It felt wrong to be fighting random mobs and learning teamwork now, of all times, when we were on a time limit. This kind of felt like what I had imagined we would be doing back when we had first wanted to go test all the magical items but never got around to it.

Still, going straight to fighting a boss in a late game area while barely being able to beat up some skeletons would have been suicidal. This wasn’t just a game, after all.

“Tag him, Casey. Frank, draw aggro,” I instructed.

…It still felt strange to use MMO lingo in real life, though. Sure, I could pretend I was in VR, but for one, that would be dangerous since we couldn’t respawn like in a game, and also, actual VR couldn’t simulate all the senses like this.

Regardless, we still had a long way to go if we wanted to have a chance at beating the boss without annihilating it with the staff. Sure, Casey could probably just avoid the thing’s stomach and blast away its other body parts, but there were some problems with that strategy.

For one, its massive eye wasn’t actually its weak spot. The stomach was the weak spot. And we didn’t want to accidentally destroy whatever we were trying to retrieve from it.

Secondly, according to the wiki, the boss became temporarily invulnerable during its final phase and the players were meant to dodge while cutting away its regrowing tentacles, waiting for the invulnerability to fade.

Which… thinking back on it, had been exactly what I had seen in my dream. I had been waiting for the right moment to strike.

Also, considering that Casey from my dream hadn’t simply blasted everything away, it would probably be invulnerable even to the Pandemia.

With that said, we had to get strong and skilled enough to fight the thing without relying solely on the staff.

“Okay…” Frank said in-between his heavy breaths. “Even with super strength, this is really tiring.”

Unfortunately, Frank didn’t have Casey’s overpowered weapon or my miraculous skills, so he ended up as our weak link. Combined with the fact that he was our front-liner and thus had to be constantly in the thick of things… he ran out of steam fairly quickly. Having experience playing the VR version of the game helped a lot, but it was still different from using his actual body.

“Let’s… take a break?” I suggested. “I actually didn’t have breakfast… or dinner last night. I could use something to eat.”

“Hell yeah! Let’s go get lunch,” Frank agreed as he slumped to the ground while continuing to breathe heavily.

Casey hesitated, looked between the two of us, and then sighed.

“Yeah, you’re probably right… I’m just worried that if we take too long, we’ll be too late to save the people who are turning to zombies…”

“Hey, why don’t we try curing the zombies in this game then?” Frank suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, use your staff with the crystal thingy on one of the zombies in the bubble,” he said while pointing his thumb behind him in the general direction of Abyground. “See if it cures them too or if it’s too late.”

Casey’s eyes widened.

“You’re right… We can try testing that! And if we can revert the zombification on them then it should be possible on anyone!”

“And if that’s possible, then we don’t actually need to rush at all,” I finished the thought.

“Yeah! Sounds like a plan!” Frank cheered. “Anyway, lunch!”

The two of us nodded and we all grabbed our spare golden flower and held it above our heads. One glimmering light show and a soothing feeling later and we were back in the golden woods.

“By the way, I was thinking…” Frank spoke up as we walked down back toward the portal. “Isn’t it weird that we haven’t met any other players yet? We’ve been training for like… What? An hour? Right by the juicy new area? How come there wasn’t anyone?”

I frowned and pursed my lips.

“You’re right. I didn’t even realize.”

“Isn’t everyone just at school?” Casey argued. “We’re the ones skipping…”

I winced, remembering that it was still Wednesday. It had only been the day before yesterday that we had found out about the zombie plague and the days had already blurred together for me.

“Eh, I guess…? I mean, not everyone who plays the game goes to school, but… Well, whatever.” Frank shrugged. “At least we didn’t need to sneak around.”

We made it all the way back to the portal without a hint of any other players. Granted, not many players came to this place, but it still felt odd.

I put my hands on the portal and stopped for a moment, realizing that I hadn’t tried focusing on how it felt from this side. Was it the same?

I narrowed my eyes as I tried feeling it…

It felt like electricity, similarly to the other side, but not quite the same. The general feel was the same, but the… flavor, or whatever, wasn’t. Rather than the feeling of electricity coursing through a forest, it felt like it was coursing through concrete and smog.

Which didn’t really make any sense…

Well, whatever.

To my friends’ inquisitive looks, I shrugged and opened the portal.

