Back to the Shrine

The three of us looked at Quinn who had a look of betrayal on his face.

"W-What?!" He cried, dropping to his knees before his tiny Mangetsu. It was very out of character for him, but I could honestly feel his pain. Sure it had been sheer luck that he was even able to tame it, but imagine trying to get the newest version of a car but having to settle for one that was 10 years old instead.

Mangetsu leaped on top of him, licking his face excitedly. Any disappointment Quinn had disappeared at this. "If anything tries to harm Mangetsu I will kill it," he declared, holding the pup in his arms.

He reverted back to usual self.

"There goes our plan for defense…" Liam grumbled.

"Can I pet him?" Ven asked.

Quinn nodded.

Mangetsu, however, didn't like this, and started barking as Ven approached. Ven retreated his outstretched hand and looked depressed by this turn of events. "Animals never like me…" he whined.

Suddenly a slime collided into Liam's back knocking him to the ground. In a state of panic, I pushed Ven behind me, while Quinn kicked the slime off of our brother's back. It went rolling down the hill before it hit into a nearby tree.

[EPHEMERA HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]

[MANGETSU HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]

[VEN HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]

[LUCKY HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]

[IANTHINE HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]

[YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL WEAK MIX.]

"Oh nice! I learned a skill!" the three of us exclaimed excitedly. The excitement was short lived though as the other slimes in the field noticed their brethren die by our hand and started rolling over to us with a clear goal to kill us.

"T-that's a lot of slimes," Ven said.

"Should we run for it?" Quinn asked. He still had Mangetsu in his arms.

"They might not have a lot of HP so we might be able to take them," I replied.

"That's a LOT of slimes," Ven repeated.

"He's right," said Quinn. Mangetsu barked in agreement.

Before we could come to an agreement, Liam threw a rock at one of them.

[+20 EXP OBTAINED]

We turned to look at Liam who shrugged at us. "What? You guys were taking too long to decide."

We had Ven run back towards the town just in case the slimes overwhelmed us. Quinn barked orders at Mangetsu, who, even though he was tiny now, still packed quite a punch. One swipe from him did something called [EXTREME OVERKILL].

Liam had apparently gained a skill called [STEAL] which was pretty fitting for a thief. He would use it on the slimes he was fighting before delivering the killing blow. He kept getting different slime parts.

As for me, I had gained a skill called [WEAK MIX]. It basically allowed me, at the cost of some of my MP, to mix two different items together to create a random weak potion. In between throwing flasks at slimes, I would pick up random flowers and grass and use the skill. I ended up getting stuff like [WEAK HEALING POTION] and various status ailment dealing weak potions.

I couldn't remember the combinations since I was just trying to fend off the wave of slimes.

Eventually the slimes seemed to realize that it wasn't a battle they could win and started to retreat. That worked for me, I was running low on MP anyway. Sure I could've just kept chucking empty flasks, but my arm was getting tired.

"Hey, we're level 9 now," Liam said excitedly.

"I can buff my monsters now," Quinn said. Mangetsu barked at him happily.

There was loot scattered all over the field. We started picking it up.

Our loot ranged from slime cores to the game's currency; ulto. Quinn also got a new baton, which looked like it was made from slimes itself. It was a bright teal looking stick. He didn't seem to have any problem discarding his starting stick for the new item.

Liam got a new ring made of the same material that Quinn's baton was. According to him, it gave him increased evasion.

"If only the game devs would have graced you with a new set of clothes," Quinn piped up. After all, our brother's clothes were still in tatters.

I ended up getting a blue bow for my hair. It didn't give me any stats and there was an indicator that it was just for cosmetic purposes. I didn't like how it looked with my short hair, so I decided to just keep it in my inventory for safe keeping.

"Well, since we don't have to worry about the slimes messing with us now, how about we go to the shrine? I think I have enough time to get there and back before I have to log off," I suggested.

