Artificial Fantasy

Gaiden 1: Novel Meeting

"Whatever! You said yourself that the Palmer boys aren't here, so you're the only one who knows how this game works."

Arthur quickly took one step back away from Razul in shock. "W-Well... Do you remember those monster-collecting games? Maybe you can use some sort of [Thunder] spell to eliminate them."

"And what makes you so sure that plan will work?" The young [Elf] asked as he took a few steps away from the advancing slimes.

"Hey, you told me to come up with a way to stop their ability to divide! I'm a knight who rushes headfirst into battle, not a miracle strategist!"

"I had to ask..." Razul sighed before turning his attention back to the monsters. "But still, it might be our only shot to stop these monstrous gelatin creatures."

Without any hesitation, he aimed his gun at the slimes and started to chant once more as the barrel began gathering yellow energy around him.

"Spirits of thunder, hear my call. Help me gather your power and mold them into bolts which I can smite my foes! Target the ones who will oppose my path and scatter them all to dust."

As he continued his incantation, Arthur begins to back away and prepares a fighting stance as his sword begins to glow.

"[Lightning Scatter]."

With one pull of a trigger, the gun released a large bolt of electricity, which flew towards the sky above the monsters, and before they can act, scattered into several small bolts of electricity, which rained down on the horde of slimes. This electrocuted them before making them explode in blasts of blue liquid. But unlike last time, the remains disappeared in bright white light and left behind several items and [Lapi] gem coins on the ground. The sight of this caused the young knight to drop his sword as his jaw dropped in shock.

"Huh. What do you know? Your silly suggestion did work after all."

However, his shocked expression turned into frustration as Arthur pouted at this outcome.

"Seriously?! I didn't even get to kill one measly slime!"

----

After the battle, the boys picked up the dropped items before they headed back to <Initio>. There, they walked through the sidewalks as they pass through several players who were chatting to each other.

"Man, it would be a lot easier if Wind was around to join us in killing monsters for more [EXP]," Arthur muttered. "My [Swordsmanship Mastery] is almost at Level 20 and he's usually the one who makes up some crazy plan to get us out of any sticky situation."

"You know him. He's never the type to abandon his little brother for his plans, and even if we ask him, I doubt he'd like being treated as a bloodhound. Besides, he's not the same Hayate we knew from middle school."

Just hearing those words made Arthur frowns as he stopped walking. "Tell me about it. Before we had the guts to talk to him, he was always the lone wolf-type back then and whenever someone asked about his goals or his favorites, he'd just ignore them and leave. It's like some kind of a tragic event caused his whole persona to go 180."

It was true, Zac and Damon had known Hayate before high school but never had the chance to interact with him at that time. Damon was wary of his attitude while Zac was reluctant to even get involved with him; as such, they didn't have any chance to talk to him most of the time.

"Please. Last time I check, the only "tragedy" about his past is when we accidentally broke his favorite mug and he went ballistic on you. I still remember you frantically trying to glue it all together before Hayate found you with the broken pieces," Razul mentioned as he gave a small smirk to his friend.