[Book 1] [20. World Boss]
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It was truly a paradise. The floaters kept coming at us and I sent Don in as a tank, so I could swing the whip as I pleased. Don led our next move, as he changed as an idiot, only to fall when he stumbled over a loose board.

Just as The Floater was about to strike, I swung hard and felt the crunch of bone as my weapon connected with its skull.

[Floater has been defeated. Your contribution: +4XP]

The annoying system kept sending me messages, so I silenced it.

Sadly, when I depleted my last bit of mana with a healing spell, we had to rest. Seeing the sadness on my face, the Captain became intrigued and asked me what was wrong.

“I want to help; I want to fight them, but I don’t have mana. That’s why I need to rest,” I said as I watched the sailors fight the XP bags and clenched my fists. Damit, I bet the rankers are way ahead of me. I know the future, exploited the game, and I’m still lagging?

“You know what? We have a ship full of mana potions. For you, one for five coppers. The only condition is, you’ll keep fighting them.” I hungerly jumped up to him, nodded, and snatched potions from his hand and deposited coppers back. This quest is awesome. What a generous deal!

“If you need more, just holler and I'll get someone to bring them. Keep fighting, Hero!”

With a cheerful grin, I emptied the potion and joined the melee on the deck. Whenever Don's health was low, his high-pitched screams for healing echoed through the room. Useless brat. To cast a healing spell, I moved my shield hand in a simple pattern; the mana flew in; golden energy escaped and enveloped him.

[NPC Donovan has been healed for 14HP.]

With a wave of my hand, the runes for Ice Dance came to life, filling the world with a familiar blue light and a layer of frost. I succeeded on my first try, even the Ice Dance! My runecrafting was slow, but I kept a steady pace, just as the creep had said. The memory of his gaze and my exposed body made me feel uneasy, so I decapitated the nearest floater for some sense of control.

 

My speed of runecrafting needed an improvement, but for now, I enjoyed the feeling of success. The supersonic sound of the whip, the adrenalin in my veins and the experience points waiting kept me awake. The floaters didn’t stand a chance; my whip was everywhere!

“Can I buy additional mana potions?” I asked after I crushed my latest enemy.

“Princess, aren’t you tired?” With concern in his voice, the Captain handed me a towel. “Ten hours of constant brawling is a lot. You can rest. We can manage it.”

“Captain, I can always fight. If there is an enemy, I’ll face them,” I said. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but I lied about why I fought them, so I accompanied the words with a smile to mask my restless heart.

“Very well. I already sent a man to fetch supplies for your fight. You are truly a hero!”

He was mistaken about my bravado. I wanted to grind the Ice Dance, Ice Blood and Heal proficiency points, not help the poor sailors. I had unknowingly pushed the Ice Blood effect to its limit and was now racing against time to defeat another enemy in five minutes. Move fast, you morons!

I sat on a bench and drank a wine to keep myself intoxicated. It was a thing that encouraged me forward in that constant monotonous fight. Well, that and the muted system notices. For my reward, dear system, let it pour in…

[Floater has been defeated x1450; Various amounts of contribution: +4060XP]
[Congratulations! You are now level 6!]
[Congratulations! You are now level 7! XP to next level: 1010/2450]
[Congratulations! Your proficiency with Ice Dance increased to 1-Beginner 2!]
[Congratulations! Your proficiency with Ice Blood increased to 1-Beginner 1!]
[Congratulations! Your proficiency with Heal increased to 0-novice 9!]
[Ice Dance]
Type: 6-marvel | Lv. 1-Beginner 2 | Mana: 20% INT
Effect: Slows your enemies for 31%, add an ICE damage to melee attacks (INT)
Duration: 10 minutes
Cooldown: 19 minutes 30 seconds
[Ice Blood]
Type: 6-marvel passive | Lv. 1-Beginner 1
Effect: for every 40% of your HP taken, you increase the ICE damage up to your [Reality Limit] (100%) by 1%

“Don, isn’t this the best thing that could happen to us?!” I said. The feeling of joy and accomplishment that washed over me as I leveled up was palpable, and I expressed it by dancing on the deck.

He smirked and stared at my bottom, but then he disappeared to the ship below deck without a word. Possibly to sleep? Whatever. Don had barely stepped inside when a sailor brushed past him, running in the opposite direction. Wonderful! Mana potions entered my hands, and coins left my purse. Again.

“There you go, Hero! Keep the fighting going!” Captain sold them, and I joined the ongoing battle with the ugly creatures with a crazy grin.

 

When the night fell, the river surface became so still that it perfectly reflected the sparkling stars above. For some unknown reason, Duke wanted to push to the seashore and more floaters crawled in because of that. I didn’t complain, not at all! Long game sessions were my specialty, and with every hour I felt more fresh. I blocked the claw attack with my trusty shield and finished the floater in one motion of the whip.

Something changed.

