Jim's PoV

 

Looking down at the little prick that made his childhood self nerd rage, he had mixed feelings about the fight. He knew there wasn't anything going on inside elf dudes head, he was a nuts murder machine for a long time. Once the screw up twins were out of the fight, it was rather simple. He had his pain settings turned way down and did the potion chug-a-thon and that seemed to work very well.

Even his tactics for the fight were smart. Instead of trying to turtle up for the Ultimate Attack, he used the opportunity to do tons of damage instead. It was the first time he utilized his full strength, but frankly it wasn't a fair fight at all. The elves' other attacks did so little damage that if he wanted, he could have waited for two Ultimate Attack cycles before using a Full Healing Potion.

Jim had mixed feelings because this was proof that he was so overpowered that any other super boss was going to be cake. As long as he made smart choices on equipment and tactics before battle, any of the other bosses in the game would be just as easy. Technically he could try to make the encounters harder by not optimizing his gear, but that seemed slightly irresponsible.

This place was the graveyard of his expectations for finding a challenging encounter. It seemed to be a doomed idea that he could find an adventure in this world. Unless all six other super bosses grouped up and tried to ambush him, he doubted that he could be taken down. Besides, that would never happen. Demon, elven and monster super bosses working together? It would be unthinkable.

When he was a kid it seemed like he could go on a new adventure every time he powered up his old console. His childhood mind was always working, thinking about what could be around the next corner. The pinnacle of that feeling was his first play through of FF3. Everyday for a month his mind was taken on a new adventure with new people and new places. Challenging foes intermixed with a cool story line that took his imagination on an epic journey.

But he guessed that as an adult he wouldn't ever have that experience again. Maybe it was foolish to hope he could capture that childhood feeling of going on an adventure? It was his primary drive in recreating the world of FF3. But he guessed that feeling was dead and its grave was marked 'nostalgia.' It seemed like adventure was dead and only responsibility remained.

Speaking of responsibilities, he needed to check on his two little ducklings. Checking his party menu he noted a few changes in stats.

Wow, they had all gained a bunch of levels. He wondered what exactly needed to happen for people to get credit for beating monsters to gain experience? If he could powerlevel some Earth people it would make them a lot safer. Food for thought, he would think about it later.

Wanting to check on the reckless children before he took a look at his new probably damaged ship, he headed down to the beach. In a row boat not far off the shore he found his two little troublemakers. Seriously, that was a close call. Normally Reflect weapons sucked for that boss.

Child Jim tried that strategy once. Doing half your damage or healing because you're using a mid game weapon, then needing to use your next turn to replace your broken weapon was terrible. But thankfully karma seemed to be on their side. He wouldn't have thought about equipping Scarlet with a Reflect enchant weapon in time if he didn't see it first. Lucky bums.

Waving at the two love birds, they waved back. Yelling loudly he said "It's safe! You can come back if you want!"

Not needing any more prodding, the two came back to the shore. They seemed a bit rattled. Fidgety.

"You all okay?"

Scarlet didn't meet his eyes and said "Yeah, that was a close call. Really close."

Odd. She was normally a hell of a lot more bold than that. Remembering the usefulness of Sense Lv2 when looking for new employees, he figured why not. Casting the spell, Scarlet finally met his eyes and looked irritated. Scanning through the blurb about how the target feels about you it said 'Fears you. Thinks you are an unstoppable force.'

Surprising. Normally it was something along the lines of 'Wants your stuff' or 'Thinks you will slip about the secret to your power sooner or later.' One of the reasons he never plans to take Scarlet over to Earth.

Repeating the spell on Forrest it said 'Trusts you but thinks you can be really scary.' Feeling like there needed to be a conversation he said "How are you two doing? That was a close call back there."

Scarlet said "You're no mage. You tricked me."

Jim shrugged saying "Thought it was kind of funny. Yeah, I wish I was a mage, but I keep getting these crappy Sense spells."

Scarlet, seeming to try to be a lot more polite, asked "And what did your 'crappy' spell say about me just now?"

Jim said directly "That you feared me. Is that right?"

