A few days after their party cleared the jungle ruins…
Maple was sprawled out on the couch in her Guild Home.
"Augh…"
Leaving the jungle when her HP ran low was one thing, but she wasn't having any luck
finding the item she needed to go back.
And the more she looked, the less she cared. This left her feeling alone and sorry for
herself while all her friends ran around the jungle.
"Who cares about that dumb jungle?! I had a good run! A real adventure!"
She jumped to her feet, cast her sinking mood aside, and decided to go out.
And not in search for more jungle tickets.
"Where have I not been…? Oh!"
A light bulb went off, and she headed back onto the cloud field, taking her sweet time.
"Wow, so pretty!"
Before Maple's eyes was the cloudy field where lightning struck ceaselessly.
Chrome had told her about this, and with nothing better to do, she'd come to check it
out.
"Welp, let's give it a shot!"
All fired up, she sallied forth into the maelstrom.
With thunder rumbling all around, the inevitable soon happened: A bolt of lightning
landed right on top of her.
"Eep! Oh. Nice! Didn't hurt a bit."
Mere lightning was not enough to budge Maple's HP.
And naturally, nothing could paralyze her.
"Guess I'll keep going!"
She headed farther in. Dozens of lightning bolts struck her, but she remained
impervious.
"I wonder if I could dodge them like Sally does? Whoa! Nope, definitely can't."
She'd tried hopping around a bit, and a bolt had gone right through her. This startled
her enough that she decided to stop trying.
"Whatever, see if I… whah!"
She gave it one last shot, and the lightning storm clearly decided to punish her for it.
This time, she really did give up.
"Okay, just walking. Walking away!"
Maple might have changed her mind, but not her stats. Lightning kept bouncing off
her as she trudged along. Eventually, she reached the end of the thunderstorm zone
and saw a beautiful white sea of clouds ahead.
"Did I get through? I hope there's something here!"
She looked around, venturing deeper into the calm area.
It didn't take her long to spot something standing on the clouds.
It looked to be about five times her height. She squinted at it.
"Um… is it some sort of chair?"
It was as white as the clouds beneath it, but shinier.
And more of a throne than a chair.
It reacted to her approach, white light coalescing above it.
The dazzling shape eventually solidified into a humanoid figure big enough to sit on
the massive throne.
There was a crown resting upon his head and whiskers made from light upon his
wizened face.
The luxurious garments resting upon his frame were fit for any king.
Magic circles appeared around His Majesty, bathing the whole area around the throne
in white light.
Clearly, diplomacy was not an option.
The magic circles began firing arrows of light at Maple.
"Cool. Atrocity!"
The arrows bounced right off Maple's monstrous skin.
"Chaaaarge!"
Maple broke into a run.
But when she neared the gleaming circle of light, her tough exterior melted away.
"Huh?! Augh!"
She fell out of it and went rolling across the ground.
When she finally got up, she looked around, wondering what had happened.
The arrows were still peppering her, and the king was most definitely still on his
throne.
"Well… Hydra!"
She held up her sword, but no poison responded to her call.
"That's weird. Predators! Saturating Chaos! Full Deploy!"
She ran down her list of skills. She was able to deploy her weapons, but everything
else failed.
The ground around her was glowing.
This was hallowed ground, a place where evil skills were sealed and unusable.
And Maple's skills mostly leaned a bit too evil for the King of Light.
"Commence Assault!"
Bullets, cannon shells, and lasers all opened fire, but the arrows of light outnumbered
them, and very few got through.
And when they did, they did no damage.
Maple's artillery fire was less focused on individual power than quantity of hits, so
they didn't really work on anything truly tanky.
And since their strength was a set value, their usefulness was going to decline the
further she got in the game.
"Hmm… what now? It can't hurt me, but Devour doesn't work…"
She'd seen an arrow hit her shield like it was just a normal shield and was starting to
feel discouraged.
It couldn't beat her, but she couldn't beat it.
Both of them were just raining ranged attacks on each other and getting nowhere fast.
"Maybe I should get closer."
Arrows bouncing off every inch of her, she approached the king and his throne.
And as she reached his feet…
"Yeah… attacking doesn't work."
She poked his feet with her sword, but naturally, this was useless.
She smacked him with her shield and called out Syrup, trying its attacks—all to no
avail.
Maple stood there for a few more minutes, then clapped her hands once and turned
around.
"Retreat! Retreeeeat!"
Deciding she had no chance, she just let the arrows bounce off her back and headed
back through the lightning field once more.
When she returned to the main field, she paused, considering her options.
"Is there really nothing else I can do? Hmm… Oh, right. I heard some rumors in town.
I've just gotta track that down!"
With this in mind, she hopped on Syrup and flew back to town.
"There was that row of shops, so let's start there."
She checked her cash on hand and got off Syrup just outside of town.
"Let's see, let's see… I know they had it on the first stratum…"
She checked each shop, scoping out their selection.
And after an hour of shopping…
She used a great deal of her money buying a whole slew of items.
"Cool. I bought a lot! Not sure all of these will help, but… let's try again tomorrow!"
She scrolled down her inventory once more and logged out. It was time to go back to
the real world.