Escape The Swamp [Closed]

[Renai]

Renai scoffed under his breath, looking around at the area he had ended up in. This was what he got for blindly trusting people. With no one around for who knew how far, the individual didn't really have much choice but to try and make his way back to town by his own wits. He would have tried calling a friend or two, but he didn't have any. At all. Whatsoever. Someone thought it'd be really funny to get a solo adventurer to jump into Fairy Circle. Hahaha. So funny. So, so funny. Where the hell was he anyway? The enchanter glanced around at the dimly lit forest, his face twisting slightly as his feet seemed to stick to the ground. It looked to be some kind of swamp, at first glance, but something about that was making Renai nervous. He wasn't a fan of strange areas he had never seen before, but he was going to have to make it out of here somehow.

Well, it was a swamp, so maybe one of his parents had some sage advice for him at this point. Now that he was thinking about it, they were both silver-haired and hired-help that worked live-in, the only real difference being their titles as 'gardener' and 'maid' respectively. They both cooked, cleaned, tended to the premises, and had this really weird love of knives. It set Renai on edge just thinking about it, remembering the various times they had started throwing them for fun. FOR FUN. Still, they did love each other, so he supposed that was as much as he could ask for. Now that he was thinking about it, maybe he should have taken a class that let him use knives? Maybe he should have taken the grimoire instead of this stupid staff? Maybe he should have taken an offensive skill?

There were so many maybes lined up, but they all basically led to the single conclusion that Renai was completely and totally screwed. He let out a half-sigh as he glanced around the marshlands again, wondering what zone he was in. It was really kind of gross and reminded him of some sort of magical forest, but if it was up to him, he'd have a lot of it cleaned up. Anything worked, really, so long as he could get away with getting out of here in one piece. The only reason he hadn't gone searching for danger at this point and committed suicide in order to warp back in town was because there was an implicit understanding that he might lose his equipment. Maybe all his money. He didn't mind being beaten so much, but in his current state, he'd really prefer not to have to deal with having absolutely no gear. What if he lost his clothes? That old bag pretending to be an elegant maid would probably have his head for exposing that much shame to their family. As if she wasn't a total perv. The gardener of the family probably would have had his head for being so disrespectful, but Renai couldn't really bring himself to be overly concerned. After all, they were losing their touch and, after enough intruders and equivalent nonsense, Renai was more than used to a little danger. That, and hospital visits.

He probably would have continued to muse to himself and avoid combat for as long as humanely possible, but his ears twitched and his eyes flashed golden. Control yourself, Vincent. He probably had made an unfortunate mistake in choosing to be a Wolf Hair and an Enchanter class, but it seemed like a fun idea at the time. Bad ideas were his favorite, after all. Perhaps it was actually advantageous at the end of the day. Sure, Wolf Hair wasn't exactly a type suited to the mage class, but equivalently, it could help cover for that weakness. Assuming he ever let himself transform in combat. To be honest, it was a little bit embarrassing. He figured it was cool enough when it wasn't actually him, but suddenly he was in the game itself, and that brought a whole new level of embarrassment to the picture. Thank the gods that he had not inherited an account from his parents and taken up a female avatar. Anyway, he was getting distracted again. The really important part here was that his combat senses were tingling.

Rightfully so, he might add. His eyes flicked from position to position until he heard the squelching sound of the marshland behind him. Ripping his trapped legs out from the murky mud, the player whipped out his stave and held it out in front of himself defensively. Maybe he should have chosen something else? Man, this was seriously lame. Right there in front of him was a singular Weak Goblin Scout. Well, he didn't exactly know what it was until he took his left hand off his stave to try and get the interface to do his bidding. This used to be a right-click or something, right? So much easier back then. His hand waved around uselessly for a bit as he tried to make the interface appear. Why wasn't it working? Renai stared at his hand as it was flopping around uselessly, not unlike a dying fish, as he tried to summon the interface. Eventually, he succeeded in opening the menu, but not until the goblin was right in front of Renai with its stupid club and leather armor. Cursing under his breath, Renai tried to back up and place the stave between him and his opponent, blocking an incoming assault. He probably would have done better if there hadn't been a gorramn interface in his way. Haha yes so clever, I wanted you to open up thirty seconds ago!

