The rhinoses, covered in tough, rocky skin, charge into Brandenburg, flooding in like ants to sugar. Even though they have huge bodies, over four meters long overall, as long as they’re going straight, they’re as fast as the wind, and that surge of momentum is advancing. However, there is a large obstacle blocking their way.
“Haaaaah!”
Although the rhinos’s skin is like metal, the knees of its front legs are where it’s most vulnerable, and in the instant that she passes them by, she pierces them six times, in such a brief moment that those around her couldn’t see how many times she struck, toppling its gigantic body and stopping its movements.
“Out of my way!” she shouts as she kicks an approaching rhinos, literally sending it flying. Although she’s taller than the average woman, she’s barely half as tall as the rhinos, and even to those who witnessed her kick, all that comes to mind is the word “absurd”. Like a chain reaction, another rhinos gets caught in it, shrieking as it falls over.
“N- no way…” someone mumbles. That’s just how much the surrounding soldiers are overwhelmed by Irene’s incomprehensible act.
Their reactions delayed due to their shock, Irene’s sharp gaze brings them back to reality, and when the fallen rhinos begins to stir, arrows and spells are sent flying towards its abdomen.
Though, she didn’t expect it to be this large of an incident either. According to Chaos, she’s become one who specializes in attacks, known as a Berserker, and sure enough, she’s noticed that her speed and strength are greater than before. But even if she does have Alexia’s support magic, she never could have anticipated that it would be to this extent. With how huge it is, she only expected to blow it away, at most. …That’s still pretty far removed from how a normal person would think, but she is unaware of this because she still hasn’t realized that Chaos and Alexia have corrupted her way of thinking.
Since her role in Chaos’s party is to evade and draw enemies towards her, securing her footing is incredibly important for her. After all, she can’t fulfill her role if she can’t move because her leg got caught on a corpse. If it was a normal party, there would barely be ten corpses at most, so she would be fine as long as she moved a little bit, but she had Chaos and his inexhaustible stamina. Because of him and how he can hunt 50 or even 100 monsters continuously without becoming the least bit winded thanks to his crazy stamina that makes her doubt that he really is a mage, it’s a common sight for the ground at her feet to be covered in corpses. That’s why kicking away an enemy that was in her way to secure her footing was so automatic for her. And by performing that role in the party, she gained overwhelming speed and strong legs.
Well, that works just fine. Although it was an accident that occurred because she put more strength into her kick than usual because it was so gigantic, since she doesn’t have a way to make wide-range attacks like with magic, it’s a convenient attack for her to kill a bunch of enemies at once.
Since Brandenburg’s walls have only collapsed in this one spot, the rhinos invasion is naturally concentrated here. She has as many projectiles as she needs. In that case, there’s no reason not to use them. Irene looks around for a suitable enemy.
“Sleep Cloud!”
Now that it’s shifted to a ground battle, Alexia lifts the ban on status ailment magic to hold back the invasion, even if only a little. Unlike griffins, rhinoses can’t invade if they can’t move their legs, and as beast-type monsters, sleep and paralysis attacks work on them. Sleep Cloud, which causes multiple targets to fall into a light sleep, and Paralyze Chain, which paralyzes the enemy by trapping them in a chain of light for a short time, reduce the rhinoses’ surging momentum. However, the rhinoses just madly charge to trample the soldiers.
‘…How odd. Are they not thinking about anything?’
Seeing the rhinoses continue to charge in without changing their methods even the slightest bit, Alexia feels that something’s off. Perhaps it’s because her earlier battle with the griffins left a strong impression on her, but the rhinoses don’t feel like intimidating or formidable opponents to her. This is because the griffins were truly cunning and would quickly stop their attack and improve their strategy if their attack methods weren’t effective, but in comparison, the rhinoses are blinding charging towards the same location as if that’s all they know how to do. Of course, the rhinoses’ military strength is significantly greater than that of the defending side, so it wouldn’t seem strange if she thinks of it as a strategy where they ignore casualties and use brute force. But if they’re coordinating their advance with the griffins, this seems far too crude of a strategy.
‘Monsters attacking a city in a group like this is unusual in and of itself, but it’s even more unusual for their attacks to be so monotonous.’
Alexia ends her train of thought. To her, it’s more convenient if her enemies aren’t formidable. Although the number of griffins has greatly decreased, since their battle with the soldiers on the wall is still going strong, there’s almost no air support. If the griffins get reinforcements, they’ll have to fight a battle on two fronts. She has to strike while the iron is hot. Intently, she continues using status ailment magic to toy with the single-minded rhinoses.
