“Good work, Yunnie. Now, evacuate from here. Back us up from behind.” Lifey praised as they pass each other on the steps. With the enemy artillery destroyed, there was no more real need for the magicians to endanger themselves at the top of the wall, especially since the Hondurian soldiers had successfully scaled over. It was now the melee classes’ job to contain the invaders at the wall area and not let them spill over to the city keep where Lord Trigent was.

“Men, draw your weapons!” Lifey hollered as she drew her weapon, with thousands of others behind her mimicking her actions. “For Caerheim!”

“For Caerheim!” The echo resounded within Loyderidge city while warriors, knights and rogues flooded up the steps to aid the overwhelmed archers desperately trying to hold their position. Metal met metal in a clash of sparks. Metal met flesh in spurts of blood. Punctuating the battle orchestra of metal clanging together were cries of pain and the thud of bodies. Death scattered the wall with ashes of data and bone, while gleaming items dropped by those who died lay forgotten in the heat of war.

It was chaos.

Lifey charged right into a group of enemies without concern for her own safety. Brandishing her sword, she adeptly swung it at a Hondurian soldier, cutting the man down where he stood. A pike came dangerously close, but Lifey parried the blow before returning one of her own. Even as the man cried his death throes, Lifey was already onto her next opponents, skewering two at once with her prized blade. In just a series of well-honed moves, all the soldiers around her were either dead or dying. There was barely a scratch on her smooth skin.

“I pray to the Goddess of Cycles. Thema hear my plea. Bless my allies with fervor to carry out our deed. Devotion Aura!”

Devotion Aura (Intermediate 8) activated

+28% Defense

+ 24% HP

To all allies and yourself within 50 meter radius

“Oh yea!”

“Let’s get them!”

At once, a pale blue shine covered all Caerheim defenders within a fifty meter radius of the Guardian, improving their defense and health by a significant amount. With their increase in hardiness, they fought more zealously than ever, turning what had been a losing fight in their favour. A particular hulking enemy knight, though of AI origins and having no game concept of buffs, noticed the sudden change in battle momentum and switched his attention to Lifey.

“We need to take out the leader! She is affecting them.” He snarled, himself already rushing towards the Guardian for a sword thrust to her chest. Lifey simply sidestepped the attack and retaliated with slash of her own, only for her sword to strike against a shield of metallic blue.

“Mithril…” Lifey unconsciously muttered. This NPC knight might be a rank higher than the grunts and was a little more troublesome than she thought. Not that it mattered much however; she was still stronger than he was.

The knight slashed again but this time Lifey parried the blow. The moment their blade touched, Lifey applied a quick twisting force on her handle, her strength easily overpowering the knight’s. The resultant twirl of her sword forced the knight’s weapon out of his hands as well as slicing his leg open, causing him to drop to the ground at the mercy of the guardian. Wasting no chances, she bashed the knight’s helmet off with her custom-made steel shield and ended it with a quick slash to the neck.

With the loss of their platoon leader, the soldiers rapidly lost morale, allowing the Caerheim defenders to succeed in clearing the immediate vicinity of Honduria troops.

At least it was clear until an invader popped up from the parapet from a still functional ladder.

“Cyclic Suppression!” Lifey leapt into the air towards the newcomer, using her dominant foot to kick against stone and giving her body a torque that resulted in her spinning perpendicular to the ground. The spinning blade cleaved through flesh and bone, severing the soldier’s head where he was before the corpse disintegrated into data. After an expert landing from the maneuver, the Guardian kicked the ladder off, eliciting squeals of horror from those still climbing.

Whistling.

As with the proverbial once bitten twice shy, Lifey tumbled out of her current position in an attempt to avoid the shot the moment she heard the whistling sound. If there was any high value target currently at the top of the walls that needed to die for the Hondurian side to achieve a morale victory, it was her. She need not have bothered though, for a second arrow flashed in from the side at the last moment, deflecting the original shot off its intended path. The two arrows then buried themselves into the stone a distance away, a firm reminder that the sniper was still out there.

“You okay, Derrilene?” Emiya approached the Guardian, extending a hand with the intention of helping her up, but wilted at the cold glare Lifey was giving him.

Emiya quickly corrected himself. “You alright, Lifey?”

