That single battle made large gains for the other players but it only contributed me EXP. A little bit of EXP to be exact. Even with the effects of Memento Mori, it was very small. If you also add the 50% exp reduction of my own class, its already pitiful. I can only groan myself. Defeating that monster should have leveled me up, but with party members, those are all gone. One more reason why I hate going with party members.
I interrupted their early celebration earlier due to the fact that we just killed a 'small fry' monster. They are currently glaring at me with Icy stares while I was not looking and nonchalantly look away if I looked behind.
'Bastards, I can see you all well, pretending is useless!'
Still I did not bother saying those. I am only considered as a hired mercenary for the group of Harmless Sparrow. I even discussed with Harmless Sparrow to hide my name in the announcement to avoid ruckus. If they saw my name on the announcement, they might bother Harmless Sparrow which is a breach of contract from what we first discussed. That is why, I am only acting for the reward, not for the fame and recognition of Blue Sky Guild and Harmless Sparrow.
We met a few small fry monsters but they are too weak, I allowed them to do what they want against them, I let Leona and Lina rest while the others killed a few more monsters that attacked.
Looking at them fighting them with difficulty, I can't help but chuckle. I always thought in the past that the Guild Blue Sky was very good in terms of handling players and they ate very strong. I am too weak in the past and I can only look at then with admiration in the past but now, I am now mocking them. I might sound rude but it was the truth. With all of the experience I have since that time has already been accumulated to my mind and now that I am seeing the newbie side of the Blue Sky Members, I can't help mock them.
Still, they have made a quick work despite having difficulty in fighting enemies with nimble movements. I have to let them experience the battle alone or else, they will keep on relying me to deal the huge DPS which is tiresome and not worth it. They should work hard to kill them since they are just small fries.
The Blue Sky members might saw me as a lazy braggart but I don't care, I am not here to earn their praise and recruit me to their guild, I am here for the reward, that is all.
We continued deeper into the Jungle dungeon. Jungle of deceit is much more explorable than Lesser Purgatory. Unlike Lesser Purgatory that emits hot temperature that you wanted to finish the dungeon as soon as possible, Jungle of Deceit is much more cooler and easy to move around. It acts like a real forest even though all of these are just data.
Suddenly, I smell something fresh in the wind, I quickly ordered Leona and Lina to back away and observe the place higher than the ground. I felt a strong headache in my mind.
"Bladeheart," a voice resonated into my ears.
I looked behind me in instinct and I almost got my nose explode with blood. Its Harmless Sparrow! Naked!
Many might ask if it is possible to see the genitalia in the game, the answer is yes, however, many thought that this can cause sexual harassment for women, in truth, it was not easy to do so. Once violence and peeping is done, players doing that would immediately get punished by the system that paralyzes the player who did the harassment to a woman for two weeks in real world. If they did got inflicted, they will be forcefully kicked out in the cabin and the cabin would make a call sound to call immediately for ambulance and send them to hospital. I have seen many of those guys who tried doing like ripping off the clothes of women. Just by doing that sends the jolt in your mind and you would be paralyzed. That made the other people think that the developers made it really good against sexual harassing players that got dealt with. Even if families of the players that got shocked tried to file a complaint, their plights are useless as the government also approves the method to lessen the perverts in the whole world. Unless the girl permitted that she would show her body to the other party, the game won't do a single thing.
Many might also think that a male can pose as a female in the game. The answer is no. It was an automatic system and unless the system is confused by your gender for example, you have two genitalia which would be impossible because that can be considered a sickness. Male players can only be male players and vice versa.
Still, I can't ignore the fact I am seeing Harmless Sparrow naked here. She is dancing without any clothes and was so seductive. I gritted my teeth. Harmless Sparrow slowly walked to me slowly and enticed me with her voluptuous breast and when we are one meter apart...
Slash!
I pulled out my sword and sliced up the "Harmless Sparrow" figure. The Harmless Sparrow bleeds out before falling dead on the ground.
Ding!
(Illusion Fox killed. Awarding 10,000 Exp)
My head no longer ached and I felt good again. I looked at the 'Harmless Sparrow' I just killed. It reformed and reverted back to its original look. The Illusion fox that has a color white fur on its whole body except for its tail tip that has a violet color.
I sighed. It was as I said, a deceitful move by the monsters. And an Illusion Fox did it. The reason I let Lina and Leona fly high up in the sky is to avoid being enticed by the Illusion Fox. It would be hard to snap them out of the illusion if they did since they are NPC and pet. They don't get dispelled on the spell easily. Players are different though. The only way to dispel the illusion is to wake up from the illusion and kill the cause or have a player outside of control by the fox and damage them directly. The most easiest method is to have a Cleric cast dispel but that only works if the cleric is unaffected. So naturally, the only way is to have the two methods above.
