Dystopian Tales Online

"We have to continue with the attacks starting now. Faster, faster than what we can do before. We have to combo it at five hundred before reaching the minute limit."

That were his words while they are dashing towards the frozen beast. five hundred is a lot of a number for a single player to do. But because both of them are part of a party, five hundred can be divided by having two hundred and fifty each. If they can go with 200 APM (APM = Action Per Minute), this thing will be no deal.

What important now is the combo. Despite the class or the strength of damage, when a combo is asked, actions will be more important. The both of them are lucky to face such a boss with a certain condition to be defeated. Some bosses even need a spell or a weapon to struck pass a barrier.

Shin lost his first weapon so he have to weild another one. At least, thanks to the remaining members who gave him a new equipment that he managed to continue. Leaping up in the air, he forced a struck towards the beast's back pushing the blade deep with a force. This opened a wound and the warrior quickly slashed the skin wide as if pushing a lever.

He counted, three seconds. Still too slow to earn a combo hit. he decided to continue doing a faster pace with shallow cuts. Leon noticed the pace of Shin and watched him continue. They are doing the combo slower. Thirty seconds has passed but their combos combined didn't even reach a hundred.

He looked at his MP and saw it almost full. Some of his spells are no available in use. He can utter one right no but doing it again will need a farther range and a minute of activating. Leon can't spend another time to stay still in one place. Being the boss in Red Rage, applying the same spell will only take less effect due to its immunity.

He have to think of something. What spell can he use to become faster in hitting the beast?

For the first time in his life did Leon have the numbers crowd his sight. Almost seeing nothing other than rapid calculation of equations, he was too distracted to keep on looking the clear area. Even though that he is smart, Leon is still a child. Handling such situations already exceeded his limit. Even computers need to have an interval of use to have an optimum efficency.

"Leon! Leon! What should we do? We only have a minute left!" Shin yelled in the background.

Without the focus, there is only one thing to continue and that is to clear his sight from the numbers. Slowly closing his eyes, Leon shuts his system, making things in all black. It is as if he is now looking in a monitor of a computer with nothing but pitch black. A white dot is blinking in the middle as if waiting for somebody to type in a code.

A code?

Shin noticed the elf stoping the hits. What surprised him more is that it even closed its eyes as if sleeping. Worried over the situation of his friend, Shin could not help but to stop the combination attack and shake off Leon from the trance. But before he could left his place, Leon suddenly yelled at him to continue attacking.

"What the-. Are you okay?" Shin asked in between his attacks.

"Shin, can you tell me what are your magic spells?" Leon asked.

"Huh? Why?"

"Just tell me!"

"I don't know what you are thinking but these magic spells will not work."

"Just show it to me!"

Shin saw Leon's eyes in a different glint. Not knowing what should be done, Shin opened his private information by leaking through friend request. In a party, it is not necessary to have them in your friend list. But in order for seeing the other's private information like spell books and charms, one can do it by sharing it voluntarily in the means of [FRIEND'S STATUS].

Leon is now handling two interface - the one that he owned and the one with Shin. He can see the spells of the warrior. By just looking at it, he knows that thirty minutes would be enough to complete the combo. If only he realized this quickly, they might have been celebrating their win now.

"The warrior is known for their affinity in strength and higher HP. However, their MP would be lower than the average," Leon muttered his thoughts.

Due to this, warriors only use magic that can increase their strength potential than aiming it at the enemy. Not only the activation is fast, the cool down time and MP usage is also less that made it easier to use. Only that their MP is low so they would rather use skill than magic spells. Skill only need a button to press than a sentence worth of spell.

"Shin," Leon called. "I want you to use the [SPEED] spell."

"Huh? But I don't have enough MP," Shin responded. "I can only use it once for thirty seconds. But the speed would not be enough."

"I know. That is why you have to activate it in a three second interval for five times."

"Five... are you nuts?"

Shin calculated the math on his head. A speed magic spell needed five MP to be activated. Five activation means he needed to have 25 MP. But now, he only have 8MP left. The cool down of Speed is only one second, the activation is also one second. Putting the three seconds interval, one spell would be equivalent to five seconds. He also needed another thirty seconds to spend to finish the activation.

"I can't do it! It's really impossible!" Shin complained.

"Just do it! There's nothing to worry about!"

"Nothing? Have you ever heard that I'm a warrior class right?"

"Just do it, jerk!"

