Chapter 21: Requirement Number 1・Reaching Level Cap
Couple things to point out this time.
Seikori hill is roughly translated as hill where stars fall hence what’s being mentioned in this chapter. Since the name is quite long in English I left it as is.
The way Tobi speaks is by ending most of his sentences with a variant of “gozaru”. Something people should be quite familiar within this media. Because it just doesn’t flow well in English I decided to remove it unless it’s really needed in the future. For now just imagine his way of speaking like that.
If there are any suggestions or you feel like I should make any changes feel free to voice them out in the comment section.
Anyway, enjoy the chapter.
Seikori hill.
At night, you can see a perfect starry sky there, a romantic spot.
The stars were really pretty and its name came from the fact that it looked as if the stars would fall…just kidding.
Stars do really fall here and it’s simply called that because it’s a dangerous zone.
「Gugagego!?」 (Yumir) *1 Apparently a FFIV reference
「Yumir!!!」 (Tobi)
Unluckily, a small meteorite had flattened Yumir onto the ground, with her face covered with sediment, Yumir’s HP instantly reached 0 points.
I immediately started to chant 「Revive」 to resurrect her.
「Hahaha. Having the shinto priest Hind-dono with us we can even fight plentifully in a place like this」 (Tobi)
「Don’t laugh Tobi! And what’s with that way of speaking!」 (Hind)
「It’s what people call role-playing. I thought of speaking like this while inside the game」
「You will probably break character soon enough…wonder how long you’ll last」 (Riizu)
Since Yumir had stood up, I cast 「Healing」 on her to restore her HP.
We are having such issues before even fighting, are we going to be…fine? I’m worried.
「Hah, hah….I thought I was going to die」 (Yumir)
「「「No, you did die」」」
「!?」 (Yumir)
The spots where the meteorites will fall are marked with a red marker, so if you are careful you shouldn’t take a direct hit.
However, if you have to pay attention to meteorites all the time, it’ll be hard to fight the monsters.
When it comes to the meteorites, if you are hit directly, you’ll die instantly.
Even getting hit by the aftermath would deal huge damage so if you are not careful it’s be dangerous.
The ground was full of holes, it was like a picture of Hell.
「Say Tobi. You did say that you came here before」 (Hind)
「It’s just as you’ve said. The previous time I came was a complete coincidence…I was hunting monsters in a field close to here and before I noticed, the area turned gloomy…
I didn’t know at the time that this place would turn dangerous at night because meteorites would fall and meteorites suddenly started falling, sadly…」 (Tobi)
「You died. By the way, how was the death penalty? From the way you were saying that, you were playing solo at the time right? Whoops, this is scary. Move back」 (Hind)
Once again, meteorites fell.
We all moved to a safe spot and waited for monsters to appear.
For the record, we couldn’t see any other players in the area.
The main reason for it would be because the information hasn’t been divulged yet and it would have a bad reputation among players that want to play safe.
「The death penalty is reducing the current endurance of your gear by half and you also lose half of your money, my wallet took quite the hit at the time.
Other than that, I guess your attributes are reduced for a certain time too」 (Tobi)
「Oh, seems like they are distributed quite fairly. You can just deposit your money in the banks that are located in towns after all」 (Hind)
「You are right. Compared to other games that would make you lose experience or gear…ah, it’s different if you get PK’d you know? I heard that you have a chance to be stripped of your gear」 (Tobi)
「There are still not that many PKs. We probably don’t have to worry about that for now. However, it’s important to not go around with a death penalty on you」 (Hind)
「Umu, I’m counting on you Hind」 (Yumir)
Being relied on that naturally by Yumir, I faintly knitted my eyebrows.
I know that it can’t be helped that it’ll end up like that, but I don’t know what to think about them relying on me healing them from the start.
「You should start working on your own playstyle, got it?」 (Hind)
「I refuse!」 (Yumir)
「Don’t reply immediately like that! At least act like you have been thinking about it for a moment!」 (Hind)
The moment my suggestion gave no results…
From inside the meteorite, a huge number of small glittering gems appeared.
「It’s coming!」 (Hind)
From the smoke that was raised in the spot where the meteorite fell, rocks started floating.
With the gems as a core, a meteorite was formed again and it slowly took humanoid form.
The name of the thing that hit the ground and was standing there was…
「It’s a Meteo Golem!」 (Hind)
The monster that fell from the sky started walking while producing tremors.
It’s been more than 15 minutes since we started fighting.
As long as we don’t attack it, the Meteo Golem won’t aggro onto us.
