The Beginning of a Tale

Chaos Year 3, Day 110, 12:07 am.

"Infuse Electric element."

The Psion Blade, my right hand clenched on, sizzled with a buzzing sound, as high voltage electricity engulfed the sword.

I stood straight, casually holding my sword at the side, while the last remaining animal-faced humanoid monster dashed toward me.

'Goat, Rooster, Ox, Pig, and finally this one, Dragon…Wait, these are all from the Chinese zodiac, right? They look horrible though.'

"Tesla Shock!"

Finishing the words, I snapped my fingers. Instantly an electrical current was generated, which found its way through the air to strike the Dragon-headed monster.

The damage the spell dealt was rather insignificant, but it had another function. The monster got stunned for 1 whole second. Therefore the iron club it held high never swooped down to crush me.

I lunged at the monster, thrusting my sword forward, and stabbed it deep.

The monster could neither move away nor screech, while I carved a hole into its body. Then with a twist of my hip, I spun my body around, taking out the blade in the process. And with the same swiveling motion, I drew a large slash across the monster's chest.

Finally free from stun, the zodiac-faced monster jerked back with a loud piercing cry.

"Aurrghhh!!"

Giving no time to stabilize itself, I dived in. "Volt Charge!"

A purple flash zoomed across the arena, as I swept past the monster at an incredible speed, dealing a fatal blow with my sword in the process.

The trails of electric sparks crackled behind me, as the upper part from the hip of the monster fell to the ground, sliced apart by my strike.

'So this is what it feels like…'

Standing still, I took a deep breath closing my eyes. The strong rusty scent of fresh blood filled my head, inducing a strange unknown sensation throughout my body.

Hot blood soared through my veins, and my heart thumped so hard I could hear it bang in my ears. It could be an adrenaline rush, but I felt so light, full of energy, as my whole body seemed to tremble with excitement.

'Was battle always this fun?'

I took in another long breath of blood-scented air to savor this moment.

"What the hell was all that?" Lynx asked from behind.

"Y-yes, especially that last dash." Annette-san's voice cracked. "It's like the Flash but purple. And when you finished that dash, only then the monster got sliced into half."

I turned back to catch my squadmates' expression. Both Lynx and Annette-san had their jaws fallen, totally flabbergasted by my new playstyle.

'Cool! It looks like my big reveal was a success.'

"I'll get back to it later." I smiled, keeping a mysterious vibe. "We gotta take care of the big guy first."

"Ah right. Boss is facing that all alone." As if breaking a spell, Annette-san came to her senses and then rushed toward Boss. "I will go heal him ."

"Wait." I stopped her, grabbing her hand. "He will be fine for another 10 minutes at least. You go help Hikari first. She blacked out for some reason."

"What?" She glanced where the two of our squadmates stayed put.

Hikari lay on the ground, seemingly senseless. Pinkpika sat near the unconscious body, letting Hikari's head rest on her lap.

"What happened?" Annette-san asked, knitting her brows together.

"Dunno. I found them like that when I got here." I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "You are the doctor. See if you can do anything."

Nodding, Annette-san sprinted toward the duo. While Lynx and I headed to help Boss.

"Rio, you Asshole!" 

Shinji finally showed up, getting out of that mess I created inside the tunnel before teleporting myself to save Pinkpika. He seemed pretty much unharmed but a layer of dust tanned his pale white face dark.

"You almost fucking killed me!" He kept yelling from a 20 meters distance, striding toward us.

"I did warn you." I shrugged. "You didn't listen."

"How would I know you could… Anyway, you could have carried me here with Teleport. But you just saved yourself, Bastard!"

"I actually can't. My teleport skill is level 1 now." I replied, stepping forward again. "I reset my skill points."

"What? Why?"

The puzzled look in Shinji's eyes kept rising every second. While Lynx just sighed and took his invisible form, completely cutting off his presence. The reason for all the confusion was none other than my absurd revelations one after another.

Teleport turned into one of the most important skills for any mage over the years. Group transportation, helping oneself and other companions escape from immediate danger or replacing themselves for better positioning and safer distance, and many other reasons why the Teleport skill became essential. 

And leveling the skill up to the max level was a norm for all mages since it was a must for a larger range and group teleportation. Yet here I changed my Teleport skill to level one. What could be more absurd than this?

But I just smiled slightly watching Shinji's confused face and replied, "I'll explain later."

Leaving Shinji dumbfounded, I went ahead to meet Boss, still clashing with that enormous unpleasantly deformed monster.

[You have encountered a field boss]

[Naked Mole-rat King, level 295]

'Oh? That's the highest level of all the monsters we fought yet.'

"Master, look out!" Riri suddenly screamed, appearing before me on a system window.

"!"

A huge snakelike tail swept at me from my left. 

