Starting from Zero

The Japan players chose the correct path. The floor slowly became clearer, with fewer obstacles. Though this is not really good news for the two of us, cause it\'s getting hard to find covers.

The next 100 meters is a straight walkway about 3 meters wide, completely open ground. It\'s nearly impossible to stay hidden while following them now. I asked Felix to enter my party, and wait for me behind.

I activated my Phantom Cape and approached the enemies alone. Thankfully the place is still dark, so the cape can keep me out of sight even if I move faster, as long as I don’t cause any sound.

I treaded carefully within several meters to their team. A giant boulder now stands before us, blocking the way. Several Japan players are trying to break the boulder. But it seems none of them have enough power to do it. It never budged an inch after several tries.

This continued for another ten minutes. I’m losing patience too, but I suppressed the urge to show up and help them.

Matsumoto found a smaller rock somewhere and placed it under the boulder as a lever point. Then three ninjas used their katana sheaths to pry, only to give up in the end.

"Head back for now. Bring some explosives next time." Matsumoto spit on the ground.

The other people followed him in relief. I climbed to the ceiling and sent a message to Felix, telling him to hide.

The fat teammate appeared in my sight after a while. "Hey leader, they\'re gone. Did they get the treasure?"

I pointed to the boulder. "Nope. They never got past this thing. They went home to bring more tools."

"Thing? What thing?" He moved to where I pointed while touching the air.

"Uh, you can’t see it?"

"It’s too dark!"

Oops. He doesn’t have night vision. Now the Japanese are gone it must be totally blind for him.

I took out a torch from my bracelet and summoned Phiona.

"Can I get a fire?"

Yep. Phiona in her Aurora Bird form can be a pretty convenient lighter as well.

Felix took the torch and moved to the boulder I mentioned. We only found a tiny peephole on one side, and saw more passage leading deeper. But apparently we can’t get there as is.

"Felix, can you use your weapon to break it?"

"No. This is not a rock smasher."

"Well shoot. It’s on me again." I told Felix to back off. "Transform!!"

I then readied my right fist.

"[Earth Shaker]!"

Bam!

That was the sound of me crashing into the cave wall after being bounced away.

"Holy cookies. What kind of rock is that?"

Felix moved close, tapped on the boulder, wiped on its surface and put his finger inside his mouth.

"Pyrite. This is concentrated pyrite."

"What do you mean concentrated?"

"It means the entire thing is one single metal slate!"

"So that\'s why it’s so strong." I knocked on it with my knuckle. "I have more tricks than that. Rosa!"

I ordered my plant companion to weave himself around the boulder.

"Now grow."

Rosa\'s vines began to grow thicker, slowly crushing the boulder from the outside. It’s working, small cracks are showing up on it.

"Awesome!" Felix exclaimed.

"The power of life. You know, even the tiniest seedling can lift a rock a hundred times heavier than itself."

It didn’t take long for the crazily growing Rosa to cook the obstacle into a rock pie. I asked him to keep it up until the thing shattered into pieces, then I bent down to collect them.

"What are you doing?" Felix asked.

"Pyrite ores. I can go sell them for money."

"But, pyrite is not rare on our lands. Besides it\'s pretty heavy. You can’t take much with you."

I showed him my bracelet. "My special inventory has no weight or room limit. It doesn’t hurt."

After I\'m done, we walked down the passage for about 20 minutes before we reached a giant door. The door is made of stone. And from the size of it...I\'d say it\'s at least half a ton. Thankfully, we managed to slam it open together.

It’s a big room behind the door, carved out of the space inside the cave. There is a stone platform in the center with some pretty conspicuous decorations on it, plus three really big words, "Magic Silver Vial". (*)

There is nothing else in this room besides the platform and the bottle on it. No one\'s gonna miss them. I don\'t see any guards or other obstacles here but... The "vial", which is probably made of porcelain, stands seven meters on top of the platform! It looks like those decorative vases in front of common china shops, just bigger. A LOT bigger.

Felix is also standing in front of the monstrosity agape. "When they said ‘vial’ I thought it\'s something you can hold in your hands."

