Starting from Zero

Book 4, Chapter 7

The Dart

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Note: "Dart" should be the name of the new pet. But this is not mentioned in this chapter.

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"AHHH!"

Elfy and I were knocked flying by a strong force. Night Shade hopped to me in time and caught me on his back, while Hawk saved Elfy with a skillful volleyball save.

"What was that?" I look around. "Saw anything?"

"Not me." Hawk is searching around the area too, nervously. "There was just something blurry in front my eyes, and you two were in the air before I know it."

"I think it was some kind of small animal." Elfy steadied herself and took out a strange-shaped arrow from her quiver. "I touched it. At least it was something with fur."

Nope. The woods around us is totally silent.

"Rosy, look out the area for us."

The dirt around us began to shift, then tentacles with crystal eyes crawled onto each of the trees within the perimeter. They began to look around like cameras.

"Noticed something?" Hawk asked.

A bigger tentacle raised in front of us, an image appeared in the crystal ball. We saw a shadow flying among the trees. It's too fast for us to make it out. The moving image is apparently made up from continuous pictures shot by different tentacles. Now that's surprising, I got myself a living camera.

Elfy let out a warning. "Watch it! It's coming!"

From the "Camera", I saw the black shadow approaching from our backs.

I drew my swords. "Let's back up each other and leave no blind spots. Lucky, take down all the trees around. Oh and, throw them away so they don't get in our way. Phantom, come out and look for the target. See if you can control it. Phiona, watch us from above. Loong'er cast your gravity field around us. Knights, spread out!"

Lucky is the fastest one to move as always--the trees are already falling down in bundles like wheat. Rosy helped cut off all the roots so Lucky only needs to carry the trunks and throw them off the mountain, creating an open area for us.

"Over there!" One of the knights caught sight of the shadow and threw his spear at the same time, without hitting it. Not surprising, as the spear is almost as thick as the monster itself.

"There!" That was Elfy.

A series of spears went over. Still nothing.

"Above!" I saw it this time. I wanted to check on Phiona, but a black stuff blocked my sight when I raised my head.

Phiona created a strong gust using her wings and disrupted the shadow's movement. Something showed up from the shadow. It's a...white, furry...ball?

"[Shadow Barrage]!"

Elfy released her arrow which she has been holding for some time. I only hear one shot, but a wave of dense arrows went past me. This is a powerful Archer skill used to restrict the movement of any fast target. Only half of the arrows are real, though whoever got caught inside the wave probably doesn't have the time to judge it.

However, the speed and size of the figure still allowed it to slip past the attack.

I'm helpless now. I never knew how to deal with fast targets. I've fight with monsters with high HP or high attack but I'm yet to figure out how to catch something I can't even see.

The shadow made a turn and went at Elfy. Looks like it wants some revenge.

Rosy's vine blocked its way just before it reaches Elfy. This forced the shadow to change it's course--it used the tentacle as a platform and jumped towards elsewhere.

The Phantom Knight leader pointed at somewhere. "[Iron Cage] ready up! Seven, two-three, launch!"

Schhhh! 10 spears shot themselves out in unite. From the looks of it, their landing point is the estimated location where the black shadow is about to reach. The shadow realized it too. But apparently it can't fly--it can only adjust it's postures but not change its direction in mid-air.

They reached the ground at almost the exact same moment--the spears clustered into a round cage-like structure, trapping the shadow inside. Phiona dropped from the sky and landed on top of the cage, which is the only open exit.

"Aha! No where to run now." I walked to the "cage" and peeked inside.

It's a white little animal that looks like a squirrel. But no squirrel has such long and silky fur. It looks more like a snowball, actually. It's tail is even bigger than it's own body. That should be why it was so agile. There are two miniature balls on it head, probably ears. Those eyes...are big, round, with the color of sapphires. The brightness of the eyes made it appear like the critter is about to cry.

"This--oof!"

"Awwww it's so cute!" Elfy pushed me and Hawk aside with abnormal strength. Her eyes are literally shining. "Aren't you adorable, little friend. Will you come with big sis?"

It jumped around the cage, obviously saying "no". That's not gonna work though.

"Hey dear, call your friend NOW! I want it as my companion!"

"Um? Oh!"

I stopped Hawk as he tries to make a call. "No need. My side class is Breeder, remember?"

"Oh yeah, You said you are Soul Manipulator which is transferred from Tamer. As far as I remember, all Tamers would choose Breeder as a side class."

"Yup. Tamers will need companions to fight. Surely no one would want to buy companion from others every time they need one."

"Makes sense."

"What are you two doing?? Help me capture it!" Elfy pushed Hawk aside (again) and dragged me over. "Quick! Do it!"

"Okay okay, don't push!"

I began to cast [Capture] at the little thing. It got more violent as I try. The cage is shaking from its struggling.

Looks like it's not really a strong monster. It only took me a dozen tries, probably because of my level 17 [Capture]. I saw it somewhere that you won't find many people who got the skill over level 10 at the current stage. This is not surprising if you look at my companions though, each one of them would give me some serious skill exp, especially Night Shade--he just stood there for an entire afternoon, waiting for me to spam skills on him.