"Yeah, let's do it. Here comes Ven now," Liam said.

Sure enough when I turned to look at the town, the historian was running up the hills towards us. To be honest, he looked like a puppy that was glad to his owners after being alone for eight hours.

"Those slimes did not stand a chance against you three. Superb fighting! It was a sight to behold!" he said once he was within earshot of us.

"Stop it, Ven. I might fall in love with you if you keep laying on those compliments," Liam said, covering his face with one hand.

"Eh? Wh-what?!" Ven stammered, nearly tripping over his foot.

"He's just kidding, Ven," I laughed, "probably."

—

As we continued on our way, I started picking up things like mushrooms, flowers, and other plants. I planned to use them to try out some combinations for [WEAK MIX]. When I picked up the plants I noticed most of them were labeled [UNIDENTIFIED FLOWER] etc. That actually got me wondering if there was a botany class I could unlock or something along those lines.

It made me start wondering if there were crafting based classes too.

Would alchemist fall into that category?

We made our way to Zosimos Shrine. Some of the wildlife tried to pick a fight with us, but none of them were slimes. It seemed they had truly learned their lesson. Everything was pretty much a cinch to deal with after yesterday.

Seeing the aftermath of yesterday was also pretty thrilling. No one would probably ever believe us if we told them we had fought a level 50 field boss at level 1 and survived. Even more so, if Quinn didn't have proof of the announcement yesterday, they probably wouldn't have believed he tamed that very same monster.

When we saw the clearing up ahead with the shrine, we decided that Ven, Quinn, and I would stay behind while Liam played bait in case by some miracle another field boss Mangetsu had spawned.

The three of us remained crouched behind a tree, watching Liam intently. Even little Mangetsu was watching.

Liam walked around the width of the clearing. He even climbed on top of the shrine too. After twenty or so minutes of watching him we decided to head in too.

The three of us watched the perimeter intently as Ven began to examine the shrine.

"Oh, the slab is broken," he said, holding up to pieces of what had once been the slab.

"So…what does that mean?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, it's not good news," Ven replied. "The slab being broken only means one thing. This means that the Demon King has awoken. I have to tell the king… Lucky, could you grab the bell over here for me?"

"Sure," I nodded. I looked around to make sure there were no enemies around. I turned around and went to grab the bell. Ven went over to talk to Quinn.

I took one step on the shrine before everything started to shine gold. "W-what's happening?!" I cried. I tried to step out of the shrine but the golden light had created a barrier around me and the shrine.

My brothers were frantically banging on the golden shield. Liam seemed to ask Ven something, but he merely shook his head in response. I turned back around.

The bell that Ven had told me to grab for him, flew up in front of me.

[ACCEPT THE DEMON KING'S AFFECTION AND RING THE BELL? YES/NO?]

"Demon king's affection? W-What?" I thought as I bit my lip. "What if I click no and a monster comes out and massacres us... We definitely got lucky yesterday..."

I glanced over at the bell.

"This is gonna come back to bite us in the ass..." I muttered.

I hesitantly pressed yes.

I grabbed the bell's handle and gave it a good ring.

A golden light rippled through the air.

[SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: HELIANTHUS GUILD IS NOW IN CONTROL OF FLAMEL ISLAND.]

[THE CURSE OF FLAMEL ISLAND HAS BEEN BROKEN.]

"W-wait! What? What are we in charge of?" I yelled, at no one in particular. "More importantly what curse!?"

[IN COMMEMORATION OF BEING THE FIRST GUILD TO OWN FLAMEL ISLAND, ALL GUILD MEMBERS OF HELIANTHUS WILL BE GIVEN AN SR & SSR LOOT BOX.]

The golden walls keeping me closed in the shrine dissipated.

The first thing I noticed when I turned to face my brothers and Ven was that it was now bright outside. They were all busy looking at the sun.

"Well, this makes everything that happened yesterday worth it," Liam whispered.