By making use of that information we fought the one that was the smallest and had the lowest level but…
「Hind! Hind!」 (Yumir)
「What!?」 (Hind)
「My arm has gone numb!」 (Yumir)
「Bear with it just for a little bit longer!」 (Hind)
Our strategy was really simple.
The enemy swings were quite wide, while avoiding the meteorites we hit the monster’s chest whenever we could.
We were in a bit of a hurry, but it seems like the highest level golems are able to shoot a beam, I can say that I’d rather not fight one of them that has that move.
Once the gem that has become its core is exposed, we focus all our attacks on it.
After a fixed time the chest will regenerate, if that happens, you have to repeat the process again.
In the beginning, Tobi was using the instant death skill 「Aim at the vitals」 in rapid succession, but it seems like the Meteo Golems have high resistance to instant death so it kept missing.
As a result, we settled for this strategy of shaving off the core’s hp slowly.
「Guwah!」 (Yumir)
「Abah!」 (Tobi)
Since they were paying too much attention to the meteorites, they fell victim to the golem’s arm.
Just as I thought, the light warrior’s defense is quite low even at a high level!
However, there’s no denying that if Tobi wasn’t here, our vanguard would have crumbled already.
Counting the number of times they have died until now…it’s the 5th time for Yumir and this is the first time for Tobi.
Since it’s pretty clear that Yumir has died a lot more, you could say that he’s fulfilling his role of a shield that diverts attacks from us pretty well.
I used holy water on Tobi and cast 「Revive」 on Yumir and they stood back up.
「If you die at the same time it’ll be hard on my CDs! Try to be more careful!」 (Hind)
「Kuh, I was careless…!」 (Tobi)
「The meteorites are so annoying! They are as annoying as Tobi, Hind!」 (Yumir)
「So cruel! You are so cruel Miyucchi! Mixing me in there!」 (Tobi)
「Your way of speaking has already crumbled though…
Hind-san, after about 100 more dmg, the core will appear」 (Riizu)
「Alright, we are going to finish it the next time it appears!」 (Hind)
「「「Roger!」」」
Immediately after I cast the support magic 「Attack up」 on our vanguards, the core was exposed.
Yumir used 「Act of desperation」 and 「Slash」, while Tobi attacked in quick succession with both blades dealing critical hits.
Furthermore, Riizu followed up with her magic but…of all things, the enemy’s HP bar stopped at 1 pixel.
This is bad, it’s going to regenerate its chest!
「Fall down!」 (Hind)
I immediately leapt forward from my rearguard position and hit it with my iron rod with all my might.
The blow that I was somehow able to hit the core with showed that it only dealt 「10」 damage but…it was able to shave off its remaining HP.
The Meteo Golem was unable to maintain its body and crumbled into pieces.
Yumir sat on the ground and started to take big breaths.
At the same time, her body was wrapped up with the level up light.
「Dah, so tired! Isn’t it too hard!?」 (Yumir)
「Hey hey, don’t sit down there! Meteorites are still falling, you know?」 (Hind)
「Oh, I forgot. However, are we going to make it in time for the event at this pace?」 (Yumir)
「Well, just calm down. How about you open your menu and look at your current level?」 (Hind)
The level up phenomenon only happened 1 time.
Yumir probably misunderstood, but she probably also leveled up more than 2 times…
Going by my predictions, she should have leveled up 3 or 4 times right now.
「Hind-dono! My current level has gone up by 1!」 (Tobi)
「Eh, really!?」 (Hind)
A report of a level up had come from an unexpected direction.
Even though I had heard that after level 25 it gets really hard to level up…
「Don’t tell me that you were just about to level up…」 (Hind)
「If I remember correctly, I needed 2/3 of the level to level up, but usually that would take the whole day to earn. This is quite amazing」 (Tobi)
「Seriously? This is so efficient…this is probably going to be hotfixed by the developers soon enou-…no, since it’s limited at night-time and there are all these meteorites falling, it’s probably adjusted this way. It’s hard for a solo player and if you don’t have a healer it’d turn into a holy water festival after all」 (Hind)
「Hind! I’m level 25 now!」 (Yumir)
「I’m level 23, Hind-san」 (Riizu)
「Wow…」 (Hind)
Didn’t we just go up close to 10 levels in one go…? I should feel grateful for Selene-san’s information.
After that, having raised our stats because of the level up, we managed to beat 3 golems in total.
As for the results of that day. Me and Yumir were level 26, Riizu was level 25 and Tobi was level 29.
Since we had used quite a few holy waters and whetstones, we had ended up losing money, but I can say that the results were quite sweet.
At this rate, we should be able to hit the level cap by the last day of the event.