Those words echoed inside Shin's mind. Nobody ever called him jerk before. That word is almost close to profanity that made his mind be filled with rage. With a face red from anger, Shin quickly opened his interface and pushed the said command with a force. If only the interface is a real object, it should be broken now.

Shin is doing the activation while Leon took charge of attacking in combo. They only have a minute left before the Ghoul Touch ends. Thirty seconds to spend in activating the five speed spells? Aren't they short in time?

Finishing the fifth spell, Shin felt his own self vibrating. While waiting for the remaining five seconds, he wondered how he was able to do it consecutively. He moved his sight towards the MP and noticed it rising until now. Huh? When did he have the ability to gain MP?

The five seconds is up.

"Leon, what should I do?" Shin asked.

"Tackle and Attack!" Leon said.

Shin followed the command and use the tackle and attack skill. In a split second, the warrior suddenly get lost out from their sight. Instead, fast paced sparks of red and yellow from a blade is hitting the beast. Leon do not need to ask what is happening. This is what he meant!

A warrior class using speed will only increase the rate of two hits per second. With the thirty seconds limit, it can only give a combo hit of sixty. Adding another activation will square the number of hits per second. That is four hits per second attaining 120 hits in half a minute. Following this equation, five activation means he can get as many as 32 hits per second. For thirty seconds, he can get as many as 900+ hits!

But because they are a late of fifteen seconds in their time, the grey film started to break as smoke is forming out from the beast. In the fifteen seconds that Shin is attacking the beast, he already earned 480 hits, twenty more and everything will be done. Even of the beast will try to move, Shin is too fast to get caught.

The beast roared out, lifting the magic spell Leon placed on it. But before it can start rampaging again, Shin used his full force to give one last hit to complete the five hundred combo to the beast's head, cutting its forehead with a fine straight line.

"This is the end!" Shin hollered.

Bright light flooded the whole place with a howl from the beast. The place shook, Leon covered his eyes from the gust of wind and Shin leaped up to avoid the explosion. As if a black hole, the beast is gone in a second leaving shards of red and blue crystals in the air together with a large c.h.e.s.t of treasure, some rare equipments, potions, and EXP points.

Leon watched the crystal rain down as if like a rain, his eyes savoring the beauty. For a while, these crystals illuminated the place as if celebrating their win. Shin landed beside him who is still in the range of the magic spell. Leon faced him with a wide grin on its face.

"GJ," Leon gave him a thumbs up.

"Yep, Good job!" Shin replied with the same large smile.

The watching members clapped their hands. They didn't expect that the two of them will be able to defeat this beast. Their level is that of the beginner but this achievement is beyond their control. Maybe these two guys will be on the top of the leaderboard in the future, there's no doubt with that.

The two of them went close to the droppings of the beast. Rare beast in a hidden cave sure are dangerous but their droppings always equals their value. This is the reason why most of the experienced players takes time to complete a quest in a dungeon because they would rather go looking for secret bosses that going straight to the floor's main boss. Also...

[BEGINNER'S DUNGEON 7TH FLOOR HIDDEN BOSS 01 CLEARED]

[LEON-36] [SHIN-18] [CROWN-224] [SPRING-85] [RAIN-45]

Whenever a hidden boss is defeated, the names of the players will be recorded on the game. No matter who, no matter what level, as long as the boss is defeated, the name will be forever remembered. Leon scratched the tip of his nose while releasing a snort. Seeing his name being announced is sure a wonderful thing.

Shin raised his hand for a high five. But like how close friends do, they created their first original hand shake to celebrate. The members who are cowering on the side decided to approach them. Even though they didn't do anything but to watch, but because they are part of the party, their names will be included.

"You guys are so good. Why didn't you say ahead," one with the username of Crown asked.

"Absolutely wonderful! Your coordination is great. Maybe if you guys headed the team..."

Yes, the leader is already dead. When they faced the beast, the leader got scared and decided to leave them by running outside the cave. But the beast just caught him and got killed. Shin shook his head. It is true that they both defeated the boss. But they did it because they understand each other in a way different from these normal people.

Shin might be just guessing but Leon isn't the same with these people. Rather, he might be above average like him. He can't see numbers like Leon does, but Shin possess another intellegence that can never be compared to anyone.

"Okay, then..." Leon called everyone out. "How are we going to divide this loot?"

They all looked at the droppings. All are good equipments. The remaining three that survived looked at each other as if reaching a decision. They all faced the two with a determined face.

"I think you guys should get it," Rain said. "We didn't do much in the fight. It would be shameless of us to get a part of the work we didn't do."

