“Maybe we can go in shifts? If everyone here can come online at different times, they can go explore while the others aren’t online. Hopefully we won’t draw too much attention that way but still gain something out of it.”
“We two will have to skip that.” Little Droplet turned to Blackstone, who looked a bit disappointed but agreed. A single healer and a lifestyle player couldn’t go explore. That was a waste of experience points with how quickly they’d die up there.
“I’ll spend the time crafting potions against the cold debuff instead!” Blackstone puffed out her chest. “I’ll make myself useful.”
“Dead Rabbit here can use the time to go to Heath and inform him that we will need more time to consider his offer”, Bloody suggested.
“I will pair up with Spiderlily, if that’s fine with you?”, White Light hurried to ask. He smiled politely at the elven archer, who, after some consideration, gave a slow nod. “Knightrider, can we leave it to you to contact Absinth?”
Knighrider’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Of course he knew that White Light had pushed an unwanted task to him, but he was not going to ignore a challenge of leadership. “Sure.”
“Then we’ve got everyone in pairs. Cool. Since us two will go explore in the evening, I guess we might as well try to go into the next ring to see how your magic works against the monsters?”
Ice nodded and gripped his staff tighter. Since they were higher levelled than most people, they could enter the second ring without having to worry about too much competition.
Little Droplet decided to tag along, as well as Dead Rabbit, who wouldn’t be of any help but didn’t want to leave.
“I’m not responsible if he dies”, Bloody complained, walking at the top with Ice. “That brat. He should be going to Heath or doing quests or dungeons or grinding!”
Ice let Bloody complain as he wanted. He glanced back once in a while, making sure that the two younger players were still following them.
Little Droplet said something to Dead Rabbit, and the youth hurried to catch up with the experienced players. There was a stupid smile on his face. “Little Droplet has to send someone a message. I can’t listen in.”
Bloodless Sunset looked down at his little brother with a conflicted gaze. “You… are interested?”
“Are you going to talk to me about the dangers of online dating?” Dead Rabbit rolled his eyes. “We’re only talking. She’s nice.”
“Not she”, Ice corrected almost automatically.
“Huh?”
“They.”
Not quite understanding Ice, the assassin looked over to the beastman who was more talkative. “It’s they. He or she are fine, but you’d best ask to confirm that yourself. Also, Little Droplet’s character is male.”
Dead Rabbit froze up in shock.
His older brother merely shook his head with a sigh. “I’m not going to interfere with who you date, but considering you are always saying you only like girls, you should know about it at least.”
The little assassin had a soulless look on his face. The expression was like straight out of a comic, making his lips twitch up into a small smile. When Little Droplet saw it as they returned, their eyes glinted with fascination. “Ice Emperor, you’re really handsome when you smile!”
Awkward, the mage turned away and focused on the environment. “There’s… a monster over there.”
“Level 81, Cursed Yeti. Why does this thing look so creepy?” Bloodless Sunset clicked his tongue in distaste. It was a common monster and obviously not the type to wander around in groups, but it was… really not pretty.
It looked a lot like someone had taken an ordinary yeti and made its skin bubble up. It had round lumps everywhere, some of them having broken open to reveal ice crystals.
“Alright! Little Droplet, Dead Rabbit, you guys stand back a bit. Ice, I’ll be at the front and play tank, you can do your magic. Let’s see how it reacts!”
Everyone got into position. Ice took a slow breath and began to chant his incantation while Bloody baited the Cursed Yeti over and kept it busy by sneaking in light attacks and otherwise evading.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
As a common monster, its health wasn’t too high. Ice changed his incantation easily to make the attack weaker – he wanted to see the effect first and foremost.
Dftlcv tlw, Olaaif Ggbqifa rabbv lc j vjhf.
Ktf Pmf Swqfgbg’r nblmf kjr ibk yea rwbbat, jcv lo tf mtjcafv tlr wjulm, atf rbcu kjr rbifwc. Qlat atf klcv gecclcu atgbeut tlr tjlg jcv mgsrajir obgwlcu jgbecv tlw, tf obgwfv jc fcmtjcalcu lwjuf.
Ktf rlcuif atlc lmf rqfjg vjgafv obgkjgv klat Pmf’r ijra kbgv. Olxf j ilutaclcu raglxf, la yehhfv atgbeut atf jlg, fwyfvvlcu larfio lcab atf Jegrfv Tfal’r rtbeivfg.
The beast howled, grabbed over his shoulder and-
Freaked out.
Ice flinched in surprise when the monster shrieked and hurriedly checked the monster’s status.
In general, magic was a good bit stronger than normal attacks. All variables such as weak points etc aside, magic was always going to cause more damage in a single strike.
Obviously, everyone expected elemental buffs and debuffs for magic – lightning for example was bound to cause more damage against an enemy in water, compared to a stone golem.
