Book 4, Chapter 7
The Dart
Note: "Dart" should be the name of the new pet. But this is not mentioned in this chapter.
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"AHHH!"
Elfy and I were knockedflying by a strong force. Night Shade hopped to me in time and caught me on hisback, while Hawk saved Elfy with a skillful volleyball save.
"Whatwas that?" I look around. "Saw anything?"
"Notme." Hawk is searching around the area too, nervously. "There wasjust something blurry in front my eyes, and you two were in the air before Iknow it."
"Ithink it was some kind of small animal." Elfy steadied herself and tookout a strange-shaped arrow from her quiver. "I touched it. At least it wassomething with fur."
Nope.The woods around us is totally silent.
"Rosy, look out the area for us."
The dirt around us began to shift, then tentacles with crystal eyes crawledonto each of the trees within the perimeter. They began to look around likecameras.
"Noticedsomething?" Hawk asked.
Abigger tentacle raised in front of us, an image appeared in the crystal ball. Wesaw a shadow flying among the trees. It"s too fast for us to make it out. Themoving image is apparently made up from continuous pictures shot by differenttentacles. Now that"s surprising, I got myself a living camera.
Elfy let out a warning. "Watch it! It"s coming!"
Fromthe "Camera", I saw the black shadow approaching from our backs.
Idrew my swords. "Let"s back up each other and leave no blind spots. Lucky,take down all the trees around. Oh and, throw them away so they don"t get inour way. Phantom, come out and look for the target. See if you can control it. Phiona,watch us from above. Loong"er cast your gravity field around us. Knights, spreadout!"
Luckyis the fastest one to move as always--the trees are already falling down in bundles like wheat. Rosyhelped cut off all the roots so Lucky only needs to carry the trunks and throwthem off the mountain, creating an open area for us.
"Overthere!" One of the knights caught sight of the shadow and threw his spearat the same time, without hitting it. Not surprising, as the spear is almost as thickas the monster itself.
"There!"That was Elfy.
A series of spears went over. Still nothing.
"Above!" I saw it this time. I wanted to check on Phiona, but a black stuffblocked my sight when I raised my head.
Phionacreated a strong gust using her wings and disrupted the shadow"s movement. Somethingshowed up from the shadow. It"s a...white, furry...ball?
"[ShadowBarrage]!"
Elfy released her arrow which she has been holding for some time.I only hear one shot, but a wave of dense arrows went past me. This is apowerful Archer skill used to restrict the movement of any fast target. Onlyhalf of the arrows are real, though whoever got caught inside the wave probablydoesn"t have the time to judge it.
However, the speed and size of the figurestill allowed it to slip past the attack.
I"mhelpless now. I never knew how to deal with fast targets. I"ve fight withmonsters with high HP or high attack but I"m yet to figure out how to catchsomething I can"t even see.
The shadow made a turn and went at Elfy. Lookslike it wants some revenge.
Rosy"s vine blocked its way just before itreaches Elfy. This forced the shadow to change it"s course--it used thetentacle as a platform and jumped towards elsewhere.
ThePhantom Knight leader pointed at somewhere. "[Iron Cage] ready up! Seven, two-three,launch!"
Schhhh! 10 spears shot themselves out in unite. From the looks ofit, their landing point is the estimated location where the black shadow isabout to reach. The shadow realized it too. But apparently it can"t fly--it canonly adjust it"s postures but not changeits direction in mid-air.
Theyreached the ground at almost the exact same moment--the spears cl.u.s.teredinto a round cage-like structure, trapping the shadow inside. Phiona dropped fromthe sky and landed on top of the cage, which is the only open exit.
"Aha!No where to run now." I walked to the "cage" and peeked inside.
It"sa white little animal that looks like a squirrel. But no squirrel has such long andsilky fur. It looks more like a s...o...b..ll, actually. It"s tail is even biggerthan it"s own body. That should be why it was so agile. There are two miniatureb.a.l.l.s on it head, probably ears. Those eyes...are big, round, with the color ofsapphires. The brightness of the eyes made it appear like the critter is aboutto cry.
"This--oof!"
"Awwww it"s so cute!" Elfy pushed me and Hawk aside with abnormal strength. Hereyes are literally shining. "Aren"t you adorable, little friend. Will you come withbig sis?"
It jumped around the cage, obviously saying "no". That"s notgonna work though.
"Hey dear, call your friend NOW! I want it as mycompanion!"
"Um?Oh!"
I stopped Hawkas he tries to make a call. "No need. My side cla.s.s is Breeder, remember?"
"Ohyeah, You said you are Soul Manipulator which is transferred from Tamer. As faras I remember, all Tamers would choose Breeder as a side cla.s.s."
"Yup.Tamers will need companions to fight. Surely no one would want to buy companionfrom others every time they need one."
"Makessense."
"Whatare you two doing?? Help me capture it!" Elfy pushed Hawk aside (again) anddragged me over. "Quick! Do it!"
"Okayokay, don"t push!"
I began to cast [Capture] at the little thing. Itgot more violent as I try. The cage is shaking from its struggling.
Looks likeit"s not really a strong monster. It only took me a dozen tries, probablybecause of my level 17 [Capture]. I saw it somewhere that you won"t find manypeople who got the skill over level 10 at the current stage. This is notsurprising if you look at my companions though, each one of them would give mesome serious skill exp, especially Night Shade--he just stood there for anentire afternoon, waiting for me to spam skills on him.