And so, as the rhinoses are put to sleep and fall over, Irene kicks away as many of them as she can. As their thick skin caves and they meet their end, other rhinoses are brought down with them and a cloud of dust forms. Then, Irene looks a nearby mage in the eye, prompting him to attack.
“Eep?!” the mage shrieks.
‘Why is an ally making you shriek?’ she complains in her mind. No matter how ignorant of love she is due to pursuing the sword, as a woman, she gets a bit of a complicated feeling from this. Although she neither intends nor plans to get married, she feels a bit discouraged at the thought that nobody would take her as their wife as things are.
‘This is all that idiot’s fault…! Next time I see him, I’ll punch him!’
Although she knows that she’d just be taking her anger out on him, she decides that once she makes it through this battle, she’ll punch the mage who isn’t here. After having this thought, she starts enjoying herself. With this feeling on her mind, she confronts the rhinoses once more.
Will we defeat the rhinoses before they trample us? This desperate battle has turned into a contest of endurance.
***
How long has it been since I started drifting away from the city? This event where you just keep on walking without even knowing why is seriously the work of the devil. What the heck kind of event is this? I don’t understand the point of it. Maybe this is an unknown event that hasn’t been discovered yet.
Since the world of Another World is so huge, not all of the events have been found. Even now, as the strategy wiki reports new events, it’s not a comprehensive list of every event, and there are a lot of events where the activation conditions aren’t clear. And if it’s an event this large-scale, it wouldn’t be strange for there to be a discovery report posted on the wiki or the forums if someone found it. It’s possible that I missed the report itself, but there’s a high chance that this is an unknown event. Since it’s such a large-scale event with the whole city involved, the activation conditions for this event must be pretty strict.
Well, I am interested in the event, but that aside, I have to find a way to escape, so I try to get out of this group. However, the soldier-like NPCs that are positioned to surround the group end up getting angry for disturbing the line. What do I do? Those two are waiting for me. Oh yeah, I can just use Warp Portal. I’m not in battle, so it won’t prevent me from using it.
As soon as I think of it, I teleport to the Portal in Brandenburg. Apparently, almost all of the city’s residents were in that group, since the area looks deserted. I hurry to the Adventurer’s Guild. Will it be alright even though I’m late? I should make sure to apologize.
I arrive at the Adventurer’s Guild, but it’s also deserted. There’s not even any NPCs. C**p, has it been so long since the meeting time that they’ve already logged out? But still, why aren’t there any NPCs even? Maybe they were somewhere in that group from earlier. Man, if only this weird event hadn’t happened at such an important time!
“Huh, there’s still an adventurer in a place like this?” a voice suddenly calls out from behind. When I turn around, I see a soldier-like man gasping for breath as he looks at me. “Well, whatever. Monsters are invading the city right now, so if you want to survive, you help too!”
Monsters? Why are monsters attacking the city? Normally, cities are safe zones, so I doubt monsters would be allowed to invade. Hold on, maybe this is the cause of that nonsensical walking event? The residents fled because of the monster attack. I didn’t understand why the NPCs were leaving the city, but thinking about it that way, now it makes sense. By past RPGs’ standards, it’d be unthinkable, but I guess it wouldn’t be strange for linked events like that to happen in this game with its advanced NPC AI.
I am curious, but those two take priority here. I don’t have time to participate in this event.
“Sorry, but I have to meet someone here. I can’t go with you.”
“Meet someone? You mean another adventurer? If so, then everyone that was here is at the north wall. All adventurers are being forced to participate.”
A forced participation event?! Does that sort of thing even happen?! If everyone is participating, maybe Alexia and Irene are participating too? Maybe they went since I wasn’t there in time for the meeting… Then, I’ll go over and find them!
“Alright, take me there.”
So, I’ve arrived at the north wall, but there are way too many people here. And not just one or two hundred, either. There’s even more people here than at my school’s assemblies, probably more than a thousand. If there are this many players and NPCs participating, looking for two people in this crowd would be like finding a needle in a haystack. What do I do?
“Th- the monsters are coming!”
When I look up, I see griffins invading. Well, looks like I gotta fight. Maybe I’ll find them while I’m fighting. I just want to get this over with, but we’re in melee, so I have to use spells that won’t get in the way.
“Mana Bullet.”