"Yeah. That was kind of scary back there. If you're that strong, why do you care about getting these artifact pieces? You could be a warlord and rule a large part of humanity. What are you planning?"

Deciding this might be a long talk he saw some trees in arms reach. He wanted to sit down. Reaching out he picked up a full size palm tree in each hand and plucked them like they were flowers. Carefully putting them down he sat on one and gestured the two to take a seat.

Wondering how he should explain this he started with "Remember how I said I was not from this world?"

Both of them nodded. "Well, I screwed up. I screwed up big time."

Stalling to try to think how to word it, Forrest said "Jim, you saved my life. And thanks to you I think I met my better half. Just spit it out, somehow I doubt it's anything nefarious."

"Well… I screwed up when I came to this world. I… accidentally tied the lives of all things on this planet to myself. If I die here, not only will all humanity disappear, but even all demons and elfs on the other side of the Endless Storm. Everything will be gone. Nothing will remain. I think if I can gather all the artifacts, I can correct that screw up."

***

Scarlet's PoV

 

Scarlet listened to the god-like figure in disbelief, but she tried to control her expression. Everyone would die if he died? If she didn't see his monstrous display she would have thought it was a joke. He was too powerful, what reason would he have to trick her?

But what the hell was with these artifacts? She asked, "So if you get these artifacts, you can fix the problem?"

Jim made a wavy hand motion and said "Sort of. I know they are super powerful when combined. They can elevate someone from being a mortal to a god, so I figured that if I can figure out how to channel that energy into the problem, it might be fixed."

"What? So you have no idea if these things will even work?"

Jim said "Yeah, sadly. But inside the confines of this world, it's the only thing I could think of. I have another potential method but it's going to take some time before I can use it. But if the new ride works, I should have it done in a couple weeks."

Before she could respond he said "Look, this is my responsibility. Like I said from the start, you are free to do whatever you want. Forrest, I am grateful that you guided me to the temple. Scarlet, you've been a pain in the ass but you have done a lot for me. Your navigation probably saved Milly's life. Any later and she would have been dead. Then you took care of those three men for me. Of course you tried to cut my throat a few times before that, but water under the bridge, eh?"

Remembering that encounter again with her knowledge now, she probably looked like some ineffective kitten to this monster. Even those monster dogs pale in comparison.

Jim continued "If you didn't break the airship, I can try to drop you all off somewhere. Or you can head back with Voss, think he's going to Quickmire. Finally, if you want a job, I could use competent people. I'm planning on setting up an outpost for my people to work on the problem just in case this artifact chase is a dead end."

She winced and remembered that final lightning blast. Being the highest point on the island, she saw the weird path the lightning strike had taken. Wait, airship? An airship that was like in the stories of the past?

Scarlet got excited about the idea of actually flying! If folklore was to be believed, it had been over 1000 years since an airship was working. Then she wondered about Jim boarding a malfunctioning airship. If he died because the ship got zapped, would she cause the end of the world?

Either way, she wanted to see if the ship worked!

***

Jim's PoV

 

As a group they made their way up the sapphire crystal spire. There was a staircase that wrapped around the inside of the cylinder till it reached the top, which was a makeshift dock for the craft. Looking at the steaming antennas in the back, he had a feeling that part of the ship was junk. Guess there was too much of a difference between a 150,000 damage lightning strike and a regular one. So much for the speed run route.

Jim was still excited to see the airship in action. He always loved the steampunk theme with the open deck, spinning helicopter blades and billowing sails. It was such a cool concept.

But as he was stepping onto the ship he realized maybe there was a reason no one stood on top of things that flew. Tightly holding the railing of the ship, he looked down at the island below. They were really high up. A fall from here would suck.

Then his next thought was 'what if my super awesome strength breaks the ship railing because I'm holding on too tight?' Jim had never accidentally damaged anything before with his overpowered strength, but his head wasn't accepting that logical analysis. Forcing his grip to relax, he rigidly took in the view.

Scarlet then started climbing the rigging to the crows nest of the airship. They were already really high up and she was going even higher. The crows nest was in between the twin blades and it went up even higher than them. Just the thought of going higher gave him vertigo.

