hell, this was already technically a game!

“Then, if you have nothing to do, then run a few errands for me, you still owe me from a month ago when I gave you food and board for free when you ran out of money,” reaching into a pocket behind her, she slapped a white paper slip onto his face,

“Oi!” Rei recoiled in his chair, nearly tipping over from the impact, slamming back down, he looked down at the slip, scratching his head, “Did I still owe you? I thought I paid it off already, if not, I have enough to do it now-“

“Just go, you’re bored anyway, right?” she pulled him out of his chair and subsequently shoved him and his friends out of the building,

“Hey, why us too!?” Yuta cried out in alarm, he was all for having fun watching Rei struggle getting pushed into a corner by a npc girl but now that he was involved as well…

“It’s my day off! Leave me out of this!” Takuma shouted now a bit more awake, he had barely woke up at noon today and was already being kicked out before he got his breakfast,

“Huh?” Kenji on the other hand had been staring absent-mindedly at a corner in the room, he didn’t hear a single thing before he found himself shoved out the door,

As of right now, the four of them looked back over at the Silver Horned Inn, practically their home after the two years and a bit and watched as Rossa, the cheery bar girl and  daughter of the owner slap the doors shut in their faces whilst sticking out her tongue at them, “Get going!”

“Eh…” Rei slumped over in disbelief as they were left out in the streets,

Summary

“Fine, fine, we’ll take a break, from now on, Weekends are our days off,” Rei relented and gave in, concluding on what he thought to be a fairly reasonable schedule, one that they were well aware of as being similar to what it was like back at school, there was short silence as this connection was made between them all, sharing a small smile, they nodded,

“Yeah… that sounds reasonable…” Kenji nodded and murmured softly,

“I guess some rest is necessary if we want to be in top form,” Yuta agreed and relented as well, more than anyone else he wanted to get stronger but if the others won’t come with him willingly, then not only will it be less fun, it would also be risky,

“Just the two?” Takuma sighed deeply, it seemed that he wasn’t satisfied at all leading the others to be at a loss but he also relented, “I guess that’s good enough…”

ID# 136214
LD: 4

100 Col, 2 T1 Mats, 2 x uncommon consumables

“I mean, if you say it like that…” Rei scratched the back of his head whilst glancing to the side, rethinking what they’ve done so far, “… I suppose we’ve been a little overzealous since we finally decided to start doing things and we haven’t really gotten a break ever since,”

“At first it was just from one life threatening situation to another, but now, we are in a good situation,” Yuta nodded in agreement, since they got their equipment, they were doing fine, they were not cripplingly weak and were capable enough to handle things to a certain degree now, at first, they ploughed through the quests and missions because of their driven desire to not returning to the stagnating hell that was fearing death and waiting to be saved.

They worried that if they stopped or lost their drive, then like a rocket without enough fuel to break atmosphere, they would simple crash down and be back to square one.

ID# 136213
LD: 18 = Treasure Found

“Ah well, don’t give us that face, we can head back and relax for the rest of the evening now,” Rei gave him a small understanding smile, he would love to be lazy but quite frankly, combat was exhilarating and it always had been his fantasy to be whisked away to another world of swords and magic, granted, this one only had swords.

“Yeah, but tomorrow you’re just going to kick down my door and drag me out again,” Takuma slumped over heaving a tone of despair and resignation, as a man that didn’t sleep until early morning of the next day and would be lucky to wake up by early afternoon, having to wake up in the morning was nothing short of torture for the poor guy.

“Maybe we should take a break, we haven’t had one since we started,” Kenji suggested timidly, his small smile wavering uncertainly leaving Rei to glance at Yuta and back at everyone else,

The notification informed them that the quest had been complete and the group looked over around at each other with a small smile,

“Looks like that’s that,” Rei grinned as he hefted his katana over his shoulder, satisfied and relieved that he didn’t make a fool out of himself in that last moment,

“One quest down, two more to go on this floor,” Yuta nodded in all seriousness, he sounded matter of fact, but the glint in his eyes was shining with excitement, two more quests and they would be done with this floor as well and move onto the next, his enthusiasm was palpable between them and it was exactly that which made Takuma heave a deep sigh,

“Oh good…” his tone was thick with sarcasm, seeing the two battle maniacs thrive happily on the chance of getting stronger and fighting stronger enemies on higher floors and exploring new locations was the kind of energy sapping adventurer mindset that he didn’t have the motivation for.