Feeling the mud against his back as Renai slammed into the ground, he kicked the goblin in the stomach, shoving the creature backwards just enough to give him some time to pick himself up. His staff wasn't even strong. All he had was this booping stick and this unbelievably useless skill. He was going to stab something. To be more precise, he would have stabbed something if he had had anything to stab with. If he could manage to steal a grimoire from somewhere, he was definitely doing it. If he could get back to town, anyway. Scrambling backwards even further, Renai grunted as his feet tried to stick to the mud, making splorching and slopping noises as he moved. This was so gross. For whatever reason, Goblin the Clown didn't seem to be having as much difficulty and Renai could see him advancing quickly. Gulping down a nervous breath, Renai made the floppy hand gesture again, trying to point it at the goblin. It was a rushed motion, but the system eventually took pity on the player and afforded him that singular moment of luck that allowed him to floppy-hand correctly and in the direction of the goblin. A little interface popped up, revealing the goblin's level, name, and current hp and mp. Not too bad. It was known as a "Weak Goblin Scout", Level 1, and with almost full HP. Maybe Renai could face this beast? His health had taken a bit of a dive, yes, but maybe if he played it defensively enough, he could take on this creature. Maybe. Running and dodging was only useful for so long. Combat kind of sucked, didn't it?

Well, perhaps it was time to go on the offensive. As the weakest solo class. With no attack skills. And a weapon that does next to no damage. Renai was half-expecting the weapon to make a 'paf' noise when he hit the goblin with it, but maybe it'd do actual damage. He really, really should have taken a sword and grimoire. With a gulp, Renai steadied his feet against some of the more solid underbrush, using the roots of the area to harden his stance. If he was going to fight back, he needed something he could spring off of and something he could push against to hold his ground. Dirty mud wasn't going to cut it. The unsuspecting Weak Goblin Scout came trundling up, swinging its club as if it could win. Renai was pretty sure his mother was rolling in her sleep, crying out for Renai to win more elegantly, but Renai didn't have knives, illusions, or tricks. He also wasn't a gate guard or anything of the sort. When the goblin came running forward, Renai moved his stave to try and hit the goblin in the side, hopefully shoving it into the muck. Once you were trapped in that stuff, it wasn't easy getting out quickly.

Paff. Oh goddammit. Was this weapon really that bloody terrible? Had Renai not been in the middle of getting slaughtered, he would have smacked his hand against his face or nursed a headache or something. He was, however, in the middle of something. As his staff only slightly unbalanced the goblin, Renai found he couldn't pull it back for a guard quickly enough to dodge the downward blow of the club. It wasn't unreasonably fast, but Renai had to drop his grip on his weapon to twist his body out of the way, bringing his knee up into the goblin's chest. It turned out there were benefits to being freakishly tall and having chosen a non-mage race. The goblin staggered a little, although its health didn't drop at all. It probably lost 5 HP or some ridiculously small number, but it was enough to give Renai the chance to shove it backwards into the gloppy mess. Unable to move from his position by the roots, Renai dropped to his knees and quickly retrieved his stave, grimacing at the goop that was lining one edge of it. Thankfully he had retrieved it before it had sunk enough to be problematic, but it was still really gross. He could almost smell how gross it was. Shaking it once or twice, Renai glanced at the goblin that was back up and trying to get at him again. Well, he wasn't about to let that happen. With a bit of a glare, Renai poked the goblin back and played parry with it, blocking the swings of the club and shoving backwards with his stave as he moved through his interface. Every so often, he'd scroll with his hand quickly to buy himself a bit more time.

As he moved through the screen, he continued to dodge the goblin's stupid attacks, eyes starting to glow a rather nefarious yellow. His strength was increasing a bit, he could feel it, but it wasn't quite enough for what he wanted. Renai felt his knees buckle a bit as his stave strained against yet another overhead blow, leaving the housekeeper in a position that was dangerously close to prone. Didn't he have a spell he could use? Didn't he have anything like that? His eyes burned slightly as he finally reached it. The skill list for Enchanters. He could supposedly point and click, but that wasn't what he needed. He needed to make this a surprise attack. With a burst of strength that caused his ears to pop upwards into their rather canine appearance, he forced the goblin back a few steps. Reading his stave and glancing at the 'directions' for the skill, Renai watched the goblin charge forward and gestured forward as it got close. Inversion. A quick burst of light shot forth and hit the goblin, forcing the creature into a 180 as it was dangerously close to Renai. Forced to duck the club that was moved 180 degrees, Renai took the momentary distraction to slam his stave into the upper half of the goblin, forcing it to rotate in midair and slam face first into the mud. Not about to give it the chance to get up after that tiny miracle, Renai slammed his stave down on the creature repeatedly and stomped his foot on the back of the armored goblin, crushing it underfoot. Now wasn't that great?

