Showing Off

“Hah, got five of them!” Lerianna boasted as the last of the strange, noodle-like serpent creatures vanished in a burst of black dust, crumbling away under the **** of the bunnygirl’s guillotine kick.

“I got five too,” Maera said happily, her tail high in the air and twitching. Lerianna gave her a quick glance and an indifferent shrug, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge the cat’s remark.

“I should have gotten five, but you stole one, nyaa!” Mithra complained, pawing at her sister’s shoulders in annoyance. Maera just giggled and leaned into the playful bats – which only encouraged Mithra to increase their strength until they were actually uncomfortable, at which point Maera and Mithra both darted off into the weeds.

“I only got three, so I suppose you and Maera both take the victory,” Orria said, smiling serenely.

“Not a chance! That makes the mini-boss the tiebreaker. Whoever gets the kill wins,” Lerianna growled. She clenched her fists and pivoted on one foot as the sound of rustling started up to the east, the tall grasses that filled the Dungeon Barrier beginning to shake and shiver ominously. A massive serpent, far thicker and longer than the ones that they had been fighting thus far, rose up over the grasses. Its head was nearly the size of a small car, and it was able to lift it over a dozen feet off the ground, towering over the prairie and John’s team alike. Lerianna didn’t seem bothered by the size of the beast at all; if anything, her smirk only grew wider.

“And since the cats are off playing, that means all I gotta do is land the final blow, and-”

While Lerianna was still announcing her intentions to take the victory, a thicket of grass from the field around them twisted and twirled, ripping itself up from its roots and beginning to glide over the dirt toward the massive creature. Their movement almost seemed to mimic the massive green-scaled serpent’s, writhing their way along the ground, twisting and tangling themselves together to form ropes as they went. The snake had been tensing as if to strike, but as the field came alive around it, it hardly seemed to know how to react. It bit out once as a tendril of tightly-woven grasses shot for its head, but the bite did little except allow the living rope to weave between its jaws and wrap more securely around the snake’s head.

“Yeah, good idea! Hold it still and I can end it myself, in one blow!”

Lerianna broke into a sprint toward the snake, but by the time she was beginning her jump, seven more ropes had joined the first, the entire field seeming to have uprooted itself. They formed thin, dense bindings, the woven grass proving surprisingly strong when the serpent began to hiss and thrash, attempting to break free of the flora biting painfully into its thick hide as they circled the beast once and looped around themselves expertly. Despite the creature’s size, its motions only tightened the powerful bindings further and further, until…

Schlick!

Critical Hit! 1,098 DMG!
Critical Hit! 872 DMG!
Critical Hit! 1,134 DMG!
Critical Hit! 1,046 DMG!
Critical Hit! 1,022 DMG!
Critical Hit! 951 DMG!
Critical Hit! 987 DMG!
Critical Hit! 1,003 DMG!

Nearly in unison, all eight ropes pulled as strongly as they could, the tension in the lines visible to the naked eye as they heaved with everything they had. Something had to give eventually, and to the massive reptile’s dismay, it was not the ropes. With a sickening sound of flesh being half-cut, half-torn apart, the woven grass released the pressure by cutting through the serpent’s body. Once the dam had burst, once the skin and hide had given way, the ropes had momentum on their side, and little else in the creature’s body even slowed them down.

The mighty mini-boss fell to the ground in tatters, the severed sections of its head and neck falling to the ground, followed shortly after by the resounding “Thud” of its main body segment slamming into the ground.

Lerianna’s dead sprint petered off into a stunned stroll, staring dully at the hunks of meat that the massive reptile had been reduced to. As the Barrier began to fade around them, Lerianna pivoted to face the group once more, and a scowl grew on the annoyed athlete’s face as she noticed the exceedingly pleased look Orria was giving her.

“Oh my, does that mean I win?” she asked, bringing her fingers to her lips and widening her eyes in an attempt at looking innocent. It didn’t work; in fact, it only served to stoke Lerianna’s frustration. Lerianna crossed her arms and scoffed.

"No way! You only had three kills - and mini-boss or no, that still only counts as one! Can't believe you jumped in like that just to keep me from winning," Lerianna huffed, the muscles in her forearms tensing as she seemed to be debating whether or not she was about to get physical. Given what she'd just seen Orria do, however…

"I apologize, but I believe we’ve already reached the designated time for us to stop. I thought it would be best for us to bring the fight to an end as quickly as possible. Unless you wanted to keep going, John?”

