Gather round children as I tell you a tale of bloodshed and carnage, of romance and friendship of- oh for gods sake just read it yourself ;D

Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 72: Back into Habit

After dragging the somewhat mentally scarred Zergoon with them, Makoto and his party left the tavern after eating some desserts, paid by the big man Z himself with the help of a strangling stare from Sanja.

Their first target was an NPC called Stellarwick who was responsible for the murder of a well-respected merchant in Elisante and his wife.

Finding a person in Undercity was quite easy as there was eyes and ears everywhere and a few copper coins were an easy way to gain some leads as to where they could find said person.

Considering that they would gain nearly 3 Gold from getting rid of the guy it didn’t really matter much to them that they had to spend a few coppers to get to him, they saw it more like an investment.

“Listen Sanja I am sorry alright, can you please stop looking at me like that?”

Zergoon said behind Makoto for the third time now and he couldn’t help but sigh.

Just why the hell did he think that inviting this guy had been a good idea?

I mean sure they had spent some time together but he had not been aware that he would do something like THAT and especially to someone that Makoto considered a close friend at this point.

“What do you mean, I am just looking at you normally.”

“Looks more like you want to skin me alive to be honest.”

“Oh I am sure that would be fun too but I was thinking something else.”

“Makoto!”

Once again sighing deeply he turned around to the distressed Zergoon while putting a hand on his shoulder.

“The hole you dug is too deep, it was nice knowing you my friend.”

He said with a completely straight face as he ignored any further pleas of his ‘brother’.

Turning to Sanja he said a short “that’s enough for now” and she thankfully stopped her rather ominous stare that she had been giving the guy.

Honestly speaking he didn’t really know what to do if she hadn’t listened to that and the thought alone that she had now turned into an unpredictable variable in his party scared him a little.

Pushing these thoughts to the side for now, they traveled through the packed streets of Undercity while ignoring the screaming Merchants that tried to sell their wares.

Finally leaving the market behind them they reached a place that could probably be counted as the residential area, or at least one of them.

Once again tipping a few Copper coins to a friendly looking old lady that had seen better days and dressed in rather skimpy clothes he was told that Stellarwick lived in a mansion not far.

Thanking the woman while trying his hardest not to think about what her day or even night job was they followed the stone road, passed a few buildings and corners before stopping at their destination.

Looking towards Sharon and Zergoon they both nodded his way, therefore telling him that this really was the place.

Both had the title Bounty Hunter and it allowed them to gain something akin to a skill.

The effect was that they could feel the general direction of their Bounty request target but it was extremely imprecise and would only give them a clear sign that said target was close if they managed to get into a range of 1000 feet.

It was useful but at the same time flawed so asking around or investigating was still 10 times faster than following this strange feeling but it did help pinpoint the person of interest if they already had a hunch that they would be at a certain place.

“Alright people, get ready for combat.”

Makoto said while also drawing his sword and making sure that his pet spider was out of the way.

Zergoon had been more than a little surprised when he saw the little critter and even more so was told that his friend had managed to join a house.

After trying to touch Acerbus and failing miserably as the spider instead decided to bite him he finally accepted that he wasn’t dreaming and Makoto really had a pet which was until then an item completely foreign to Players and 99.9% of the NPCs.

Feeling the grip of ‘Queligan’s Splinter’ in his hand gave him a sense of nostalgia and security.

Sanja held her staff at the ready while Lilliana summoned her Labyrinth boar to have a secondary tank in the battle, at the same time Sharon nocked one arrow while putting the other in her mouth.

Noticing the change in the party the surrounding people started to immediately back off as they approached the Mansion that seemed more like a small castle, it even had guards standing next to the closed iron gate.

“Halt! Who dares go there with such rude beha-“

Not even bothering with the entire thing Makoto dashed forward while holding his breath.

One other reason he had wanted to fight Ingame was to see if he really could improve or learn a martial art but most of his ideas needed a live target so these 2 enraged guards were the perfect test-dummies.

Putting both hands around the grip of his sword he slowly exhaled and focused on the weapon in his hand.

Instead of just slashing and hacking away with it he tried to follow a set pattern while keeping his movements to a minimum so he would use the least amount of energy for the best effect.

Dodging half a step to the side, one of the pikes in the guard’s hand shot past his chest, leaving only a few sparks on his armor before Makoto took a step forward and seemingly casually struck out with his blade.

1281 Damage dealt!

Makoto couldn’t help but be secretly surprised at the obvious difference.

Sure he had leveled up a bit thanks to the siege but previously the damage of a normal attack of his, especially one not hitting a vital area, would only deal around 8-900 Damage.

He couldn’t help but grin as he once again dodged the swing of the heavily clad man with ease before giving the man a quick stab to the face.

Critical hit!

2074 Damage dealt!

The number alone was absolutely insane as the previously only injured NPC immediately collapsed to the ground dead.