“It feels similar but not the same from this side,” I informed them. “Just thought I would check.”

“Huh, alright…”

The three of us shuffled back through the portal into my room and I closed it behind us. With an unspoken agreement, we all headed to the kitchen and I checked our pantry to see what I could whip up.

“Oooh, that’s why there were no players…” Frank suddenly said, looking up from his phone. “The servers are down, apparently.”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yeah, look! We apologize… blah blah, divine surge, blah blah, extenuating circumstances, blah blah, the servers will be down until sometime tomorrow.”

That was… convenient. It meant that we didn’t have to worry about people seeing us. Moreover, we were free to take on the boss without anyone crashing us.

“I guess that confirms that the game world exists even if the servers aren’t running then, huh? The devs can’t shut us down either…” Casey mused. “I wonder if the NPCs are all aware during this time?”

“We’re gonna have to go check that out!” Frank said with enthusiasm before he stopped himself. “After we solve the whole zombie plague issue, of course.”

“Right…” I said, turning back to the pantry. My thoughts churned even as I grabbed some onions and garlic and began preparing.

“Hey, why don’t we make our lunch together? In the name of teamwork! It will count as training!” Frank suggested.

I eyed him doubtfully, but decided there wasn’t any harm in cooking ourselves a meal together, so I shrugged. “Sure.”

We ended up making stir fry vegetables with rice. Relatively quick and easy.

“So…” Frank said as we ate. “Let’s talk strategy. If our end goal is to beat the Cthulhu, how do we achieve that?”

“Isn’t our strategy for you two to distract it while I shoot it with magic from the back?” Casey asked.

“Yes!” Frank pointed a spoon at her. “But that won’t work for the final phase. It summons minions and becomes invulnerable, so even if you stay at the back, the minions will swarm you!”

I blinked.

“Minions?”

“Yeah, didn’t you read the wiki?”

I frowned.

“I did… I must have skipped over that part.” I shook my head. “But wait, I thought my dream was about the final phase and there weren’t any minions swarming us.”

“Huh? Really? Hmm…” Frank chewed on a piece of carrot before shrugging. “Maybe us not being player avatars somehow bugs it out?”

“Maybe…? I don’t know. There might have been some of its minions in the background. The whole dream was a lot more nebulous than the spider one, so it’s hard to tell…” I admitted.

I wondered why that was the case. Was the clarity based on how far into the future the dream took place?

“Gah! I wish we could ask our future selves if they did anything to prevent minion spawns,” Frank grumbled.

“The minions shouldn’t be that big of a problem, though,” Casey said. “I need to be careful around the boss, but the minions don’t matter, do they? I can just blast them away.”

“Oh yeah! That’s true!” Frank beamed. “Maybe you just nuke all the minions when they spawn and that’s why the dream didn’t have any!” He nodded to himself before glancing at me. “Okay, any other insight from the dream?”

I hummed as I thought about it. Nothing in particular jumped out at me as particularly important like in the other dream. Then I recalled one thing.

“Your axe,” I said. “You used a different one in the dream.”

“Huh? Really? I thought you didn’t remember what axe I used?”

“I said it wasn’t very distinct… The one you’re using is distinct,” I clarified, remembering Frank’s metallic red greataxe.

“Well, that’s just weird, then. Why would I use some random non-descript axe if I can use the adamantium one?” he argued.

I couldn’t help but awkwardly shrug.

“Beats me.”

“You know what? Maybe I shouldn’t follow your prophecy! Just to see what happens! Maybe that way we can somehow avoid the bad end!”

“I… guess so?” It didn’t feel quite right, but I also didn’t think there was any reason to blindly follow the dream.

“Or maybe the axe just wasn’t part of your future-sight,” Casey added. “Since you say it was non-descript, maybe it just wasn’t important enough, so you didn’t see what axe Frank was using.”

“Or that, yeah,” Frank agreed.

“Could be, I guess…” I mumbled.

That didn’t feel correct either, but I put it out of my mind. I didn’t think it mattered too much. And, well, if it did? If Frank was somehow fated to use that other axe? Well then, we would somehow get our hands on it anyway.

The conversation then turned to specific strategies we would use against the boss and before we knew it, we finished our lunch and prepared to set off once again, this time to conduct an experiment.

We were going to try and cure one of Abyground’s inhabitants from their zombieism.