17 The Sacrificial Paladin

I can't believe I didn't think of a possibility like this. I was so confident in our success, I didn't even make the party eat food before the fight. I deserve everything That's coming to me. Could you really blame me? I have that monster Matthew here. I saw him take down the ghost of the manor and Violet told me about his participation in that special quest. Our win was guaranteed until Anya pulled some random crap out of her ass.

I used my red item Shapios to create a dome around us. However, this was only a short solution to our problem and everyone knew that.

"W-WE'RE GONNA DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!" Gabe Hans cowered behind Jessica.

"What's the plan now?" Matthew asked me.

I...I don't know what to tell him.

...

Matthew grabbed me by the collar and shook me violently. I grabbed him in response.

"Do you want to die?"

"YES! BUT NOT HERE, SO FIND A WAY TO UNDO THIS MESS!"

"There's only one thing I can think of..."

"Then spit it out. We don't have all day." He let go of me and I began explaining my plan.

The plan was pretty simple: The tanks will distract the horde while the rest of the group looks for Anya. If she dies, then surely the monsters will disperse. It may get hard though, I'm certain every monster in the frontier gathered to help Anya. From level one to level ten. We'll have to manage, though.

I didn't have enough time to hear everyone's reaction to the plan. I just had to assume because their faces didn't show disapproval, they were on board with the plan. This happened because as soon as I finished explaining, the dome I created shattered and monsters came pooling in all around us.

"MATTHEW!"

"Right!"

We had to be fast, so when I explained the plan to them, I also explained the method with which I was going to get most of the horde's attention. It probably won't work for all of them, but any monsters it doesn't work on will simply get aggroed by Jessica.

Matthew grabbed me by my shirt and threw me as hard as he could into the air. He threw me hard enough so that I could get a view of the majority of the horde, but low enough so that I could recover without taking as much damage. As I looked down on the stampede of monsters surrounding my party, I yelled as loud as I could "GAZE OF PITY!"

The visual cue lit up the domain with a quick flash as almost every monster in the domain turned to aggro onto me. Just as I confirmed the sheer amount of the beasts I aggroed, I landed and began to run off. I just need to keep running until Shapios regenerates its shield. As long as I stay alive, Shapios can go back to one hundred percent durability. I'll simply run, use my shield until it breaks, and then repeat the process.

I wasn't even looking at the status of my party members. I had to just trust that they were hot on Anya's trail. If I focused on anything other than running and dodging any incoming attacks, the horde would catch up to me and I would die.

Everything seemed to be going well.

Until I heard a woman's scream.

"HELP MEEEEEEEEEEE!" I quickly glanced over to see Jessica surrounded by level ten orcs.

I tried to look around to see where the rest of the party was, but finding them was comparable to finding a needle in a haystack: hopeless.

I attempted to save her by making my way over there, but it was futile. Once I made it to her, I was just in time to see her grief-stricken face. She looked at me with pleading eyes. Eyes that said "I don't want to die.

She then bursted into thousands of tiny blue crystals that rose into the air and disappeared. The only thing that remained was a blue crystal. That's the death animation for a player. Jessica just died and it's all my fault.

The horde around me let out ferocious roars to celebrate their first kill. I wanted to collapse onto the floor and take in what just happened, but there was no time. I had to be quick if I wanted to get her crystal in time.

I dove for it and successfully grabbed it as the monsters finished their cheering. Once they directed their aggression towards me, they all dove in to attack.

Luckily, Shapios was fully regenerated once more and I was able to create another dome to protect myself. As I clutched onto the crystal of poor Jessica, I looked around the dome to see the demonic faces of the monstrous clawing and pounding away at the dome.

I that moment I thought to myself...

Why am I here?

Who am I doing this for?

I then remembered the reason I did all of this.

It was for her...

"I SAID I'M LEAVING!"

"WAIT SARAH!"

I saw my girlfriend shut the door to her parents house as she made her way to my car. She managed to break away from her helicopter parents.

About five years ago, my girlfriend and I decided to run away from our homes to live together. I could've died in a ditch and my parents wouldn't give a damn, but her parents were always over her shoulders watching her. They never approved of our relationship because of the unclear career path I wanted to take. I don't blame them either. Esports was still a young industry when I got into it.

