Collide Gamer

“You….” A voice like rattling branches scratching over ancient bark echoed through the woods. It dripped with disgust as thick as sap. “…I can feel the taint of sin on you…”

“Can you be more specific?” Victoria asked the disembodied voice.

“….The male amongst you…He has killed younglings. So many younglings…and the one with the stupid pink hair…”

“Ya take that back, I’m cursed to look this good!” Rave cracked her knuckles.

“…she has sinned as well…”

“Is this good or bad?” John thought out loud. Getting the boss to spawn quickly was fundamentally good. They had the people and the levels on their side. What he was missing, however, was intel.

The bark of a nearby tree started to bulge and stretch. A being emerged, an upright creature with a dense network of roots serving as its legs and two branches extending as its arms. It was shorter than John by about a head. Brown and gnarled bark served as its skin, matching the tree it was birthed from. The plant itself returned to its natural state. Only a cross-shaped mark betrayed the emergence of the monster.

‘Monsters and the boss?’ John thought. ‘That could be an issue.’

‘If Gaia could stop stealth patching stuff, that would be great. I mean, I just wake up one day and the info above people’s heads is gone.’ John mentally complained.

“Can ya believe what that thing said?!” Rave shouted angrily.

John looked at her, the normally playful pink lustre in her eyes was deadly serious. Only time he saw her more agitated was on the day they had gotten together. Then and now, he shared her agitation. After all, the voice had just said something terrible. “It called your hair stupid.”

“IT CALLED MY HAIR STUPID!” Rave was engulfed in a blue, flame like aura. “I am going to punch that thing in whatever it has for a face!” She exclaimed and stormed at the Treant.

The monster had barely any time to react. One punch brought it off balance, its roots bending and stretching to keep it upright. It swung back like a punching bag. Rave proceeded to use it like one as well. Again and again, her knuckles slammed into the wood. Splinters of bark flew in every direction. When the insides of the creature were exposed, Rave pushed her open palm against the opening and incinerated the monster. What remained after the shotgun blast of light quickly turned to dust in its own right.

Rave extinguished her aura and took a deep breath. Her mana ticked up again. Simultaneously, John checked out how much he had gained from that. ’52 EXP, not that bad,’ he thought. ‘If 50 is the average, it’ll take me 51 more enemies to level up. That’s double the enemies I need for the Quest. Should go pretty well together with the boss though… Gnome, could you take care of that?’

‘Yes, John,’ the earth elemental’s voice echoed in his thoughts. Much like Aclysia, she felt calm and undefined. There was more to her, the wisdom of a plane she was no longer a part of, but also less. When she wasn’t spoken to, she just observed and learned.

The order given, the elemental manifested in her small form. Mana flowed through their connection to her, as she faced another Treant stalking towards them. Two hands raised, she formed his mana into the attack his mind envisioned.

Two walls of earth erected left and right of the approaching enemy, a mere moment later they crashed together. The Treant caught in between was squished, branches and roots stuck out like the legs of a squished insect. Gnome clapped her hands together and a second pulse went through the earthen walls, cracking wood between them.

EXP bestowed confirmed the kill. John checked his MP. The whole ordeal had only cost him around 60 Mana. Gnome in corporeal form and Aclysia together taxed his mana regeneration of 11,02 by 11 – in other words, he was basically at net 0. With 331 MP Max, he could kill about 5 of the enemies this way before he ran out. He would still be left with two additional bodies when he did though. Plus, he could always shift Gnome back to incorporeal when she wasn’t needed, which decreased her upkeep cost by 5.

Ghosts had died quicker (not necessarily easier, because Mana Power Attack was annoying to aim). Still, compared to where he was a week or two ago and now, his combat capability had expanded massively. With Gnome and Aclysia, he probably could have defeated the Rockers on his own. Not the Wall Shadow though, without Rave he wouldn’t have had a way to overcome its gimmick.

“What’s the plan, tiger?” Rave asked, additional Treants coming into view all around. Like the Ghosts, they slowly walked towards them, like the basic enemies in a Bullet Heaven game.

“Let’s do some more tests first. Aclysia, can you try and kill that one on your own?” He pointed at the nearest Treant.