Three balls of light appear and start circling around me. Mana Bullet is the stronger version of Mana Sphere. Leveling up the Mana Sphere skill only increases power, accuracy, and range, but with Mana Bullet, it also increases the number of balls of light. It’s a convenient spell that gives you the option to control each ball of light so that you can concentrate your attack on a single enemy or shoot at multiple enemies. It’s a basic spell for Wizards, and it’s one of the spells I acquired along with Thunder Storm. I really want to blast them with Mana Burst or Thunder Storm, but with this many participants, it’d also hit the monsters that other parties are fighting and I could end up accidentally kill stealing, so that would be rude.
I aim the Mana Bullets at the griffins that other players can’t catch, defeating them one by one. …It’ll take a lot of time to defeat them all. I’ll refrain from using Intelligence Shield.
Oh man, the griffins are exploding! They’re even bombing the wall and destroying it! So the walls can break, huh. Wait, then isn’t it dangerous up here?
***
As the spilled oil ignites and creates a dense curtain of sparks, the rhinoses concentrate all of their military strength and approach. Irene’s struggle has caused the rhinoses to spill quite a bit of blood, and by the time she realizes, their numbers have already been reduced to the point that they’re all within sight. Even so, as the soldiers run out of arrows and magic, the casualties increase until, finally…
“…Oh no, my magic is–!”
All of the barriers that Alexia put up flicker and disappear. This means that all of her support spells have worn off. Both Wisdom Shield and Addition consume mana just by being maintained. Even though she can absorb mana with the Dragon Soul, if her mana consumption increases while she’s not making many attacks and therefore not recovering much mana, then she’ll eventually run out. Unlike Wizards, who have an abundance of ranged attacks and can recover a lot of mana with a Dragon Soul, Sages have few methods of recovering mana, which is another one of their weaknesses. Since she’s already used up all her mana potions, she no longer has any way to recover it.
“Lady Alexia, please fall back!” Irene shouts. However, as she’s been fighting to her limit, she no longer has any strength left in her. Meanwhile, the rhinoses mercilessly close in on her, and they collide.
To the rhinoses, who are superior in both weight and physique, Alexia is no more than a rock at the side of the road. Alexia feels her body floating as a sharp pain shoots through it and gradually fades. She loses all sensation, as if her body, which should feel as heavy as lead, has been released.
‘This is bad, I have to do something,’ she thinks to herself, but she can’t escape that sensation. As she floats through the air, she slowly takes in her surroundings.
The soldiers, who have already lost all magical support, are being trampled by the rhinoses. ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t protect you,’ Alexia apologizes in her mind. She can see her servant reaching out to her with a look of desperation as she’s engulfed by a herd of rhinoses. ‘I’m sorry I left you in such a dangerous place due to my own selfishness. And thank you for accompanying me,’ Alexia mentally apologizes and expresses her gratitude.
‘I’m starting to lose consciousness. Once I pass out, I’ll probably die,’ Alexia grasps her situation with extreme calmness.
‘But in my last moments…’ A black-haired boy with mismatched eyes appears in her mind. She wonders if he’s safe. Will he praise her for doing all she could? Or will he scold her for being good for nothing? She’ll never see him again either way, so she at least wants him to be safe. She never wanted him to be on this battlefield to start with. If he’s here, she hopes he’ll abandon this city and escape. That is her wish. But she also has another wish: the wish that she’ll see him one more time in her last moments. It’s an incredibly selfish and shameful wish. They’re contradictory wishes, where if one is granted, the other cannot be.
Therefore, one of them will surely be granted.
The instant Alexia’s body hits the ground, the impact shoots through her. With what little is left of her senses, she feels a faint warmth. It’s a sensation that she could never experience on the cold ground. Concentrating, she focuses her eyes on the person who caught her in their arms.
The moment she recognizes his face, the flames in her heart which were fading suddenly tremble.
“…Teacher…”
The instant she loses consciousness, she is granted a reunion with the boy she loves.
***
This event is too harsh. If the griffins can attack from above, there’s really nothing we can do about it. There’s too many enemies, too. I hope they’ll fix the balance.
Our only salvation is the person creating the pillar of light that I saw a few times, or in other words, casting Wisdom Burst. There’s only one person using that spell (there are a ton of people of different classes and Magician-looking people here, but doesn’t anyone want to be a Sage?), so it’s possible that that’s Alexia. Though, when I tried to go over there, they yelled at me not to leave my post, and that spot already collapsed, so I decided to just keep shooting down all the griffins. It feels like a shooting game.
I think the griffin battle has more or less calmed down, probably because most of them have been killed by now. I don’t see many griffins anymore. A lot of the NPCs have also been killed, so there’s corpses lying around. It really is hard to look at.
