Pride Online

“This is weird. It’s been almost five minutes now, but there’s still no one coming out to fight with your boss.” Waree said impatiently. The tall, slender figure was standing with her arms akimbo, watching the 18-meter monster. She was clicking her tongue as she felt dissatisfied. The taller man next to her laughed at her softly.

“Well, to fight with this kind of boss monster, they need some time to prepare. Just throwing everything they got at it, is not going to make them win, Waree.” The name’s owner chuckled as she felt like she was being mocked by him. The bright green eyes looked at the building that she saw a group of those crazy people just flying in to hide there.

“I think they already left.” The soft voice spoke with a mocking smile.

“Come on. Let's wait and see. There'll be someone coming to challenge it.”

“It’s been quite a while, Brother. I'm afraid that your Inferno’s already being stood up.” Waree disagreed, sighing softly. “What about the other players? Did they see that the first group got killed and just decided to run off?”

Her words made his thick eyebrows twitch a little, Thada brought out his window tap up. It was light grey with the letters GM on the back. He showed the screen with different live channels to Waree. One of them was playing the live video of a dozen players traveling from the town, fully armed.

“This is a live stream from Tristan, the nearest town from the dungeon.” Thada said moderately, “I guess that they’re traveling out of the city again after they respawned. They were dead right on the spot like that, it might take them a bit too long before they could get out of the hospital. Oh, well, they’re coming back with more weapons now.”

The piercing face drew a soft smile. It seemed like after they were defeated by Lord Inferno, the players realized how bad the monster was, so they got more prepared.

“Didn’t they realize that the quantity didn’t work on the monster? I don’t really think that any of them would defeat the Inferno.” The slender said, sounding a bit underestimating. She then looked at the building, across from the one that she was standing on the top of.

Unlike those players, there were only three of them, though they still got on Lord Inferno’s nerves so badly.

However, did they not take too long to plan something out? Well, she just hoped that they weren’t so chickened out and had already left the area by now.

Waree thought to herself before she looked up at Thada, worried.

“Don’t worry.” The young GM replied, “I’m sure that party will come out to get back at the monster again. Trust me, they’ll probably beat that boss up before the players from Tristan get here.”

-----------------

“What?!” a voice yelled aloud, echoing through their meeting circle. The golden-brown eyes caught Warunya's for a moment, then they glanced at the smaller figure who was sitting across from them with a bright, wide smile on her face. The girl nodded so intensely to confirm it, making Wisana shiver down his spine.

“No way. This plan is too reckless, Maysa. I don’t think that it will work.” Warunya was the first to disagree. A trace of anxiety appeared on her beautiful face.

“Don’t worry. I’m positive that my plan will work just fine.”

“But, May, I also think that the plan was kind of...” Wisana tried to protest, but his voice was so weak. He was sweating just by only thinking about it.

“You shut up, Vincent.” Maysa snapped at him immediately. “You’re the one who wants to fight Lord Inferno. If it’s not this plan, do you think that that boss will just stay still for us to beat him up? Also, you’re the only reason why this plan will work!”

“But Maysa, I think...” Another voice was not giving up in protesting so easily that the one who was protesting started to get annoyed!

Damn it, these two were just talking too much! Weren't they the only ones who were insisting on fighting the boss in the first place?! But as soon as they heard about her plan, they just could not stop whining, creasing their faces.

Maysa cursed them in her mind, her eyes dead gazing at each one of them until they gave up with the debate and just accepted it.

“So, does anyone still doubt my plan?”

The other two shook their heads intensely.

Well, since she was threatening them with her fierce eyes like that, who would have dared?

“Good. Now, I'm going to review the plan one more time.” As she finished, Maysa snapped her fingers and the hologram screen popped out with the graphic information throughout her review.

“First, we need to be divided into two teams,” she said as she was holding up two fingers. “The first team is to get the boss’s attention all the time, in other words, the decoys, which are Warunya and you, Vincent.” Wisana glanced at the girl next to him, then turned back to nod at Maysa.

“Got it.”

“Good,” Maysa smiled. “You’re the fastest in the team, so when you’re flying, keep flying around. Don't stop to be a fixed target. And when the wings' energy is low, you have to hurry and put Warunya down on the ground with me. You got that?”

“And what do we do after that?”

“We’ll leave you.”

“Hey!”

“Just kidding.” Maysa grinned. “After that, you try to not die by your agility and long jump skills.”

“You’re really giving me up, huh.” Wisana gnarred as he muttered the complaint. And when the mastermind gave a tricky smile to him, he sighed.

It was true that Maysa's plan was the best option, however, to keep evading the boss’s attack without the wings was quite scary, too.

“Another thing that you need to do, Vincent,” Maysa continued. “In case Lord Inferno is about to blast his ultimate skill, we need to stick together and use the scarf to absorb all the damage. It benefits us for being our defense and charging the energy for the butterfly effect at the same time.”

“Yeah, sure. Got this, too.” Wisana affirmed wearily as he realized that he alone had to do all this multitasking--flying around as a decoy, carrying Warunya everywhere, and when the boss tried to burn them, he needed to defend them, too.

So, this was what Maysa meant by preparing to be labored!!!