"Here."I gave the egg to Elfy. The size is similar to either a small watermelon, or areally big apple.
"Yay!!"Elfy wiped her hands clean before carefully taking the egg. I was giving out arelieved sigh, when her words choked it back down my throat.
"How long doI have to stay on it to hatch? Do I hold it against my stomach? On my laps? Hugit all the time? Can I ask someone else for help?"
"Baahahaha!Haaa-cough cough cough--eww cough--"
I crouched and held my abdomen to ease the pain caused by thatlaughter.
"Ok, now I see why you said companion eggs are super rare outthere. You--*sn.i.g.g.e.r*-- you never seen anyone hatching an egg in the game did you?"
Moreconfusion is now written on Hawk"s face. "Hatch? We don"t even see manyplayers carrying real companions! Do you know how you scared the heck out of uswhen you showed your companion team this morning? Last time I checked, an eggbetween level 300 and 400 worth 30k crystals! CRYSTALS! And you won"t get one easy even if you can offer that price. No one has high levelcapture skill yet, and NPCs only sell eggs below level 200. Good ones areon really short supply."
Weird.I know eggs are hard to come by but this is a little TOO scarce, if you ask me.
"You can capture any monsters into companions right? Is it so hard toproduce eggs?"
"You...wait I"ll explain. You have to cut down the monster HP to 1 or 2 points when trying tocapture, or it will just try to self-destruct or something. Those who don"texplode will just get furious and go into berserk mode, making it impossible toproceed. You need to be very careful how much damage you do and how much HP themonster regenerates. One tiny mistake and you will kill it by accident, orleave too much HP. Now wait a second,that little thing didn"t get angry or explode did it now?"
"Idon"t know..." I looked at the egg. "I never seen any monstersexplode on capture. Maybe there are some hidden requirements or attributes you need?"
"Let"sleave those questions later!" Elfy is still obsessed with her egg. "Tellme how to get it hatched first!"
"Oh,that"s simple." I grinned. "Find some hay and build a chicken coop. Sit on the egg for three hours."
Elfyrolled her eyes and kicked at me. " The truth! Now!"
"Sorry!I-I surrender! Make a cut on your finger and drop blood on the egg. It willhatch once it gets some blood."
...Was that too obvious?
"Heyhawk! Come here!" Elfy grasped Hawk"s hand and took our her dagger. Idon"t think she"s going to just "make a cut", with that kind of movement.
Iquickly s.n.a.t.c.hed the egg away. "What the heck are you doing??"
"Get some blood of course?"
"You...don"twant the egg then? The companion will consider whoever dropped his or her ownblood as master. If you cut Hawk, he will become its master instead."
"Tellme that earlier!" Elfy patted her chest in relief. But she noticed something on herdagger. "Isthis...blood? Hawk, did I cut you?"
Crack!The egg broke in my hands. A furball jumped around a bit, then crawled onto myshoulder and began to hug my face.
But...! My hands...!
"Ahhhh! You cut MY hand!"
I took off my gauntlets to raise the success rate for [Capture], and Elfy"sdagger left a 1-inch long laceration wound on the back of my hand when I was taking the egg back!
"What the-- Why is this happening?? I don"t want a pet dog using up my slot!Noooo!"
Phantominterrupted me: "Hey master, this little one is no pet dog. It--I mean, he,is a level 700 Aurora Fox. That"s higher than me at least. I heard about thisspecies before. They"re the champion in this world when it comes to speed."
"No kidding?"I opened it"s status window.
[Aurora Fox], level 0.
Attack: 15-25,
Defense: 10,
Speed: 750,
HP: 300,
MP: 50.
The other attributes are ordinary, even worse thancommon monsters. That speed though...that"s twice as fast than Night Shade! Withthe proper attacks, no one would notice what got him.
Elfylooked at the furry creature and whined. "Nnnnn...but I want it!"
"No worries. We can find another.You saw how easy I captured it right?"
"Gladto hear it but, are we really going to find one?"
"Yousaid the monsters would sp.a.w.n non-stop on this mountain right? That pretty muchtold us there would be more of it."
"Wellthat was for normal monsters." Hawk looks worried. "I don"t thinkthis little one is a normal monster. The strongest monster we met before wouldbe somewhere like level 500 or so, a level 700 is unheard of."
"Nowyou mentioned it...What happened to the mob waves you were so afraid of? Wewalked so far and this thing is the only monster we encountered. According toyou two, our paths should be filled with all kinds of ghosts "n" goblins by now."
Elfylooked about. "I...don"t know. That"s what happened last time. And we didn"teven reach this far before we were driven out."
Iturned to Phiona: "Scout from above, let"s see where the monster ran offto."
"Alrighty."
A strong current caused us to lose balance a bit. Phiona turned into a blackdot in a flash.
She came down after a brief moment. "There are agroup of players fighting with monsters on the other side of the mountain. A lotof them. All the monsters elsewhere are marching towards them like tidal waves!"
"Ohh.So someone is doing the job for us..." Hawk mumbled.
Elfyjumped onto his shoulder. "Quick! Now we"d better not waste their effort. Let"sget up there and claim whatever treasure lies ahead!"
"Right.Let"s hurry it up." I hopped on Night Shade too. "Onward! Here Icome my precious!!"
"Hey--waitfor us!"
I charged ahead out of too much excitement, leaving the couple agood distance behind.