When it finally calms down, I look over to the spot that collapsed, and it looks like a pretty tough fight. …I found them. There’s Alexia and Irene. Once I spot them, there’s no stopping me from running towards them. I quickly descend the city walls and get a better look at them. It looks like Alexia just ran out of magic. ‘This is bad,’ I think, getting a really bad feeling. At this rate, she’ll be killed by a rhinos. I cast Mana Bullet at the rhinos… But it doesn’t make it in time. Before the balls of light reach the rhinos, it’s like she’s been hit by a car, and it feels like everything freezes.
“Alexia!!” I shout, reaching out to her as she floats through the air. Please make it, please make it, please make it! All sound fades as my whole body takes action to save her. Running as fast as I can to the spot where she falls, I catch her in my arms. As I see her bleeding out with an empty look on her face, I pale.
“Alexia, Alexia!!” I keep shouting her name on the brink of tears. As if she noticed, Alexia smiles faintly, as if these are her last moments…
She can’t die, I don’t want her to die. Die… What’ll happen if she dies?
…She’ll just get a penalty and revive at the Portal.
…It’s just a game. And since it’s a game, I should be able to save her! I take a potion out of my inventory and put it on her. Then, color returns to her face. I breathe a sigh of relief. Even if it’s a game, it’s hard to see a friend die. Her death was so realistic that I couldn’t think straight. It doesn’t look like she’s waking up yet, but she did get hit by a rhinos charging at car speed, so it’s no wonder she fainted from shock. Anyway, what happened to Irene? With this many rhinoses surrounding us, there’s no telling where she is.
Carrying Alexia, who hasn’t regained consciousness yet, I walk towards the outside of the walls, defeating rhinoses as I move forward and exit the city walls. The other players and NPCs are busy dealing with the herd of invading rhinoses, so there’s nobody here. In other words, I don’t have to worry about kill stealing. That’s convenient for me.
“Double Spell.”
Since it’s a game, it’s probably natural for friends to die. But as a solitary player, I’ve never had that experience until now. I wonder if that’s why I couldn’t stay calm when Alexia almost died. No, I’m still not calm. If anything, there’s a simmering rage deep down inside me.
So, I’ll take it out on the rhinoses in front of me, on the ones who hurt my friends. I’ll hit them with the strongest spell I’ve got!
“Thunder Storm!”
The moment dark clouds cover the skies and turn the area pitch black, countless lightning bolts engulf the invading rhinoses, as if in response to my rage. Although it only lasts a few seconds, the flashes of light are so blindingly bright that I can’t see what’s happening. Even their death cries are drowned out by the roar of thunder. When my vision returns, an immense number of corpses of rhinoses and griffins lie before me. It seems like the griffins that were flying above were defeated along with them. Even so, I wasn’t able to defeat all of the rhinoses. Though, I probably opened up a mind-blowing several kilometer wide space full of corpses between the city and the rhinoses. The max-level Thunder Storm that I put all my strength into is seriously amazing. Is there really a use for a spell like this? Even though we’re in the middle of an intense battle, for a moment, everything goes silent. Oh, that was noisy, huh. Sorry about that, but I’m about to do it again.
Even in a situation like this, the rhinoses come this way without fear of death, stepping over the corpses of their allies as if it’s all they know. As they approach, I begin casting my second Thunder Storm, and when they’re drawn in close enough, I annihilate the second wave. With the second wave, it looks like the enemies outside have all been killed. All that’s left are the rhinoses that invaded the city. Suddenly, cheers erupt from the top of the wall. Is the event over?
Finally, I can have a calm conversation with them. When I put down the still-unconscious Alexia in a safe place and start looking for Irene, my vision goes black.
‘Huh? What’s going on?’ I panic as a message is displayed before my eyes.
“Connection error. You have been disconnected from the network.”
Network problems?! Why at a time like this?!
After completing the recovery procedure and trying to re-log in several times, in the end, I couldn’t log in for the rest of the day. Disheartened, I go to bed sulking.
Oh man, what do I do? I still haven’t asked Alexia and Irene if they were coming with me to Commune or told them where and when to meet. But I did tell them beforehand that I was going to Commune, so should I go there?
As I think about them, I suddenly remember that sight from before. It was incredibly shocking and weirdly graphic. I was worried that Alexia was really going to die.
“It’s just a game… right?” I mumble as if the words are spilling from my heart, though I myself am not fully conscious of them.