That his strike had caused as much damage as a common attack was quite good already, but that wasn’t what surprised Ice.
[Status debuff – Fear (21s)]
[Lowers reaction speed by 10%
Lowers defense by 5%
Increases attack by 5%]
Bloody was stunned by the unexpected debuff the monster had gotten, but the test was finished. He darted around the Cursed Yeti that – in its frightened state – flailed around nervously and hit as hard as he could.
The Cursed Yeti was dead after half a minute, falling to the ground where it bled blue blood.
“You caused a Fear debuff on a monster living in a snowy mountain with an ice attack?” Bloodless Sunset swallowed heavily. He couldn’t make sense of the situation.
Fear was a useful debuff if you had agile fighters. The lowered reaction speed and defense was ideal for attacking the enemy from behind. It was one of the agile elves’ and beastmen’s favourite debuffs, but it was pretty rare.
Fear could be instilled in several ways, but all of them were annoying – to say the least.
“If you can cause Fear in ice enemies, does that mean that fire magic is gonna cause Fear in the desert enemies later?”
“Not necessarily”, Little Droplet mused, walking around the Cursed Yeti and inspecting it. “It could be an advantage because his magic is rare. It could also have worked on just this cursed guy. I mean, do you see how he looks?”
The healer pointed at the disease-like lumps on the yeti.
“Fair enough”, Dead Rabbit agreed. “You should probably try to attack different monsters with your magic, too.”
And so they did.
The experience gained was quite nice, especially after such a long time of stagnating. Under normal circumstances, Ice would have enjoyed seeing the progress, but now he was nothing but confused. The debuff appeared on every single enemy.
The Cursed variants of enemies got 25 seconds of debuff, which was long considering Bloody could kill a common monster around here in twenty to thirty seconds. The non-cursed variants got only 10 seconds, which was also long enough.
“I haven’t seen the reaction of an Elite or Boss yet, but this is insane”, Bloodless Sunset cursed. “What kind of cheat is that! Did you save a country in your last life? How are you so lucky!”
“Setting aside why these guys are scared of ice magic, maybe this is a hint to our path up?” Little Droplet smiled sweetly, causing Dead Rabbit to stare dumbly. “That could be why the Ice Emperor is the leader.”
“But what would have happened if the Ice Emperor didn’t exist? What if he had learned healing magic, instead? How would that work?”
Bloodless Sunset felt a bit ashamed for his little brother. “YunYun, have you ever researched about Haven and Lusanna Corp?”
“Nope. I’m playing this casually and for fun.”
“Alright, fine. I guess that’s a reason.” The beastman’s tail swished around once. “Haven isn’t static in any way. Even the world quests are generated depending on the situation. If there wasn’t Ice – assuming that Little Droplet is correct – there’d be another way. For example, the prince would send an ice mage with us, or a lower levelled player would be chosen, or this quest wouldn’t exist at all. The only thing I know is that he’ll likely have to pay a price in another corner.”
The Ice Emperor hummed in agreement. “I’ll… probably be locked out of later parts of the quest. If this is true, my role in this part is too large for it to be fair.”
“Getting to be the hero must be nice”, the little assassin sighed wistfully, only to be hit on the head again.
“Don’t talk like a hero is born one. Haven will offer glory to anyone who works hard enough. If you want to be a hero, you have to prove your worth. If you’re fine being a normal person like Blackstone, the game won’t demand too much. Think about how hard Ice works for the NPCs at this place and ask yourself again if he hasn’t earned it to be a hero for Haven.”
If channeling thoughts was a thing already, the group would have heard a constant, loud scream.
Ice was frozen stiff with embarrassment. He was aware that certain citizens of the game thought of him as a hero, and he had always made sure to flee as quickly as possible when he encountered them. It was beyond awkward.
“I’m sorry, Ice Emperor”, Dead Rabbit apologized meekly when he saw the mage’s stern frown. “I didn’t mean to question you. I was just talking mindlessly.”
“It’s fine”, Ice responded in monotone.
Bloody looked at the two and wondered if he should tell his scared little brother that the mage wasn’t mad in the slightest… But decided that the boy might as well misunderstand for a while as punishment.
Little Droplet spoke up after a pause, sounding thoughtful. “The Ice Emperor really is an amazing person. I think you deserve to be the main character of this quest.”
“That’s nothing but a possibility.” Ice cleared his throat and quickly changed the topic. “We’ve been hunting for a while now. I’ll contact White Light and Knightrider to tell them about the debuff, then we can continue hunting.”
He sent the same message to the two. While he was waiting for a response, he noticed that Blackstone had sent him a message and opened it.
