Chapter 10: Camaraderie

It was only a half hour after our huge failure of a first meeting did Myrddin calm down.

It was really a character-establishing moment to me in regards to him, especially considering my observations on the new person I've met ever since I've apologized and healed his injuries.

Myrddin was, to be frank, a scaredy-cat. He was frightening to look at, yes; his armor was awesome in its original meaning, yes; his level was just a few levels below mine, yes, but that didn't change the fact he was a scaredy-cat.

His eyes refused to meet mine, he shrieked whenever a new eye monster popped up - much to my chagrin, as it called more and more of them - his swordsmanship was completely terrible, and while his looks told otherwise, he was a really really weak combatant.

It made me wonder about him, really...

"Hey, Myrddin."

It was a funny thing to see, an object of fear jumping up in surprise. Thankfully, Myrddin had learned to keep his voice down. "W-What?"

He turned his red eyes at me, which at that point had lost their intimidation value.

"You have a really nice singing voice." I commented offhandedly, leaning my head on my arms as we walked - making an image of being casual even as I carefully watched his reactions. "Why are you a Swordsman instead of being a Bard? I honestly thought you were some kind of singing monster or something."

It took him a while, but Myrddin answered quietly. "I did want to be a Bard... Do you know of the Syren race?"

"I'm a bit new to this world..." I replied truthfully while keeping a questioning lilt in my tone. "So, no. I don't."

Perhaps I imagined it, but I could've sworn Myrddin go red.

"Well... the Syren are a rare kind of demonfolk, but to those who know of them they are famous for their s-seductive singing, and maybe, just a bit, maybe I kind of wanted to become likethatsomedaybut- eh, not that I wanted to become something like an Incubus or anything, onlywantedtosingsongsandpleasepeople-"

I interrupted his mumbling. "But what?"

Myrddin sighed, all his nervous energy escaping him. "It's a long story... about a bunch of evil little gnomes, a sword, a bunch of bricks and me and... I may have accidentally learned the ten requisite skills for a Swordsman instead of the Bard's. Now, I'm stuck with this forever for the rest of my life."

That was... interesting.

So that was how normal Classes were achieved? By learning ten requisite skills for the job? That really made my own Class special - I didn't unlock it by learning skills, but by leaving my starter town.

Then, maybe... I was looking at this wrong. Maybe my next title would be unlocked differently too... then again, I didn't even know what kind of meaning 'The Priest' held. As far as I knew, the Tarot held meanings that were vastly different from what their titles suggested. Maybe I was wrong to even think the next title was about healing...

"How about you, Rain?"

Snapped out of my thoughts, all I managed was a quick "What?"

Apparently, that was enough to hit Myrddin's sensibilities.

"I-I-I'm sorry!" The swordsman stepped back quickly, as if stung. "Y-You don't h-have to answer, really!"

Sighing, I slung my staff off my shoulder. Myrddin looked at it, very much frightened and no doubt recalling the time it hit his face, but I cared for something else.

My Critical Eye lit my vision in red again.

Myrddin really should stop attracting all these monsters, really...

"Myrddin, get over here, now!"

The terrifying-but-easily-terrified-bard-wannabe-swordsman yelped, but thankfully followed as moments after he ran towards my back the ground around us burst in clumps of dirt and rock. Seconds later, after I summoned my customary Magelights, the resultant clouds of dirt revealed the enemies.

FLESH: Lvl 30 x 8

As their names suggested, these monsters were simple aggregates of red bleeding lumpy meat. With mouths. Dozens and dozens of mouths all over them that had gums but no teeth - though, I supposed teeth would've have been better instead of them spewing bloody acid and pieces of tongue. And when any FLESH died, it exploded into chunks of poisonous biological waste, leading any physical fighter to be greatly hurt whenever that happened.

The HANDs were the melee infantry. The EYEs were the ranged attackers. The FLESH?

They were the slow, heavy, self-destructing tanks that dealt poison and positioning to deal with their prey.

And now, eight of them surrounded the two of us in all directions.

"I really hate fighting these..."

I groaned, but I held my position. My staff crackled again, this time in deep blue and with sparks coming off it. With a mighty swing, I hefted my weapon and hit the closest wall of flesh in front of me.

Its HP bar dropped around a twentieth. I had to pull Myrddin away as all eight of them countered by slinging pools of red goo in our direction, also slowly getting closer as they did.

I really had to find a way to fight these guys properly, huh?

"Hey, Myrddin." I whispered to the large swordsman shaking beside me as they came close. "My answer to your question? I would've said Fool, but for now... call me the Magician."

I charged my energy to my staff again. But this time, unlike the previous sprinkle of mana, I focused a large fraction of my mana pool into the bludgeoned tip, raising it over my head as I did.