"Agreed." I used my hand to estimate its size.

"Maybe, just maybe, this one is a cover-up. The real thing is hidden somewhere."

"That’s possible. It will take a dozen people to move this thing around. I don’t think that’s what the quest meant. Wait here, I’ll go up and take a look inside." I climbed the vase.

"Hey be careful!" Felix shouted. "Tell me if you can’t find anything. I\'ll just smash it so the enemies won’t get it."

"Got it!"

The surface of this thing is pretty slippery. Even my boots are having a hard time sticking to it. I climbed to the top with some help with my dragon cord. But before I can look down to check inside, my feet slipped and I fell into the vase!

Now I\'m stuck in here upside-down. Felix tried to save me from outside by using his God\'s Bane to hit the vase. I only heard a loud BANG right beside my ears which almost stunned me. It doesn’t seem he caused any damage, so I quickly spoke in the team channel:

"Stop, stop! You\'re gonna knock me out first."

"What should I do now?"

"Just wait. My helmet will keep me alive for a while."

"Can you see what’s inside?"

"Yes and no. There’s white...liquid, I think it’s quicksilver, in here and I\'m covered in it. I can’t see anything else!"

"Can you throw your rope out? So I can pull you from here."

"Can\'t. Quicksilver is too heavy, and I can’t shot anything from under it."

"But you need to get out somehow."

"I know! I’m trying to figure out how. Oh right. Move away!"

"Okay."

"Lucky!" I summoned the dragon. "Get the bottle to the floor."

Lucky pushed the giant container to the ground. But the quicksilver stayed inside, not a single drop left it. I felt the liquid level went down. However it flowed towards my head instead. I\'m not sure exactly where it ended up to, cause my vision is completely covered in white.

I tried wriggling myself out since the vase lies flat now. I didn’t get very far before I\'m stuck again. The thing\'s too thin! As I mentioned, the ‘vase’ is 7 meters tall, but the bottleneck of it and the interior can barely let a human body pass through. Whoever designed this shit?

Defeated, I asked Lucky to help again. He held up the vase upside-down and began to thrust it downwards, trying to get me out.

Only my legs appeared in the air in the end--my waist is still locked at the bottleneck, and now I can’t move in either direction.

"I got an idea." Felix suddenly said. "Tell your dragon to listen to me."

I ordered as he said. Lucky held the bottle in one claw, raised the other claw, and gave the bottle a mighty slap on the bottom.

Poof! I\'m thrown out like a cannonball.

"...Gah!" I gasped for air. "Almost didn\'t make it."

"Why would you jump in anyway?"

"I didn’t! That was an accident. By the way, did you see where the quicksilver go?"

"Huh? No."

"You don’t see anything coming out when the bottle is down?"

"Nothing. Hey wait, there\'s quicksilver dripping down from that gem on your head."

"Gem?" I took off my helmet and checked. "My Fire Gem--what the--why is it silver now?"

Felix didn’t say anything. I looked at him again and saw him staring at me.

"What\'s the matter?"

"Oh, he-hello, sister."

"Sis-- Goddammit I\'m a guy! Call me brother!"

"Oh, sorry sorry. You look beautiful, bro."

"Hey stop drooling already. Tell me, what happened to this gem?"

He didn’t respond. He\'s lost in staring at my face again.

Forget it. I\'ll go ask Clark when I\'m back.

"Hey wake up, let\'s go before the Japanese come back and block us in."

"Well aren’t you a troublesome one, my friend. When will you stop messing around us?"

That\'s Matsumoto\'s voice. Shoot. We\'re too slow.

"Humph. I never mess around."

"You stole our Door of Truth, killed our people in the square, now you\'re here taking our Magic Vial too. So that\'s not enough?"

"Of course not. I was visiting your city when you sent an army after me. I had to defend myself you know. As for this...every treasure is first come first serve, right? It doesn’t have your name on it. Last time I checked, your Black Dragon Force doesn’t run this place. "

I see Matsumoto\'s mustache twitching.

"Bakayaro!! Kill him now!!"

Well, this will end in violence anyway.