It wasn’t hard for the others to understand what he was planning and so they quickly gathered behind him, there was no real way to understand what aggro is like between them right now in that fight, so the best way was to just get everyone over so the Queen would have to come to him regardless,

Gripping the handle of his katana with both hands, Rei glared down at the Queen, it’s not like he couldn’t afford to miss, but it would be greatly annoying if he did, with that in mind, he let out a breath and waited.

Before long, the Queen swooped down as expected and the moment it was in range Rei parried the stinger, dodging was not an option with everyone behind him, the motion was smooth, with his blade held in front of him between him and the Queen, he just had to push to the side to deflect the stinger before running the blade across the Queen, bisecting the monster. The body flew past him separated into two halves before becoming a white silhouette and shattering into pieces.

Rei took the time to grasp the Queen’s timing, how long before the tell and the attack, how long it would take to reach them, what the best timing to side-step and counter was. After ten more clashes between the group and the Queen, he finally made the decision to end it, this creature was far weaker than them, apart from it’s speed, it was a rather unimpressive  enemy, so far not a single person had received damage, Kenji protected himself with his shield and Takuma was getting to the point he was actively trying to get the Queen to hit his barbed shield which would inflict thorn damage against it, Yuta was nimbly avoiding it’s attacks and dealing a single hit at a time, whittling it down.

Rei finished the encounter by tracing a circle through the air, creating a illusionary moon with the trail of blue light and glowing water, he was ready to strike,

“Everyone! Get over here! I’m finishing it off!” he shouted his plan,

ID# 136212
BD: 3 +3 = Hit [Gen Getsu]
MD: 3 = Miss

Damage Dealt = 8 x 6 = 48
Damage Received = 20 - 17 [Mit] - 10 [Regen] = 0

Rei - HP: 420/420| EN: 39 (+1-3) /42| 8 DMG | 17 MIT | 0 EVA| 3 ACC| 1 BLD| 2 REGEN
Wind Wasp Queen - HP: 42/50| 20 DMG

Everyone quickly re-summoned their weapons, the items materialising in a small flash of light and numerous cubes of data transforming into a physical object in their hands, weapons raised and guards up, they regarded the Queen with a little ounce of worry, this would be one of the few times a monster had the jump on them but even so, this creature would be easy to dispatch of.

The Queen struck at them several more times in quick succession, it’s combat style reminded them of the Emerald Hatchling, using it’s black blade like a kind of spear, it would use it’s superior speed and mobility to lunge towards them, the only thing was that this Queen was definitely slower than the dragon, but the prospect of facing that black gleaming blade headed to impale them was much more averse than the dragon’s little headbutt.

As the Queen dived a few more times, it receiving a few small scratches from the group.

ID# 136211 
BD: 3 +3 = Hit
MD: 5 = Miss

Damage Dealt = 8
Damage Received = 20 - 17 [Mit] - 10 [Regen] = 0

Rei - HP: 420/420| EN: 41 (-1) /42| 8 DMG | 17 MIT | 0 EVA| 3 ACC| 1 BLD| 2 REGEN
Wind Wasp Queen - HP: 42/50| 20 DMG

The black and yellow colour scheme was more pronounced and exotic, the black gave a dull purple sheen and the yellow was more akin to gold, even going so far as to make the chitin plating look like actual exotic armour on the creature.

In this battle, the Queen got the first strike, lunging forward from the skies as if dive bombing them, it levelled the black blade on it’s abdomen directly towards Kenji at the far back of the group, only his skittish reflexes and the weeks of constant questing allowed him to bring his shield up fast enough to deflect the blow with a loud jarring clang, unprepared for the attack, Kenji was thrown backwards and crashed into the ground as the Queen leaving a feel sparks behind simply zoomed past the group overhead, now attracting their full attention.

