Killing monsters, together!

Now that they were both outside and on Blair’s front lawn, John focused as he cast the Create Barrier skill.

Create Barrier lvl up
Lvl 1 → lvl 2
A fourth option for generating barrier monsters is now available within Tier 0, and maximum barrier population has gone from 20 to 22. Tier 0 barriers now have a chance to spawn a boss monster once all other monsters have been slain.

Illusion Barrier Monster Population Options:
Tier 0: Grass Samurai, Asphalt Rats, Puddle Slimes, Concrete Ants
Tier 1: Skill level not high enough
Tier 2: Skill level not high enough
Tier 3: Skill level not high enough
Tier 4: Skill level not high enough
Tier 5: Skill level not high enough

“Well, these are our options right now,” John told Blair and listed out every monster type that was available. After a moment to think, Blair decided that she wanted to go with the Grass Samurai. When John asked her why that one in particular, she responded by saying that they had the coolest sounding name, a reason he could not argue against as he pressed on it.

New Barrier Created
Type: Suburbs
Enemy type: Grass Samurai
Population: 22

The world shifted, and they entered the barrier. It was largely the same as the real world, with a few key differences, however. Unlike the real world which was mostly cloudy, the sky was completely blue and the heat of the bright sun bore down on them. And also unlike the real world, where Blair’s front lawn was mostly neat and seemed to have been recently mowed, the grass here was unruly and tall, reaching their knee level in height.

Warning!
You have entered a dungeon type barrier with another person, would you like to form a party?
Yes/No

John blinked with surprise as he read it. Before he hit yes, he looked around to see if he could find more information on it like he did before with his stats. He eventually did find it and pressed on it.

Party system
Allows the Gamer to form a “Party”. This Party can contain the user’s level / 2 (rounded down) people at the same time, until reaching the maximum of 10. Party EXP from kills is split between the party leader and party members, with the party leader always getting the highest amount. Warning: Level and difficulty of barrier monsters scale with the total level of every member of the party.

He looked at Blair who was beside him, and watched as she jumped in surprise at seeing a popup like his own appear in front of her.

“Is this a part of your powers?” she asked tentatively as her eyes scanned the party invite. When John nodded, she read over it again, and softly pressed to accept the invite to the party.

Blair Hollmey has been added to the party.
Current party maximum occupancy has been reached.
EXP split has been set as 60/40 by default. If you would like to change this split, you must do so before the first barrier monster is slain.

Well, I suppose that’s a good split for now, especially with the levels of the Grass Samurai probably going to be in the teens with Blair here, John thought to himself as he looked at Blair.

He saw that now, above her head, was both a HP bar and a MP bar. When she noticed the two bars above his head, she flinched in surprise. As John got ready to answer any questions she might have, he was surprised when, instead, she turned back around while mumbling something about his powers being weird.

With that seemingly done, John began to look around, and as he began to scan the tall grass for any signs of movement, something in the back of his mind made him begin to feel like he was in a game of Bakamon. He watched as Blair cracked her knuckles and touched the grass near them.

“Dry… Hey, mind seeing if you can climb that tree over there? You’ll be safer that way,” she asked as she pointed to a nearby oak tree. John, despite not having much faith in his climbing ability, chose to have faith in his increased stats and complied as he made his way to it. A minute later, although it took him a few tries, John now sat uncomfortably a fair height above ground level.

He watched Blair glance around, as the grass behind her began to rustle and move. A being made purely of tightly knit grass, in the shape of an armored samurai, and only tall enough to reach the middle of Blair’s shin jumped out, its grass katana held above its head. While it was midair, John quickly cast Observe on it.

Grass Samurai
Lvl 11
HP:100/100
A being made of toughened, knotted blades and roots of grass. Its body is that of a fully armored samurai from the feudal age of Japan.

As John was about to call out to Blair to warn her, he soon understood that it would not be needed. Before the Grass Samurai could bring its katana down on Blair’s head, it was stopped as Blair sharply turned around and grabbed its torso, smoke immediately beginning to emit from where her skin made contact with it. Sparks began to fly down while John watched as the Grass Samurai was consumed in black flames.

