We arrived at the door which led to the boss room at the foot of the mountain. The moment that we stepped on the road to climb up the mountain, we would be attacked by the dragon’s icy fire. The dragon wouldn’t leave its lair (i.e. the boss room) since it needed to be there to guard the World’s Egg.
The plan was to divide the twenty of us into three groups. A forward group who would agro and deal damage, another group which would launch ranged attacks and heal the forward group, and a third one to try and sneak into the room behind the dragon, which contained the World’s Egg.
Laila and I were in the forward group attacking the dragon and taking the bulk of the damage, whereas Eilis, who was an archer and Nanashi, who was supporting, were in the back group about twenty feet behind us. Celestina and Peter Keaton were in the third group. This formation was only going to be relevant once we got to the summit of the mountain, however. For the time being, our goal was to defend the highly dangerous cargo in our vehicle. We would be destroying most of the treasures that the Dragon guarded with it, but during our last meeting, the players came to the conclusion to forfeit the treasure, leading to a lot of the for-profit guilds leaving the table. The remaining players were those who could afford this expensive expedition, where they would only gain levels and any drops which the monster might leave. By the way, the Populares and Elites were not actual registered guilds but just two loose groupings of players. However, 70% of the players who had volunteered for this attempt were from the Elite faction.
The Dragon’s AI was intelligent enough to recognise that the lorry which we guarded was not just some treats we had brought for it, but rather a threat that needed to be neutralised, which is why we had two of them. One of them was a decoy; we had more decoy vehicles, but they didn’t make it here. The dragon couldn’t always see us, so it attacked at random, causing avalanches sometimes, which I parried with my ability. It was also attacking by firing in all directions with its five heads, literally blowing holes through the mountain. Soon enough, our decoy was blown away. Although the second team was supposed to defend us from the dragon’s icy fire, that defence was mostly hypothetical except for Eilis’s ranged attacks buffed up to ten times by Nanashi. Of course, there was a limit to how many times Nanashi could buff Eilis, which is why he limited himself to buffing her attacks only by 10x.
The truth is, none of us had even seen the dragon (well, except me, but they didn’t know about that), as we would always end up getting blown asunder before we could reach him, so everyone was too tense to talk except to listen to me when I told them to maintain formation and defend the lorry. Although there was no death in this game, there was something worse than that: debt, and so naturally debt slavery. All our equipment had real-world sterling pound value. It was not uncommon to see players get into debt in real life, hoping to make it big, and that was certainly true of the players here. Eilis, for example, had no support from her pharmaceutical company. There had already been one suicide due to debts incurred within the game. Now, of course, most of the banks which lent to them were ultimately controlled by Castle Academy, but if I started to forgive people’s debts, then there would be no end to it. Is this what Petra meant when she said I would be reborn to be a service to humanity?
“Hey, you’re spacing out, Raphael!”
It was Peter Keaton. His face was saying, ‘I hope you make sure to deal with all offline stuff before starting this quest.’
“You don’t need to worry. Have I ever set back our guild’s goals for real-world distractions?”
“No, you have always been here, even more than me, who’s unemployed. Sorry, you just looked a bit worried there, but there’s no need to anymore now that we have gotten here.”
Peter looked back at the cargo in the truck we had so painstakingly brought here.
By the time we reached the entrance to the dragon’s lair, about 2/3rd up the mountain, there were only 10 of us left, and the lorry had a few back wheels missing, tilting the missing cargo bay enough for part of it to slip and become visible. A large metal frame had slipped off and touched the ground.
The ratio of Elite to Populares now was six to four, which was surprising, but I guess that there were people who were crazy enough that they were willing to potentially go bankrupt just to play the game better than everyone else.
The dragon tried to blow off the huge door, but to no avail. The door would only open with the key we received as a boss drop from the previous level. Therefore, the door served as a kind of shield to the dragon’s icy breath attacks. Of course, the moment we got in there, we would be attacked. I had gotten to this place a few times before, which was where our cargo came into view.
“Are you really going to pilot that thing? It looks like a toy.” Eilis asked Nanashi.
“Negative. It does not look like a ‘toy,’ but yes, Eilis, I will pilot the Kaiser frame.”
That was a suspiciously toy-like-sounding name, but that aside, Eilis was kind of grumpy that she wouldn’t get to pilot the mecha. There were other mech users, but most players preferred not to use that skill, because the price for it was that, without the mech, you would be just a very strong but still squishy human when outside of the mech. Basically, many monsters and most players could kill you, and of course, it was very cumbersome to carry the mech around. Well, at least no one could steal Nanashi’s, or rather, they could do that and extort Nanashi, but they couldn’t actually pilot the thing, hence why Eilis was grumpy about not being able to pilot it. When you think about it, Nanashi had netted himself the best bodyguard he could from Eilis; she was getting the short end of the stick, so that girl might actually be in love. No, the real danger that Nanashi faced was losing his mech in a battle with the White Dragon. It would cost about £1 million to get the parts for a new one, and he’d be stuck with his mech pilot class, which means that for all intents and purposes, he’d have to quit the game. Well, this suited me well since I was already suspicious of him.
“Will five minutes really be enough?” asked Laila.
“Yes, we already tested it, didn’t we? It was strong enough that it could take on both Eilis’ and Raph’s attacks. Besides, once it gets in the air, it’s unbeatable,” Peter replied.
The Kaiser Frame could probably kill all of us, but it could only function for five minutes now at the level that Nanashi was. I don’t know if I was as much of a fan of the Kaiser Frame as Peter was, but it was certainly going to need its flying ability to take that giant monster’s attention away. The White Dragon was thirty metres tall according to the legends, and the Kaiser Frame was only 10 metres tall.
The most striking features of the Kaiser Frame were the pick helm it wore and its single eye. I could understand Lain’s design choice for both, but it was a bit bland since it was designed in a rush. Well, this left us with more space for upgrades later.