“The Queen! That’s it!” Yuta cried out, comparing it to an image within his HUD,

Which, as far as he remembered, they were nothing particularly significant…

As the four of them mused over the possible reasons and solutions, in the end, they had no choice but to move onwards and search for a new Wind Wasp hunting location, they shared a small tired look and heaved a sigh before dematerialising their weapons and began to head off,

That was, until a large shadow loomed over them, it could’ve been a cloud but the weather was already entirely overcast, making this phenomenon seem rather strange, but many of them didn’t bother to make the connection, only Kenji who was naturally jumpy and absent minded looked up at the sky to see what it was, when he turned his eyes up, they quickly widened in shock and fear.

The Wind Wasp Queen, if the earlier Wind Wasps were the size of a watermelon, then the queen was like a person or a car,

“It should spawn right near us…” Yuta frowned as he gave a mumbling answer, rubbing his cheek and scanning the wide open field all around them, there wasn’t a single thing in sight however which was incredibly confusing,

“Are we in the wrong place?” Kenji suggested hopefully, he didn’t have a good grasp on these sorts of game mechanics and was hoping for a simpler, more understandable reason for the failure,

“I’m sure it said anywhere that Wind Wasps spawn in can do it…” Yuta’s frown deepened as he looked to the side, he was near certain that this was the case and the information was correct, it was just details on a quest on the second floor, something many people have done already, there was plenty information about it to be consistent enough for this to work,

“Maybe we didn’t kill enough of them,” Rei shrugged, he felt like 100 was a good number, but if it required something like a 1000 then it was really a serious hidden quest that no one in their right mind would come across it or even bother to trigger it unless the rewards were extraordinary.

“So…” Rei looked around at the empty field, devoid of enemies, “Did everyone kill at least 12?” he turned to his friends and asked the question for confirmation’s sake, did they not kill enough? He could see the Queen anywhere, perhaps it only looked like there were enough Wind Wasps to trigger the fight from above,

“yeah, pretty sure,” Takuma nodded, “I took a quick headcount of the number of wasps in the area and there was enough,” he looked around and searched specifically for the hill they crossed, now it was much further in the distance, enough to make it simple landscape now rather than a proper point of interest, during the fight they had slowly moved forward to seek new targets, leading them away from the starting area.

“I’m amazed you can just make headcounts like that from memory,” Rei sighed, bemoaning his horrible memory, having to check things over and over quite often, he eventually turned his eyes towards Yuta, “So? Did you find out if there’s a specific area it spawns in?”

Before he knew it, the field was empty and everyone was slowly gathering together, he only realised this when the buzzing sound of the wasps and when he couldn’t see anymore shapes flying around in the sky, knocking him out of his day dream, he looked around and regrouped,

“That was rather quick,” Yuta commented somewhat pleased with the pace they had efficiently completed the quest,

“I-I guess…” Kenji shrugged, he personal had a hard time, making the mistake of backing away from the enemy only to aggro a second one was a rough time, he was able to use his shield to halt the wasps’ attacks before striking with his sword, meanwhile Takuma was more than happy to let the wasps die on his shield without him needing to actually do anything. Mid battle, Yuta had looked over and saw Rei’s slightly ranged sword art and felt a small tinge of jealously, after all, having a distance attack must be incredibly convenient against flying targets like this,

So, his current schedule was looking like, hunting the Venomous Warg, then the Quartz Hatchling, would he need two separate days for them? It was possible, the Warg required him to hunt and prowl the area dealing with stray wolves until the mutated Warg showed up, the location it was at was probably quite different from the Zone that the Quartz Hatchling would show up in, he would skip over the Return of the Queen and move on to the next floor, if the stats were that exaggeratedly bloated, it would be simply suicide for them to fight it.

He mused over his course of actions, counting up the numbers to decide his chances as he fought automatically against the several wind wasps around him, they were not much of a threat, using his Whirlwind, he could cut them out of the air with little effort.

The most recent attack even managed to cut down two at the same time, so he was certainly on a roll.