[Renai]

Ding! Well, that was nice. It seemed like learning how to use an Enchanter skill had somehow made Renai's super mega power level increase from non-existent to competent enough to have two skills. Count 'em, two! Now, Renai had originally had his eye on the Nightmare Sphere or Mind Shock skills, but rather than get those, Renai knew he needed to have some sort of ability to deal damage. This was actually pretty pathetic, now that he thought about it, and his complete lack of capacity for dealing damage made him a little miserable. Maybe he could danmaku his way out of this mess? His mom would probably be annoyed that his attacks weren't elegant enough, but when he was a Wolf Hair and it was only that fact that had kept him alive through this encounter, he had reason to be thankful. Elegance was not supreme in this world, despite what his parents might have thought. Well, one of them. The other had different ideas, but that didn't mean he was spared lectures on elegance. Renai shuffled through the different various skills until he found one he could weaponize. Predictably, it was the only one that looked like it had damage potential. He was an Enchanter, after all, and his skills were essentially all support skills.

Well, this was an interesting enough skill to get. Pulse Bullet, was it? Not bad. [Pulse Bullet], getto. That was pretty reasonable, right? Dramatic action sequence, magical light, maybe even a transformation scene that was borderline erotic. That could totally justify the glee he was feeling at receiving a skill that could let him fend off enemies. His eyes flicked around as his ears pricked, searching around for any enemies that were going to sneak up on him as he tried to figure out how to make his skills work. For now, there wasn't anything he could sense, so he could probably get away with figuring out how his skills worked rather than blindly trying to grope his way through it like he had done the last battle. A brief inspection of the system revealed to him that skills could be activated directly or by directed actions, it seemed. Well, that was nice and all, but he didn't really want to have to deal with ridiculous activation stances. Hopefully they weren't too bad and a brief glance through the Inversion and Pulse Bullet skills reassured Renai. There was no long charge up time and unreasonable screaming sequence where he had to take twelve episodes to charge up and unleash a force wave. That would be stupid. Really stupid. Probably so terribly bad that Renai would intentionally never use the skill for fear of dying of shame after it. It was in no way elegant, so he was sure he'd have a migraine for the rest of the day dealing with his mom's voice inside his head too.

At any rate, it seemed like Inversion had a fairly simple use. Simply gesture and the beam of light shoots out. Pulse Bullet was a bit more embarrassing in that it required some sort of shooting motion and recommended making a fake gun with the user's index and middle finger. No thanks, game. There was probably a more elegant way to do it anyway. Before he set off on his journey to escape the swamp, Renai decided it was about time he got some practice using his Enchanter skills. Targeting a rather large looking tree, the player pointed with Inversion and shot, preparing to jump out of the way if the Inversion skill was secretly insanely powerful. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for the sake of all structures in Elder Tale, the Inversion skill's light beam struck the tree and then did absolutely nothing. The MP seemed to be wasted, Renai noted, but the tree was simply too large to target. The Inversion skill had to be able to target most opponents, so it could most likely be used against anything human-sized or smaller. There were rumors of larger monsters like golems that he had heard before he had been unceremoniously dumped in the swamps and Renai could not help but wonder if he could somehow manage to use Inversion on those golems. Spinning a golem around like a top seemed like fun, now that he was thinking about it. It'd probably screw with puppets as well, possibly tangling up wires if he spammed the skill enough times? The cast-time and cooldown were low, which meant that he could probably get away with firing it repeatedly.

The class description for Enchanter mentioned that the MP drain was low, considering it was a mage class, and Renai could not help but agree. He had used two spells already, but his reserves showed no drain in terms of MP. Perfect. Well, it was about time he tried spamming this skill to see just how quickly he could manage to pull it off. It was possible that gaining skill as a mage meant an overall increase in speed at casting and lowered cooldowns as well, so Renai was a little interested in seeing just how far he could take this. Targeting the tree that he knew would not move by usage of Inversion, Renai closed his eyes briefly and struck the activation pose, letting loose a white beam of light at the tree. A moment later, he struck the pose again, holding it until the skill went off of cooldown and fired again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Renai wasn't making any concessions here as he blasted the tree with his useless magic, managing to start getting the timing for the cooldowns and activations right. True to the writing, the skill was actually quite fast in execution and cooldown. Certainly something that could be qualified as spammable, but slow enough on the activation itself to be considered both able to be dodged and interrupted. Not a skill for repeated use against faster opponents. He was a mage, after all, and magic against melee players had always been bad news.