“Yes.” Brushing dirt off her armour, Lifey got up by herself. “Oneshotakill sure is irritating.”

“I know right? I have determined that he should be taking cover over by that cluster of trees.”

The same trees that he had failed to get any mage to launch a spell at. An archer might have high damage capabilities, but he could not destroy things like mages do. Here he was, wondering where all the mages have disappeared to when he spotted a blurred shaped in the air hurtling towards the Commander. He had instinctively tried firing an arrow into it and ended up intercepting the shot to his pleasant surprise.

“Strange… Where is he?” Lifey murmured.

“What is strange?” Emiya asked in bewilderment. He was sure he had just said that the sniper was by the cluster of trees.

The guardian snapped back from her thoughts. “No it’s nothing. I will leave Oneshotakill to you.”

“Y-what? Are you kidding me?”

His protest was in vain.

“You can see his shot can’t you?” It was a cold rhetoric question, typical of the one they nicknamed the Ice Queen back in class. He might be in her clique of friends, but she had this aloof aura about her whenever she interacts with anyone, making her seem distant even in her own clique. It might have stemmed from the fact that she came from an elite, some said noble, family and is thus inclined to treat anyone below her with disdain. The only exception to this was Yunnie.

Emiya liked to think that she had a high expectation of everyone though. Or maybe she was just colder towards guys.

“Y-yea… somewhat.”

“Then do it. Live up to your name.”

“But-“

Before he could retort, a bright flare flashed in the corner of their eyes followed by a thunderous boom, causing the both of them to jerk their heads simultaneously towards the sight. At the other end of the city near where the West gate of Loyderidge should be, a dome of fiery red raged like a mini-sun, turning the darkness of the night into temporary day.

“What the hell was that…?” His hand was reflexively by his eyes to shield them from the glare.

Emiya turned back to find Lifey already charging into another group of enemies with her sword rising and falling with an elegant grace, not giving him any chance to clarify the misconception that others commonly had – his namesake usually did not shoot arrows.

……………………

Lifey bashed a face in with the pommel of her sword, swinging it down again to cut another as she slashed her way through the melee that was brewing on the East Wall.

Where in the world was ScrubLord? Knowing the man, he would not stay behind lines while his guild fights for him. The sniping accounted for Oneshotakill. The most recent nova explosion just seconds earlier accounted for Fyrzen, but where were the rest of the seven players of the Qqers? The only logical conclusion she could arrive at was that they were at the other gates.

Her eyes widened. The West Gate.

A swerve and turn later, Lifey was bolting towards the stairway.

“Out of my way!” With a stab too fast to follow, a soldier with the emblem of Honduria was killed and kicked off the ledge as Lifey charged down the stairs to level ground. “Arctarus, I am leaving command here to you. Wait for the window.”

“Affirmative!” A stocky dwarven fighter wielding an axe shouted in reply before going back to his hacking. While players from other races were a rare sight in Caerheim, Arctarus was an old friend from her previous guild in Honduria and one of the few that had followed her over when she came to the western continent. He was reliable, if not ferocious in battle and she trusted him not to screw up.

Mounting a horse, she sped off. Lifey’s current destination was Bluelove and the cavalry stationed a small square near the center of city. Time was not on their side. She had to get them going right at this current moment. Even as the first drop of rain started to fall, turning soil into muddy and dangerous terrain for riding, she did not dare slow down.

“Bluelove!” She burst into the space holding the cavalry division, yelling.

“Boss!”

At that very same time, a disheveled bard wet from the rain entered the area they were at.

“Commander Lifey!” Shadun stumbled in, inciting looks of terror among all those present. Except Lifey who, upon recognizing that he was the same bard that she forcefully expelled from the joint operation days ago, grilled him for information.

“Report! What happened to the west gate? How many are there?”

“We only saw a mage called… Fyrzen.” Shadun panted. “We don’t know … how many. I sang a song of speed…“ Bluelove and the cavalry grimaced. “… and ran here for help.”

“Commander Lifey!” A second person materialized from the shadows between two houses, grabbing Lifey’s attention from Shadun. From her form fitting leather garbs and weapons – dual daggers – she appeared to be a rogue. “Commander Lifey!”

She stumbled, crashing into the puddles of rain with a splash.