This alone showed that Makoto had been on the right track with his attempt to get a real feel of his weapon after having used it to such an extent already.

Feeling the burning flames of battle surging through his veins he turned to the other guard and was about to attack before a deafening sound rang out behind him and a silver streak shot past his shoulder.

With a seemingly ungodly force the guard, who had until then been completely unaware of this new threat, was struck in the chest by the silver streak and instantly flew off his feet.

Accompanied by a bang that made Makoto’s teeth shudder the man was impaled into the stone wall behind him with a grotesque pose, unable to even let out a single scream before dying.

All of this happened in only a split second and after seeing the metal spear that had in a single moment shredded through armor and life of the NPC he couldn’t help but turn around to Zergoon who was still holding his monstrous crossbow.

“Told you it held a good punch but this thing is a one hit wonder, either I kill something right away or whatever I attack survives and I die, pretty little room for error with this class.”

Showing his teeth in a brilliant smile he seemed to be pretty proud of his kill but that smile only remained for the time it took him to reach the corpse that was already disappearing and he found out that the spear he had used was completely stuck in the stone wall.

“I’ll get it later I guess.”

Zergoon said with an annoyed expression and took the lead as they headed inside the castle like mansion through a little door next to the closed Iron Gate.

Greeted by a garden with a little pond off to the side they examined their surroundings and soon enough noticed 2 Archers that resided in a little tower close to the wall.

They still hadn’t noticed the intruding party so Makoto quickly whispered to his teammates.

“Zergoon, Sharon, can you guys take care of those two so they don’t make a ruckus or sound the alarm?”

Both nodded in unison and while his red haired Angel knocked 3 arrows at the same time the new guy in the party took about 15 seconds to load just one of his gigantic spears.

It really was a slow process but after seeing the incredible lethality he didn’t doubt for a second that Zergoon probably had the highest burst Damage in the entire group.

Sharon was the first one to attack and with only a small sound her 3 arrows pierced through the air and quickly imbedded themselves in a live chest.

Not even giving the man a chance to wonder what was going on, half a second later 3 more arrows decorated his body and he slumped to the ground.

She had used one of her Skills with a medium long cooldown called ‘Quickshot’ which allowed her to quickly load a maximum of 3 arrows at its current level and hit the same target again in quick succession.

Zergoon on the other hand had finally finished his preparation and didn’t bother using any Skills at all.

Lilliana and Sanja both had their fingers in theirs ears as the gigantic crossbow went off and soon enough another body flew through the air.

As there was no wall behind the target, this time they were able to see the actual force behind the attack as the archer flew nearly 100 feet straight through the air before the spear slowly but surely descended with its new attachment.

Together with a disgusting smack as if someone squished a fly the archers body hit the floor and blood exploded out in nearly every direction.

“Just how much goddamn damage does one of your spears actually do?”

Makoto couldn’t help but ask as they neared the metal spear and Zergoon managed to recover his ammunition this time.

Shrugging his shoulders he once again started to load his weapon.

“Not sure man, I have only been getting these ‘lethal hit!’ messages for a while now so I guess I have to fight a boss to find out.”

Nearly every member of the party right away gave the working Zergoon a stunned look as they were well aware of how rare lethal hits normally were but it was all he got?

In a way it was scary but Makoto couldn’t help but think the guy would be a great addition to the team and maybe could even help them with removing the king.

Wouldn’t just one of his spears be enough to finish pretty much anyone?

It felt incredibly imbalanced but after once again waiting for 20 or so seconds for another spear to be ready and loaded he changed his mind.

Sure the projectile had an insane amount of power and flew fast but if you managed to dodge it then, just as Zergoon said, you would be able to easily kill the guy with no problem.

Until now he hadn’t seen it but another guess of his was that the actual accuracy of this gargantuan weapon was probably pretty bad at long distances as unlike normal arrows the amount of air resistance one spear had to face was a lot more.

This in turn would make hitting something quite a chore as missing your target by a few feet could very well happen.

All in all Makoto could see that the class ‘Giant Slayer’ had a big advantage for damage but on the other hand all the disadvantages of the class made more than up for it.

Once again ready for more action they picked whatever loot had dropped from the two archers as Sharon quickly ascended the tower for a little bit of surveillance.

“I think I saw a little courtyard with a table and quite a lot of people eating on it in the middle of that main building over there so it might be worth a shot to check it out.”

She told everyone after climbing back down again.

Trusting her word more than he trusted himself Makoto quickly gave the ok for the change of plans and they made their way past the entrance of the main building.

One of the reasons he was the shot caller and party leader was because everyone naturally knew and trusted him but after informing them of his stat ‘Authority’ that would increase all of their stats by 11% whenever he lead a party there was not even a discussion about it anymore as it was just too big of an advantage to pass up.

