CHAPTER 111: PERSEVERANCE

Then, Marc’s voice echoed.

"I got like 90% HP still! I’ll hold all of them back, just focus attack on each one, Hailie and Pearl will probably level up after these three!"

Before they could process that, the first two orcs slammed their axe and sword down at the same time, forcing Marc to his back on the dirt while the third approached. That thing he said about 90%? Yeah, I think we could remove a zero from that.

Exaggeration, of course, probably only around 6-70% right now, not 9%.

"Marc!" Hailie gasped and threw her hands out, golden light flaring as she prepared to cast her Priest spell layering him in a shimmering aura, "Gift Of The Skies!"

"Too early," I muttered. "He’s still full, Hailie. That’s a wasted buff."

If [Heal] is a Cleric skill that literally heals, [Gift Of The Skies] is a Priest skill that moderately enhances another user’s innate regeneration and healing received (not lifesteal) for a minute. Plus, her robes that I bought would have her increase the duration of the Priest for another half minute, so Marc’s in pretty good hand right now...

But I’d rather recommend him take another 2 or 3 hits so that he’s actually low before poppin Gift Of The Skies because this thing had a really long cooldown of an hour, AND, the cooldown timer only begin after the duration ended. So you can’t just make it so that the actual cooldown is 58 and half minute instead of 60 minutes.

Healing at this level is literally brainless, arguably even easier than DPS-ing, because what else do you do except casting a few skills, maybe toss a potion, carry a few luggages?

But of course, they’re well-valued, so they’re not going to carry any luggages. I’d argue the only job worth valuing in VR where you can feel pain was tank... Before that even, in PC, tanks were rare, too. Because people feed and get their dopamines on positive feedback, not red screens and health depleting.

In fact, if I remember correctly... There was a time where the devs experiment with introducing new players to the tank role by giving them discounts on ingame shops. How nice and thoughtful of them, nothing could go wrong!

Except it went horribly when players (like me) switch class to tanks just to buy stuff and resell ’em to other players and eat the profit.

Capitalism rules.

God, I’m dick-riding right now am I?

Back to the fight, I raised my eyebrows to what happened next.

Marc roared as he pushed back up from the dirt, ready to counterstrike the orcs.

Mei started moving to the left of Marc, aiming it so that her next spell, Interrompo—a shockwave of rumblings with airborne travel instead of going through solids, basically making your body tremble—would line up and hit all 3 of them in a straight line, when the 3rd one come close enough.

The problem was, the shockwave was not exactly a straight line, it was more of a... very stretchy and thin orthogonal. So, she hit Marc, too.

"Arg! Watch it!" Marc snapped at her as he loosen his grip on the sword, dropping it to the ground at the same time as the three orcs.

Pearl yanked his sister back by the shirt collar like she was a feral cat about to bolt into traffic.

"Watch for friendly fire, stick to Icycle Shot and Force Bolt!"

I sipped milk evilishly as I watched, amused... I get why people are tuning into this stream now... Wait, 300 viewers already? Damn.

The fight was chaos... To say the least, they had big time trouble trying to take down three orcs at once.

Marc, who on paper was a swordsman, find himself only being able to block, dodge, and bleed.

When Mei’s spell ended, he raised his sword to block an axe swing from the first orc, but then the sword swing from the second orc pushed him further down to the floor, but he managed to stand his ground with knees bent, only for the third orc wielding a wooden club to smash him in his ribs, putting a huge dent in the armor and sending him sliding a few feet back.

Hailie was healing and yelling his name so frantically her voice cracked, as though this was the first time they’ve been in this bad of a situation. But thanks to [Gift Of The Skies], Marc was in good condition, but he’s going to need to fix that armor later before they can continue fighting orcs.

Pearl had the easiest time fighting because he was used to this, but he also had the hardest time trying to command these two DPSes at the backline, Rina and Mei. They didn’t seem to work well together, even though there was no harsh feelings or snarky remarks or retaliation, they’re just... That different in playstyle, one would attack, the other would somehow someway mess it up unknowingly.

It happens, especially with untrained and naturally uncoordinated people.

And yet... somehow, they didn’t wipe.

Rina casted her skill again and finally put enough damage to take down the dangerous one with the sword, because Marc will have a harder time dodging that than say a club or an axe.

Marc stayed upright out of pure stubborn meatbag energy, pumped and alive thanks to Hailie’s glow keeping him alive and conscious even when her Priest skill ended.

Mei and Pearl synced up long enough to blast the one orc with the club down, and Rina managed to put an arrow through the last one, the axe’s one throat before it could land another hit on Marc.

Both orcs dissolved into smoke, leaving the team panting in the silence of temporary victory.

Honestly...?

If we remove one DPS, either Mei or Rina, doesn’t matter whom, and just let Pearl work with the other... I think they’ll have finished it in half time, hell, they can just kite the orcs and didn’t need a tank and healer.

This could’ve been done faster with two fifth of the people.

This was such a ridiculous farm, no one should’ve get that hurt in the first place.

Marc was the first one to drop down to the ground, sitting flat while looking at the other 10 orcs in the distance who weren’t provoked by them yet.

"Lord have mercy on me..." He said, "Alright... okay. That was rough, but uh... Yeah, we persevered."

"For now." Pearl adjusted his robes. "We need an actual formation, this chaos cannot continue."

"Aw~" Mei grinned. "But I thought it was fun!"

"Not dying would be fun, too" Rina chuckled, rubbing her shoulder and waving her tired fingers.

"Oh... I leveled up! Um- Marc, let me get that forehead looked at, please, I bought some cotton." Hailie chirped, but immediately got into caring mode

I drained the last of my milk at the bottom of the glass, smirking at the disaster contained on screen.

So... I left a comment with my Tweak account.

[You guys should get back to base and reconsider your strategy or your team]

But my message was drowned out by a conversation, something that people noticed that I didn’t.

The chat started spamming something that no one would like to hear.

[Anyone else see that figure??]

[What figure?]

[Back there, by the trees, hey, Rina! Look to your left!]

[Right behind Mei?]

[Yeah yeah I see it now, who the fuck is that]

I leaned forward, my head throbbing.

"What figure?" I whispered.

But Rina didn’t turn the camera to her left, and when she did, it was so fast that no one could pause in time to catch it... She was still catching her breath.

All five of them were oblivious to what’s going to happen.