Endless fight
Verm dreamed about a paradise, as he was sleeping peacefully in his bed. A paradise full of beautiful women, one of that beauties was feeding him with sweet strawberries.
"You shouldn't eat that much," she teased him.
"How about I eat something else then?" Verm asked while looking at her as a wolf would look at its prey.
"Kya~ Verm you are beast!" she screamed in a teasing voice as he pulled her closer.
"Mr. Verm,.." she said quietly.
"What?" Verm asked as he didn't hear her.
"Mr. Verm, there is..." she said again.
Verm frowned as the previous sweet voice was replaced by an urgent sound.
'What's going on?' he thought.
"Mr. Verm there is an emergency! Wake up!"
"W-What?!" Verm woke up in shock when he realized that the voice was coming from behind the door to his room, and not from the woman in his dream.
"Mr. Verm!" yelled somebody behind the door, while trying to knock doors open.
"Wait, I'm coming" he yelled back at the door. Knocking stopped.
After a moment he opened the doors, and behind them was a female around twenty.
"Hana, why are you trying to destroy my doors?" he asked, obviously still disoriented from his dream.
"One irregular triggered the first God challenge and another irregular entered the same place by mistake!"
Verm instantly woke up, his cloud-like mind was gone just like that.
"Follow me!" he ordered leaving his room.
"W-Wait Sir! At least put on some clothes, you are only in the underwear!" she called behind him while blushing.
***
Verm now fully dressed in clothes, was watching the big screen in his office.
"Pchee," he let out a refreshing breath of air after finishing a glass of beer. He always had to drink beer when he was watching somebody completing one of the hidden gems he created in the game.
"I can't believe this guy managed to sneak into another hidden story," Verm shook his head. It was just recently, not even two days ago since mentioned youngster managed to destroy one of the game events.
"Previously it was Undeground Armory, now it's Underwater Labyrinth,...does he have a fetish for stuff under?" Verm asked loudly but to himself, then realized he was not alone in the room.
*Cough* he tried to save it, but the young female was already looking at him as a young woman would look at an old pervert.
"Anyway, who is that other irregular?" He returned his sight to a monitor where two people were present, meeting each other for the first time.
"She is the one who had the highest Spirit," answered Hana.
"How high?" Verm asked with a frown. He didn't remember giving an irregular title to somebody with a high Spirit stat.
"Well,....the highest..." said Hana again.
"Oh,..OH!" Verm finally remembered. The spirit stat was actually something that did not come from any testing in the Testing Center, but rather after the first connection to the game. Basically, nobody except Aoi knew what the stat represented in the real world.
When he heard about a player reaching the Spirit stat so high that it was higher than the summary of other people's stats, he asked Hana to monitor that player. And he was right, as not even a day after the update that player somehow managed to trigger one of the God Challenges.
"Well, two people at once were not part of my calculation, even if their quests are a bit different, this will be fun watching." Verm didn't really care much as he opened another bottle of beer.
***
"Summon Holy spirit," she summoned her temporary skill.
"Should we join the party?" Ikky asked.
"..." she wasn't sure what the party's benefits or disadvantages were, as she didn't have time to test this new feature with her friends, but in the end, she agreed as it was at least polite since he was helping her for free.
[You had joined a party with player Ikky.]
[You had joined a party with player Lyra.]
Both of them saw the identical, yet different message.
"..." as she saw his name appear in the message she was certain that he also saw hers. Even if she wanted to keep a low profile from unknown people, especially men, it was inevitable at this moment.
"What's your combat style?" she asked as he saw him using both bow and dagger.
"I usually use bow and kite mobs, if they get too close I switch to dagger, but the dagger damage is low and I don't have any skills for daggers," Ikky answered without hesitation, their survival depended on their cooperation.
He also didn't consider the Poison attack as a dagger skill, even though it would work with the dagger, the Poison attack was based on the damage he dealt while using the skill, using it on a single-digit dagger attack would be a waste.
"I have lesser heal as every priest does, but I can not use it because the Holy spirit drains my mana every time it attacks or gets hit," answered Lyra.
"Okay, try to use yourself and the spirit as bait, I will try to deplete their HP by range attacks." proposed Ikky while walking away trying to get as much distance as possible.
"..." Lyra was speechless.
"Here they come!" Ikky warned her as he noticed that she was not paying attention to the statues but instead was staring at him for some reason.
-Level: 10 (Magical)
'Another unknown rank? How many ranks are there...' Ikky was already getting lost in all of the monster rankings.
Instantly an arrow pierced a total of five statues. They all turned towards the new enemy, but next second half of them lost interest and turned toward the Holy Spirit.
'Seems like the spirit has passive aggro, and because I did not hit half of them they turned to him,' Ikky estimated the situation.
Lyra wasn't just standing doing nothing either, she rushed toward the nearest statue and attacked it with her mace. As soon as the attack connected she was already on the move to another one. Soon enough four of the statues were following Lyra, while the Holy Spirit was dealing with the last one.
'So this is how she was able to deal with ten of them at once, she acted as bait herself, while her summon was dealing with the remaining statue.' Ikky couldn't but acknowledge her gaming skills, she was probably running with her life on the line for several hours.
They both worked together to kill and kite statues. The number of statues was slowly declining as they continued their team play. However, Ikky soon had to reconsider his previous opinion.
Ikky constantly peeked at Lyra in case she would need support from his range attacks, but when he saw how was Lyra dealing with the status, he finally understood why she got previously backed into a corner.
Her speed as a cleric was simply lacking, even though it was barely enough to counter the statues, Ikky noticed that she also had to maintain a certain distance from her Spirit. This resulted in some statues getting close enough to attack her.
She was quite capable of dodging enemy attacks, with only a few hits scratching her clothes, but that was not the main issue. As some statues reached her for the attack, they actually had to stop.
The statues recovery speed from the attack action was slower than their chasing speed. As she had to run in circles to maintain the distances, and as some statues got delayed due to their attack, she got close to them way too often.
Ikky fastly dealt with his statues, he didn't have any problem keeping his distance, thanks to his high agility. Once he was free, he hurried to help Lyra with her.
A moment later, all ten statues were destroyed, and Lyra sat down to eat her food the same way as before.
"Why do you keep eating food?" Ikky asked with curiosity.
"It recovers some of the Mana and HP," she said without any emotions.
'I should take a note of this for the future,' he thought when he noticed how this single exchange drained his mana bar.
The break barely began and rumbling was heard once again.
"That was five minutes?" Ikky asked surprisingly.
Lyra frowned.
"I don't think so..." she said with a heavy voice.
'Don't tell me the time is going to get shorter as we are getting closer to the finish line?' her thoughts were very chaotic. This was definitely bad news!
Both of them got ready for the fight by creating a certain distance.
"Same tactic?" asked Ikky.
Lyra nodded.
Then the first statue moved, and soon other nine followed.