The dwarf was complaining, but she didn’t sound downhearted. “I’ve managed to make a couple of potions, but my ingredients are running out. Could you maybe ask White Light and Bloodless Sunset if they could sell me some from their guild storage? I need Yellow Mist Pollen and Sandworm Tails, as many as possible.”
Honestly, these ingredients were a pretty good indicator of how the potion would end up tasting.
Ice was a bit uncertain as to why she contacted him when she could have directly spoken to the two people, but he still relayed the message to White Light first.
The knight’s chibi at the edge of the message was spouting questionmarks. “Okay?”
Then there was a pause, followed by another message.
“Am I scary?”
“I-” Ice hesitated for a moment as he answered. “I don’t think so?”
White Light’s chibi returned with a dejected face. “Well. I’ll tell someone from my guild to deliver it. You don’t have to bother Bloody about it, we have enough. Also, the debuff is great news – we should check if ice bombs have the same effect.”
“What is he saying?”, Bloody asked curiously. While he could hear Ice speaking his side of the message, he couldn’t hear what the person on the other end had said – similar to hearing someone talk on a phone.
“He suggested using ice bombs. Do you have any with you?”
“No… I didn’t exactly think I’d need them on a mountain and these things are bothersome to carry. I’ve got some in my guild storage, but not with me.”
“Hooray for Haven’s item management”, Dead Rabbit said sarcastically and Little Droplet snorted out a little laugh.
“That’s the realism about it”, the healer joked. “Anyway, I’m here to heal you two up whenever! Don’t worry about running out during grinding!”
Although that was the plan, it was soon cut short. As the evening sun reached the horizon, dying the snow a pretty orange and red, the sky began to cloud over.
Since Little Droplet and Dead Rabbit had to leave soon, the four returned back to the outskirts.
Ice talked to Bloody about their plans, then the two logged off to eat dinner. It was also a good time to ensure that the capsule wouldn’t complain about them playing for too long.
Back in reality, Jian Lin turned on his TV as he ate. He connected to the internet, browsing through the news and checking out the reactions for the recent commercials Haven had made.
Usually he didn’t do this, but Haven was trying out a new style of advertising and Jian Lin was curious about how others saw it.
There had been classic advertisements before, but the newest ones were cloaked in a story. It was an attempt to turn the advertisements into interesting little snippets. The Ice Emperor had been one of the people participating in it.
Jian Lin opened the video and paused for a moment to watch it. The ad was two minutes long and actually loosely related to the new mountain area.
In a week, they were going to add new items to the cash shop. There were various winter clothes and little accessories, but Jian Lin had also been informed that this was merely the prelude for a whole event that was supposed to start next month. This particular video was basically part one of a two-part series around the mountain.
The video began with two people trekking up a mountain path that actually didn’t exist like this – it had been a sandbox environment. Both were quite famous players, and a couple in reality. They held hands as they walked through the snow, high boots lined with fur and long coats covering them up.
Farther away, a light flickered warmly. Excited, the two started running forwards, faces red from the cold. At that moment, a snow golem appeared, screeching at them.
Frightened and exhausted, the two tried to run, but the man stumbled. The female player shouted his name just as the golem raised its thick arm…
A shadow dashed in from the side. The camera shook as Bloodless Sunset, wearing thick leather, turned his eyes towards the viewer. He smirked, and suddenly all hell broke loose. Two other strong players – a fire mage and an archer – joined the fight. Both were wearing different outfits, beautifully showcased.
Bloodless Sunset reached out for the fallen man and helped him up. At the same time, something seemed to catch his attention and he looked to the side. The archer and fire mage did the same.
The camera shifted, revealing a figure standing on top of a little hill.
The Ice Emperor’s white robe dragged over the ground, white fox-fur lining his collar. He looked down at everyone, turned around and stared at a faraway place.
The camera panned out and the image faded to black.
Jian Lin blinked. Actually, wasn’t this a bit too coincidental with the world quest right now? Was this hinting at it, maybe?
Author’s Note
There are reasons for the suspicious things happening, don’t worry. This is not the story about someone becoming the number-one-OP-player. Nothing comes without a price.
Funfact: Ice keeps on changing his clothes. Bloody doesn’t…. He doesn’t like fancy clothes
Little Theater
Bloody: “My husband is so handsome!”
Ice: “You’re married?”
Bloody: “Uh”
Bloody: “YeeeNnnCcc….ccccomplicated.”
Ice: “?”
ICE EMPEROR! ICE EMPEROR! chanting his name so cool!!
also the little chibis when they message each other are SO adorable hahaha
Hahaha, it’s funny how Bloody seems to be the one with the exclusive right to decipher Ice’s behaviour and facial “paralizes” xDD
Uhu~ your husband is handsome +1
Thx for the ch ٩(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )و
Thanks for the chapter <3
Thank you for the chapter 💜