“Nah, you’re right, Orria,” John agreed, pulling his phone out of his inventory to check on it. The timer he’d set had actually gone off about halfway through the last dungeon, and despite the lack of physical tiredness, John was feeling pretty mentally drained. The others had occasionally gone off to rest or to do other things, and as such hadn’t been in every single barrier that he’d gone through. John, on the other hand, had been going for almost forty-eight hours now – from the late morning of Orria’s day to the early morning now, when he was due back in Springfield for his date with Layla.

“You feeling alright, by the way?” Lerianna asked, putting her annoyance aside for long enough to check up on John. “Can’t believe you’re still keeping up after all that time. I think you might actually be doing better than when we started.”

“That’s just the levels. I’m actually kind of tired. Well, not physically. Kinda mentally drained after all that though, so I shouldn’t be any sharper or more skilled, that’s for sure.”

Truthfully, it was more than just a little bit of exhaustion, but John didn’t know a better way to describe it. It was the closest he’d felt to truly being sleepy since he got his Gamer powers a year ago. Even his perception seemed to be slowing down, though a few minutes between dungeons seemed to be enough to fix that for a short while.

“After two days of no sleep and non-stop fighting, you should be doing a hell of a lot worse than that. Your health bar got the worst of it, and I don’t think you can really ‘feel’ that.”

John’s eyes flickered to his interface, carefully opening up just his stat menu to check over his new readouts.

His health was sitting a little over a quarter – too close for comfort now, though he’d started that last dungeon at almost half before one of the slithery little freaks had snuck up on him. And to be fair, he had gained so many levels that a quarter of his health now was a solid chunk of what his maximum had been before they started.

“No, having my health down like this doesn’t really leave any lingering effects, thankfully. Not after the wounds have healed, and that only takes a couple of seconds.” John nodded as he continued browsing his new stats, impressed at how far he’d come. Forty-eight straight hours of training was essentially six times as much as a normal day’s training, if not a little bit more. Of course, they’d been slowed down by others coming and going, sometimes leaving John alone entirely, but the progress was still astounding.

“Shit, no wonder I seem to be getting better. My stats damn near doubled, even if I am tired and low on HP,” John mused, giving an appreciative whistle as he looked at his stats. “I guess that’s the one thing I have to worry about on these extended sessions. No matter how low of a level we started at, I can only dodge so many attacks before I mess up. We should have Order healers for when I try going for a week straight, thankfully. I wouldn’t have done so well if Orria didn’t join us and use her healing to help out.”

“Oh, she helped alright…” Lerianna grumbled. “I think the cats had the right idea in beating feet outta here. I’m headed back home if we’re all done. I need a shower and one hell of a nap.”

Lerianna waved over her shoulder to the rest of them as she jogged past them and back to the house. Maera and Mithra were still running around in circles, pawing and tackling one another, and paid John no attention as he and Orria followed in Lerianna’s wake at a slower pace.

“I don’t think Lerianna appreciated your help with the boss,” John said with a chuckle.

“Well, I can’t have you being late to your date, can I?” Orria asked coyly, tapping a finger to her lips. “My healing is a lot less efficient on others, but I’m glad you found it helpful. I think my offensive magic still makes the biggest impression, though. Perhaps you could use it on the battlefield instead of here, when you go off to join the war?” John shot Orria a knowing look, which she pretended not to notice.

“Nice try.”

“Worth a shot. Will you be leaving soon?”

“Yeah, just gotta take care of a few things, sort the loot, probably stop by the alchemy lab and get a few more potions brewing. I’ve actually gotten pretty decent at setting things up, and Yvara even helped design a few new machines to test out.” As they walked, John started to veer off, heading for the lab in question rather than the house’s front door. “What about you? Ready for a nap too?”

“Oh, my, no. I’m feeling so peppy after that, I might not sleep for a week! I’ll probably go tend to the grove. How do you feel about kintsugi? I was doing some research on your computer, and I think a few faded gold seams along the ruins would really add to the feeling you said you were going for.” Orria turned to follow his new path, staying at his side. “Would you prefer silver? Perhaps platinum, or one of your Abyssal metals?”

“Not sure. Whatever looks the best once it’s been dulled and tarnished, I guess? Gotta fit the theme, after all. Just stick to the mundane stuff, though. Not sure what I’ll end up doing with all the crafting materials, but I’m not going to use it for decoration while there’s a war on the horizon.”

“Got it. I’ll make you proud,” Orria said, finally breaking away as John stepped up to the door of the alchemy lab.

“You always do,” John called back as the blonde walked off, giving her a last smile before tucking himself inside. Once he was inside, John walked down the line of tables and stations they’d set up, gathering the finished potions and setting aside new ones.

