Spiteful Healer-Chapter 338: Fence Sitting
The experience was fast, but it came in bursts. With a combination of Aegis’ Virabhadra spam and Emerill’s repeated casting of his own assassin cooldowns, they were able to take down their first void hydra raid boss as a party of two after 33 hours of fighting.
Aegis had roughly kept track of the damage they’d dealt to the level 204 monster to get a sense of how much it had, both so that he could more easily anticipate when the next ones would die, and to get an understanding of the scale of how health numbers of raid monsters went up at the higher levels.
From the first kill, Aegis shot up five entire levels while Emerill had gone up by one. The large chunk of experience from the monster had clearly been intended for larger groups to take down. Despite it being a raid monster, it had no enrage, also teaching Aegis that some areas had ‘normal’ enemies intended for raid-sized groups of players.
He’d worried that, once it went down, Emerill would need a break and want to rest.
Emerill didn’t. He was eager to keep going, despite not speaking much during the encounter. Unlike Aegis, who could take a hit or two from the creature, Emerill would be instantly killed if he’d gotten hit by any of the hydra’s attacks. It required an immense amount of focus for him to pump out a constant, reliable stream of damage while avoiding the void beams and flailing heads, but he managed to do so.
Aegis was reminded that, despite having been so thoroughly defeated by him and his companions, Emerill was a severe ‘dark network’ player, whatever that meant.
While Aegis got to work harvesting the hydra for scales and leather, potent, sturdy leather that he’d love to use to make new armor for himself and his friends, Emerill sharpened his daggers with alchemic oil and readied himself for the next. He had a giddy expression, hopping out like a child on a sugar rush.
It was a stark contrast to how Aegis thought him to be. He recalled his first encounter with Emerill on the obsidian bridge over the red river, where he had wiped out Aegis’s party, how he’d tried to show himself off as if full of bravado and mystery. None of that was present anymore.
Level Up! Creature Harvesting has reached Level 153!
With his new proficiency with harvesting, he was able to get the teeth and useful bones of the beast as well, all of it having potent properties usable in an assortment of crafts, from tools to furniture, to weapons, and some even alchemical. The experience was flowing in on all fronts.
These hydras would be a great grinding target for a long time, Aegis thought. When Lina and the others got back from the prison break, he would be sure to get them down here. Until then, though, all he’d have was Emerill, and he didn’t want to waste the opportunity to close the gap between his friends. He eyed the level 160 above his head, and the 172 and 173 for Darkshot and Rakkan, respectively.
Lina had already gained a few levels going on the dungeon raid with the Night Hunters, sitting at 160 as well, but with one kill of these creatures, he’d caught up.
Not only that, but his non-offensive skills were skyrocketing towards 200. Leather armor proficiency and Shield Mastery climbed to 190 already, with his healing and aura spells closing in behind them.
The difficulty was always going to be his offensive skills. Virabhadra sat at 154, smite at 120, and unarmed now at 72.
The pair pulled the next hydra, and Aegis did his best to slip in punches with his claws of jealousy and multi-smite blasts with his holy mastery, peppering the hydra with damage. With his higher level, he had more health and more protection against the hydra’s attacks, allowing him to take up to 4 hits without a heal. This allowed him to fight more aggressively and more focused, with a mind on how long it’d take the hydra to go down.
The second kill took 29 hours, and he went up another three levels, stopping at 163. They’d fought through the night into the morning. Aegis had pushed it a bit, despite knowing he might be late for his Thursday classes, because he knew the hydra was getting close to dying.
Emerill stepped up his game and used some consumables to help kill it faster, and they pulled it off. When it fell, Aegis was left with a choice.
He could log out right away and make it to class on time, or spend a few minutes harvesting the creature and show up late.
The efficiency in his soul burned; he couldn’t, in good conscience, leave these excellent, rare, high-level, and valuable crafting materials rot away, and the choice was made.
He harvested the bones, teeth, scales, and leather of the disgusting, elf-head covered creature, before disappearing from the gameworld.
Eli skipped his morning routine, still wearing what he’d had on from yesterday, and rushed out of his room into the cold winter air.
By the time he’d arrived in class, everyone else was already in their sim-boxes. Eli slid across the auditorium to his sim-box and threw himself inside, shutting the sim-box so that he popped into the lesson alongside the other students. He was lucky; the professor was facing away when he did it, so that only a few of his peers nearby noticed and said nothing.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
When the professor finally turned around and saw him there, he only got a look from him, and the lesson continued without a hitch.
Eli let out a sigh of relief. It was at university; attendance wasn’t necessarily mandatory, and the topic was something Eli had already taught himself a few months earlier.
Still, his mind drifted, focused on the choice he’d made to be late, for some in-game crafting items. So many thoughts swam around in his head, reflecting on how he’d used to treat people obsessed over the game, over how his father had acted, and his high-school classmates. It hadn’t changed much; his fellow university students were the same, but he had changed a great deal.
He was like them now, more excited about things in the game than the real world, to the point of prioritizing them.
