Chapter 70: "Playing 2/2"
"Playing 2/2"
"Don't underestimate me, you idiots!" the leader shouted as he raised his sword in a defensive stance.
"This is gonna be easy—" Before George could finish speaking, the leader yelled, "Dash!" and rammed him with his shoulder, sending him flying several meters back.
Luckily, George had good reflexes and managed to cross his swords in front of him to defend, but the impact felt like getting hit by a truck, injuring him slightly. When he landed, he had to kneel, a drop of blood trickling from his lip.
"Shit. George, you okay?" Fred asked quickly, keeping his guard up.
"I'm fine. Fred, watch out!" George shouted as the leader set his sights on Fred.
"Dash!" the leader said, appearing in front of Fred and slashing downward. "Shock!" he shouted.
Fred quickly rolled to the side to dodge.
The sword, finding no target, struck the ground, creating large cracks where Fred had just been standing and sending out a shockwave that momentarily threw him off balance.
The leader took advantage of this and swung a horizontal slash toward Fred.
Seeing this, I quickly kicked one of the rusty knives lying on the ground, aiming for the leader's face.
The leader stopped his attack and blocked the knife with his sword.
Fred used the distraction to jump back, putting more distance between himself and the leader.
"Boss, we know we said magic knights sucked and that learning it was useless..."
"But we have to admit, this is awesome!" the twins said excitedly.
"Ugh, say that after we beat the boss," I said, keeping my guard up while watching the leader.
"Ha ha ha ha. You damn rats, I'll cut you into thousands of pieces and devour you while you're still alive!" the boss said, laughing like a villain.
"Normally, a person isn't alive after being cut into thousands of pieces," I said with a mocking smile.
"Unless they're some kind of zombie."
"But in that case, it'd be rotten meat. I don't think that tastes very good," the twins added as we surrounded the boss.
"Then I'll just slice you open and devour your organs while you watch in terror at your own demise! Ha ha ha ha!"
Not giving us time to comment on his weirdness, the boss took his defensive stance again and resumed his attack.
"Dash!" This time, he aimed at me, but I jumped aside, dodging him.
Taking advantage of the momentary instability caused by missing his strike, Fred threw his mace, holding onto the rope to pull it back.
The boss raised his sword just in time to block.
"Ha ha ha! Too slow. Too slow!" the boss shouted excitedly, showing his madness.
Then, George took the lead, charging at the boss with both swords.
He gave me a look, to which I nodded slightly, showing I understood. He then took a horizontal strike with both swords and was sent flying again a few meters. His rusty sword shattered into pieces, leaving him only with his bone sword.
After exchanging glances with George, I had already prepared myself and moved behind the boss. When George was hit, I took advantage of an opening and struck one of the boss's legs with my spiked club.
"AAAAAH, you damn bastard!" the boss screamed, swinging his sword wildly in my direction.
Barely dodging five or six slashes, I retreated again.
Though he managed to graze me a couple of times, the cuts weren't deep, but my clothes ended up torn and bloody.
"Nice one, boss!" Fred shouted as he regrouped with George.
"Damned... damned... damned..." The boss seemed to have lost it, repeating the same word over and over as his eyes turned blood-red with rage.
"Dash!" He charged at me, but with an injured leg, his skill lost speed, giving me more room to move.
"Shock! Shock! Shock!" Upon reaching my position, the boss spammed his shock ability over and over again against the ground.
"Maybe abilities need a cooldown time," I said as I moved a few meters away to dodge the shockwaves.
"Don't be ridiculous, boss." "Being able to use a skill over and over makes it awesome," the twins quickly argued.
"Alright, don't complain later," I said as I regrouped with them to explain the plan I had in mind.
"Fred, aim for his nape. George and I will take the aggro up front," I explained quickly.
"Why me again? You already have aggro, boss. I'm not needed," George complained, a bit frustrated from taking the hits twice and only having one sword left.
"Don't whine. He's the only one with a decent weapon," I said, showing my spiked club, which was about to break. It might last one more hit, but it wouldn't do much damage.
"Fine," George said with resignation, getting ready.
"Time to prove that Mace Maximus is the true epic weapon!" Fred said excitedly with a big grin as he raised his bone club made from a coccyx.
"Wasn't it legendary?" George asked.
"It's legendary-epic," Fred corrected, while I ignored them and prepared to attack.
After throwing his tantrum at the ground, the boss seemed to have regained some of his sanity—if he had any to begin with.
"What did the poor ground ever do to you?" I mocked.
"Maybe he just found out that's where vegetables come from," George added beside me.
"Disgusting rats! Dash!" the boss shouted, appearing right in front of us and swinging another horizontal slash. I dodged it Matrix-style while George jumped high to avoid it as well.
"Now!" we shouted together, attacking the boss's head.
The boss let go of the sword with one hand to defend himself, taking heavy damage to his right hand. This made it difficult for him to wield his sword quickly with his left hand, almost dropping it.
"Aaarg, damn you!" the boss shouted in anger as he tried to attack us again with just one hand.