“What about me, Maysa, what do I have to do?” It was Warunya’s turn to raise her hand.

“Simple,” Maysa answered, grinning. Then she brought something out of her inventory window. They were firebombs and marine crystals. As soon as she saw the items, she understood her task right away.

“You want me to mix the items?”

“You’re so smart.” It had been a while since she last found someone with intelligence, the girl smiled broadly, snapping her fingers, satisfied.

“Mix?” And of course, the one who skipped all the tutorials had to typically repeat.

“It’s my class attribute that gives us the ability to mix, or to combine items together,” Warunya explained. “Maysa knew this from reading my information and abilities. Well, what do you want me to make?”

“We need a freezing blast,” Maysa replied loud and clear.

“Because the boss is one of the fire monsters, so the weapon that can be effective on him should be something icy.”

“Exactly.” Maysa smiled.

After that, Warunya placed the crystal and bomb on her lap, bringing out her personal window. There were some diagrams, letters, and numbers on it, looking so confusing to Wisana’s eyes. So, he could not stop himself from raising his eyebrows.

“It’s the window that is used to calculate the ratio of the base items, Wi... Uh... Vincent.” Maysa explained, creasing her lips a little that she almost said his real name again. “It’s a talent of the alchemist class and the items developer class.”

“Oh...” The curious one drawled his voice in understanding, but not quite understanding.

“Maysa, how many bombs and magic crystals do you have?” Warunya suddenly asked.

“My firebombs and his, altogether are 180, and the crystals can be around 2,900.”

“2,900?!” Warunya repeated loudly. “Why are you collecting so many of them? This type of item is not really useful for your gunner class anyway. Isn’t it better to just sell them in the market? You can make a very good profit out of them.” Seeing this girl’s eyes go wider as she was getting so excited made Maysa amused, smiling mildly.

“Previously I've been just explore the undersea dungeon, and this crystal was the only thing that the monsters there dropped. The thing is that after I came back, I haven’t met my usual buyer yet. And I didn’t want to sell them to anyone else either, since my guy is a bit of a fussy. He keeps repeating to sell good stuff to him only, so I keep them for him. You see, that’s why I got so many of them.”

“Yeah, I see now.” Warunya nodded in understanding.

“So, what’s the ratio of making the blast?” Maysa asked, leaning in to look at Warunya’s screen, too. It seemed like she could understand how to function this mixing item skill as well.

“One bomb to ten crystals,” Warunya replied.

“And will the damage increase, too.”

“Moderately. Usually, a firebomb’s damage is around 1000-1500 points. However, if it’s combined with 10 marine crystals, the damage can be up to 2000-2500 points, approximately.” This answer satisfied Maysa enough to give a thumbs-up as in 'well done!' And Wisana just let out an ‘oh.’ softly.

“But our biggest problem is not solved, yet. Maysa, you probably know about the level difference rule. The boss is level 180, our damage on him will be divided by half, anyway.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” The clear voice replied casually, bringing out another item from her inventory.

“We’re going to use this for our level differences problem.”

“This is... Magtiria potion!!”

“That’s right,” Maysa confirmed, her slender hand placing the potion in the middle of their meeting circle. Wisana was not quite following the other two. So, he just sat there, looking at the round, clear bottle with the golden liquid in it just like a common potion. When he did not see anything interesting from the bottle, he looked up to his friend, asking for context.

“This is a rare potion. It can double up the player’s attack points, increase the HP regain rate by 50 points per second. It also provides immunity to every kind of debuff for 20 minutes.” The curious one nodded, catching up with his friend now.

She was planning to use the potion to make up for the 50% of our damage that would be wasted by the level difference rule.

Damn, Maysa was such a smarty.

“But, isn’t that potion very expensive and rare? As I can recall, they cost one hundred thousand each!”

PRUUUF!

Wisana choked on his saliva when he heard such a rip-off price. But the owner was still smiling casually like the price was nothing and that it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Yeah, it’s not a big deal. Don't act too surprised.”

“No. You always have something to surprise me.” The hoarse voice commented with a creased face.

“Not as much as you do.” She said, eyes sparkling.

But the most surprised one seemed to be Warunya because since she had been in the game, she never knew someone who had items as varied as Maysa. Was this woman actually a fat cat robot from the 22nd century, or what? She just picked everything she wanted out of that magic inventory!

“Alright, listen up. I have 5 bottles of this potion. I'll split them into three shares. Warunya and I will have two bottles each, and Vincent, you’ll get one.”

“Wait, why do I get less than you two?”

“You’re a decoy, you don’t get to attack, right? Just carry it in case of an emergency. Okay?” Wisana nodded in understanding before he whined quietly in his mind.

Okay, he was just a decoy!

“For the 180 mixed bombs, I'll take 20, and you have the other 160.”

“Got it.” Warunya nodded.

“And your job is to use them to attack the boss when you’re flying up there with Vincent. When his wings are out of energy, you need to group up with me and find a spot to continue attacking the boss on the ground, understand?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Great.” Maysa smiled broadly. “I’ll call your team ‘air force commando.’” Hearing the name, the teammates glanced at each other, smilingly amused.

“Now, give each other some love, you two have so much to work together. Don't forget, teamwork makes dreams work.”