The girl’s gestures and expression were frantic, accented by the rain on her small face. Blood dripped off her daggers and from the wounds on her body, dying the puddles a light red. Without needing to be ordered, Bluelove was already by her side tending to her wounds.

“XT, report!”

“Qqers are at the south gate! We are barely holding! There were Togepee, Chancei and ScrubLord!”

The mention of the last name was enough for the Guardian. Steering her horse towards the south, she pulled the petite rogue up onto the back of her stead before kicking its flank. The horse reared up with a neigh and charged off. “To the south gate!”

“Wait! What about the west?”

Nobody replied him. The entire cavalry division followed the lead of their commander, kicking up mud on the neglected lone bard left behind in the rapidly emptying square. Soon enough, Shadun was all alone with only the rain for company.

“What the…”

He still could not believe what just happened. Was his singing really that terrible to warrant this kind of treatment?

You are chilled.

- 25% movement speed

He had come so far, and he was not going to return without getting the reinforcements the militia needed. Gritting his teeth under the cold downpour, Shadun the bard dashed off to the east.

……………….

They had been trading arrows for a few rounds now, but Emiya found himself at the distinct end of a quickly losing deal. His opponent was an advanced job class while he himself was a basic archer. There was simply not enough range or accuracy for his shots to be able to reach the sniper hiding in the cluster of trees. In direct contrast, he found himself dancing close to death several times, only narrowly avoiding a shortcut to death by the bare stroke of luck and some body-defying acrobatics on his part.

At the very least, he was occupying Oneshotakill’s attention so that the latter could not go around killing the others, but Emiya felt that he was almost at the end of his ropes. The next round would be when his luck and stamina runs out.

That was of course discounting the melee still ongoing atop the East Wall. A Hondurian soldier charged at Emiya yelling for blood, but stopped midway after an arrow embedded itself deep into his body.

“Double shot!” A second arrow flew true and struck the soldier squarely on the forehead, killing the NPC instantly.

It was also the last arrow he had. Emiya groaned. He knew he had expended a lot, but he did not expect to run out of it so soon. It was the age-long limitation of archer classes in almost every game released since the role playing game genre started – the problem of ammunition. Unlike mages, archer classes require the consumption of physical arrows to even attack, which are often costly and bothersome to replenish. There usually exist legendary bows that form their own arrows but those were usually one of a kind and extremely rare for an average archer to obtain. Once out of arrows, like a mage out of mana, they would become useless burdens that serve nothing more than a meat shield for others.

His current situation was the worst possible, amplified by the relentless rain overhead. If an enemy were to approach him right now he would most probably die. Sure, he had a few melee tricks up his sleeves and he could pull out a short sword to trade a few blows, but against a fully armed warrior class he would be utterly demolished.

Unless…

Glancing at the iron one-handed sword the soldier dropped in the background of the battlefield of weapons from those who had fallen, a sudden thought crept into the archer’s mind. Squatting down to pick up the weapon, Emiya compared it to his own compound long bow. Did he dare try it?

Would it even work here?

“Die, Caerheim scum!” A shout surprised the unfocused archer. When he turned his attention to the direction the voice came from, a Hondurian soldier was already before him with his sword up high for a downward swing. Instinctively, Emiya loaded whatever he had on hand into his bow and fired.

Before he knew what happened, the enemy was already slumping to the ground with an iron sword sticking out of his chest.

It worked. It was all that went through Emiya’s mind. The method was crude and the angle was a little off, but it worked.

“Wooohooo!”

Elsewhere, Arctarus the dwarven Axemaster stared frozen into the eyes of the bard in front of him. He remembered the man, as well as the trauma associated with him. Bards and dancers are relatively uncommon in Ages Online because they are not combat-orientated and are thus categorized at the same level as the ‘casual’ production classes. However, having either one of them in a group usually meant an additional wide-area buff that would stack on the usual clerical buffs.

Besides, every bard and dancer is different from each other, having their own unique flair on their repertoire which further augments the effects they give. Sometimes, it was a measly + 1% to a random stat, but those who have an affinity for singing and dancing could provide additional benefits as high as 15% to multiple domains.

Ioriyn, the most famous elven songstress back in the central continent, had such ridiculous buffs with her heavenly voice that she easily made her guild the strongest in the Elithinia region despite them not being the highest level. She had also garnered quite the fanbase on Agaia who wished to listen to her songs and regularly held concerts in-game, becoming a budding idol in the world of Agaia.

