At this point, I was starting to think that once things stopped going according to plan, that was the indication to start running.

I stared in dismay at the two screens that had popped up in front of me.

Hidden Quest: The Hunt’s Target

Defeat the witch, Carman, who lingers in the Deep Woods.

Side Quest: Atonement

Face the god of this world and free the crowns of Briarwood.

Penalty for failure:

Disconnection.

The first one was fine, since it was the one I wanted. It would spawn Carman in the Deep Woods, and I’d be able to challenge a hitless run.

The second one was a disaster.

Face the god of this world and free the crowns of Briarwood, it said. As if that was going to be an easy thing. Maybe I could have done the “face the god of this world” part, as ironic as that sounded. It didn’t say that I had to fight or defeat the god. As for a meeting, I’d already been planning on it, after all.

But “free the crowns of Briarwood”? That was as direct a challenge as any could be. And “disconnection” was the penalty for failure.

If a temporary disconnection was equivalent to my experience during server maintenance, then “disconnection” probably meant that I wasn’t going to be coming back from the void.

I rubbed my face with my hands. All of a sudden, I felt really tired.

What had I gotten myself into?

Though… on the bright side, this sort of confirmed that my thought process was heading in the right direction. The god of this world was hiding something, and not all the NPCs were on his side about it. This might not be as much of an us vs them situation that the Chosen Ones seemed to think it was.

If I wanted to properly challenge the god of this world, it was all the more reason to get prepared.

I shook my head. First things first, Carman.

I brought up the map and began making my way to the perimeter. Now that the hidden quest had been triggered, Carman would spawn somewhere in the Deep Woods. All I had to do was find her.

I started making systematic sweeps of the spawn locations I knew of, going from the left of the Deep Woods to the right. The Deep Woods was a pretty large area, so even though I knew all the spawn locations, checking all of them one by one was tough work.

According to the lore, Carman was a warrior sorceress that had come far away across the sea. She’d broken in through the barrier Oberon had erected around Briarwood and since then had been prowling the Deep Woods, looking for things to hunt.

Eventually, I found the boss. She was sitting amidst the ruins in the south of the Deep Woods, her back hooked like that of a vulture. She wore golden, spartan-like armour on top of pitch black robes. Her dark hair was tied up in a bun, revealing her piercing gaze as she looked around. In her hand was a long spear with a wickedly sharp edge, its red tassels drifting lightly in the air.

I equipped Sorrow and approached, muttering the commands for my buffing skills as I went.

“Attack, Speed, Crit, Blazing Passion” I muttered under my breath. In my hand, Sorrow began to glow.

Carman looked up, her piercing gaze settling on me. She jumped down from her perch and stalked towards me. As she went, she whirled her spear like a baton, passing it effortlessly from hand to hand in a display of elegant mastery.

For a moment, we stood there staring each other down. Then I attacked.

Activating Invisibility, I sprung forwards and brought Sorrow down on her head. Carman moved to jump back, but just a bit too late. The crit hit took off a chunk of HP, burn damage applied to her as Sorrow whistled through the air.

I shifted my grip and aimed a stab towards her stomach. Carman raised her hands. Sorrow clanged against the shaft of her spear. I flung my hand back and struck again. The blade of Sorrow once again met metal. Then again, and again. Carman was driven backwards as the force of my attacks hammered against her defence, her boots dragging tracks through the mud.

There was a clang. Her spear was cast aside as I finally broke through. I leapt up in the air and slashed downwards as fast as I could. The additional crit rate from High Ground allowed me to get more critical hits than would usually be possible, causing Carman’s HP to plummet at an astounding rate.

My slashes fell upon air and I dropped into a crouch, the force from my landing brushing up flakes of mud. Carman had teleported out of the stunlock. I swung around to find her standing atop a flagpole, drawing a summoning circle in the air with the tip of her finger.

Fire.

A swirling ball of fire began to form as the circle was completed, burning bright orange in the dark forest. Carman shouted, and the fireball launched.

I snapped my fingers, teleporting through the ball of fire and right in front of her. I chanted my buffs and attacked again, this time getting quite a few hits off.

Carman stumbled backwards. Swiftly, she drew another summoning circle.

Rocks.

I leapt upwards as the ground reached up to ensnare me. The two hand-shaped boulders smashed together with a resounding crack, before crumbling into sand and fading. Landing back on solid ground, I continued to attack.

She stretched out one hand towards me, the other tracing the air to the side.

Return to Sender.

I teleported out of the way as her spear shot back towards her, piercing the space where I once was. The force from its path blew the grass flat against the ground.

It spun lazily at the end of its arc and slid snugly into Carman’s hands. The spear flexed and wobbled like a snake. Together, they shot forwards towards me, the spear snaking through the air unpredictably.

“Candle Flame.”

I cast a summon to catch the spear in its tracks. Carman drew it back and struck again. I parried with Sorrow. The clang of sparks at the two weapons clashing obscured my vision.

One more strike.

I bent over backwards as Carman ran the spear forwards. The silhouette of the spear was framed by a circle of trees in my eyes. That silhouette hissed and arched downwards towards me.