There was no way in hell Jim was doing that. Heights were scarier than super bosses. Looking at Scarlet's form bouncing with energy atop the largest mast, he clarified. It was scarier to him at least.

After making her way to the top Scarlet yelled out "I can see Captain Voss' ship from here! Look! It's right down there!"

The angle of her pointing hand seemed too steep, he would have to look over the railing to do that. Forrest leaned over the rail and took a peek. Nope, nope and a side of nope. Ain't gonna happen. He'd take her word for it.

Damn this looked so cool in the game, but it was scary as hell in real life. Then Forrest came up next to him and said "How do we turn this on? Does it even work?"

Having no idea Jim said "That's a really good question. I have no idea."

Not skipping a beat, Scarlet seemed to run down the rigging and landed near the helm of the ship. Him and Forrest joined her as Scarlet scanned over the controls.

"Let's try this one!"

Not processing what she said, she pulled one of the levers all the way back. Almost immediately the two massive helicopter-like propeller blades started moving. At first it was slow and the airship started going higher. With a small jolt and the snap of a few ropes that tied the vessel to the spire, they gradually rose in the air. The blades went faster and faster and they started shooting up at a dizzying pace.

Jim yelled "Go back! Make it go back down!"

Picking a new lever Scarlet pushed it all the way forward. The airship thrust forward at an incredible speed. The ship bucked and shook as the airship accelerated. Luckily he was already holding onto something.

As they went even faster, the front of the ship seemed to dip down as the back raised up. At first he thought they were going into a dive and crashing, but then he realized the airship was still climbing up even higher.

With the ship still angled down, he had a perfect view of the waves below just by looking forward. Then he felt a bit sick as he remembered he sucked at swimming. He did an okay job last time because he had his rudder puppies, but if he fell from this distance, the amount of force that would push him down into the water would be terrible. They needed to slow the thing down.

Then he looked ahead further. Oh no, they were headed into the Endless Storm! Their free pass card was definitely not going to work. The smoking little box next to the antennas didn't give him a warm fuzzy feeling about the thing being able to calm the winds. Karma definitely was going to kill him. He shouldn't have mentally belittled the super boss.

He really needed to learn how to swim…

"The Endless Storm is ahead! We need to turn the ship! Turn it!"

Scarlet banked the ship to the left, whatever the hell that was called in ship terms but then a gust of wind pushed them back on their previous course. The open sails grew taught with the power of the wind and jerked the ship closer to the Endless Storm.

The airship was still going forward at a breakneck speed and had the front of the ship tilted down. He could see the nice calm placid waves being replaced by a chaotic tsunami. That would be an absolutely terrible place to try to learn to swim. But with going that fast, the calm sea was but a nice memory. They were about to enter the Endless Storm.

And then the rain hit. Jim was fully drenched in seconds because he still had on that damn magic resistant robe. The sounds of the lightning striking, waves crashing and wind squealing made it very hard to hear.

Jim yelled "Turn right! Right! Left isn't working! Too much wind!"

Scarlet jerked the wheel to the right. Hand over hand she spun the wooden wheel. Lightning struck the airship twice on the metal rods. Jim prayed. Nothing happened. Crap, still tons of wind. Totally broken system. At least the lightning wasn't breaking the ship, but his speedrun dreams were dead.

They needed to get the hell out of here.

The ship finally got some traction turning right. Then another massive gust hit the sails and that pushed them forward, breaking their turn. In response the wooden wheel circled forcefully back to the left. Jim was about to help, but Scarlet forced the wheel hard right again. Nothing happened. Trying to turn wasn't working. The wind was pushing them further inside the storm. What else could they do?

The sails! He needed to cut down the sails! Yelling he said "Keep trying to turn! I'm going to cut the sails!"

Scarlet nodded while gritting her teeth and kept the wheel locked into a right turn. Man, he was scared. The super boss was nothing compared to this. If he got knocked off the ship, he could die. With the waves and wind all pushing inward into the Endless Storm, even if he were a good swimmer, he might not make it out.

Knowing that he needed to get cutting, he released his iron grip from the railing for the first time.