At that moment, Fred seized the opportunity and attacked the boss from behind.
"Mace Maximus!" he shouted foolishly as he struck the boss's head.
The boss didn't have enough time or speed to defend himself and took the hit head-on, falling to one knee, blood staining his face. But he still had a few seconds to make his final comment.
"Huff, huff... ha ha ha... even if you defeat me, you're doomed... ha ha ha," he said before falling forward and exploding into bright particles, leaving the drop behind.
Typical miniboss lines.
"Awesome!" the three of us shouted as we collapsed onto our backs, staring at the sky.
"That was exhausting, ugh," said George, sprawled out with his arms and legs stretched out. His bone sword vanished along with my spiked club.
"This mace will be my main weapon from now on," Fred said with a grin.
"If the game continues. Maybe that was it," George said, crushing his brother's dream.
"I don't think so. Joseph was the creator of the testers' worlds, the ones who never wanted to wake up. I wouldn't be surprised if he created a new world," I said as I sat up.
And took off my dirty shirt, which was bothering me a little.
"Boss, tell me what dropped. I don't want to get up," George said, exhausted, since he had taken the most damage.
"Hey, I'm exhausted too. I lost a lot of blood," I said, pointing at my stained clothes, which I tossed at him. I was exaggerating a little, but I was really tired.
George barely moved, so the shirt landed right on his face. He quickly grabbed it and threw it away.
Fred, being the least exhausted, got up and checked the drop for us.
"Awesome, Boss and George! It dropped the sword and two separate enchantments," he said, showing the greatsword and two runic scrolls containing the enchantments and their descriptions.
"Ugh, I don't like the sword. I prefer speed, and even if I wanted an enchantment, I don't have a weapon to use it on," George said from the ground, uninterested.
"I already have a weapon, so the sword is out. Either of the two enchantments works for me," Fred said, leaving the drop between us to decide.
"Alright, the sword is mine," I said casually as I picked up the greatsword.
"I'll take Dash then. I'll need to find a weapon," George said, grabbing one of the scrolls.
"That leaves Shock for me. I'll put it on my mace," Fred said with a grin, picking up the remaining scroll.
"You have to write the runes perfectly to use the item," I warned Fred, who was excited.
"Then, Boss, please," he requested, handing me the items with both hands.
I sighed. "Alright, but when we find the in-game currency, I'm charging you for this," I said, using a bone from the ground to engrave the mace.
It took me only a few seconds.
"That was fast!" Fred said, surprised.
"Obviously, because I did it. Normally, someone would take much longer. By the way, even the slightest mistake would have made your weapon disappear," I said with a smile.
"Then, good thing you asked the Boss and not me," George said with a smug grin.
"Yeah, lucky me," Fred added, wiping nonexistent sweat from his forehead.
"Alright, let's get outside before our time in the booths runs out," I said. In reality, my time had run out a while ago since I only had half an hour available.
We had been playing for three hours, but I used my admin privileges to register our session as "maintenance." We could only use this excuse for three hours before the booth's energy ran out and we were automatically ejected. That was the maximum continuous usage time the booths could handle.
"Alright," they both said as they got up and followed me.
I strapped the greatsword onto my back. Fortunately, the drop included a sheath; otherwise, I would have had to drag it around like the boss did since it was quite heavy.
"As soon as I find another sword, I'll sell it. I prefer more mobility," I commented, feeling the massive weight on my back—literally.
After walking for a few minutes, we reached the large wall's gate. Instead of opening it, we climbed one of the towers beside it.
"What the hell?!" Fred shouted, being the first to arrive.
"What happened, Fred? What—?!" George exclaimed as he arrived right after, stunned as he looked outside.
"Well, it seems we were literally in the newbie village," I said as I saw what lay beyond.
On the other side of the wall stretched a plain, and further beyond, a dark forest. But what truly shocked us was the scene unfolding before us: a full-blown zombie apocalypse. There were even giant black dogs devouring a corpse under a tree.
"This is getting more interesting," I said with a smile, but a red alarm pulled us out of our surprise.
"Damn, looks like our time is up!"
"We can use the underground booth," the twins said, eyeing the red light from the floating stone in the sky.
"Even so, we can only play on weekends. We have classes and punishments to attend during the week," I said, crushing their hopes.
"Damn it!" the twins shouted in unison, just as the booth's energy ran out, and everything around us faded into darkness.
Normally, there should have been a friendly transition screen, but we had completely drained the booth's energy.
"Well, that was fun. Let's go back before Snape finds us," I said, opening the door.
"Too late, Mr. Flamel," said Snape, standing right outside the booth, easily catching us.
Well, after all, he took his job very seriously.
So we ended up spending the rest of our free day cleaning the entire game room, including the bathrooms. I'm pretty sure Snape had those bathrooms built just to punish us by making us clean them.
After all, there were already bathrooms on the third floor outside the game room, so there was no real need to add more...
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P.S. I realized I wrote "coccyx" instead of "pelvis." My mistake, but I was too lazy to fix it, so just imagine it's a split pelvis, and there's your weapon.
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