"I agree, you guys deserved it," Spring nodded.

"Hmmm..." Shin faced Leon. "What do you think?"

"I'm not really that greedy," Leon shrugged his shoulders. "Besides, other than the equipments and the money, the EXP will be evenly divided by the system so I've got no problem with it. You can have them."

"Well, we are a party after all," Shin added. "Even if we take them all, I can't use an equipment that is not on my class."

"But you guys... are you really sure? We didn't fight the beast!"

"Don't worry," Leon laughed. "Okay, then I will take this Rare Staff of Orion and Mandrake Leaf. I will also take a portion of the gold."

"I will take this Silver sword, fairy shield, and crystal plate. I will take the same amount of gold he did," Shin followed suit.

"Now, aren't we both satisfied with what we looted? You guys can have them all. We can't use them anyway and I guess we both have our own budget. Money is not really a problem of us."

The three almost cried when they heard it. They can't believe that these two players are so generous to give them so much than they deserve. Now that the two already took the equipments that they only want, they can no longer to refuse the terms. They are all beginners after all. Being greedy will only drag hem down.

"Now that we are done... wait, let me add you guys," Shin asked the three. "We can have another dungeon quest!"

"Don't leave me behind," Leon also agreed.

They sent each other a request and accepted it. This means that whenever someone is on another server or place, they can give a private message without problem. Messages given outside the Friend's List costs gold so having this setting is cheaper. Leon read the classes of his new friends. Crown and Rain are both of the Humanoid Race. Spring is also an Elven Race like him.

"Well then, I think it's time for us to go. Knowing that this is a dungeon isn't cleared yet, the boss might respawn faster-"

Leon is still talking but the huge hand that sweeped of Spring out from their eyes is faster. Their reaction is slower than they expected that the only thing they managed to do is to jump back before this hand could sweep them off again. Crown and Rain unfortunately wasn't able to jump high and tripped over the land. Leon and Shin both managed to jump in a farther range.

"What the hell," Leon scowled.

Looking ahead of them, a larger beast appeared. He thought that the First Hidden boss could have respawned again. But this one is different. Well, whoever told them that only one boss is allowed to stay on the same cave?

"I never saw this coming," Shin commented, his face filled with rage.

"There's only thirty percent of chance that another will show again," Leon said as if he already knows the probability of its appearance.

"Then we are unlucky. We managed to hit that thirty percent," Shin said.

Looking at the beast, it is obvious that this one is harder to defeat. Other than that, both of their statuses are low. They can still fight but the chances of winning is low. Spring who was dragged out died in no time. The other two who are in effective range will surely come next.

Leon wanted to save the two. Using his staff, he flew up in the sky and headed for Crown and Rain while avoiding the hand of the beast. By just hooking the collars of these two, he took them on his side. Due to their wight the staff flew a bit slower so he have to throw them to Shin who is waiting on stanby. Shin catched the two to safety.

What will come next after this?

The numbers in his eyes isn't crowded but it only showed an unsatisfying number. He flew back to Shin to discuss. But before he could reach the place, another object hit him that threw him to the end of the cave. Shin attacked the one with his reflex as he travel through the deal of death towards Leon.

[MINUS HP DAMAGE]

Leon is slowly hitting the end of his life. If only Shin didn't arrive to give him an HP potion, he would be dead. But still, they are surrounded.

"Shit," Leon cursed. "We can't get out."

"Really, we can't," Shin chuckled.

"No time to laugh, dude. We will be dead," Leon commented.

Like before, Shin's calmness bothered him again. Even now that they are on the brink, the warrior managed a chuckle. Isn't he a bit of suicidal?

"Nah, just imagining this scene a bit weird. If I were to die, I wanted it to be with a girl not a guy stranger who likes to curse," Shin tattled.

"You're really weird."

"And you too."

They looked at the new beast. They saw two additional arms that is not included on the first encounter. They could almost laugh. The new boss is not only a chimera but also have extended arms? It is sure hard to understand.

A huge shadow hovered the two. By just looking at its huge arms, they will be dead in just a short grip. The two of them faced the beast until the end. This is courage - the ability to face everything without getting scared. None of them closed their eyes. They will watch.

Yes, they will watch until death.

And that's when Leon saw the numbers declining to negative when another set of equations entered his eyes. It changed everything from the minutes decimal to a positive sight. As if fate, an image of a dragon appeared on a bright light, ripping the beast away from its standing place.