Regardless, it was what I wanted to do and my girlfriend Sarah was willing to stay by my side no matter what. We managed to find an apartment and lived together happily. She went to school and worked to get her degree whilst I grinded a hero shooter that recently came out that I was trying to make it big in. Due to the abnormal amount of hours I was putting in, I didn't have much time to clean or cook, so I had to leave it to her. Not long after, she graduated college and got a job in sales for a major corporation!

Hard times began to fall on us a couple of years later when a huge layoff began to happen at Sarah's workplace. Over half of the company was being laid off and she was sure that any day now, she was going to be next. I was still desperately trying to get picked up by an Esports organization, so she was our only hope of not going broke and getting evicted.

I was getting more and more frustrated with every loss and failure I came across. And with my frustration, came anger. I began to take the things she did for me for granted. Our conversations lacked love, I never said thank you for anything she did, I expected her to cook for me after she had a long day at work at would get mad when it wasn't to my liking. That stress on both of us along with her having to deal with her terrible work life led to the worst day of my life.

"Andrew, do you mind doing some grocery shopping? Here's a list of the stuff the house needs."

"Can't you do it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"I don't know, can you get your lazy ass up off of that computer and get a real job?"

"Tsk. When did you start giving me so much damn lip service?" I told her as I ripped the paper out of her hands.

Once I left to do the grocery shopping, I was surprised at how good I was at finding most of the items. I wouldn't expect someone like me to be this good at grocery shopping.

"Maybe I should do it from now on because when Sarah does it, she takes up to four hours." I said to myself.

I knocked out the rest of the list in about an hour and was on may way home when I saw it...

A car I didn't recognize parked in our driveway.

"No way..." I rushed out of my car and ran to my door. I put the key into it and turned the lock. As soon as I could, I bursted through door and ran into our bedroom to find a sight I wish I could unsee...

My girlfriend was in bed with another man.

"..."

The man and I made eye contact as his body was on top of my girlfriend's. He then said "My apologies" and got off of her. I was completely speechless as Sarah and this man got dressed in silence. She didn't even look embarrassed or regretful. She looked angry that I interrupted. I glanced over to his clothes to realize that he was putting on a suit and tie. He was a salaryman. Sarah probably met him at her job.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sarah." He tipped his hat and left the apartment.

I took a seat on our bed as Sarah and I sat there in silence.

"This is YOUR fault, you know. All those years ago you sold me that stupid dream of yours. Flash forward to today and you have NOTHING to show for it. I'm so close to losing my job and you won't even help one bit-"

"DO YOU JUST WAN'T ME TO JUST GIVE UP ON MY DREAM-"

"YES! YOU'VE BEEN SELFISH ENOUGH IN THIS RELATIONSHIP! THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND HIM! A MAN LIKE HIM WORKS EVEN THOUGH HE HATES HIS JOB!"

"Me? Selfish? I'm not the one that just got caught cheating..."

"But you are the one that dragged me down this path of yours like a damn parasite!" She snapped back.

That was enough to break me. The girl that I fell head over heels for. The girl that I ran away with...was calling me a parasite.

"I'm leaving..." I told Sarah.

"Good. He's agreed to pay the apartment off for a year if I kicked you out anyway. He actually knows what he's doing-"

I slammed the door behind me. I didn't want to hear anything else come out of her mouth. It'll ruin what we had even more. I drove away from that apartment and straight to my parents house. I had no other choice. Once I got there, they let me stay there.

But something broke in me. As I tried to make sense of that day, something told me that I was severely lacking and I needed to change for her. As if I had a chance to get her back. That's when I found it...

[MY FANTASY ONLINE! THE FIRST EVER VRMMO WITH 100% AUTHENTIC IMMERSION!]

"Once hundred percent immersion, huh? If it has character creation, I can be whatever I want. I could be her dream man." I thought of Sarah's dream man and that bastard she cheated on me with popped into my head. He was so backwards with everything he did. He made love to my girl and had the nerve to apologize and give her a salutation. He had manners in the weirdest situations.

Is that the type of man she likes?

"Then I'll be that man!"

It didn't take that long for me to get a headset and practice my salaryman impression. There was even a system called "Glams" that allowed you to change the appearance of your armor and weapons into whatever you want. I even got the name Aegis to represent my willingness as a tank to put my life before anyone else's. Surely she'll take me back now...right?

But seeing Jessica die before my eyes has confirmed it. I'll never get Sarah back. I've been living in a fantasy world this entire time and it just shattered before me. What the hell am I even doing here?

As my dome broke and the monsters surrounded me, I thought to myself:

I'm okay with dying. My sacrifice is enough...