I can endure that kind of things because I am already aware of many tricks of betrayal. Just seeing that illusion makes me see that it reels betrayal. Death is only the way. I looked at the others and sure enough, they are now enduring on the effects and they are either dazed or doing something weird like running around with their mouths dripping with saliva. That is Izzzie of course. I smacked my forehead before helplessly opening my skill panel, to the Cleric skill panel and learn the tier 2 Dispel spell for 30 SP which pained my heart. My SP returned to zero for the Cleric.
I raised my hand and chant the spell.
"Oh holy light that shows the true way, remove the illusion that is destroying the views of humanity. Defeat the bewitching enemies that causes this insanity! Dispel!"
Light emerged on my hand and I quickly directed the white light into the Blue Sky Guild members and shot it to them.
Huala!
The moment the light struck and envelope them to the light, the players that got inflicted by the illusion stopped and I can hear shrieks coming from each of them. Whatever illusions they have, I don't want to know.
Bang!
The Illusion Foxes that are have invaded the minds of the players was forcefully separated by the skill Dispel and fell out to the ground.
"Leona! Attack! Lina go and kill!" I commanded.
"Roger!" Lina nodded and rushes towards the struggling foxes. Lina jumped off from Leona and swings the whip wildly towards the nearest Illusion Foxes.
"Whip Whirl!"
Lina spin around in a full force causing the whip to trash out and hit the struggling Illusion Foxes successfully. The attack was too strong that with that single lash, it bursted out the body of the foxes hit by the whip. On the other hand, Leona uses Tornado Blades causing the foxes that got caught to die after the blades of wind sliced and diced their flesh off. The battle ended quickly. Illusion foxes are weak and has low HP but that doesn't mean they are easy to kill, that is why they are troublesome and many players are stacked against them.
The others slowly returned from their senses. They quickly snap back and look around their surroundings before looking at the corpses of the foxes.
"W-what happened?" Harmless Sparrow asked groggily.
"All of you got inflicted by illusions by the enemy," I quickly said without saying anything else.
"I-illusion? But there are no illusions when we cleared the normal dungeon!" Flaming Cutie frowned as she wiped off the dust in her body after she waddles on the ground like she was swimming from whatever illusion she was experiencing.
"Of course there are no illusions in normal mode since these Illusion Foxes only appear on Ultra Hell and Abyss Mode," I said nonchalantly as I grinned from their outcomes.
Everyone paused and after a while, Thunderfire, Ferventure and Izzzie cursed in silence while the three girls, Harmless Sparrow, Flaming Cutie and Pooshy blushed like they have experienced something embarrassing. But I have no time to dwell and listen to whatever illusion they might have. I barely managed to escape my own illusion earlier if not for the fact that I felt angry all of the sudden.
"Just pick up the loot on the ground, we still have a long way to go," I said to them before proceeding as usual.
They nodded and quickly sweep of the drops. My followers might have killed them but the rewards are not mine. As I said, I am not obligated to take any from them. I also don't plan to steal. I am not some lowly class person to do that into my employer and besides, why would I steal those weak and normal tier armor and weapons?
I made Lina ride on Leona's back instead of walking besides us since there might be more Illusion Fox than usual, we would be in trouble if the illusion was much harder to deal with. In that case, it would be easy to break off if that actually happened. The others are also vigilant now. They never expected that a lowly illusion skill of a monster nearly killed and sent them back to Cathedral which will cause us to postpone the dungeon diving.
This time around, another enemy appeared. However, this time around, they are no longer Foxes.
"Trick Mushroom"
Level 40
HP: 10,000/10,000
Attribute: Plant, Darkness
A darkness and plant attributed monster. Moreover, I counted 30 of them. Harmless Sparrow and the rest got ready.
"Let's kill!" Harmless Sparrow howled. In her eyes, they are still the same Trick Mushroom that appears in the normal level dungeon however...
Peng!
Harmless Sparrow immediately deflected the incoming attack. The attack did not came from the trick mushroom but it came from Flaming Cutie. Flaming Curie seemed blank and just stood again before attacking Harmless Sparrow. This time, not only Flaming Cutie but even Thuderfire also attacked Pooshy and the others.
"What?!" Harmless Sparrow was stunned.
"What is going on!?" Harmless Sparrow roared.
"Deflect Flaming Cutie's attacks! She is in Confusion and Berserk mode! Attacking her will send her to Cathedral! Same for Thunderfire! Pooshy! Deal with him! Izzzie back me up! Ferverture, support and heal Harmless Sparrow and Pooshy! Stand around 5 meters away from the mushrooms!" I commanded.