A window flashed before me. Reading it, I gave Myrddin a grin.

"Now, close your eyes, because this would be a blast!"

Mana Explosion (Active): Level 1A real magician has a dozen ways to make things explode! Note: good children at home aren't supposed to do this.

Effects:

Set an area around you to be affected and a focal point for the explosion to originate. Converts mana to pure destructive force.

Mana to energy conversion increases in relation to skill level and INT. Current conversion: 2.16 Kilo-Joule/MP.

The tip of my staff went white before the explosion happened.

I may have mentioned this offhandedly before, but the world of Fate Online had three- no, four kinds of beings.

The first of them was, in general, people like me. The Players.

Players held the most rights, held the most capabilities and advantages. It was to no surprise - the world of Fate Online was after all crafted for Players who wanted to enjoy a life outside the world of ordinary. Thus, Players had the advantage of learning skills, managing stats, having quests, and enjoying the ability of respawn after death.

The next two were the existences that came with the world. The NPCs and the monsters.

NPCs were the people that lived in this world of Fate Online. They had lives, enjoyed emotions, and generally went on domestic existences inside this world my father and his team had created. And, as I said before, they also held their own rights to live and to love, rights that the generation before me had fought for. But ultimately, they were only the characters on the background, mostly ignored by Players in a laissez-faire manner.

The monsters, on the other hand, were the opposite of NPCs in every way. They were simple bits of code given form, given shape just so the Players would have something to fight. From the cute Bunnies to the frightening monsters in the Darkling Woods, they were ultimately made to be killed, with some quest-important exceptions here and there. But nonetheless, they all held no emotion.

The last kind of being were the strangest of them all, the one that straddled the lines that separated the world of Fate Online. The NPC-Adventurers, or to put it simply, the Adventurers.

These beings weren't meant to exist. They were simply given form by the revolution that happened in my childhood - beings that used to be NPCs before they chose to leave their domestic lives to become Players in the world of Fate Online after they gained their rights for freedom.

Adventurers had emotions. They had lives. But most of all, they also had Skills.

One would think it mattered little - after all, Adventurers were a population that only numbered in the thousands in a world lived by hundreds of hundreds of thousands. But to Players and people of the scientific mind like me... they were almost like puzzle pieces. Existences that were meant to be carefully watched over. To be observed.

If they were only so easily to be found, though!

Think of it! If the Adventurers acted, looked like and thought like Players, how would you find them amongst the countless Players that existed? It was rare too that Adventurers admitted to being one when asked - they were simply not inclined to tell anyone.

Why? It was the thought of Death.

Adventurers didn't have the ability to respawn. That's why, to me, it was no surprise that some of them went Black because of the knowledge of their existence...

"Hey, are you alright now, Myrddin? Did I miss a burn?"

I held my hands out in front of him, energy already pooling at my palms for another healing session. My staff once again hung behind my back, looking much worse for wear but still usable.

Myrddin shook, but managed to nod. "Y-Yeah... I'm alright."

Thankfully, friendly fire was a reduced existence in the world of Fate Online. Sure, one could receive damage due to an ally's misfire, but it was a fraction of what it would've been if Myrddin was my enemy. That, and the fact that the explosion had prevented the suicide-damage from reaching us, was the only fact the swordsman before me survived.

It's a good thing, as I suspect Myrddin to be an Adventurer. After all, why would a Player be so scared, not when a Player could revive after his death?

However, I didn't voice my suspicions. I didn't need for the easily-frightened man before me to run away at this point.

My reason for being inside this bloody forest shone in front of me, to my eyes alone. It had updated the moment I had entered the forest, and I suspected as well that Myrddin really had something to do with it, Adventurer or no.

Quest: Elena's Request!Elena has told you the story of the origin of the strange sounds in the Darkling Woods. Identify and tell Elena as to what this singer is, all so she could sleep at night!

Quest Reward: ???

Scary looks? Check. Really good singing, up to the point of haunting your dreams? Double check.

Maybe even, after this Myrddin would end up being the next caretaker/helper of the Grimm Orphanage. After all, as far as I could see, the man beside me really didn't fit being a fighter or something along those lines. He liked to sing? Well, the kids needed to be amused... even if they would probably scream in fright the first time they meet the guy.

"U-Ummm... so you're a Mage?"

A smile was on my face after imagining the kids' reactions, so this time Myddin didn't gulp when I turned to him.

"I'm actually the Magician, not a Mage..." I rubbed the back of my head. "I don't really know what it means, but I'm quite sure the class helps me manipulate my mana. Like this."

I made a new Magelight to make a point. It was almost strange, how easy it was to make now... like a twist in the wrist or something, making these balls of light were stupefyingly easy the moment I equipped my Title.

Wait... what would happen if I take it off then...?