The rhinoses, covered in tough, rocky skin, charge into Brandenburg, flooding in like ants to sugar. Even though they have huge bodies, over four meters long overall, as long as they’re going straight, they’re as fast as the wind, and that surge of momentum is advancing. However, there is a large obstacle blocking their way.
“Haaaaah!”
Although the rhinos’s skin is like metal, the knees of its front legs are where it’s most vulnerable, and in the instant that she passes them by, she pierces them six times, in such a brief moment that those around her couldn’t see how many times she struck, toppling its gigantic body and stopping its movements.
“Out of my way!” she shouts as she kicks an approaching rhinos, literally sending it flying. Although she’s taller than the average woman, she’s barely half as tall as the rhinos, and even to those who witnessed her kick, all that comes to mind is the word “absurd”. Like a chain reaction, another rhinos gets caught in it, shrieking as it falls over.
“N- no way…” someone mumbles. That’s just how much the surrounding soldiers are overwhelmed by Irene’s incomprehensible act.
Their reactions delayed due to their shock, Irene’s sharp gaze brings them back to reality, and when the fallen rhinos begins to stir, arrows and spells are sent flying towards its abdomen.
Though, she didn’t expect it to be this large of an incident either. According to Chaos, she’s become one who specializes in attacks, known as a Berserker, and sure enough, she’s noticed that her speed and strength are greater than before. But even if she does have Alexia’s support magic, she never could have anticipated that it would be to this extent. With how huge it is, she only expected to blow it away, at most. …That’s still pretty far removed from how a normal person would think, but she is unaware of this because she still hasn’t realized that Chaos and Alexia have corrupted her way of thinking.
Since her role in Chaos’s party is to evade and draw enemies towards her, securing her footing is incredibly important for her. After all, she can’t fulfill her role if she can’t move because her leg got caught on a corpse. If it was a normal party, there would barely be ten corpses at most, so she would be fine as long as she moved a little bit, but she had Chaos and his inexhaustible stamina. Because of him and how he can hunt 50 or even 100 monsters continuously without becoming the least bit winded thanks to his crazy stamina that makes her doubt that he really is a mage, it’s a common sight for the ground at her feet to be covered in corpses. That’s why kicking away an enemy that was in her way to secure her footing was so automatic for her. And by performing that role in the party, she gained overwhelming speed and strong legs.
Well, that works just fine. Although it was an accident that occurred because she put more strength into her kick than usual because it was so gigantic, since she doesn’t have a way to make wide-range attacks like with magic, it’s a convenient attack for her to kill a bunch of enemies at once.
Since Brandenburg’s walls have only collapsed in this one spot, the rhinos invasion is naturally concentrated here. She has as many projectiles as she needs. In that case, there’s no reason not to use them. Irene looks around for a suitable enemy.
“Sleep Cloud!”
Now that it’s shifted to a ground battle, Alexia lifts the ban on status ailment magic to hold back the invasion, even if only a little. Unlike griffins, rhinoses can’t invade if they can’t move their legs, and as beast-type monsters, sleep and paralysis attacks work on them. Sleep Cloud, which causes multiple targets to fall into a light sleep, and Paralyze Chain, which paralyzes the enemy by trapping them in a chain of light for a short time, reduce the rhinoses’ surging momentum. However, the rhinoses just madly charge to trample the soldiers.
‘…How odd. Are they not thinking about anything?’
Seeing the rhinoses continue to charge in without changing their methods even the slightest bit, Alexia feels that something’s off. Perhaps it’s because her earlier battle with the griffins left a strong impression on her, but the rhinoses don’t feel like intimidating or formidable opponents to her. This is because the griffins were truly cunning and would quickly stop their attack and improve their strategy if their attack methods weren’t effective, but in comparison, the rhinoses are blinding charging towards the same location as if that’s all they know how to do. Of course, the rhinoses’ military strength is significantly greater than that of the defending side, so it wouldn’t seem strange if she thinks of it as a strategy where they ignore casualties and use brute force. But if they’re coordinating their advance with the griffins, this seems far too crude of a strategy.
‘Monsters attacking a city in a group like this is unusual in and of itself, but it’s even more unusual for their attacks to be so monotonous.’
Alexia ends her train of thought. To her, it’s more convenient if her enemies aren’t formidable. Although the number of griffins has greatly decreased, since their battle with the soldiers on the wall is still going strong, there’s almost no air support. If the griffins get reinforcements, they’ll have to fight a battle on two fronts. She has to strike while the iron is hot. Intently, she continues using status ailment magic to toy with the single-minded rhinoses.
