Chapter 285

Defense Specialization and the 8th Event

As Maple and the others spent their days leveling up their monsters, the day of the 8th event’s preliminaries finally came .

This time, they had to compete as individuals and not in teams . So the abilities of your monsters would be very important .

The competition would involve the number of monsters you killed and how long you survived .

So you had to raise your rank by killing as many monsters as possible within the time limit, while also defeating and hindering other players .

Of course, you could not focus too much on just one thing .

If you entered the top, you would be able to fight in a field with better rewards .

“Alright! Let’s all get to the main match!”

“Of course . Good luck, Maple . Remember, it’s important to defeat monsters this time . ”

“Yes, I can use all of my skills now… I’ll do my best!”

As there would be some time between the preliminaries and main battle, she didn’t need to save her skills that had limited uses .

“Okay, let’s fight!”

They all repeated after Maple . And then all eight of them were surrounded in light and then teleported to the field .

When the light faded away, the preliminary field spread out before her .

Just like during the 1st event, she was in an abandoned building . Maple looked around her but could not see any other players .

“Good! I better go and look for more monsters!”

In this battle, the number of monsters you hunted was important . Of course, so was staying alive, but that wasn’t enough to reach the top .

“Just give me a second, Syrup . ‘Predator’!”

As she was mostly just fighting alone, she did not need Dedicated Affection this time . And this was a big advantage for Maple .

“Besides, it would let other players know where I was . ”

‘Dedicated Affection’ caused the ground to glow . And so they would know that she was coming . However, the only person that wouldn’t run away if they knew Maple was coming, were probably her fellow guild members . No one wanted to walk into the land of death .

And so Maple started to walk around the ruins with the two monsters at her side .

“Is there anything here… Wa!?”

Just as she turned a corner in the large building, she bumped into a monster .

When she looked up, she saw a large body and head . Behind it, there was a long tail . It seemed more like a carnivorous dinosaur than a dragon .

As the dinosaur approached her, it let out a great roar .

“‘Paralyze Shout’!”

Intent on making the first move, Maple activated the skill and paralyzed the enemy . Then she made the ‘Predator’ pair bite into it .

“It seems strong… I’ll use ‘Bizarre Eater’ as well!”

And so Maple used her great shield to crush the head of the dinosaur, who had lost its balance and fallen to the ground .

And since Predator continued to deal damage by biting it, the dinosaur quickly turned into light and disappeared .

“Phew… I was surprised because it looked so strong… But it wasn’t anything once you paralyzed it! Good! Now onto the next one!”

As the first one had gone so well, Maple quickly searched for the next one .

Apparently, there were a great variety of monsters in the area . And Maple encountered both great and small ones .

However, quite a few of them ran away as soon as they saw her .

“Hmm . This is going to make things difficult… Is it because I’m too slow? …Hmm?”

It was then that Maple saw a few things in her status that were unfamiliar . There were debuffs that caused monsters to run away and buffs that raised your attack power . But Maple had not done this herself, nor could she remember anyone doing it to her .

“Huh!? Since when!? …Ummm . Ah! When I killed the monster!?”

When she checked the details of the buffs and debuffs, she saw that they were applied when you killed certain monsters . And since Maple had killed a great variety of monsters, she had been affected by many of them .

“But I can’t let the monsters get away! Then I won’t be able to kill them…!”

Maple wanted to save Savagery, and so she continued to fight the vicious monsters that did not run away . Each monster was quite strong, but it wasn’t like they were made to be anti-Maple, and so they almost never used piercing attacks . This meant they were nothing but convenient monsters that helped her rack up some delicious points .

After using Predator to wreak havoc on the monsters in the area with the ruins, she moved away, leaving a lake of poison through Hydra . She went out of the ruins and to the forest . And then out of the forest and into a prairie .

“Ohh . I want to hunt more of them… Hmm . Is that…”

The thing that caught Maple’s eye was a red flower that had a stem that was taller than her . It looked a lot like a flower she had discovered in the jungle during a different event .

“And there is a clearing here… Okay! I can do it here!”

Maple approached the big flower and brought out her weapons . And she used her arm, which was now a sword, to cut the stem of the flower . And then she caught the falling flower with both hands . This red flower was really a flower-shaped monster, and the part that had been severed started to heal as roots grew from it and wrapped around Maple .

“Yes! It went well! Now I just…”

As the flower clung to her, Maple headed to the field and then sat down . She was quite far from any hiding places .

“Good . Let’s do this! Now…”

After talking to the flower, she stabbed one of the petals with her sword .

A sweet fragrance filled the air . And then she could hear rustling as something approached her from the forest .

As Maple had intended, the red flower was able to lure in other monsters . That was usually a very dangerous thing, but for Maple, it was just a useful monster attracting tool .

“Yay! Now hunting will be easy! I better kill them before someone else does!”

And so one after another, Maple killed the goblins that jumped at her and the birds that attacked her from the back with magic .

In order to save her energy, she let Predator attack the monsters that were nearby, and she focused on using her guns to attack the monsters that were far away .

“It will be bad if ‘Predator’ dies… ‘Dedicated Affection’! And Syrup, ‘Awakening’!”

It was finally Syrup’s turn . Currently, a horde of monsters were biting into Maple and scratching her . However, she ignored them .

“Syrup! ‘Mother Nature,’ ‘Red Garden, ‘White Garden,’ ‘Sinking Earth’!”

Maple activated the skills while carrying Syrup .

With Maple in the center, the ground was bathed in a white light which was soon covered in red and white flowers . It was such a pretty sight . And had Maple not been hounded by monsters, she would have stopped to stare at them .

However, the effects were not as pretty . The red flowers increased damage, and the white flowers lowered your status .

Furthermore, monsters that entered the area would be swallowed up by the ground, which had become like quick-sand due to ‘Sinking Earth . ’

And even if they escaped that face, they would be imprisoned by the vines of ‘Mother Nature,’ and become food for ‘Predator . ’

The beautiful, red and white garden that surrounded Maple and Syrup was a place where death was inescapable once you entered it .

Maple used her guns to tear up the monsters that were captured by the vines . And once she was done, she poked at the flower that wrapped around her .

“One more time! Ha!”

Maple made the sweet scent waft through the air again, inviting new monsters to her garden .

“I wonder what’s happening with the bad effects… Ah, this might mean trouble…”

After killing so many monsters, Maple checked her debuffs . She saw that one of them resulted in her position being shown on everyone’s map .

Not only would many players be able to steal her prey, but they might even attack her . And so Maple quickly killed the rest of the monsters .

However, in spite of her fears, no other players arrived .

This should have been no surprise . After all, no one would move towards the land of death just because it appeared on their map .

Even those who were curious enough to go close to the area would have seen the monsters sinking, being impaled by vines, and the pool of poison . And they would know that this was no place for them .

“No one is coming… In that case . One more time!”

Maple stimulated the red flower again, calling in a new horde .