Myrddin interrupted my thoughts yet again. I blinked the moment I saw his face. He was... smiling?

"It's nice..." Myrddin looked at the ball of light with a childish sense of wonder, a bit of tired envy along with the tone. The Magelight looked like a fairy light as its colors changed from all the shades of the rainbow. "It's good that you can do things like that. Things that aren't just for fighting, skills that aren't just to kill monsters. I wanted to be a Bard to make people smile, and now..."

I'm stuck as a swordsman even though I don't want to fight, went unspoken.

I noticed him coming closer, the tension going away from his shoulders as the Magelight came close to his face, but I didn't voice it out. It was almost brittle, the expression on his face. And with the fact that he was finally relaxing around me... well, I wasn't about to ruin his peace.

When I was sure it was safe to do so, I gave my own olive branch to the forming solidarity between myself and Myrddin.

"You know, you could still sing."

Myrddin thankfully didn't jump up in fright this time. However, his eyes went down, a depressed tone reaching his voice.

"But... I'm not a Bard. My singing won't have any good effects; it's all just a distraction on the field as it is."

I huffed a bit beneath my breath, a smile reaching my lips.

"To be honest, you are horrible at fighting." Myrddin went still at that, only to relax again as I continued to speak. "However, you are so good at singing that singing just for the sake of singing is enough. For me at least. Plus, you seem to not like battling monsters, right? Then why are you even in this forest, instead of singing somewhere outside of it?"

A light entered Myrddin's red frightening eyes, but this time I wasn't scared to see it.

"R-Really?" He asked, turning to me with hope. "E-Even if I'm supposed to be a Swordsman, it would be alright for me to act like a Bard?"

This time, I couldn't hold back a snort. After all, I was a Fool pretending to be a Magician...

"Go for it!"

It was without warning.

As if a string suddenly snapped, a smile formed on Myrddin's face before he stood and opened his mouth and sang.

"♩I have seen the light. I have met a friend, and he has told me what's right!♭"

My face formed a grin as I thought of how as if-life-were-a-musical it was, but I enjoyed the beautiful tones that came from the person in front of me. Myrddin really was a good singer; of the demonic race or not, it didn't change the pleasing sensations his singing brought to whoever heard him.

"♩Monsters of the woods... Of flesh, blood, and bone!♭"

But then I thought and thought again.

How, if Myrddin was such a loud singer and weak fighter, did Myrddin manage to survive in this forest?

"♩We won't wait another day! We would fight the good fight!♭"

Where were the monsters that came after hearing a loud noise?

That was how I remembered a strange circumstance. The first time I met Myrddin, he was singing. Yet, he wasn't surrounded by monsters. If Myrddin was supposedly just another Adventurer, then why was Myrddin not attacked by the Darkling Woods for making loud noises?

Light is equal to damage over time here in the forest. Is it too much to think that sound could do the same?

If sound induced damage, then it would be no surprise that it caused aggro to nearby monsters. But what if the sound was loud enough, expressive enough to kill whatever weak enemy that tried to come close?

IT was a monstrous existence.

IT lived in the dark forest. IT ate, IT overpowered, IT consumed everything.

But IT hated both light and noise. Thus, IT came to EAT both of them.

All Players, including myself, knew and understood the subject of mobs.

Even I knew that killing a large group of weak mobs tended to attract the strongest ones. The Bosses.

However, at that point before I met IT, I failed to realize the meaning of my rampant killing of monsters inside the Darkling Woods. Myrddin too, failed to realize his singing had caused the deaths of dozens and dozens of sound-sensitive monsters, moving us closer and closer to the breaking point.

First came the many but easily defeatable, then came the few but difficult to fight.

The last song was what pushed us to the next stage.

It came with noise. Clicks, clacks of teeth, chattering loudly plus the gurgling sounds of blood being expelled and swallowed... holes - no, pores - popped out eyeballs and pus all over the skin. A strange beat, as if one enlarged a heart, filled the air as it came close.

The HANDs were the melee infantry. The EYEs were the ranged attackers. The FLESH were the tanks.

It? It was the mother of it all. It was the origin of all the monsters that lived in the forest of monsters, the parasite that took over the entire existence of the Darkling Forest.

Myrddin shook beside me, and I had to steel my own nerves to not do the same.

Like the FLESH, it was made of red meat. However, this meat wasn't just lumps of muscle and sinew. This flesh was made of skulls and faces, of misshapen arms and legs, of open wounds and large boils that popped and formed all over its entirety. Eyes, mouths, teeth, hands, arms, feet - all of them, as if someone placed the corpses of a thousand men and women into a crazy blender and pressed MUTATE.

It shadowed over us, rising way above the trees.

A Boss Monster has been encountered.

???: Lvl 65

That was when I realized maybe Myrddin really wasn't the quest objective after all.