And so, as the rhinoses are put to sleep and fall over, Irene kicks away as many of them as she can. As their thick skin caves and they meet their end, other rhinoses are brought down with them and a cloud of dust forms. Then, Irene looks a nearby mage in the eye, prompting him to attack.
“Eep?!” the mage shrieks.
‘Why is an ally making you shriek?’ she complains in her mind. No matter how ignorant of love she is due to pursuing the sword, as a woman, she gets a bit of a complicated feeling from this. Although she neither intends nor plans to get married, she feels a bit discouraged at the thought that nobody would take her as their wife as things are.
‘This is all that idiot’s fault…! Next time I see him, I’ll punch him!’
Although she knows that she’d just be taking her anger out on him, she decides that once she makes it through this battle, she’ll punch the mage who isn’t here. After having this thought, she starts enjoying herself. With this feeling on her mind, she confronts the rhinoses once more.
Will we defeat the rhinoses before they trample us? This desperate battle has turned into a contest of endurance.
***
How long has it been since I started drifting away from the city? This event where you just keep on walking without even knowing why is seriously the work of the devil. What the heck kind of event is this? I don’t understand the point of it. Maybe this is an unknown event that hasn’t been discovered yet.
Since the world of Another World is so huge, not all of the events have been found. Even now, as the strategy wiki reports new events, it’s not a comprehensive list of every event, and there are a lot of events where the activation conditions aren’t clear. And if it’s an event this large-scale, it wouldn’t be strange for there to be a discovery report posted on the wiki or the forums if someone found it. It’s possible that I missed the report itself, but there’s a high chance that this is an unknown event. Since it’s such a large-scale event with the whole city involved, the activation conditions for this event must be pretty strict.
Well, I am interested in the event, but that aside, I have to find a way to escape, so I try to get out of this group. However, the soldier-like NPCs that are positioned to surround the group end up getting angry for disturbing the line. What do I do? Those two are waiting for me. Oh yeah, I can just use Warp Portal. I’m not in battle, so it won’t prevent me from using it.
As soon as I think of it, I teleport to the Portal in Brandenburg. Apparently, almost all of the city’s residents were in that group, since the area looks deserted. I hurry to the Adventurer’s Guild. Will it be alright even though I’m late? I should make sure to apologize.
I arrive at the Adventurer’s Guild, but it’s also deserted. There’s not even any NPCs. C**p, has it been so long since the meeting time that they’ve already logged out? But still, why aren’t there any NPCs even? Maybe they were somewhere in that group from earlier. Man, if only this weird event hadn’t happened at such an important time!
“Huh, there’s still an adventurer in a place like this?” a voice suddenly calls out from behind. When I turn around, I see a soldier-like man gasping for breath as he looks at me. “Well, whatever. Monsters are invading the city right now, so if you want to survive, you help too!”
Monsters? Why are monsters attacking the city? Normally, cities are safe zones, so I doubt monsters would be allowed to invade. Hold on, maybe this is the cause of that nonsensical walking event? The residents fled because of the monster attack. I didn’t understand why the NPCs were leaving the city, but thinking about it that way, now it makes sense. By past RPGs’ standards, it’d be unthinkable, but I guess it wouldn’t be strange for linked events like that to happen in this game with its advanced NPC AI.
I am curious, but those two take priority here. I don’t have time to participate in this event.
“Sorry, but I have to meet someone here. I can’t go with you.”
“Meet someone? You mean another adventurer? If so, then everyone that was here is at the north wall. All adventurers are being forced to participate.”
A forced participation event?! Does that sort of thing even happen?! If everyone is participating, maybe Alexia and Irene are participating too? Maybe they went since I wasn’t there in time for the meeting… Then, I’ll go over and find them!
“Alright, take me there.”
So, I’ve arrived at the north wall, but there are way too many people here. And not just one or two hundred, either. There’s even more people here than at my school’s assemblies, probably more than a thousand. If there are this many players and NPCs participating, looking for two people in this crowd would be like finding a needle in a haystack. What do I do?
“Th- the monsters are coming!”
When I look up, I see griffins invading. Well, looks like I gotta fight. Maybe I’ll find them while I’m fighting. I just want to get this over with, but we’re in melee, so I have to use spells that won’t get in the way.
“Mana Bullet.”