Potion of Strength (Well-Crafted)
+50 Strength
Duration: 8 hours

Draught of Greater Unholy Resistance (Imperfect)
25% Damage Resistance to Unholy-type Damage
Duration: 3 hours per dose, max 5 hours
Doses Remaining: 3

Lesser Oil of Holy Fury (Defective)
10% Weapon Damage Bonus (Holy)
Duration: 25 attacks

“Should have been doing this for a long time. Already getting some decent results,” John mused to himself happily as he read over the item descriptions.

It wasn’t exactly easy, or overly simple. John had used a lot of the materials they had gathered through the day, and he’d used most of the short breaks he took to check on their progress and make small adjustments to the process. But thanks to slight recipe adjustments and Yvara’s incredible efforts while the rest of them were training, John had been able to improve the quality of the potions considerably. Plus, now that they were doing higher level dungeons again, he had the ingredients to make much more powerful versions. Not many, but a handful of each was a decent start.

“Some of these ingredients are locked behind high-tier stuff, though. I don’t even think I have a “Deity” difficulty setting. Do I even have a difficulty setting besides Raids? I’ve never messed with it much, but maybe I’ll start needing to now,” John thought, frowning only a little as he tucked the potions into his inventory, sorting them out by strength and quality. “But that’s for me to worry about later. Today… today, I’m going on a date.”

John pulled out his phone and sent Layla a text, asking if she was ready for their date, then busied himself with stashing away the loot that had piled up in his inventory over the past two days of training. As he expected, he didn’t even get a full minute’s worth of work done before she had responded.

“Of course! Everything is set for tonight. I wasn’t sure what your plans were, so I pulled a few strings and made some open-ended reservations. Are you coming over now?”

“Not yet, I just wanted to make sure everything was good, let you know it’s all good here on this end, that kinda thing. How about we meet up in half an hour?”

John continued to sort and organize while the exchange went back and forth, eventually setting up a whole new batch of alchemical concoctions to brew while he was out in Springfield. In that same time frame, John and Layla hashed out the final details – meeting at an address she gave John, rather than her apartment, in just under an hour, and dressing a bit nicer than they had for their last outing.

“I suppose I could use more options for clothing than ‘t-shirts’ and ‘plate armor’,” John thought wryly. It wasn’t quite that limited, but it wasn’t far off. The casual clothes he’d brought from home when he was last there still made up well over half his wardrobe, and he could fit the full expanse of anything considered “formal” on a decently sized band poster. “Fifty minutes should be enough time to get downtown. Let me see if there were any fabrics in all that dungeon loot...”

John had to do a bit of flying through Barriers to make it on time, but with two minutes to spare, he finally strolled up to the building his GPS had led him to. Well, the mundane version of it, at least. It took only a moment to step into the Abyssal Market’s barrier, at which point he saw the real surprise of the evening.

“Ah shit, almost forgot this was here,” John murmured to himself as his eyes trailed over the luxurious building in front of him. It was made of something that at least resembled marble, a finely polished white stone with deep grays and golds rippling through it. Large golden letters were emblazoned over the gilded double doors, spelling out “Mama Mabel's Mystic Kitchen”.

“Huh. Lunch date it is, I guess.”

John peered in through the windows, expecting it to be easy to scan the place, but to his surprise the place was actually packed, nearly full to the brim. It was the busiest he’d seen any Abyssal part of Springfield since coming back after his long absence, and by the time the third table caught him looking at them, John’s tolerance for awkward eye contact ran out and he opted to slam out a quick text.

“I’m outside the restaurant. Looks upscale, tasty too. You around somewhere?”

John didn’t bother to glance away from the screen. A three count was all it took for the reply to come in this time.

“I already got us a table. Come in, I’m near the back on the right-hand side.”

“Oh no. Oh hell no. As if things weren’t bad enough already. You really went and did it, didn’tcha?”

As John strolled into the restaurant from the front end, he failed to notice the pair of eyes trailing him from behind. A hand tightened viciously on the leather strap of a handbag, and golden locks bounced angrily as the woman’s stride came to an abrupt stop. Every part of her had quivered with indignant rage as her eyes flickered between Layla and the boy who’d just entered the restaurant. The copper-toned skin of her knuckles turned an intense white when that man seated himself next to her. The two were immediately at ease, their postures relaxed, their eyes focused only on each other.

Layla hadn’t even noticed her. Was she that enamored? Was he her entire world now, so much so that she tuned out every other aura in the Abyss just because he had shown up?

Tears streamed from her eyes, but her face did not lose one ounce of its righteous fury.