After a couple of hours, even Jake was starting to think that finding the dungeon in such a map was close to impossible… no wonder they didn't find any players. The place was really like a labyrinth in the open air. While they had been walking in the same direction for hours, they didn't notice any changes in the surroundings… everything looked exactly the same. The only difference was the fact that Lana's excitement finally disappeared and the heat of the desert finally got her.
"I hate this place… how come this can be worse than the Giants Bats' Forest?" Lana asked.
Louise forced a smile, as for Jake, fighting in the desert consumed his stamina pretty fast, so he was too tired to say anything. Maybe it was due to that, but the focus of the whole team wavered and they didn't notice a group of scorpions approaching from behind. They only noticed when Lana and Louise were hit by two Poison Bullets.
"Ouch! Ouch!" Lana muttered in pain.
"So, this is poison… is much worse than I thought," Louise said while her face was pale like a ghost.
Jake clicked his tongue and then charged toward the enemies. While Jake was buying time-fighting the three scorpions by himself, the girls used potions to make sure that their health wouldn't drop to dangerous levels. Once the effects of the poison disappeared, they offered Jake the support necessary.
Instead of attacking wildly, to preserve his stamina, Jake waited for Louise to hit the enemies with Ice Arrows, and when they were frozen by it, he attacked them with all his might. That kind of strategy made the fights last a while longer, but at least Jake could preserve his energy and not be wounded at the same time.
After an unpleasant surprise, the group had a present one. One of the monsters' had dropped a green magic staff. It was obviously a staff that would grant an offensive spell, so Jake looked at Lana wondering if that would weaken her resolve.
"What?" Lana asked while frowning.
Poisonous Magic Staff
Poison Bullet, + 03 Intelligence (0%), master this weapon to obtain the skills and bonus in status permanently.
Durability: 10/10
Poison Bullet: It causes half of your intelligence in damage upon impact and half over the course of five seconds. The damage caused in both points will escalate by five percent per level up.
Cost: 05 mana.
While Jake would benefit from having high intelligence thanks to Mana Blade, he let Louise master the staff. It would be a pain to master him right now since it was a two-handed weapon, after all. It would be better if he tries that later.
"… It seems I can't avoid learning some spells, after all," Jake said after clicking his tongue.
After a couple of minutes, the group was sent back to the crystal server town since the five hours passed. Lana let out a long sigh and Louise let out a more hold-back one. As for Jake, making those two sighing made him feel lazy even to sigh.
"What an ordeal…" Lana said while making a fed-up expression. "Let's not go back to that map anytime soon."
Jake wanted to say that it was a crazy idea, but it wasn't… during that mission, they gained only seven thousand coins each and that was the amount they could easily gain on the second map and without having to get so exhausted due to the weather.
"I feel like taking a long bath…" Louise said. "Please, let's prepare for the next mission after resting for a while?"
Jake nodded since it was already time for lunch. While the two lazybones would wait for her food to arrive, Jake would have to cook his lunch. Still, he was fine with that, cooking was relaxing, and lazing around on a couch doing nothing wasn't something he enjoyed.
Maybe it was because of the mental strain, but Jake ended up only eating something light, and by light, he made vegetable curry. To refresh his mind, he ended up drinking a lot of orange juice… it would be awesome if he could eat those in-game and they also could offer the same feeling of satisfaction. Nevertheless, after he finished, Jake returned to the game and noticed that the girls still were offline. So, he decided to talk with Luke.
"Hey, champ," Luke said. "Alone today? Are you planning something evil?"
"… What kind of items do you have that give support skills like buffs and debuffs?" Jake asked.
"Is it a gift for someone?" Luke asked.
"Will that change the price in any way?" Jake asked.
"Nope," Luke shrugged and then smiled when he saw Jake losing his patience. "Well, let's see… I have some staves and rings that can give Hermes' Blessing, Odin's Blessing, and Thor's Blessing. Those spells can increase your speed, intelligence, and strength respectively for five minutes, the bonus in status will be equal to the level of the skill multiplied by three. The spells cost ten points of mana and last for five minutes."
The bonus in attributes was low, but the duration of the spells made up for it. With a single cast, a party could enjoy the extra points for several battles… However, Luke hadn't told the prices yet.
"Since you are a loyal customer, I can sell them for ten thousand coins each," Luke said.
Those were some pretty expensive items… only one or two items that Jake was using were that expensive. While he wanted to help Lana, he was too stingy to pay so much for it.
"What are you buying?" Lana suddenly asked.
Jake turned around and saw those two behind him. He didn't hear any footsteps, so it was evident that they came slowly… Not to mention, Jake could see through their poker faces. It seemed that they overheard the previous conversation. Just like those two, Luke's eyes were smiling… he also wanted to see Jake getting flustered.