Three balls of light appear and start circling around me. Mana Bullet is the stronger version of Mana Sphere. Leveling up the Mana Sphere skill only increases power, accuracy, and range, but with Mana Bullet, it also increases the number of balls of light. It’s a convenient spell that gives you the option to control each ball of light so that you can concentrate your attack on a single enemy or shoot at multiple enemies. It’s a basic spell for Wizards, and it’s one of the spells I acquired along with Thunder Storm. I really want to blast them with Mana Burst or Thunder Storm, but with this many participants, it’d also hit the monsters that other parties are fighting and I could end up accidentally kill stealing, so that would be rude.
I aim the Mana Bullets at the griffins that other players can’t catch, defeating them one by one. …It’ll take a lot of time to defeat them all. I’ll refrain from using Intelligence Shield.
Oh man, the griffins are exploding! They’re even bombing the wall and destroying it! So the walls can break, huh. Wait, then isn’t it dangerous up here?
***
As the spilled oil ignites and creates a dense curtain of sparks, the rhinoses concentrate all of their military strength and approach. Irene’s struggle has caused the rhinoses to spill quite a bit of blood, and by the time she realizes, their numbers have already been reduced to the point that they’re all within sight. Even so, as the soldiers run out of arrows and magic, the casualties increase until, finally…
“…Oh no, my magic is–!”
All of the barriers that Alexia put up flicker and disappear. This means that all of her support spells have worn off. Both Wisdom Shield and Addition consume mana just by being maintained. Even though she can absorb mana with the Dragon Soul, if her mana consumption increases while she’s not making many attacks and therefore not recovering much mana, then she’ll eventually run out. Unlike Wizards, who have an abundance of ranged attacks and can recover a lot of mana with a Dragon Soul, Sages have few methods of recovering mana, which is another one of their weaknesses. Since she’s already used up all her mana potions, she no longer has any way to recover it.
“Lady Alexia, please fall back!” Irene shouts. However, as she’s been fighting to her limit, she no longer has any strength left in her. Meanwhile, the rhinoses mercilessly close in on her, and they collide.
To the rhinoses, who are superior in both weight and physique, Alexia is no more than a rock at the side of the road. Alexia feels her body floating as a sharp pain shoots through it and gradually fades. She loses all sensation, as if her body, which should feel as heavy as lead, has been released.
‘This is bad, I have to do something,’ she thinks to herself, but she can’t escape that sensation. As she floats through the air, she slowly takes in her surroundings.
The soldiers, who have already lost all magical support, are being trampled by the rhinoses. ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t protect you,’ Alexia apologizes in her mind. She can see her servant reaching out to her with a look of desperation as she’s engulfed by a herd of rhinoses. ‘I’m sorry I left you in such a dangerous place due to my own selfishness. And thank you for accompanying me,’ Alexia mentally apologizes and expresses her gratitude.
‘I’m starting to lose consciousness. Once I pass out, I’ll probably die,’ Alexia grasps her situation with extreme calmness.
‘But in my last moments…’ A black-haired boy with mismatched eyes appears in her mind. She wonders if he’s safe. Will he praise her for doing all she could? Or will he scold her for being good for nothing? She’ll never see him again either way, so she at least wants him to be safe. She never wanted him to be on this battlefield to start with. If he’s here, she hopes he’ll abandon this city and escape. That is her wish. But she also has another wish: the wish that she’ll see him one more time in her last moments. It’s an incredibly selfish and shameful wish. They’re contradictory wishes, where if one is granted, the other cannot be.
Therefore, one of them will surely be granted.
The instant Alexia’s body hits the ground, the impact shoots through her. With what little is left of her senses, she feels a faint warmth. It’s a sensation that she could never experience on the cold ground. Concentrating, she focuses her eyes on the person who caught her in their arms.
The moment she recognizes his face, the flames in her heart which were fading suddenly tremble.
“…Teacher…”
The instant she loses consciousness, she is granted a reunion with the boy she loves.
***
This event is too harsh. If the griffins can attack from above, there’s really nothing we can do about it. There’s too many enemies, too. I hope they’ll fix the balance.
Our only salvation is the person creating the pillar of light that I saw a few times, or in other words, casting Wisdom Burst. There’s only one person using that spell (there are a ton of people of different classes and Magician-looking people here, but doesn’t anyone want to be a Sage?), so it’s possible that that’s Alexia. Though, when I tried to go over there, they yelled at me not to leave my post, and that spot already collapsed, so I decided to just keep shooting down all the griffins. It feels like a shooting game.
I think the griffin battle has more or less calmed down, probably because most of them have been killed by now. I don’t see many griffins anymore. A lot of the NPCs have also been killed, so there’s corpses lying around. It really is hard to look at.