43 dmg
35 dmg
38 dmg

+66 EXP

The Grass Samurai was, within seconds, halfway turned into mere ash as Blair threw the other still burning half back into the grass, causing the flames to spread to the dry foliage. As John watched, Blair held out her hand, her palm facing upwards, a small ball of black flame on it. He realized that she likely wouldn’t need his help at all and that staying in the tree where he wouldn’t get in the way was the right call. He heard Blair call out to him as the flames around her continued to spread.

“So basically, these barrier monsters can be compared to a computer program in some ways. Made from code, mana, and only built to perform the tasks they were made for, and aside from those tasks, they simply aren’t capable of doing anything else,” she said as two more samurai jumped out at her, only to be met by a wave of black flames and turned into ash.

+72 EXP
+66 EXP

“Anything else, like the baby version of the monsters you saw before, is just a result of you being so weak. See right now, these guys are decently strong, strong enough that you would have no chance on your own. When you made a barrier last night, you were so weak that the part of the monsters that could fit your level of power had to be babies. So if you don’t want to deal with that, even though you shouldn’t have any ethical problems from a logical sense, all you have to do is get stronger,” she explained to him.

I suppose… what she’s saying does make sense in a way, but... No, I can’t let my emotions get in the way, I have to think about this from a purely logical perspective, otherwise I’ll never get over it completely, John thought to himself as he closed his eyes. Instead of living beings, he needed to see them more akin to lines of code, created for the sole purpose of doing what they were made for, no more and no less than that. He took one deep breath through his nose, and let it out of his mouth. His mind was clear, for now at least.

Hmm, but since Blair has this covered, what should I do? It’s not like I can do pushups or anything here, so completing the quest for that isn’t an option. Oh… right! I never spent my points for my stats, I got distracted by Ganzac’s arrival. I should go ahead and do that now, he thought as he opened his character sheet.

He looked at his options. Yesterday in the bathroom he had decided that his main goal would be to get all his stats to at least 10. Now that he had finished that goal, he needed to decide what he wanted to focus on this time.

+72 EXP
+66 EXP
+78 EXP

John didn’t have to look up from his character sheet to see. He already knew that Blair had turned three more samurai into ash as more smoke began to fill the barrier. The smoke seemed fairly stagnant, however, only moving as much as it could in an area with no wind.

Okay, I got an achievement before for getting them all up to 10, and it was called Well Rounded I. Which means there must be a second one, and if I had to guess what number it would be for, I would have to say it would probably be 25. Libido is 21, so am I willing to spend four points to get it to 25 to see what would happen? John pondered.

What would that even give me, an even higher sex drive? No, it would be smarter for me to invest into stats I actually have a use for, like Strength, Endurance, or Wisdom. So even if I don’t get a reward of some kind for getting them to 25, I still benefit, John thought as he now inspected each stat again one by one, while thinking of the past two days to see which he really needed the most right now.

+72 EXP
+72 EXP
+60 EXP
+72 EXP

With that slew of new EXP notifications, John realised that he would likely level up pretty soon at this rate. Which meant he could be slightly less cautious since he’d have more Ability Points to invest soon. He decided that with the recent buff to his MP, he likely didn’t need to worry about increasing his Intellect.

After a few extra moments to think, John decided how he wanted to split his Ability Points. He put two into Endurance, two into Wisdom, and two into Strength. This way he had more HP and regen for it, which only helped with not dying as quickly. The increased Wisdom would boost his mana’s regen, which could make Soul Weapon effectively free at some point instead of draining his MP. As for Strength, well more damage just meant he could defeat stuff faster, which ties back into the whole not dying thing, something he was a big fan of.

Once that was done, John tried to relax as he waited for Blair to clear out the dozen monsters that were left.

`10 minutes later

After the last of the Grass Samurai was killed, John had 1538/1600 total EXP. Not enough to get him another level up, but it was very close. He looked down to see if he could spot Blair within the cloud of smoke, and saw her silhouette before she jumped off the ground, using the black flames spewing out of her hands as propulsion, and landed next to him.

“Man, that was a pretty good workout, been a while,” she said as a bead of sweat dripped down her chin. John at that moment remembered something very important, something that he was an idiot for not mentioning, or even keeping in mind before.

“Hey Blair-” he began but was cutoff as a new popup appeared in front of him.

Warning!
A boss monster has spawned.

John looked from Blair to the middle of the barrier, where a Grass Samurai, but now far larger, appeared, looking like it was actually taller than them. And instead of being made of the green blades of grass like the others, this one was covered in brown.

“That.”