ID# 136155
BD: 10 +3 = Crit +2 [Tsuji Kaze]
MD: 8= Hit

Damage Dealt = 8 + 2  x 4 = 40
Damage Received = 10 - 17 [Mit] - 10 [Regen] = 0

Rei - HP: 420/420| EN: 41 (+1-1) /42| 8 DMG | 17 MIT | 0 EVA| 3 ACC| 1 BLD| 2 REGEN
Wind Wasp - HP: 25/25| 10 DMG

It didn’t take long for his mind to wander, just what quest came after this one? If he recalled correctly, there was 3 left on this floor after this one, First was a rematch against the Wasp Queen, she would be around a whopping 8 times stronger and come with her infinitely spawning minions to boot, other than that was the Venomous Warg, it was a beginner quest meant to teach players about the effects of enemy poison, it had a good amount of hp and damage, and lastly was the second part of the dragon hunt, the Quartz Hatchling,

Well, it was a Hatchling according to the guide, but it was still older than the last one, this time it would be larger, stronger and tougher, if he recalled, the Return of the Queen would be a ridiculously tough fight, it was only on the second floor, but it was a quest that would be very difficult for them to complete at their current level, seriously, it was something that was going to need to be put on hold as they moved onto the third floor to explore.

ID# 136154
BD: 3 +3 = Hit [Tsuji Kaze]
MD: 10 = Crit +2

Damage Dealt = 8 x 4 = 32
Damage Received = 10 - 17 [Mit] - 10 [Regen] = 0

Rei - HP: 420/420| EN: 41 (+1-1) /42| 8 DMG | 17 MIT | 0 EVA| 3 ACC| 1 BLD| 2 REGEN
Wind Wasp - HP: 25/25| 10 DMG

The moment Rei believed he got into the range limit of his Whirlwind, he let the art rip, lashing out with a glowing blade, he sent out a turbulent wind like it’s name sake, the shockwave shot out like a bullet shaped in the arc of his swing, only visible due to the water that surged around the energy, when it reached the Wind Wasp, it neatly cut it in half in a single hit, killing it immediately causing it to shatter into pieces of light,

He expected this to be an easy fight so he didn’t act too surprised by the outcome, just satisfied it went that easily, with things at this rate, he supposed  it wouldn’t be too much of a problem for them to wrap this up rather quickly, still, no matter how quickly they finished the quest, he doubted there would be a time for the first third quest in a single day, they’d likely return to the inn and rest up there.

ID# 136153
BD: 6 +3 = Hit [Tsuji Kaze]
MD: 1= Miss

Damage Dealt = 8 x 4 = 32
Damage Received = 10 - 17 [Mit] - 10 [Regen] = 0

Rei - HP: 420/420| EN: 41 (-1) /42| 8 DMG | 17 MIT | 0 EVA| 3 ACC| 1 BLD| 2 REGEN
Wind Wasp-- HP: 25/25| 10 DMG

“Oh come on, you might win,” Rei knew the game was off, but he still made a small effort to try,

“Nope,” Takuma didn’t even look back as he called his answer over his shoulder, leaving the three of them together,

“Then I’ll go this way if you’d like…” Kenji timidly pointed in another direction, asking for permission mainly just for confirmation and Rei had no reason to refuse him,

“Sure, then… I’ll take this side I guess,” Rei nodded and gave a small shrug, “Let’s get started then,”

As they split off and Rei began to approach his first Wind Wasp he supposed that the things weren’t all that different from any normal wasp, just a whole lot bigger, if normal wasps were smaller than a pebble, then these ones were watermelon class. They had the signature black and yellow stripes but on closer inspection it actually turned out to be some kind of chitin plating, the heads of the wasps were also more alien, elongated and menacing with sharp mandibles, it’s legs also culminated into large awkward, mantis like claws as well, their stinger were like sharp black blades with a barbed hook,

“Dang it,” Rei sighed, if their health was even just one point lower, then with his current attack power, Hi Ougi would be enough to kill them, ah but wait, the next Art up in firepower was Tsuji Kaze, his favourite art, and with the Finesse Mod, it would cost no different than a basic attack, this was indeed the way to go. “Actually no, this is rather good for me…” he mumbled a correction to himself out loud, vexing his friends somewhat,

“We should probably spread out,” Yuta advised as they got closer to their targets, he pointed in a direction, “I’ll go over here,”

“Ah, wait, how about the first person to kill 13 wasps doesn’t have to fight the Queen?” Rei suggested with a small smile, eager to make a small game out of this for some fun,

“It’s obvious you and Yuta will win that, refused.” Takuma rolled his eyes and turned on his heel, turning towards his corner of the field,

“Well then, shall we get going?” Rei drew his katana, a trail of water splashing from it as he glanced over to his friends before he began to walk down the hill towards the field, the others followed, summoning their equipment and double checking themselves, to make sure nothing was out of place and to make themselves comfortable before the fight, there was no sense in charging and wasting stamina after all.