Yelling into the wind he said "Screw you Karma! You won't get me this day!"

Gripping his massive sword he began running through the ship and started cutting the lowest level sails. After he cut the first two, he almost slipped and almost fell overboard. There must be something he could do to even the odds.

Then he remembered his inventory, there were definitely some water resistant boots in there. But would that translate to lower magic damage or actually give him some grip? Expertly navigating his item menu, he equipped the boots. They seemed to be doing the trick so he continued and cut down the last of the lower sails.

He still had to go up. Jim should have let Scarlet do this. He could have easily just stood there and held the wheel. But screw that! Taking the easy road isn't what heroes do!

Running up the rigging, he got to the next sail and started slashing. One by one he started cutting down the mid level sails. After that it was only the highest sails left. The ship began turning to the right. Was that enough?

Mentally crossing his fingers, he prayed as the vessel seemed to be turning. But then they were hit with another gust of wind. At that moment the rigging snapped and he could feel himself falling. Firmly gripping the mast he watched as the ropes of the rigging fell towards the waves. Damn, that's right. Those ropes were old as hell. Of course they would break.

Then the ship seemed to be dipping even further downwards. They were near perpendicular to the roiling sea. It was like he had a front row seat to plunging into the water. If the ship wasn't going so fast, he would totally be falling to his death right about now. Only the momentum of the ship going at a breakneck speed kept him upright.

But then Jim realized what was happening. The top level sails! With no lower or mid level sails to even it out, the top sails were now pushing them downward towards the sea. It was like he gave the wind a better lever to turn them down to the ocean. Oh crap! If they didn't go up soon, they were screwed. He needed to take down those last set of sails.

With the rigging gone and the ship pointing directly down, Jim had the bright idea of using the mast as a balance beam. He just needed to not look at what was below it. If he concentrated, it would be just like crossing the balance beam in a playground, right?

Putting thought to action he stepped onto the mast and slowly began making his way forward. Eyes glued to the wooden mast, he did his best to ignore the sea below. In a half crouch he readied his hands to grab the wooden beam as he slowly went forward. The ship bucked and turned but Jim concentrated and kept his balance.

Then the ship shook again. Really hard. Losing his balance he grabbed the mast to his chest. But then there was no more beam to concentrate on. Only the crashing of waves as they grew closer and closer. Part of him wanted to close his eyes and quit. But in his mind childhood Jim mocked him. Was he going to close his eyes and quit now that there was danger?

He was finally on a real adventure! Screw that.

Renewed with determination he got back on his feet. Jim didn't think, he just moved. One sail was in reach. He cut it. Moving again he was just in reach of the second topsail. He cut it. One to go. But the final topsail was out of reach.

He would need to go back to the deck and make his way up the other mast. Looking at the sea below, there was no time. Taking his faithful massive black sword off his back, he hefted it like it weighed nothing in one hand. Then he threw the sword at the final sail. The blade spinned end over end.

And then it missed. It was too low. But It cut half the mast off that connected to the final topsail. The sails acted like a parachute for that part of the mast and it flew away from the ship. Thankfully it wasn't a mast that supported one of the spinning blades.

Feeling pleased with himself, he felt the ship starting to right itself out of the dive. But then it did so in a jerky motion. Not prepared and standing in the wrong direction, Jim was flung backwards. In horror, it seemed to play in slow motion as the airship flew past him.

Seeing something in the corner of his eye, he reflexively grabbed it. Looking up he could see the airship. And he realized what he was holding on to. That crappy who knows how old rigging. Damn karma.

Looking forward Jim gulped as he saw the true form of the Endless Storm. Countless tornadoes were weaving over the waters in the distance. The lightning strikes would highlight the vicious circular winds only for the light to dim and new lightning strikes to highlight other storms. Jim would have thought it was beautiful if he wasn't hanging from the old ropes that were keeping him alive.

Then he felt being yanked forward and then into a turn. The scene changed from the tornado ridden ocean into the 'normal' massive gusts of wind, waves, lightning and torrential rain.

Jim didn't know if he should try to climb it. The ropes had already shown they had a tendency to break. Feeling it was the right decision, he tried to relax as he could see they were now headed outside the Endless Storm.