Suddenly, the constant howling of the wind ceased, and all other sounds faded away. The rain fell in sheets, and the distant rumble of thunder grew louder than a drunken Irishman.

With a furrowed brow, the Captain scanned the horizon, and said, “I have a bad feeling about this,” Why?! Why did you say it? I screamed in my mind, because the next instant an enormous shriek announced a massive monster. 

The entire ship dangerously shook, and an ugly, big tentacle shot upward, bringing tons of seawater with it. It had many suckers rimmed with toothlike projections, and the suckers were as big as my entire head! Unknowingly, I sucked in a deep breath of warm, salty air. We were in the ocean waters already; that explained everything. Sea monsters. 

The tentacle brought tens of floaters to our deck with it. What a welcoming party! I was out of luck, because the Ice Dance was still on the cooldown, but despite that I joined the chaotic melee.

“Take a line! Second formation!” The Captain commanded his men. The disorganized groups of warriors stepped back and shielded mages, who were coming as a support. Tens of spells, shrieks of monsters, and tentacles trashing the water filled the salty air; classic world Boss fight.

“Let’s have a pie too!” I emptied my super-potion into my mouth.

[You have used the Agility Potion]
[Agility increased by 50]

Strange courage overtook my mind, and I rushed forward, the whip ready. The ship shook dangerously, and I could feel the vibrations through the deck. Then, a swishing sound caught my attention from the right side, and I knew I needed to act fast.

A big gust of wind replaced the sound, and a tentacle tore through our deck, taking everything with it. The sight of the ragged sails made my heart skip a beat, and I quickly grabbed onto the nearest rope to steady myself. When it moved, with the rope hanging on a broken sail that was resting on the monster's tentacle, I soared through the air with it.

When I flew in a misty rain, a ship with the biggest sails popped up on my left side, probably the Duke’s capital ship. This can be my chance to impress him!

I slashed my whip, and the end of it wrapped around a Duke’s ship’s mast, then I clutched a whip’s handle with my both hands and it stopped me flying. The next moment I swung on the whip and crashed to the big sail; the smash was so powerful I lost my breath and almost let go of the handle.

On the deck below me was Duke’s party in a serious fight with a dozen of floaters, and other creatures who looked like elites of floaters.

As I was getting my sense of the world together, the cooldown of Ice Dance was over, and I urgently drew the runes in the air as I climbed up. Thankfully, this wasn’t a reality, so I could use my potion-boosted agility instead of strength and climbed to the top.

My new vantage point had one big boon, because I finally saw our enemy. An enormous octopus was floating on the surface of the sea, his eight tentacles going underwater and back. I fought with similar species on the Kari island, but the ugly octopuses used to be epic rare monsters; at level one hundred and a lot smaller. Like hundred times smaller. I almost finished the Ice Dance spell when I finally saw the monster’s level.

[Ilaginous Lv.15]
Type: 6-marvel World-Boss | HP: 26000/26000

Oh damn, the first marvel monster and World-Boss to the boot! Killing these things was a job for thousands of players at level fifteen and higher, not for my measly level seven. I finished the last rune, and, as always, the effect of my marvel-level spells was flashy. A strong blueish light glowed to the night at the top of the biggest ship. Whoopsie-daisy.

The monster's gaze locked onto me, and in an instant, I could hear its tentacle slicing through the air towards me.

I had a split second to react, so I jumped and prayed for a safe landing, and as I dropped, I heard the tearing of all our sails. I hadn’t aimed my fall at all, but when the deck came, I crashed into two floaters.

I heard the splashing sounds of heavy meat tentacle bouncing off something. The surge of mana behind me was so strong that it almost knocked me off my feet, but then a beautiful, glowing shield formed around the ship. Probably Istvan’s.

I didn't have enough time to verify my suspicion. At least ten floaters who glowered at me with their petrifying, monstrous eyes ran at me.

Thankfully, the new level of Ice Dance looked a lot more flashy than before, not only the runes. The layers of deeper frost were further than before, the surrounding area got colder and even the rain halfway through it froze into snowflakes. Sadly, floaters hadn’t admired my skill and swarmed at me.

As thousands of times before, I moved the hand with the whip and a supersonic sound accompanied a crushing of skull. It was an instant death, and that intoxicated me more than the tens of bottles of wine I drank already.

[Armor pierced. Target lost 44HP (6x2 normal) + (8x2 ICE +100% [Ice Blood] effect)]
[Floater has been defeated. Your contribution: +5XP]

“Fear me, Floaters! I am the Hero of Ice Blood!” I screamed at them and smashed at their heads without a second thought. They fell like level one Bearbits, as I jumped backwards toward the railings with ease and slaughtered them, one by one. The only word that would describe my doing was a massacre and XP poured like a tea.

“I heard about you, our new Hero.” Duke’s voice came from the top of the deck. “Please help us defeat the monster.”

“Gladly, my lord!”

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