Undral Legacy

Chapter 4 - Zen and Myst VS Grimly Ursidae

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After roughly 10 minutes, Zen and I arrived at a river which was inhabited by brown bears with long sharp claws. A name tag above these monsters introduced them as «Grimly Ursidae» to us.

There were some other players already, shooting around «Spark» aimlessly and unsure how to fight them. On the way here we did not encounter many other players, thanks to the enormous size of this world.

“This seems like a nice place to grind for some experience points,” I stated, after analyzing the area.

“Myst, watch out!”

I followed the unnerved voice of Zen and turned my head to the right.

To my shock, the reason for his shouting was that one of the creatures has been charging at me out of nowhere. The bear managed to come awfully close to me already so there was not much time for me to react anymore.

My only chance was to use «Slick», which I promptly did.

“Hrgh…!”

I barely managed to dodge sideways as soon as the spell drained some of my mana. The bear passed and only stopped a few feet away from us, before turning around back to its prey.

“Seems like these are hostile mobs. We’ve got to be careful and watch our step around here.”

Zen had cast «Spark» immediately after he finished his comment. I did not hesitate and attacked with my own magic as well. Our spells landed on the enemy directly into its face.

“…Grrr!”

The Ursidae let out an angry growl when it got hit by our double attack. With its claws beginning to glow in a dark-red tone, the Grimly Ursidae dashed at us again.

Zen and I tried to evade by using «Slick», however, the distance toward our enemy shortened so quickly that we did not have enough time to react. The monster unleashed its attack with a powerful s***h, wide enough to hit us both at the same time, leaving a similar dark-red trail in the air behind the attack direction.

As we were thrown to the ground, our HP bars lost a great portion of their value consequently.

"Urgh, are you alright, Myst...?”

“…More or less. This monster is definitely stronger than the ones before.”

Zen and I got back up to our feet, while the bear was still recovering his energy. I thought about using «Mend» to regain some of my HP back, but the cooldown on this spell was long. It does not heal a lot; however, it should still be used with care.

“Quick, let’s attack it again! This is a small opening for us!” I shouted as I prepared the spell «Spark» once more.

Zen nodded and attacked the monster with me together.

“-Grrrroa!”

The Ursidae led out a growl again as its HP depleted a bit, which sounded more painful this time. We knew his attack pattern by now, so it was obvious what would come next.

Just as I had expected it, our enemy dashed at us again with the same attack it used before. This time, we were prepared to react quick enough and used Slick immediately to dodge the dangerous claws of the Grimly Ursidae at the very last second.

Thanks to the long gaming experience Zen and I had together, it was easy to adapt to the pattern the monster used. We continued the fight with the same strategy over and over, but the damage we dealt to the bear was not remarkably effective. At this point, it was simply a matter of whether the HP of the enemy or our mana points would run out first.

-Then, as I feared for the worst already, the brown bear with its sharp claws led out a final loud growl, before collapsing on the ground. The HP bar above its head reached zero and vanished. As a cause, the body of the monster began to dissolve slowly at various places into crimson-red dust, just like the «Snappy Lizard» which I killed before.

Zen and I glanced at each other with a questioning look that asked: Is it over?

As if the game wanted to answer that for us, the soothing bell sound rang while a screen appeared in front of me and him. The contents were the experience points and the loot that we gained from this fight. Zen went from level 1 to 3, and in my case, I even leveled up from 1 to 4.

The reason was probably the monster that I killed before.

“We did it! We actually beat that damn bear!”

“And I thought that we were goners…” I sighed and sat down on the grassland, exhausted from the battle.

“But I have to say, this one was way too strong for normal level 1 players.” He then said thoughtfully.

I glanced along the river at the remaining Ursidae, which were not fighting with other players anymore. My guess was, that they lost against them and respawned at the starting city. It was then, that I finally saw the levels of the monsters next to their HP bars.

“You are definitely right about that, Zen. Look at their level for a second.”

Zen followed my gaze and eyed the Grimly Ursidae that roamed across the field carefully.

“Wait, what?! Their levels range from 4 to 6! It’s no wonder that we got so much EXP from them!”

I nodded in agreement.

It was only because we were together and had analyzed the attack pattern quickly, that we barely managed to beat our enemy. On top of that, I think we were lucky enough to face a bear that was only at level 4 and not higher. If it were even a single level stronger, there would have been no way for us to beat it.

“I guess, our plan to distribute our points for testing purposes is now realizable!” I smirked at Zen.

“Yes, that’s true! But I think we should get out of here first. I don’t want to be attacked by another one of them again.”

As if that was a keyword, the sound of multiple explosions in the distance caught our attention. Both of us looked at each other confused for a second.

At that moment, each of us got a system message at the same time. We opened the menu interface and scrolled through the options until we found a letter icon. I clicked on it which resulted in a mailbox popping up.

My eyes widened as I read the contents of it.

“Oh no, we lost track of time! The Opening Ceremony is about to start!” I shouted.

“We have to hurry! Even if we run, it’ll take us about 7 minutes to get there!”

Not wasting any time, I immediately got up and left together with Zen the fields near the lake. As if our lives were at stake, we ran with all we had got in the direction of Laos. Every step closer toward our goal made the sound of explosions in our ears louder until we could finally see the silhouette of the large medieval-age city in the distance.

It turned out that it was the sound of fireworks all along when the sky above us was painted in many different colors and effects creating a beautiful view. This scene alone made me realize again, how incredible the technology of the ArgoSpace was to process all this data and information with ease.

That was the last moment that I savored before everything in this world changed for me and the other 28.000 players in Undral forever.