The reason was due to the enemy attack. It was a spore attack that causes Confusion. Once inflicted, the one with confusion would lash out against their teammates and instead of attacking the enemies, they will attack their allies. You cannot cure it and you need to kill all the enemies that can cause it to avoid the battle. The reason we are not affected is due to the stat distribution. Players with High INT stats can endure or avoid being inflicted by Confusion. Since Flaming Cutie is an Assassin and has a low INT stat and Thunderfire, also having a low INT stat, they would obviously the first to get wrecked. The remaining players like me and Harmless Sparrow have huge stats on INT so its not a problem and Ferventure, Pooshy and Izzzie are also those players that needed the INT stat to properly unleash their powers managed to deal with it.
"Leona, Lina support us from above! Do not come down! Izzzie, cast Frenzied Bear and Feral Jackal to help us out!"
"Got it!" Izzzie quickly made the spell and summons the Feral Jackal and Frenzied Bear.
I also pull out five scrolls and tear them. It contains the Fireball skill and with successful hits, five Trick Mushrooms got burned, causing the other Trick Mushrooms to disperse, making for the Feral Jackal and Frenzied Bear to unleash their might and destroy the mushrooms by shredding them off. Izzzie controlled the two beast to attack while I continue to bombard skills to the Trick Mushrooms. Harmless Sparrow and Pooshy all tried to speak to the two confused and enraged Flaming Cutie and Thunderfire to no avail. Despite that, they still tried their best to deflect the attacks but still, they can't block all of the attacks especially Pooshy who is a cleric and originally not a combat active class. It made her having trouble dealing against Thunderfire who is a Fighter with explosive attacks. Thankfully, Ferventure heals the two frequently in intervals to avoid making their HP fell in critical levels.
Izzzie, Lina, Leona and I are also doing our best to finish off the enemies but we underestimated the force as the Trick Mushrooms seems to be calling backups and they seemed to be not decreasing at all and it was more likely that they are increasing!
"How long will this last?!" Harmless Sparrow roared.
"Wait for a bit, endure her attacks a little bit more," I said to Harmless Sparrow before using another Fireball spell to the Trick Mushrooms.
"Abyss Mode is just too much for us!" Harmless Sparrow shouted as she is getting troubled.
Of course it is too much. Her level is small. In my opinion, if not for my presence here on their party, they might have been wiped out already and sent to the Cathedral much more earlier, around the first time we attacked the Deceitful Chameleon.
The battle continued. I no longer relied on my scrolls and used the Terraform Blade and used Flaming Sword to hack away the Trick Mushrooms. They are too weak and very vulnerable to fire even though their HP is amounting on 10,000. It might be considered high but with damages exceeding 2,000 damage per swing alongside with the ferocious attacks of the Feral Jackal and Frenzied Bear, these monsters could not be considered a threat.
From what I conclude, most monsters in Jungle of Deceit uses any form of Deceitful acts that can usually cause the downfall of an adventurer. Trick Mushrooms are weak. They don't attack and they are easily identifiable due to their strange looks and slow movements. Still, they are still considered as tough enemies. Why? It was due to the effects of their spores that affects fighters that have not expended their INT stats carefully gets affected. In result, players with low health but high INT stats suffer causing many incidents of party wipe.
In Normal mode, players can still endure their spores but once they arrive Hell Mode to Abyss Mode, that will be considered as the most hellish battle now since not only you will tend to fight against the monsters but also your teammates that got affected. That is why, solo battle is much more better than with a party member.
With the combined efforts of Izzzie's summoned beast, Leona and Lina's support attacks and a few of my skills doing the battle, the Trick Mushrooms gradually decreased until the final Trick Mushroom was killed by my burning Magic Sword.
Everyone leveled up by two levels making them all level 29. Even Leona and Lina are now both level 43. I also managed to gain a level which means I am already level 56. However, everyone except me and my followers were silent and exhausted. Flaming Sparrow and Thunderfire sobered up after they stopped attacking when all Trick Mushrooms were killed making themselves shake their heads before looking at Pooshy and Harmless Sparrow guiltily. They performed a dogeza and apologized to them in which they accepted.
I understand their dejection. Anyone would be so exhausted that they won't be going to celebrate even with them leveling up and gaining lots of items. I just shook my head as I look at them before looking ahead. I saw a big door made from vines not too far from our location. I looked at the crestfallen players and announced.
"Alright, let's rest up a bit since we are going to enter the boss room next," I said as I sheathed my sword back to its scabbard.