“Affirmative, Creator,” Aclysia stepped forwards.

‘Hey, she picked a title,’ John noted mentally. A sense of pride filled him, alongside a sense of anticipation. With the harem talk gone over successfully and her gradually ascending to proper sapience, perhaps there was a chance here after all? All depended on whether or not he would believe she was capable of falling in love and did so of her own volition.

Such thoughts were quickly pushed aside when Aclysia broke out into a sprint. For a human, she was fast. For an animated assortment of metal and plastic, she was extremely fast. For an Abyssal, at least those John had seen so far, she was of average speed.

The Treant twisted in response to her straightforward charge. Its arm whipped across her side. The Artificial Guardian bent from the impact. That was the entire reaction – there was no pained cry, no change in her expression, and no interruption of her fist hurling into the creature. The impact cracked the bark at the torso.

What followed was a primitive slugfest. Neither opponent cared to dodge and both only delivered straightforward blows. John kept a close look on Aclysia’s resources, ready to send someone else in if it ever looked dicey. Aclysia’s Strength and Endurance served her well, however. At the end of this exchange of stubborn blows, she stood the victor. About a third of her HP was gone, but with her regeneration it would be fixed in a manner of minutes.

‘No EXP for her… guess it really is limited to her eating things,’ John thought. “Does that hurt?” John asked, pointing at the many cuts and bruises on her surface. Cuts on her plastic surface revealed metal bones underneath.

“What is hurt?” Aclysia asked in turn.

“Ah, I guess you can’t feel it then?” John thought out loud.

“What makes you say that, Creator?” Aclysia tilted her head inquisitively.

“I believe, if you could feel it, you’d know what I was talking about.”

Aclysia tilted her head a little further. Rather than ask further, she pondered the answer she had been given. The Gamer, meanwhile, was certain he knew what being hurt felt like. The many tears the combat had ripped into Aclysia’s outfit ached in his heart. The perfect cosplay – ruined. ‘Probably not the smartest idea to take expensive clothes into a dungeon.’

“BANG! BANG! BANG!” The series of gunshots made John turn around in a hurry. His father had taken him to a gun range once before (and only once, neither of them had particularly enjoyed being there), so he knew the sound.

Victoria was behind him, blasting holes into another Treant. John was witness simultaneously to the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of a gun in the Abyss. The repeated blasts of raw kinetic force kept the creature at bay. Each shot ripped more of its wooden body out. Beyond that, however, the monster kept on moving. It took Victoria over ten bullets to finally dispatch the creature. A less stupid and more nimble target and she’d run out of ammunition rapidly. If she shot at Aclysia, the bullets would probably do next to nothing, considering the Artificial Spirit’s steel innards.

During the entire thought process, John could not help but stare at the woman’s breasts. Each shot made them jiggle under her shirt. It was a pretty fantastic sight. He caught himself before she noticed and beheld Rave instead. He was allowed to stare at her as much as he wanted. She was staring at Victoria’s tits.

Once the Treant was dispatched, the gunslinger checked her weapon. Another weakness was that a single jam would spell her doom. Rave and John’s weapons were innate, they couldn’t be taken from them. Guns were definitely powerful, especially at this level, but they would be a bad investment as they went further up the magical ladder.

‘Still could have gotten some good grinding done on my own if I had gotten my hands on a firearm,’ the Gamer realized. A handgun and he could have blasted some rats into smithereens. ‘But where would I have gotten the money for ammunition?’ “Right, before I forget, Victoria?”

The stern woman turned around, demanding him to continue with a glare.

“I’ll invite you to my party now. Please accept,” he told her.

The window appeared in front of Victoria. She backed away in surprise, then read its contents. “No,” she stated as she pressed it away. “I don’t trust your powers enough yet to just enter this… ‘party’.” Her tone made it clear she was not going to argue on this.

John clicked his tongue. “Fine then,” he said, meekly, then he continued harsher. If he was going to be more assertive, he had to start somewhere. “Don’t kill anything, in that case, or you’ll be messing with us getting Experience.” He then turned away from her. It was not a great sign that she joined the guild but not the group.