With the effort of the entire group they quickly dispatched the guards in the entrance area and even Sanja their Cleric was using attack focused Skills to help out as there had been not even a single scratch on them until now.

Even though it was nearly a dozen guards, Lilliana’s summoned Labyrinth boar and Makoto himself managed to tank or dodge all the damage that was done.

As a Summoner Lilly naturally had the ability to also heal her boar so there was not much for Sanja to do except join the attack and maybe speed things up a little.

Interestingly enough killing actual NPCs had a much higher chance than monsters to actually drop gear as soon enough a somewhat rusty sword was left on the ground for them to pick up.

Considering how insanely rare those kinds of drops normally are with monsters it showed the rewards one could reap after going down the chaotic or evil road were quite plentiful.

Well it did make sense that there was this kind of advantage considering how many goddamn disadvantages having negative Alignment brought so being able to actually earn the same rewards without their nature changing in Undercity was quite a nice catch.

Although Makoto’s level had long since surpassed his current sword’s abilities, it was after all a Boss drop so even now when he acquired a sword that had double the level requirement that ‘Queligan’s Splinter’ had it was still worse by a little bit.

This showed that although NPCs did drop more loot, the actual quality loot dropped by monsters would stay with a player for a much longer time as the effects on each item outgrew normal drops by more than 10 levels.

Even still, Makoto was painfully aware that he needed a complete overhaul in his equipment rather sooner than later as he still wore a few things he had gotten pretty early on into the game while also missing things like a helmet, shoulder pads or accessories.

Once again trying his best to feel the movements of his sword rather than just whack the guy in front of him he made a mental note to speak with Narkas when he returned to Elisante for some new equipment.

After all he had quite a lot of money now after the Siege so it was about time to spend some of it.

1092 Damage dealt!

Piercing through enemy armor like it was Swiss cheese thanks to his ‘Penetration’ skill, Makoto once again managed to get rid of another armed guard as they went deeper and deeper into the main building.

It was quite surprising that a simple murderer was able to afford such a place but if he became a murderer so he could steal all of that well respected merchant’s gold then it made a lot more sense as to why they had to fight an entire army before arriving at the actual guy in question.

No wonder no one had finished that Bounty request until now.

As far as Makoto could tell each of these heavily armored guards was level 25 and above so for the solo Bounty Hunter or average party this was a nearly impossible task to fulfill.

Although Zergoon didn’t have the same Bounty request and was just tagging along until they got to the guy he was also interested in this still was free experience and loot for him after all.

Picking up the second sword they acquired since entering the building as well as a dented buckler they proceeded down the stone hallways, somewhat lost.

The entire thing was gigantic to begin with and took up a big space in the residential area of Undercity so it wasn’t easy to find their way but after a lot of trial and error they finally managed to find the right door leading towards the courtyard Sharon had spoken of.

Sitting there on what seemed like a throne was a muscular man with a double headed war-hammer lying on his lap.

He was seated at a table that was filled with all kinds of luxurious food and drink and quite a few barely clothed women were serving and entertaining the other guests.

Noticing the ruckus the new arrival had created after entering the courtyard the man on the throne looked up and Makoto was able to see his name right away in red letters which indicated that he was the guy they had been looking for.

Stellarwick: NPC Boss lvl 28

Somewhat surprised about their appearance a wide smile soon enough showed on the man’s face as he opened his arms in a friendly gesture.

“Welcome to my humble abode my young guests! Judging by your attire and rather interesting way to barge into my home I can only guess that you are here because of the Bounty that is on my head.

I have to say I am impressed that you managed to make it past all my guards but I advise you to lay down your weapons and join me on this table instead.

I have enough money to grant you a happy live and much more than a simple Bounty request can give you, just look at how all the others that came before you are enjoying life at my side.”

The man said while pointing at the guests sitting and eating around the table.

“So they are the previous Bounty Hunters?”

Makoto asked, somewhat surprised and Stellarwick nodded.

“All of them have decided to join me and keep my assets safe so why don’t you do the same? I can promise you riches beyond your wildest imaginations and an easy life as long as you protect me.”

Showing each and every one a brilliant and friendly smile, Stellarwick waited for a response that didn’t come.

Hearing a rather sudden sound he turned to the now giggling Makoto who held a hand before his mouth.

With a dark voice that immediately got the alarmed attention of both Lilliana and Sharon he spoke through the hand that still covered his mouth.

“Oh I am going to enjoy your death a lot more than I probably should.”

Before anyone had the time to react, Makoto dashed forward while a mad crimson light sparkled in his eyes.

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And there we go, yet another chapter done and a somewhat mean way to leave things but hey you guys know I love to torture my readers with cliffhangers :D

As always if you find any mistakes please do tell and see you all on Thursday! (hopefully really this time without delaying things constantly by one day *sigh*)

PS: I am hungry :Q

Abbadon out!