"Here." I gave the egg to Elfy. The size is similar to either a small watermelon, or a really big apple.

"Yay!!" Elfy wiped her hands clean before carefully taking the egg. I was giving out a relieved sigh, when her words choked it back down my throat.

"How long do I have to stay on it to hatch? Do I hold it against my stomach? On my laps? Hug it all the time? Can I ask someone else for help?"

"Baahahaha! Haaa-cough cough cough--eww cough--"

I crouched and held my abdomen to ease the pain caused by that laughter.

"Ok, now I see why you said companion eggs are super rare out there. You--*snigger*-- you never seen anyone hatching an egg in the game did you?"

More confusion is now written on Hawk's face. "Hatch? We don't even see many players carrying real companions! Do you know how you scared the heck out of us when you showed your companion team this morning? Last time I checked, an egg between level 300 and 400 worth 30k crystals! CRYSTALS! And you won't get one easy even if you can offer that price. No one has high level capture skill yet, and NPCs only sell eggs below level 200. Good ones are on really short supply."

Weird. I know eggs are hard to come by but this is a little TOO scarce, if you ask me.

"You can capture any monsters into companions right? Is it so hard to produce eggs?"

"You...wait I'll explain. You have to cut down the monster HP to 1 or 2 points when trying to capture, or it will just try to self-destruct or something. Those who don't explode will just get furious and go into berserk mode, making it impossible to proceed. You need to be very careful how much damage you do and how much HP the monster regenerates. One tiny mistake and you will kill it by accident, or leave too much HP. Now wait a second, that little thing didn't get angry or explode did it now?"

"I don't know..." I looked at the egg. "I never seen any monsters explode on capture. Maybe there are some hidden requirements or attributes you need?"

"Let's leave those questions later!" Elfy is still obsessed with her egg. "Tell me how to get it hatched first!"

"Oh, that's simple." I grinned. "Find some hay and build a chicken coop. Sit on the egg for three hours."

Elfy rolled her eyes and kicked at me. " The truth! Now!"

"Sorry! I-I surrender! Make a cut on your finger and drop blood on the egg. It will hatch once it gets some blood."

...Was that too obvious?

"Hey hawk! Come here!" Elfy grasped Hawk's hand and took our her dagger. I don't think she's going to just "make a cut", with that kind of movement.

I quickly snatched the egg away. "What the heck are you doing??"

"Get some blood of course?"

"You...don't want the egg then? The companion will consider whoever dropped his or her own blood as master. If you cut Hawk, he will become its master instead."

"Tell me that earlier!" Elfy patted her chest in relief. But she noticed something on her dagger. "Is this...blood? Hawk, did I cut you?"

Crack! The egg broke in my hands. A furball jumped around a bit, then crawled onto my shoulder and began to hug my face.

But...! My hands...!

"Ahhhh! You cut MY hand!"

I took off my gauntlets to raise the success rate for [Capture], and Elfy's dagger left a 1-inch long laceration wound on the back of my hand when I was taking the egg back!

"What the-- Why is this happening?? I don't want a pet dog using up my slot! Noooo!"

Phantom interrupted me: "Hey master, this little one is no pet dog. It--I mean, he, is a level 700 Aurora Fox. That's higher than me at least. I heard about this species before. They're the champion in this world when it comes to speed."

"No kidding?" I opened it's status window.

[Aurora Fox], level 0.

Attack: 15-25,

Defense: 10,

Speed: 750,

HP: 300,

MP: 50.

The other attributes are ordinary, even worse than common monsters. That speed though...that's twice as fast than Night Shade! With the proper attacks, no one would notice what got him.

Elfy looked at the furry creature and whined. "Nnnnn...but I want it!"

"No worries. We can find another. You saw how easy I captured it right?"

"Glad to hear it but, are we really going to find one?"

"You said the monsters would spawn non-stop on this mountain right? That pretty much told us there would be more of it."

"Well that was for normal monsters." Hawk looks worried. "I don't think this little one is a normal monster. The strongest monster we met before would be somewhere like level 500 or so, a level 700 is unheard of."

"Now you mentioned it...What happened to the mob waves you were so afraid of? We walked so far and this thing is the only monster we encountered. According to you two, our paths should be filled with all kinds of ghosts 'n' goblins by now."

Elfy looked about. "I...don't know. That's what happened last time. And we didn't even reach this far before we were driven out."

I turned to Phiona: "Scout from above, let's see where the monster ran off to."

"Alrighty."

A strong current caused us to lose balance a bit. Phiona turned into a black dot in a flash.

She came down after a brief moment. "There are a group of players fighting with monsters on the other side of the mountain. A lot of them. All the monsters elsewhere are marching towards them like tidal waves!"

"Ohh. So someone is doing the job for us..." Hawk mumbled.

Elfy jumped onto his shoulder. "Quick! Now we'd better not waste their effort. Let's get up there and claim whatever treasure lies ahead!"

"Right. Let's hurry it up." I hopped on Night Shade too. "Onward! Here I come my precious!!"

"Hey--wait for us!"

I charged ahead out of too much excitement, leaving the couple a good distance behind.