Chapter twelve: Sacred Underground Temple

"Lyssa… Lyssa…" on a slow Saturday I had been lazing around in my room thinking about how to handle this situation. She was by no means a bad child, but when it came to handling her, she was a little troublesome. Considering how animate Olivia was, I could definitely count on the fact that the personalities of the assistant NPCs were more than just flavour text now. That being the case, there was a 99% probability she'd attack me the moment I stepped into the Sacred Underground temple. Not out of malice, but because that’s what she was like.

"Corentin!" as I was thinking about these things, Maybelle rushed into my room without even pretending to knock. She jumped onto my bed and rolled over next to me, clinging onto me like a body pillow. She had done this so many times it's become a sort of a routine and I've since given up trying to tell her off.

"Sis, it's a little hard to breathe, so could you maybe not?"

"It's okay!"

"What is?" I sighed. If viewed from a certain angle, Maybelle and Lyssa had similar personalities, the only difference being the severity of their actions. Maybelle especially seemed like she'd be the type to enjoy combat when she learns more about it, and as an older… I mean young brother I felt slightly concerned for her future. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't just shrug off Lyssa's actions like it was nothing like I did with my sister. "Guess there's really no other choice."

"What are you talking about?" Maybelle asked while refusing to let go. Her legs had mine in a coil wrap like a snake and her bear hug left me with no avenues of action.

“Just wondering on how I’d go about defeating an adult Maybelle.”

"Me? Why do you want to defeat your older sister?! You cheeky brat!" She squeezed even harder.

"Oh no, I'm defeated," I said in monotone.

"Maybelle! Can you come down and give mommy a hand?" our mother called for her from downstairs. Looking at the clock, it was nearing dinner. It was a rather touching scene; in my previous life I never had a mother who asked for my help setting the tables, or even one who would eat together with me.

She made an annoyed face and finally released me from her death grasp. "Fineeee!" she yelled while dragging her body downstairs. I couldn't help but let out a chuckle; despite her complaints she was a good girl who listened to her parents and helped them around.

"Now then," before I went to have a nice and friendly ‘chat’ with Lyssa, there were some things I needed to prepare. The first obvious problem was the difference in our stats; even though she was technically 50 levels below me, I had given all my assistant NPCs maxed out equipment and weapons since I thought that’d be a good idea. Due to this the actual gap between her stats and my base stats were probably minimal at best. However, even my 50 level advantage wasn’t much when considering this was my first actual proper fight in this body, while for her it would be no different than any other fight. “I’ll have to arm myself.”

I pulled up my inventory tab and skimmed through everything that would prove beneficial in a fight against her. Lyssa’s strategy was quite… ‘barbaric’, if I had to use a word. She favoured attrition tactics whereby she would continuously heal and sustain herself while letting the enemy bleed out over a long drawn out fight. The counter to her strategy was very simple, break her sustain; either out-sustain her or inflict damage she couldn’t just shrug off with a heal. I had various sets of end-game gear all focused on different aspects of combat: there was one for pure defence, pure attack, a mix between both, support, and etc. “It should be either defence or attack,” I thought. In the end, I went with a pure damage-dealer set.

Interestingly, in the game there was a system known as ‘aesthetic override’ which allowed players to override the appearance of their equipment with any other equipment of the same type. For example, if I equipped heavy gauntlets then equipped soft wool gloves over it, the result would be soft wool gloves with the defensive power of heavy gauntlets. That system had persisted over to this world and I could wear all my armour under my casual clothes.

Once the preparations were over, I opened the guild tab to warp over.

[Sacred Underground Temple]

Managing NPC: Lyssa

Guild facility upgrades: Level 3 upgrades unlocked (maxed out)

Population: 1

Daily Gathering Spots: All available

Gold Storage: 2.147b

>

[Would you like to enter the guild castle?]

>

The moment I tapped on ‘yes’, my surroundings warped like a violent, nausea-inducing merry-go-round. One momentary blackout later, I found myself surrounded by darkness in a vast cavernous space, with only the pale blue fairy light of magical torches to luminate my vicinity. I wandered about in this hazy darkness for a while before I was stopped as my eyes were beset upon by a gargantuan marble structure in the distance. Howling winds from the tunnels of the cave rushed past me as a shiver ran up my spine. I stood there, frozen in awe; half anxious to see what lay beyond the steps to the temple, and half exhilarated like a child who saw his toys come to life.

The ‘Sacred Underground Temple’, as the name suggested was an ancient shrine that had been forgotten to time after it had become buried do to some event. The monumental Greek-inspired temple stood atop of a long flight of marble stairs, kept luminate through magical or divine means without a proper light source. Even as the master and architect of this place, as I stood at the base of the stairs, I felt a little intimidated. Only the temple was lit, everything else was dark, like it was the destination of some grand journey; a light at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s a lot more foreboding than I imagined,” I couldn’t help but comment to myself. I let out a lengthy sigh as I made my way up the stairs to face what was easily one of the greatest opponents of this world. Considering the low level of everything, an enemy at level 150 was no doubt going to be a difficult endeavour, and that thought alone put an excited smile on my face. For once I could understand why Lyssa and Ark were so enamoured by the idea of conflict.

It took almost five whole minutes to scale up the long flight of stairs even when I started running halfway through. The entrance to the temple were hidden behind large stone pillars, it was an enormous iron door that looked like it would withstand the blast of a nuclear bomb. All of this place was familiar, yet at the same time a new experience; what I saw through the end of a computer monitor couldn’t compare the majesty of seeing it in real life.

I took a deep breath and called out to her, “Lyssa,” the lonely resident of this massive castle.

The iron doors began to open, and the grounds proceeded to tremble and shake as if they had a mind of their own. A further heart-pounding thirty seconds had transpired for the doors to fully open themselves. I tried to peer inside but there was only darkness. Then, footsteps. Cold, desolate clacking strike of heels against stone floor. ‘Clack’, ‘clack’, ‘clack’. I couldn’t tell if it was the rhythm of my heart or the sound of an approaching enemy.

“Master,” I heard a womanly voice call for me from behind the shadows, then suddenly I felt a presence looming behind me followed by the dangerous ‘whoosh’ of a wooden staff flying through the air. “I’ve missed you… so much! How dare you leave me alone for so long!” I didn’t know how I managed it. My body instinctively went on autopilot as it turned around and blocked most of the blunt-force trauma from her staff-cum-mace by quick summoning a legendary-tier round shield to receive her attack. The force of the impact alone sent shockwaves that reverberated against the stone pillars and destroying parts of the ground between us.

“That’s quite an extreme way to greet your master, isn’t it?”

“Oh please, it’s just how I show my love.”