Chapter 19: Kiku-Ichi

Fists of flames rained upon them like a rainstorm; it really looked like it was doomsday.

Angryface was surprised that the boss was already so low on health. He didn’t have the time to warn his party members beforehand and could only shout, ‘Sis, hide behind me!’

The cleric also signalled the hunter to stand behind him so he could shield the both of them.

It was just that mages were known to have slow movement speed. Scaredyface’s damage dealing techniques and rhythm control was decent, but her positioning was a mess. She had already been hit by a few flame punches as she ran over to her brother.

She only had a slither of health left. Noticing that, Angryface didn’t care about anything else and used Dash to rush over to his sister.

However, the fire crystal giant elder’s fist was flying straight towards Scaredyface’s back. He could only watch as the fist gradually reached her before him.

Angryface gritted his teeth. Dying in dungeons in Hell difficulty had more severe penalties—similar to getting killed by players, the death penalty was an entire level.

Drako Yau sighed. His silhouette flashing through the cave, he went over and stood in front of Scaredyface. The rest of the party were shocked, unsure what he was up to. Was he trying to play the hero who saved the damsel in distress?

‘Die! Die already!’ The fire crystal giant elder bellowed. As though it noticed that Drako Yau and Scaredyface were standing close by, the elder further focused his attacks on that particular location.

Drako Yau’s gaze remained calm as he thrusted his spear out like the wind. Steel clashed against flames, and all the fire fists ended up intercepted by his spear.  (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

As the flames dwindled out one after another, everyone’s jaws dropped to the ground. He actually managed to parry every single attack of such a concentrated barrage!

Parrying was a crucial part of the combat system in Real World. In pursuit of realism, they added in the system that allowed players to parry attacks, meaning players could completely negate attacks as long as they were precise enough with their parrying motions. Like combat masters in martial art novels, players could exchange blow after blow, unlike usual games where players could only trade health for health.

It was a sophisticated and complex system. Could this skill parry that other skill? No one knew until they actually tried. It might be possible for a player to parry a warrior’s Crescent Slash, but he might be unable to withstand Shockwave Slash using the same technique because the latter had a knockdown effect and higher skill priority.

But this masked weirdo, he used his godly spearmanship to parry the storm of flames, stabbing every one of the flame fists. It looked like he was pooping balloons instead of dangerous flames.

Soon after, the fire crystal giant elder descended from the air, gasping for breath. Everyone’s jaws were still wide open as they stared at Drako Yau.

‘Don’t just stand there! Kill the boss!’ The speech bubble popped up above his head.

Recovering from their trance, they joined him in attacking the tattered elder and finally killed it.

‘Gahhh!’ The moment the fire crystal giant elder made its final scream, a voice resounded in everyone’s ears.

‘New team record for clearing Blazing Cave (Hell). Do you wish to make your team name public?’

We broke the record for Hell difficulty?

Feeling smug with their achievement, Angryface suddenly felt that the so-called major guilds weren’t so strong after all. With a confident click, he spread the news on the global channel.

‘Team “Angery Bois” has set a new team record for clearing Blazing Cave (Hell). The new record is 29 minutes, 35 seconds.’

The entire Real World was in shock, even more so for the Age of Scholars party that was currently trying to break the Empyreal Spire’s record. Handsome Scholar shot a glance at his leader, Booksy Swordsman, who immediately understood what his glance meant. 

He sighed and shook his head. ‘With our current level and equipment, we can’t do it.’

Usually, these records were broken by mere seconds because they were already near the limit of how fast a dungeon could be cleared. However, the party called ‘Angery Bois’ managed to break the record by a whole three minutes!

The other major guild Empyreal Spire also gritted their teeth so hard that they were about to shatter.

‘Go find out who the Angery Bois are!’

In no time, all the major guilds in Real World were each making their own moves.

Angryface chortled merrily and ran over to pick up the items lying next to the dead elder. The coins had already been automatically distributed among the five of them, and it wasn’t the main thing anyways. The item drops were what everyone looked forward to.

‘Kiku-Ichi: A replica of the ancient katana Kiku-Ichimonji. Still, it retains a part of the legendary weapon’s charm.’ 

A Level 15 epic single-handed katana!

Angryface’s eyes widened upon seeing the stats on the weapon. It was several times higher than his uncommon greatsword. Unfortunately, his character build was focused on using heavy weapons such as two-handed swords, and paladins could only equip single-handed swords. Both of them couldn’t use the katana which belong to a separate category.

Everyone was speechless.

‘Fire Crystal Sage Shortstaff: A staff used by sages of the fire crystal tribe, it is particularly powerful when casting fire magic.’

It was a Level 15 rare staff which boosted the damage of fire magic by 10 per cent. Naturally, this weapon went to Scaredyface who was grinning ear to ear.

‘It’s a bargain that my sister got the rare staff, so we’ll both stay out of this one. The three of you can roll for the katana.’

The hunter and cleric nodded. Even if they couldn’t use it themselves, they’d earn a fortune from selling it, and they could buy a suitable weapon with the money.

They took turns to roll the dice. The cleric got 45, while the hunter got 72.

Drako Yau didn’t really care about it when he rolled. He only had spearmanship in mind because he hadn’t been trained to use any other weapons, so the katana would be useless even if he got it. Money wasn’t that important to him either—what mattered the most was compatibility.

He got 75 from the roll.

The hunter had a bitter look. He was just three points away… Just like that, tens of thousands of dollars slipped from his fingers.

Drako Yau picked up the weapon and nodded as a speech bubble that wrote ‘Thanks’ popped up above him.

Looking at the ‘speech bubble guy’, the hunter and cleric were pretty displeased. Apart from the final moment where he saved Scaredyface, he was basically leeching the entire time, yet he got the expensive drop simply due to luck.

Scaredyface then gestured to everyone and said, ‘All good? Then we’ll quit the dungeon. Bro, thanks for saving my sister so she doesn’t have to level up again. Let’s fight a dungeon again someday.’

Drako Yau only replied with a smiley emote.

‘Five, four, three…’

As the timer counted down, Scaredyface glanced at the not-so-brawny body of the weird man. His back wasn’t strong or muscular, but she felt that he was someone whom she could rely on, even more so than her brother.

‘Eh?’ Drako Yau hastily cancelled the timer.

Angryface’s party had already disappeared from the dungeon, leaving only him behind.

The four of them appeared outside the entrance of Blazing Cave. They were visibly stunned as they viewed the dungeon statistics that automatically showed up.

‘Highest DPS (Damage Per Second): ???

Lowest Damage Received: ???’

The hunter and cleric had looks of disbelief. The guy whom they had thought was a leecher actually had the highest DPS! Even Angryface thought that his sister would surely take that spot. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

However, they failed to notice that Drako Yau’s spear turned red whenever he struck. The additional damage from striking weak points, added with the nine per cent increased damage with spears and the 10 per cent increased damage dealt by basic attacks, made it natural that he had the highest DPS.

‘Must be a bug.’ For morale’s sake, Angryface had to say it.

The other two members also nodded. ‘Yeah something must’ve gone wrong! Nevermind, let’s rest!’

Deep down though, they all knew it wasn’t a bug. So that was why the boss’ health dropped so quickly. It was all thanks to the pro Scaredyface had found by chance.

As the party disbanded, the ‘Angery Bois’ that triggered so many major guilds ceased to exist. It was that moment countless players who were in those guilds turned into angry boys themselves.