It tore him up. He wasn’t sure how he should feel. Was he okay with it, or was he mad at himself for it? Hypocrite? Was he resisting it because he didn’t want to become a Hypocrite? Did that even matter?
Was he resisting it out of spite? Determined to stay focused on the classes, even if he knew the career path he was pursuing may become obsolete.
He’d just turned 19 years old, and all through high school, he’d been drilled about deciding his future, choosing who he wanted to be for the rest of his life, but he was left with so much indecision that his brain bubbled over. He’d wish someone would just tell him with perfect clarity what the right choices were to make, but there was no such person.
Despite the great technological advancements of the human race in the last 100 years, no one could predict the future.
He’d remained a lost, young boy unless he seized his own destiny. He had money and the freedom to choose whatever he wanted, with no real-world consequences lingering heavily over his choices. No matter which way he went, he’d be okay.
In the end, does it really matter what I choose?
That thought made it harder.
In the end, another lesson went by. He learned nothing new and came to no revelations. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
His head in a haze, he slumped his way back to his dorm room, kicked off his shoes, and took a quick rest on his bed. Sleeping may help, he thought.
It didn’t.
He got up, climbed into the sim-box, and logged in. Emerill was waiting for him.
“Yo!” He hopped excitedly, waving Aegis down. “More hydras?”
Aegis nodded. Another day of punching, grinding, and classes, with no commitment and no decision being made. He knew it couldn’t keep going on like this. Fence-sitting would have to stop. But as long as he didn’t quit university and kept leveling up, he could keep both going, both paths followed half-heartedly.
Another grind session went by, very successfully. This time, Emerill and Aegis had managed to kill three of the best. The experience resulted in Aegis hitting level 170 and his defensive skills reaching 200. If it kept going like this, he might even be able to catch up to the high-level VGN players, though they’d climbed quite a bit recently thanks to their access to the abyss. Feng was now the highest-level player, sitting at around 250.
Emerill barely spoke, only giving Aegis crucial information regarding his stamina and cooldown timers, but Aegis was grateful for it. He didn’t want to talk much to anyone. The longer his indecision went on, the more ashamed of himself he felt.
Friday morning, he climbed out of his sim-box and flicked through the news broadcasts while getting ready for class.
Today was the day Lina and Rakkan would reach Savringuard and execute the prison break. There was nothing about it on any network broadcasts, though, so it mustn’t have happened yet.
Eli had a strong urge to skip class, given that today was nanotech. He wanted to be logged in the game for the big event, but reminded himself it had nothing to do with him. Mike would monitor any communication he’d given out, so it’d be pointless.
He figured that Mike, by now, was likely aware of what they were doing, but still had confidence they’d be able to pull it off without a hitch.
All the way towards campus, he alternated between watching live-stream broadcasts to see if anyone was talking about it and checking his contacts list to see all of them logged into the game-world.
Nothing. Not a word of what was going on. Is this how people felt about him when he turned off his livestream? It felt infuriating to be left out of the loop, even though it was his own doing.
He arrived in class, sat in his sim-box next to Ashley, who said nothing, and the class began.
Eli was half-focused again; it was all too easy. His mind was split between indecision and worrying about how his friends were doing.
When classes ended, finally, there was a reaction. Students climbed out of their university sim-boxes, pelted by waves of messages from friends and other social media, some gasping in shock and awe, many of them glancing in his direction.
He had to hold back a grin. This reaction, he knew, meant something big had happened. The prison break must’ve been successful.
Eli checked his friend list to see Darkshot, Rakkan, and Lina, all logged in. By this time, the plan would’ve either failed or succeeded without issue; the fact that they were all logged in meant the latter.
Before he could open up a news broadcast with his wrist implant to confirm, Ashley gently put her hand on his knee with a look of sympathy.
“I’m so sorry.” She had tears practically streaming out of her eyes.
Not the reaction he was looking for. Eli’s heart skipped a beat, nearly jumping out of his chest.
What the hell had happened?
He frantically hit his wrist implant to pull up the VGN broadcast. Feng was being interviewed on his own livestream. Feng stood atop his own Airship, the backdrop of a burning city behind him, black mist swirling up over the land on the horizon.
From the angle of his camera, a sea of Airships could be seen flanking his own to the left and right, numerous emblems stitched into the ships' masts. Eli recognized most of them almost immediately.
They were an assortment of guilds owned by VGN, including the Sages of Destiny, the Vindicators, Daehyun, and many others. At least 100 airships were in view, and Eli could tell there were more. They were firing blasts of magic and large projectiles down at the burning land below.
The land looked familiar. The scrolling headline at the bottom of the screen told him all he needed to know.
[Breaking: Kalmoore declared traitors to the Kingdom Alliance. Island Stones destroyed! Witness the last moments of the once peaceful island.]
“They left us no choice. Our spies told us they were plotting a prison break on Savringard, with members of the leading guild of Kalmoore involved. Such a betrayal, we could not overlook. Successful or not with their escape attempts, it matters not. We have cut the head off the snake.” Feng spoke coldly, and the others on his airship cheered at the backdrop of destruction.
Eli’s face went pale. His indecision had a price, and it’d just been paid.