We fought mole-rats before. This one was just an oversized nasty looking one. But its movement speed was oddly fast for its huge body. Thankfully Riri alerted me, or else I would have been a goner already.

"Teleport." 

To dodge the Tail Whip, I teleported myself to the other side of the Mole King, near Boss.

"Hello, Boss." I greeted him with a nod.

"What the hell are doing here at the front?" Boss frowned, but then his eyes met my Psion Blade. "So, you really did become a magic swordsman?"

"Nope," I replied, hiding behind Boss, as the monster again tail-whipped us. 

Boss masterfully defended against the heavy attack. It pushed us back a few feet but we were unharmed, well at least I was unharmed. Boss had his health chipped away a bit. Defending against the continuous onslaught tired him out gradually, putting more and more pressure on his fatigued body.

"Sorry, I'm late." Shinji finally caught up at the front line.

"Alright!" Boss shouted out, getting pumped up. "Everyone's here."

"Ah Boss, Hikari is down," I informed him. "She…"

A familiar sharp voice chimed in to interrupt me. "I'm fine."

Hikari stood dignified on her feet, back with her steeled composure. Pinkpika also got up beside her, still staring at me with awe in her eyes.

"You finally showed up, Ryoki-kun." Said Hikari.

From her tone, I could not tell if she was happy or if she just mocked me. Also, she was a bit too far away for me to catch her expression, even squinting my eyes.

So I just replied, "Yeah."

Annette-san by then fully healed Boss. With newfound strength, Boss again got up to his game, ramming his shield onto the ground. 

"Shield of Dawn, Transformation!"

With Boss's yell, the shield that seemed to be indestructible started breaking apart on its own. Then it again reformed itself into a huge golden greatsword with a small dragon head at the end of the red handle.

'Transformers, medieval version…'

"Let the hunt begin!" Boss grinned with eyes sharper than ever, holding the blade over his broad shoulder. That greatsword was large enough to be compared with Guts' one.

"A sword?" Pinkpika gaped at the majestic blade. "Isn't he a Tank? What's he going to do with a sword?"

Hikari beside her, while scrolling away on her system interface, explained to Pika, "Boss is a Guardian Knight. Even though they are mainly responsible for the squad's defense, they are still knights, who can fight when needed." Then rolling her eyes, she added, "In Boss's case he apparently thinks the offense is the best defense, always charging on, trashing the idea of defending the squad."

"My physical attack gets increased by 50℅ percent of my max physical defense." Boss grinned, as he dived in to attack the mole king. 

Boss and Shinji kept exchanging blows with the monster, maintaining its attention on them. The monster struck them hard with both its front legs which had long bladelike nails.

"So, I can hold the attackers off just with…"

"Oh, c'mon. Just admit that you are overgeared." Lynx cut into Boss's speech, suddenly appearing behind the monster. "No way he'd be able to stand his ground against a DPS character being just a tank with no shield, even if he is a knight."

As he spoke, he successfully managed to surprise the field boss, cutting half its long tail off.

'Nice job. No more crazy tail whips.'

"Yeah, Boss's defense is higher than usual because of his overpowered equipment," I added after Lynx while taking out a mana potion from the inventory. Gulping down the entire bottle, I continued, "Also that shield slash sword is one of those Lost Treasures mentioned in the Holy Book."

"Oh my God!" Pika's eyes glinted with amazement. She could not hold her excitement as her mouth gaped.

'Well, can't blame her. It is quoted in the book that there are only a hundred of them in the whole freaking game. Among millions of players, our Boss has one, and surely most of those weapons are still to be unearthed.'

Others did not know about the Lost Treasures, so they also frowned except Boss. He only became more curious.

"Wait, how did you know that?" Boss asked, forgetting about the heinous monster before him. "It is mentioned somewhere in the details of Shield of Dawn. I just thought it's some old legend or something. You know, like details are always unnecessary, right?"

'They are so not!'

Sighing while shaking my head sideways, I replied, "Pika loves reading books, you know that right? Well, sometimes she can't just stop talking when she finds something interesting." 

I glanced at Pika, reminiscing about the old days. Pika on the other hand just did the legendary 'index fingers pointing at each other thing' while blushing a little.

"That's how I found out about these Lost Treasures. It also interested me, so we did some more research together."

"Ohhh! This is pretty huge…"

Boss began but was interrupted by Shinji, "Guys, can we talk about that later…Hekk!"

He flew 10 feet away, unable to withstand the immense attack power anymore. After Boss stopped clashing with the naked mole king, Shinji took the full-on assault, all alone.

"Ughhh!" Shinji groaned in pain.

Wasting no time, Annette-san hurried toward him to heal his wound.

"Right, we are sorry."

"Yeah."

Boss apologized and I also joined him, scratching the back of my head.