The next few minutes were the most stressful of his entire life. The fact that he could live or die based on how well an old set of ropes held together was friggin ridiculous. He could easily beat super bosses, but he met a boss that was even harder.

"Please RNG, blessed random number generator. Please shine on me today. I'll be good. I swear! I won't mock super bosses ever again!"

Seconds ticked by as the rope held together. What seemed like an eternity later, they exited the Endless Storm. Looking at the calm sea below him, he realized he beat the most heinous boss of all. The RNG boss.

The airship slowed down and went to a hover. Then he saw a head pop out over the railing. It was Scarlet.

Yelling, she asked "Are you okay down there?"

"I think so, let me check."

Tentatively he started climbing the remains of the broken rigging. But only a few seconds later he heard the snap, crackle and pops from above. Randomly thinking of how nice it would be to have some cereal right now, he knew he was about to get some swimming practice.

But then a new rope appeared next to him. Grabbing a hold of it, he looked above to see Scarlet. Then the remains of the rigging dropped. Then he felt a burst of wind hit him and he held on tight. As he spun in circles around the rope, he saw the rigging catching the wind and being blown back into the Endless Storm. The RNG boss was terrifying.

"You're friggin heavy! Stop gawking and hurry up!"

Not needing to be asked twice, Jim started climbing the rope as he heard Scarlet struggling to hold on. He knew he was a heavy bastard in this world. Once he was over the railing, he held it with an iron grip and was breathing heavily. As soon as Jim was on board, Scarlet dropped the rope and also sat down gasping for air.

"God damn, if you weigh that much with that dress on, how much do you weigh with that armor of yours!"

Offended Jim said "It's a robe! And it's a really good one!"

"Well, that soaked with water, it looks like a dress. A very colorful pretty dress."

Jim laughed and said "Well, looks like you got over that fear of yours. Thanks for saving my butt. Thought I was about to have to learn how to swim."

Incredulous, she said "You're damn near powerful as a god, and you can't even swim? What kind of idiot are you?"

Jim shrugged and said "The kind of idiot who tied your world to my life by accident. Yeah, I can't swim, but I think that's fairly low down on the list of Jim's faults."

Scarlet snorted and said "You know, I think I did really good back there. Earned a lot of DKP. What do I get?"

Hahaha! Back to her old self. He hadn't given her any new daggers, so she was currently weaponless. Hrmmm… what should he give her?

Scanning through his inventory he tossed her another Reflect enchanted dagger. Now that he really thought about it, with not having the ability to save the game, he had a new respect for the weapons. When you only had one life, not getting hit by the first attack of even the most powerful magic in the game was a pretty good stat line.

What else should he give her? Scrolling through he landed on something.

It was an end game item, but it wasn't a top tier item. It was enchanted with Health Regeneration. Since it was an end game item, it still had a ton more damage, but he figured having a means to heal, even if slowly, was probably more useful than extra damage.

Well, and if it didn't have an offensive enchant it was less likely that she would be successful in cutting his throat. This new dagger is a lot sharper and her stats and levels were getting very respectable. No, he wasn't forgetting about that. But she definitely saved his bacon today.

Jim said "Since the Reflect enchant seemed to come in handy, I'm giving you another. The other dagger is a big damage upgrade and it is enchanted with Health Regeneration."

Scarlet looked at her new toy with a sparkle in her eyes. Testing the sharpness, she winced as the new blade nicked her. A couple seconds later the wound closed on its own. Eyes in wonder she said "Wow it's so sharp! And it can heal too!"

While Scarlet was enamored with her new dagger he started looking around. He felt like something was missing. What could it be? Then he realized they were missing a person.

"Um, where is Forrest? I don't see him"

Scarlet stilled like she was a deer in the headlights. Then dropping the dagger to the deck she stood up and started frantically looking around. Jim recovered the fallen dagger and put it in his belt. His eyes shifted over the weather-beaten ship, but he didn't see the man.

Trying to remember the last time he saw Forrest, he couldn't recall seeing him after the ship sped up. What happened to him?