Pet and battle

"So, where is my pet?"

"You mean the dragon?" Mark asked in a voice that sounded as though he was utterly baffled at the way this fellow looked at the world.

'What is wrong with this guy. Calling a mythical creature, in fact, a to be legendary creature his pet. Just imagine if one of the dragons were to hear this. They would most definitely either fly into a rage and burn the entire continent, or just die instantly from the shame.'

Was what Mark was currently thinking.

"Yes. My dragon that you took from me."

"And what do I get in return?"

"Nothing, but you are also losing nothing nor spending anything to give me this information. Just consider it as me owing you one."

"You? Hmph. You owing me is nothing. But, since I was guided to picking up this call, I will follow through."

'Who knows, this little guy might actually know some strong figure who has been in hiding?' Mark mused.

On the other end of the phone, Luke sneered in his mind, 'Old guy, one day you will know how useful this favour will be.'

"I gave it to its mother, who returned to their nest. The nest should be in the south of Leon. Barton will give you the details. Alright, if that is all, then I'm off."

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You have triggered the mission: Find him

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Chain quest of the series {Gotta Catch em all}: Find him

You have received the location of your contracted beast from Mark, who stole him from you in the first place.

Task: Find him

Time limit: None

Mission failure: You lose your contracted beast

Mission reward: 10000 exp, Mythical Dragon 'Draco'

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With that, Marks cut the call and returned to the mountains of paperwork that he had been putting off for the past year from both the council of 12, as well as the Guild of Magic.

On the other hand, Luke also put the phone down and handed it back to Barton, who had naturally heard the entire conversation. He was also thinking about how skewed this guy's thinking had become. However, he had heard the indirect orders given to him by powerful member of the council, and so he followed through.

An hour later, Luke walked out of the MI9 base with a location marked into his GPS.

There were 3 routes leading to the location. One of them was using MI9's underground railway system to reach the nearest town to the location and then walking or riding a horse to the location. Due to the fact that it was on a mountain, motor cars that were now available to the world were not able to climb up the steep slopes and dense terrain, reaching the den in about a weeks' time.

Another route was using a river that flowed nearby to move at a speed just slightly slower than the railway system towards the target, and getting off directly as the foot of the designated mountain, also reaching in about 1 weeks' time.

The last route was the slower route that moved across the various villages, towns and cities along the way, reaching the mountain in about a month's time.

Naturally, the first route would basically rid him of any 'unexpected coincidences' happening to him due to the existence of John. The second option was a lot better, but still, being on the water also reduced those chances, especially with how fast they would be travelling.

Instead, the last option was a lot better. A month's time would allow plenty of things to happen, maybe even triggering a bunch of useful quests, not just for the reward, but for more quest types to he could hand them over to the players.

With his mind made up, he took John and the two left the capital, heading to the south.

On the other hand, the war was raging on at a pace that neither sides expected. Initial estimations showed that the war would be over in a few years. However, later on, both sides realised that the war would last for at least a few decades.

However, the variable known as Luke and the players made things incredibly different. With their intervention, the speed of the war rapidly modified, with the previous day's estimations being completely useless for today, and the day after.

The biggest reason was how the players fought.

It was not bravery, savagery, cruelty, strategy, or pure strength and power. No! It was something completely different. Each player had their own individual fighting style, and no two players fought the same. Although many of them might have similar pathways, their specialisations were all different, as well as their method of fighting.

Furthermore, none of them had had formal training to work together, and even if they had, they would naturally avoid working together, hoping to get some special quest for themselves.

At best, there were unofficial parties formed in groups of 5 or 6 for some of the more friendly players, or those players who knew others IRL. [1]

Some players would stay a long distance form the enemies while randomly hurling attacks at them, while other would crazily charge at the enemies, being bombarded with arrows, looking more like porcupines than humans by the time they arrived at the enemy lines.

However, unlike normal humans, players were special. As long as their HP bar was nor fully reduced to 0, they would not lose a single degree of combat power like not being able to use an arm since the shoulder was pierced by an arrow.

Naturally, there were limitations to this, for example when an explosion took away an entire leg, or an entire limb was cleanly chopped off.

For such cases, the player would need to wait for 10 seconds for the limb to be regenerated, the higher the level of the regeneration of the player, the lesser time it would take.

Therefore, such berserkers would still kill off at least 5 enemies before fully dying, their bodies vanishing into light, and the players waiting to be respawned.

Sword slasher was also in a similar situation…

[1] I will be using this word a lot so I am taking the time to explain to those fools who do not understand, or boomers reading this. IRL stands for Joe mama!

Nah, I'm just kidding. It means 'In real life', and I feel too bored to write this sometimes. Sorry.