With songs and dances that bolster defense, attack, speed and regeneration and the ability to quickly switch according to the situation, only fools would turn these highly sought-after support classes away.

Except for him.

The first night he joined, Arctarus thought that the bard was shy for only playing his lute. After much pestering from all the players around him, the bard was finally pressured to open his mouth and sing. The first note that came out was flat, and the rest of the song only went downhill into an incoherent wreck. It was supposed to be a song for increased health regeneration. Immediately, multiple windows popped up indicating severe debuffs on his status and Arctarus swore that he was sustaining periodic damage at one point of time.

To cut the long story short, Shadun was chased out of the Joint Operation after that.

And now he was back.

“W-what do you want?”

“I want help. The West gate is currently being attacked by Fyrzen.”

Arctarus visibly relaxed after Shadun’s motive was made apparent. “I believe Commander Lifey was heading to the West Gate.”

“I met her on the way. She went to the south.”

“Well I guess I can’t help you, kid. We do not have enough men to spare. ” A bunch of fireballs flew overhead and crashed into enemy soldiers in the chaos, helping Arctarus demonstrate his point. Even if the situation seemed like it was in control at the current moment, it did not help that the enemy was still within the city compound.

It seemed that the bard understood and was dejectedly turning away when a voice caught his attention.

“Hey! Is that Shadun?”

It was Emiya, his quiver filled with all sorts of weapons collected from slain soldiers. Shadun narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips at the one person who he did not wish to see. Approaching them was the one who had started asking him to sing back then, leading to his eventual eviction from the Joint Operation. Even if it was not entirely the archer’s fault, he could not help but put the blame on him.

“I am sorry for that last time. If you need help I can come with you.”

Shadun halted in his steps. Even if he could not convince a contingent of reinforcements to aid the west gate, a few level 80 players like Emiya would still be able to provide much needed help in the fight.

“Sur-“

“Emiya,” Arctarus interrupted. “Did you forget about our orders?”

The archer in question was confused. “Orders regarding?”

“…This.” A notification window popped up in front of the Axemaster, the archer and a handful of others among the defenders of the eastern gate at that exact same time, all depicting the same message.

You have been summoned by your party member Bluelove!

Yes/No

“Oh.” An expression of guilt showed on the archer’s face as he gave a sheepish smile. “I am sorry, Shadun. I am needed elsewhere.” Then, he followed the rest in pressing the ‘yes’ button, disappearing from the scene in a bright flash of light. In just a matter of seconds, Shadun the bard was left standing alone for the second time in a row.

He could not help but bring his lute to bear and start bashing Hondurian soldiers with it in anger.

He knew it. They were patronizing him. The look on that Axemaster’s face when they received the summons was that of relief, and the careless way the damned archer had gave him hope and subsequently crushed it was utterly infuriating.

“Rush them!”

“We got the advantage now!”

“Quick! Rush them. Break through the defense!”

Around him, Hondurian soldiers had approached thinking that the bard might be easy prey like the rest of the defenders after the more experienced leaders were teleported away. However, it was to their surprise when the seemingly fragile bard flipped out on them on the spot, making them go from surrounding him with numerical advantage in one moment to being knocked down like dominoes the next. Their shields and armour were useless from the raging tempest of burning anger as the musical instrument thrashed them ruthlessly from every angle, beating them to an inch of their lives.

Twang! Twang! Twang!

It was a wonder that Shadun’s lute had not fallen apart from the abuse of being used as a melee weapon of doom.

Then, he stopped. The Hondurian NPCs at the bard’s feet groaned, wondering if the beating of their artificial lives were finally at an end. Shadun breathed in deeply and exhaled. He was angry, and he needed to calm himself down. Being violent and over-reacting had never been the way to solve things, both in virtual life and in reality - a principle his family had taught him since young.

Therefore he shall sing.

Ding Ling Dung!

Shadun strummed his still functional lute, giving himself the notes for the song. If others thought his singing was bad, then they will have to deal with it. Opening his mouth to voice the first song that came to his head, he let loose a warble of impending disaster.

“We are no strangers to love~”

The number of tortured souls increased exponentially.

“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down. Never gonna make you cry and hurt you~”

Wherever he went, soldiers laid at his feet.