Three of their Warriors charged ahead first without hesitation. Lucky is standing right next to me, so either they are underestimating the situation, or they\'re just foolish. Whatever it is isn’t Lucky\'s concern, who used his tail to swipe the warriors into a nearby wall, adding some extra decoration to the empty room.

"Oh come on. You had 6 thousand people with you and you still didn’t catch me. Now you\'re trying to get me with this few lot?"

Felix took out his God’s Bane. "Even we\'re going to die we will die as heroes!"

Crap. Is he serious?

"I know what you can do. And we didn’t come unprepared!" Matsumoto waved a hand.

The stone gate was pushed open again to reveal...a battleship cannon, slowly pushed inside by several men.

"You can’t use a marine cannon on dry land but we’re near the underground river, so this will work here. Now prepare to die!"

"Phantom Knights! Tear it down!"

"Fire!!" Matsumoto yelled.

He really shouldn\'t have exposed his plan too soon. My knights can rush over our distance in less than three seconds, and there\'s no way they can take aim and fire the cannon this fast.

A knight ran straight into a ninja who was trying to ignite the cannon with a torch. They brought exactly the same people again, none of whom can take a hit from the knights and still stand.

"Wowee. You\'re awesome." Felix looked at me with starry eyes.

"Come. Run. I will not be so awesome when the entire family come again."

We\'re still not sure if that giant vase is the "Magic Silver Vial" we came for, so I just asked Lucky to smash it down.

We backtracked until we reached the cave wall where the path is underwater. There’s a big hole on it now. I guess they planned to use the cannon to break through the boulder too.

"How did they move it here anyway?" I wondered.

"The river outside is connected to the sea. They just need to bring it on a boat and drive it in." Felix explained.

"You sure??"

"Yeah. What’s wrong?"

"Oh fu*ck. If there\'s the sea outside then there can be battleships waiting for us! We can fight ninjas but not cannons."

"Let\'s get out before they get here then."

Matsumoto\'s small boat is still floating here so we hopped on. I ordered the Phantom Knights to paddle for us. As a trained team, these guys can drive the boat faster than how it was moved by 30 players.

"Oh right, how did you get here, Felix? I didn’t see any other boats."

"I swim."

"Huh? You didn’t run into that monster?"

"Nope. What monster?"

"Did you carry a light with you?"

"Yeah, I kept a torch above the water."

"I see. You know, there was this thing in the water that almost swallowed me whole. It\'s afraid of light though, and that\'s how you were not killed."

"You don’t say? Glad I made the right choice."

As we’re talking we approached the exit. It\'s still dark outside but the starlight is still brighter than inside the cave.

Just after we showed up under the sky, I heard a cannon being fired.

"Get down!!" I knocked Felix to the deck. However I didn’t have time to avoid the incoming shot.

I watched helplessly when the round came straight at me, when the gem on my helmet, now silver colored, flashed, and released a string of quicksilver into the air. It gathered in front of me and formed up a shield to block the cannon shot. The process didn’t take long--the shield is ready before the attack can get here. The quicksilver shield is hovering about half a meter away from me, and just large enough to repel the cannon round. When they connected, the quicksilver is broken to liquid drops to all directions like how a stone hit water. The attack successfully broke the shield, but it also lost all force and dropped onto the nearby stone floor, causing a loud metal noise.

The second shot is already here before I can feel relieved. The shield didn’t protect me this time. I saw the quicksilver drops moving back but they didn’t have enough time to get into position. The metal round rammed into my chest, sent my flying into the rocks above the cave entrance. I was pinned there like how Jesus Christ was pinned onto his cross...Ow Jesus, that hurts.

The Japan players are happy to keep this up--the third shot was fired when I\'m still stuck here. The previous attack already drained most HP from myself and all my companions. It\'s totally a kill if I’m hit again.

The quicksilver drops became a shield in front of me again and intercepted the cannon. The deadly weapon slowly but surely lost its speed inside the liquid and fell into the water below.

Of course I\'m not staying here acting as their practice target. I pried myself off the rock and jumped away before they can shoot me again.

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(*) The "Mythril Vial" in the last chapter seems a wrong translation. I revised it.