Renai's eyes flashed as he heard a noise behind him and he turned to face what might have been a rather cunning beast, but there was nothing there. He was positioned on a rather sturdy set of roots that prevented him from sinking into the mud, but that didn't mean he had a guaranteed escape. Who knew what lurked in the woods? Spinning his stave once or twice, he wiped some of the muck off of it before poking at a certain area in the ground a few feet in front of him. After making sure that nothing was hiding there, Renai took a deep breath and moved to his second skill. If he was going to make this work out to his advantage, he'd have to be comfortable with his disrupt and his damage skills. It wasn't enough to be able to simply mess with an opponent, especially if it didn't have an obvious front or back. Moreover, he couldn't rely on his Wolf Hair strength or his stave to get him out of a bad situation every time. His cloth armor meant that he'd have to stay at a bit of a distance from his opponents in the future, whereas those with heavier armor could afford to get closer and more personal with their opponents. A deep, calming breath before he prepared to use his skill. If he was going to be doing this a lot, maybe he should get the mana regeneration or mana transfer skills next? Still, there really were two skills that had caught his eye more than anything else.

He was getting off-track though. Pointing his hand at the ground, fist clenched, Renai flicked his hand open like he was spraying someone with water. This was an elegant enough move, right? A moment later, a little ball of light shot forward into the ground, impacting the muck with a soft 'paf' sound. The sound made it somewhat clear to Renai that this wasn't about to deal high amounts of damage, but he could at least believe that it would do something. It was his only ranged attack, after all, because he was sans grimoire and sans any type of magitech or ranged weapon. With no ability to deal damage except this, he would have to get good at using the so-called Pulse Bullet. Flicking his hand again, Renai noted the orb of light seemed to form almost instantly before zooming out in a linear path. He'd have liked it to curve, but the skill description made him believe that it probably wouldn't allow for that. It was exactly what it said, a straightforward damage skill. Frowning a little bit, Renai took a deep breath once more as he steadied his nerves, noting that his mana pool was starting to show signs of slight strain.

Still, he needed to get his practice in. Three-second cooldown and an active motion for the attack itself meant that he'd have to be careful in how he timed the rhythm of the move. Tapping his foot to some sort of internalized metronome, Renai flicked his hand towards the ground, bringing it up before flicking it again, almost like he was holding cards and throwing them at his opponents. Every flick of the wrist and swing of the arm threw a new orb at the target block of mud on the ground, battering the amorphous chunk of nature with orb after orb of light. Wondering if he could combine his skills for a few tricks, Renai threw an orb forward with a motion that was similar to the motion for Inversion. Flowing from his Pulse Bullet skill into Inversion, Renai launched that skill directly after, throwing the beam of light down the tail of the Pulse Bullet's path, resulting in a Pulse Bullet followed closely by an Inversion. If he could use this to confuse opponents while he was throwing Pulse Bullets, it might be useful, though he couldn't be sure.

With his mana pool sinking into the range that it was noticeably drained, Renai ceased his practice and glanced over his shoulder through the marsh. He had wandered a bit when he fought the goblin, but he didn't really know where he was going. Maybe if he found some sort of clearing or the edge of the forest, he could trudge through the swamp in that direction? It wasn't as though he could climb trees particularly well, so he didn't have much choice. Staring up at the sun through the dark forestry of the swamp, Renai figured he might as well hope that the sun rose in the east and set in the west like it did normally, and that his sense of direction for where London was wasn't horribly tainted by this game. Choosing the direction he thought best, the player used his stave as a walking cane, hopping from root to root as he moved through the swamp. Things would have been just fine and dandy too, had he not run into an enemy. How did he know he ran into an enemy? By a glob of mud splashing onto his chest, dirtying his already dirty clothes. Elegance, Vincent. Elegance... Oh yeah, he was going to elegantly slaughter this creature. He might not have paid too much attention to his woodcrafting skill, but he did have a rather toggle skill. [Timber], toggled on. He read the description when he was checking out his Enchanter skills and he knew exactly what it did. It helped him snap plants like the twigs they were.

Smiling kindly as he looked at the tree stump that was now throwing sticks at him, Renai ducked underneath a rock and pinched at the area where the stump was. "Possessed Stump", Level 4. Well, that was just great. Was it just him or was the difficulty ramping up unreasonably? Taking the stance and firing a pulse bullet at the creature, Renai watched it carefully until he realized it couldn't move. Great. Perfect. Most people would probably be ecstatic facing an opponent that couldn't chase after them when they had range, but Renai knew this meant that Inversion was useless. It seemed like the skill didn't work on things that were rooted and this opponent clearly qualified. Ducking underneath yet another stone and blocking a few sticks with his stave, Renai fired another Pulse Bullet. Perhaps the worst part of this was going to be figuring out whether he'd run out of MP first or whether the stump would run out of HP first. Maybe he shouldn't have tested his skills so thoroughly after all.