If they were going to kill 12 to 13 of them, then the Queen afterwards was going to be a toll on their energy if nothing else,

“Yuta, what’s the stats on those wasps?” Rei decided to ask out of curiosity, perhaps they could optimise their energy expenditure,

“About 25 health and 10 damage, half of the Queen’s,” Yuta replied with a short moment of pondering, glancing to the side to look at his virtual post it notes on his UI,

The land dipped back into a flat plateau and there on the field was a large number of flying wasps buzzing around, they were at least spaced out individually, enough of a distance that if you were careful you could engage them one by one without aggroing any others, but at the same time, they were close enough that if you moved too much you would attract more.

The faint black shapes of all these Wind Wasps fluctuated back and forth down below and the four of them stared down, measuring their chances, distance and imagining how the fight itself would go before it began, they were mentally deciding upon their approach and whether or not they could win,

Naturally they could, these were simple mobs several levels below them, they couldn’t even do damage to them so long as they were careful to not get ganged up on, this should pose no problem.

“Yup, precisely,” Rei nodded, pointing over to Kenji theatrically like a show host pointing to the contestant who had given the correct answer, causing Kenji to jump up startled, “So Yuta here is our resident information broker, we’re counting on you bud,” he ruffled Yuta’s hair and sauntered onwards on the path, leaving Yuta running after him with a small hint of annoyance that can’t help but be betrayed by some fondness, leaving Takuma and look over and meet with Kenji’s awkward lost expression, he could only smile at that,

“Come on, let’s go after them before they get too far ahead,” he waved at him and began to jog to catch up,

“Y-yeah…”

The was path was long and winding, it was a plateau but that didn’t mean it didn’t eventually get hilly, and their information told them that instead of the road, it was off to a grassland field somewhere to the side, that forced them to leave the path and being wandering, meandering across the area until they finally crested a hill and saw their destination before them,

“I’m counting around 8 years,” Takuma noted off-handedly, his smile growing since he clearly remembered the incident, they were already fast friends by that point and were seated together during physics class when they were handed their practice test papers back,

“Well, but I mean…” Rei’s grin spread wide with his signature mocking tone, “The answer only needed like two lines to be correct, all you had to do was draw the light rays, but you ended up drawing this here complicated diagram,” he waved his arms through the air, tracing the vague motions of a simplistic correct answer and the awkward answer that Yuta gave,

“I just read the question wrong, and besides, that has nothing to do with being an information broker!” Yuta cried out, desperate to stop the teasing,

“Y-yeah… I guess it’s more street smarts than anything else…” Kenji timidly answered, at the time, he still hadn’t met the trio, so he wasn’t present for the first few years of the group’s friendship, which left him feeling like the odd one out sometimes,

“That’s… surprisingly intelligent of you,” Takuma gave him a look of mild approval and a impressed expression, however to Yuta it came off as a little mocking,

“What’s with that?” he shot back with an annoyed glare, his tone dark and low like a storm in his best attempts to show a bit of intimidation,

“I mean, I just surprised you thought to do it and managed to succeed,” Takuma shrugged, trying to back out of the sudden heated argument,

“He has a point, this is our dear Yuta who managed to get the pin hole camera question wrong in the most spectacular of ways,” Rei dramatically stated jokingly to swing the topic around, he leaned over and pulled Yuta away, squeezing his arm around him in a playful headlock,

“I swear, could you stop talking about that!” Yuta cried out, his face blushing red with embarrassment, struggling against Rei’s arm and eventually breaking free, “That’s so long ago!”