Chapter 24: Enemies

Jaxir was having the time of his life. He came across group after group, but the endings weren’t too dissimilar every time. In fact, as he fought more classes, the more things he was prepped and ready for, and the less often he was taken off guard.

He had a general understanding of the paths now. He had already seen that there were five main classes in the game. Melee, Tank, Healer, Ranged, and Magic.

He actually hadn’t run into any Healers yet―he wasn’t sure why. But either way, it didn’t matter much to him.

Of the magic classes he had met, all of them were Destruction. It seemed quite popular, but none of them were very strong.

They ate up the MP so easily and none of them knew how to use their Cast properly. Could it be that they just sucked at the game? Or was he playing wrong?

The tank classes actually gave Jaxir the greatest headache. Whenever they appeared, even though they were generally weak, they always managed to slow the battle down.

On the fourth group Jaxir met, there was this one guy who followed a different path. He assumed the first tank he met was of the "Aggro" path he had seen mentioned before. This guy, though, was of the Counter Path.

He actually had a Parry Skill that was attached with a homing boost to it. It made it so that Jaxir’s Casts bent toward his shield so that he could deflect them.

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Jaxir had made that known while he was battling, especially since it seemed to be a passive skill.

Who the hell balanced this game?

It was only after the battle that he realized it was because the man had had a Rare Grade shield that bolstered the tank’s use of Parry the same way Jaxir’s staff bolstered the use of Cast.

Still seemed like cheating though.

The more Jaxir learned about the game, though, the more fascinated he became. There were only five simple classes, each one with three paths, making for 15 unique ways to play the games.

As far as Jaxir knew, there weren’t any unique classes. Of course, it was possible that he just hadn’t come across any of them yet. This was a tutorial zone, after all.

But still. To think things would be so interesting with just this much.

Jaxir didn’t even know if he’d want a unique class. This was too fun.

As he fought and pillaged and killed, he also realized something else.

The Experience he gained from killing people seemed wildly variable. The first time he killed during this race back to the tutorial village, he only got 3 Experience, but the next time he got a wild amount.

He was finally curious enough to just ask about it in the end, telling one of the melee class warriors he was fighting that he’d let him go if he explained.

It turned out the experience you gained from Player Killing, or PKing, was dependent on the "free pool" of Experience they had. Meaning, if you were level 2 like Jaxir had been, you would need 400 Experience to reach Level 3, but if you only had 100 of that at the moment you died, then your enemy would gain the benefit of all 100.

So, unlike beasts, PKing didn’t guarantee a certain amount of experience.

And of course, Jaxir only "had been" Level 2 because with how many people he had killed on his way back, even with the wild variety of Experience benefits...

He was already inching closer to Level 4.

...

Jaxir burst out from the forest and into a plain with tall, swaying grass.

"Oop."

Jaxir cringed.

Up ahead, he could finally see the tutorial village itself. It was a cute little town with wooden gates and walls formed of thick logs laid vertically and buried deep within the ground.

It was decently sized, probably about 100 meters or so in diameter, but its population definitely wasn’t anything crazy. The only building taller than the walls was one located right at the very center. It had a fancy wooden clock at the center of it and numbers written in roman numerals that also looked etched in an odd, coal-like stone.

It was quite the beautiful piece of art. It was just too bad that between Jaxir and it was what practically looked like an army of people.

There were at least 30 of them, and they were led by Aidylan.

"Okay, maybe it wasn’t a smart idea to run in a straight line the whole time, but how the hell did that guy make it here before me. These have to be cheats."

Jaxir sighed. There was no way he could beat 30 people at the same time. That was a death sentence.

There also weren’t any obstacles or terrain to take advantage of in a field. And considering how many marking type skills he had seen just on the way here alone, well... hiding in the tall grass definitely wasn’t going to be an option.

He scratched the back of his head.

No wonder Lue had made such a big fuss about offending a guild. The problem wasn’t individual strength, it was collective strength.

And the worst part was that he could tell pretty clearly that the people here now were a cut above most of those he had fought. These people were more in line with the pair of Level 7 ranged classes he fought first.

Except now there were 30 of them.

"Hiya," Jaxir waved from afar, "do we really have to do this? How about we let bygones be bygones?"

Aidylan’s gaze darkened when he heard this. Jaxir was still joking around at a time like this?

"I will give you one more chance. Tell us who you are and which guild sent you to make trouble, compensate us at 20 times the cost, and we can let bygones be bygones. Otherwise, you are finished.

"The moment you die here, you will lose everything. I also don’t think you want to experience what we can do with the new pain threshold updates.

"Don’t make us do something we don’t want to do."

Jaxir slowly lowered his hand. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

A silence fell, the howling winds whistling through the tall grass.

"I’ll never understand it." Jaxir spoke to himself, and then looked up to the clouds above. The sun looked like it was on the verge of setting, teetering on the edges of orange-y hues. "It’s just a game, but they want to take even it so far."

He was just having fun, and now they were talking about torturing him using pain settings?

Jaxir started to laugh. It wasn’t his usual, casual laughter, but a real, full, belly laugh.

It was so ridiculous he didn’t even know what to say.

But there was one thing he knew for sure.

It made him furious. Absolutely, completely, and utterly furious.

He was originally going to try and find a way to calm this down. Sure, he had killed a few people, but he had left their equipment alone for the most part. They could just take the level loss as a penalty for targeting him, and still get all their stuff back with a little walk of shame.

But he had changed his mind.

"I feel like I’ve backed down enough."

Jaxir looked down from the skies, his eyes blazing with mana circuits.

He raised his staff.

Three rotating bullets of mana surged into being. Doubling in size, and then double again until they dwarfed even the size of his own head.

"Come, then. If you would like to be enemies, we will be."

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[Quest Received]

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Quest: A Jester’s Pettiness

Description: The Golden Fleece Guild has chosen to make an enemy of you. Show them what it means to enrage a Jester.

Objective: Destroy a branch of the Golden Fleece Guild

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