Hitting the ground, I rolled to the side as the tip of the spear crashed into the mud. I hopped to my feet. Raising Sorrow, I rained down blows upon Carman while she struggled to pull her spear out of the ground, dodging the occasional elemental spells that she tried to throw my way.

Finally, she wrested the tip free from the ground, and sprung at me again. I ducked and dodged around the spear, making sure to give it a wide enough berth so that there was no chance for the tip to loop around and scratch me. Carman wasn’t a particularly fast boss, so I had no trouble outclassing her in terms of speed.

Her blocking skill was annoying though. It forced me to chain attacks that did no damage in order to break her guard, the clang of the metal against metal setting my ears ringing uncomfortably. I couldn’t teleport to attack her from behind, since she just flipped round to face me almost instantaneously.

The fight was going on for longer than I would have preferred.

So I decided to try out something new.

As Sorrow was met with the shaft of the spear once again, I lashed out with one leg and kicked Carman in the gut. It was a clumsy kick, one that hadn’t been autocorrected by whatever System this world had. Yet the attack level I had meant that it wasn’t completely ineffective.

Carman grunted as the kick landed on her stomach, a chunk of HP taken off by the attack. I raised my leg to kick again, only to have her block it. Raising Sorrow, I slashed down at the opening.

Another chunk of HP was lost. But Carman still kept up her guarded stance.

I began alternating between using my legs and Sorrow to deal damage. Carman didn’t seem to know how to block two simultaneous attacks, forcing her to choose one or the other. But without the rapid attacks to break her guard, her coding didn’t allow her to leave her guarded stance either.

Fancy that. I’d just found a new exploit.

An average fight was made easy as I took full advantage of the situation. As I kicked and stabbed at the boss’s large HP pool, I was starting to learn. My kicks were growing less sloppy as time went on. Not amazing, of course, but more controlled. More sure footed, with more punch behind them.

The fight concluded uneventfully. I landed one last hit on Carman, who hadn’t been able to budge from the spot since I stun locked her. I killed the boss, and took her drops. There wasn’t anything very interesting this time, just a few pieces of equipment that were not a lot better than what I had on already.

Achievement: Untouched by the Spear complete

Received skill: Weapons Mastery

Weapons Mastery (B)

Passive

Increases attack by 30% when in battle.

A boon from the warrior sorceress from across the seas. May you push forth boldly, never faltering.

Hidden Quest Completed: The Hunt’s Target

10k EXP

Received Skill: Titania’s Wrath

Titania’s Wrath (A)

20 MP cost. Cooldown: 5s.

Lightning strikes down from the sky. Does 5k damage to the target. With each successful strike, caster gains an attack boost of 20% for 10s. Can stack up to 5 times.

The experience from killing Carman and getting the quest done was enough to raise my Level by 1.

Titania’s Wrath was pretty weak for an A skill, but since it could be obtained for free, there wasn’t too much to complain about. In fact, I was quite pleased with it. Cooldown was short, it provided buffs, and while the damage done was small, it was understandable considering that the buffing effect could stack. This would make up one of the three offensive MP skills that I wanted for the Oberon fight.

That was one boss down, two more to go. Now that I’d finished up in the Deep Woods, it was time to see about heading to the Lakes of Luna.

I was about to set off when I remembered my promise to Emmie and Richard.

Right. I still had to take them on a visit there.

I reversed directions and began heading towards the Capital. Even if I couldn’t fight Balor while they were around, I could definitely show them around the place. Despite being local inhabitants of Briarwood, I doubted Emmie had much of an opportunity to leave the Capital. Richard couldn’t leave his post in smithy, and I wasn’t sure Lydia had the physical prowess to fight off the mobs in the Forest along the way.

Actually, I wondered if the Chosen Ones’ Alliance had any portals leading to the Lakes of Luna. Bringing NPCs through a portal would probably be a lot safer than escorting them personally. I’d have to ask Marge when I got back. Hopefully Trix wouldn’t be there. I had the feeling that things would be a little awkward after the incident at the Fortress of Ruin.

The Lakes of Luna had plenty of little nixie towns that we could visit. Unlike the Kobold villages in the Light Marshes, all the nixie towns were friendly. They’d be located underwater, but I knew a quest that I could do to gain an underwater breathing spell.

Maybe that could be our adventure for the day. A nice, easy quest. It would take time out from my rush to meet the god of this world before getting snapped out of existence, but hey, it would be relaxing. A small vacation to take out some of the stress.

A part of me was worried that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my promise of keeping Lydia and Emmie safe on the journey. I mean, sure, at this point, I was way over levelled for the Forest, and taking care of any mobs would be a piece of cake. But what if my concentration slipped?

It was one thing taking risks myself, and it was another dragging someone else in with me. This was different from dungeon diving with Rue, after all. Emmie and Lydia couldn’t defend themselves.

Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to vacationing this easily…

I shook my head.

Well… what’s done was done. I ought to get this obligation done and dusted before I ended up with more conflicts like the situation with Rue.

When I reached the Capital, however, I realised that I didn’t have this particular obligation anymore.