When it finally calms down, I look over to the spot that collapsed, and it looks like a pretty tough fight. …I found them. There’s Alexia and Irene. Once I spot them, there’s no stopping me from running towards them. I quickly descend the city walls and get a better look at them. It looks like Alexia just ran out of magic. ‘This is bad,’ I think, getting a really bad feeling. At this rate, she’ll be killed by a rhinos. I cast Mana Bullet at the rhinos… But it doesn’t make it in time. Before the balls of light reach the rhinos, it’s like she’s been hit by a car, and it feels like everything freezes.
“Alexia!!” I shout, reaching out to her as she floats through the air. Please make it, please make it, please make it! All sound fades as my whole body takes action to save her. Running as fast as I can to the spot where she falls, I catch her in my arms. As I see her bleeding out with an empty look on her face, I pale.
“Alexia, Alexia!!” I keep shouting her name on the brink of tears. As if she noticed, Alexia smiles faintly, as if these are her last moments…
She can’t die, I don’t want her to die. Die… What’ll happen if she dies?
…She’ll just get a penalty and revive at the Portal.
…It’s just a game. And since it’s a game, I should be able to save her! I take a potion out of my inventory and put it on her. Then, color returns to her face. I breathe a sigh of relief. Even if it’s a game, it’s hard to see a friend die. Her death was so realistic that I couldn’t think straight. It doesn’t look like she’s waking up yet, but she did get hit by a rhinos charging at car speed, so it’s no wonder she fainted from shock. Anyway, what happened to Irene? With this many rhinoses surrounding us, there’s no telling where she is.
Carrying Alexia, who hasn’t regained consciousness yet, I walk towards the outside of the walls, defeating rhinoses as I move forward and exit the city walls. The other players and NPCs are busy dealing with the herd of invading rhinoses, so there’s nobody here. In other words, I don’t have to worry about kill stealing. That’s convenient for me.
“Double Spell.”
Since it’s a game, it’s probably natural for friends to die. But as a solitary player, I’ve never had that experience until now. I wonder if that’s why I couldn’t stay calm when Alexia almost died. No, I’m still not calm. If anything, there’s a simmering rage deep down inside me.
So, I’ll take it out on the rhinoses in front of me, on the ones who hurt my friends. I’ll hit them with the strongest spell I’ve got!
“Thunder Storm!”
The moment dark clouds cover the skies and turn the area pitch black, countless lightning bolts engulf the invading rhinoses, as if in response to my rage. Although it only lasts a few seconds, the flashes of light are so blindingly bright that I can’t see what’s happening. Even their death cries are drowned out by the roar of thunder. When my vision returns, an immense number of corpses of rhinoses and griffins lie before me. It seems like the griffins that were flying above were defeated along with them. Even so, I wasn’t able to defeat all of the rhinoses. Though, I probably opened up a mind-blowing several kilometer wide space full of corpses between the city and the rhinoses. The max-level Thunder Storm that I put all my strength into is seriously amazing. Is there really a use for a spell like this? Even though we’re in the middle of an intense battle, for a moment, everything goes silent. Oh, that was noisy, huh. Sorry about that, but I’m about to do it again.
Even in a situation like this, the rhinoses come this way without fear of death, stepping over the corpses of their allies as if it’s all they know. As they approach, I begin casting my second Thunder Storm, and when they’re drawn in close enough, I annihilate the second wave. With the second wave, it looks like the enemies outside have all been killed. All that’s left are the rhinoses that invaded the city. Suddenly, cheers erupt from the top of the wall. Is the event over?
Finally, I can have a calm conversation with them. When I put down the still-unconscious Alexia in a safe place and start looking for Irene, my vision goes black.
‘Huh? What’s going on?’ I panic as a message is displayed before my eyes.
“Connection error. You have been disconnected from the network.”
Network problems?! Why at a time like this?!
After completing the recovery procedure and trying to re-log in several times, in the end, I couldn’t log in for the rest of the day. Disheartened, I go to bed sulking.
Oh man, what do I do? I still haven’t asked Alexia and Irene if they were coming with me to Commune or told them where and when to meet. But I did tell them beforehand that I was going to Commune, so should I go there?
As I think about them, I suddenly remember that sight from before. It was incredibly shocking and weirdly graphic. I was worried that Alexia was really going to die.
“It’s just a game… right?” I mumble as if the words are spilling from my heart, though I myself am not fully conscious of them.