[Renai]

Renai's eyes narrowed as he threw his stave up in front of him, attempting to block yet another thrown rock. The worst part about fighting this stump wasn't the stump itself, but the location itself. Renai found it hard to walk, much less dodge, and he couldn't guarantee a block of the ranged attack with his stave every time. This was a prime example as the sharp stone slammed into his forehead, creating a rather nasty gash. Where was a cleric when you needed one? Gritting his teeth, Renai shot yet another Pulse Bullet at the zombie stump. Sticks and stones really were going to break his bones at this point. Perhaps the worst part of this whole thing was how childish the stump's attacks were. All it did was lob random junk at Renai like some oversized bully that didn't know what else to do, and every time Renai turned around, some new nonsensical object was being flung at him. Unbelievable.

Scoffing under his breath, Renai rolled his eyes and ducked underneath another- Was that a boot? Did he have a boot thrown at him? If Renai wasn't annoyed before, he certainly was now. This ranged fight was pretty annoying, honestly, but it wasn't like he could help it. He only had two methods of attack. Pulse Bullet and his stave. Considering the latter made a 'paf' sound when he hit enemies with it, he wasn't particularly inclined to go use it against the stump. If it was this obnoxious at range, Renai couldn't even begin to imagine how frustrating it was going to be if he opted to get in range. If he had to guess, he could easily imagine that the creature in the swamp would assault him with some sort of scratching tree attack, but he didn't have to guess and he didn't want to find out. So he stayed out at range, lobbing yet another Pulse Bullet at the opponent. He was feeling pretty good about his choice to get some form of attack at this point, even if it wasn't nearly as MP efficient as his other skills. It was dangerous against the stump, so Renai continued to use it.

Swiping through the interface quickly with his patented floppy-hand motion, Renai checked at his health and MP levels, slipping behind a tree to prevent more of those annoying ranged attacks. Sure, he had leveled and everything, but that didn't mean he was a solo fighter. His health had taken a few hits and the blood running down the side of his face clearly proved it, but a more careful inspection of his MP regeneration rate made things seem a little better. It wasn't spectacular or anything, but there was definitely a strong enough base value there to make him feel decently about being able to recover after this. If he finished off this opponent soon, he could take a break and regain his MP. He wasn't fighting full force for the very reason that he didn't want to end up without enough MP to continue, but even without an MP regeneration skill, Renai's natural MP regeneration rate was enough to make it out of here. He really would have liked to have an MP Regen skill though and he'd need to investigate to see if there was one suitable to his causes. After he crushed this stump and made it feel like a twig.

A soft sigh escaped his lips as he moved out from behind the tree, sliding on one of the oversized roots and slamming his stave into the incoming rock. Not this time, stump, not this time. Not bothering to conserve at this point, Renai aimed, pointed, and fired. It was a curtain of death that followed soon after, shot after shot blasting out from his position and slamming harshly into the stump, giving it just barely enough time to try and counter by throwing mud at Renai. Yes. Very effective. Hopping over to another nearby root, Renai continued his assault, launching another bolt and another and another. His MP was rapidly decreasing, he knew, and he could see it out of the corner of his eyes as he continued to fire, but that didn't exactly stop him. Instead, it almost egged him on, telling him to hit more and more before his MP ran out completely. He was, of course, more than happy to oblige.

It wasn't really a fight that someone could call particularly fair and, in all honestly, it was settled from the start. Although the stump had been Level 4, Renai was a player character with range and the stump was a stump. If Renai had felt like wasting a few hours on the beast, he could have simply stood behind a tree, fired a round every time Pulse Bullet went off of cooldown, and then went straight back behind the tree. There wouldn't have been any way for the stump to counter and, in the end, it died a dishonorable death. When it shattered, it released some pretty sweet loot (one piece of gold or something), so Renai dirtied his shoes and trudged through the mud to go pick it up. This place was seriously starting to wear on him.

Rather than stick around and see if another stump would spawn in the same area, forcing him to repeat the cycle except without any mana, Renai vamoosed out of there and took a few hops and leaps through the marshlands. He was careful not to forget the original direction he had been traveling, lest he end up walking in circles forever, but he did need to take a break. He had been out in the marsh for at least an hour at this point and he was starting to wonder if it was possible his stomach killed him before the monsters did. Finding a particularly sturdy looking tree, Renai gripped the lower branches and hoisted himself up, relying on that Wolf Hair strength for the task. His eyes glowed yellow briefly as he moved, but when he managed to get up on the higher rungs of the tree, they returned to their strange orange-blue-silver mix. With a bit of a huff, the Enchanter settled in, making himself comfortable before moving into the interface.

He hadn't really considered what his future skills were going to be, nor had he spent an extremely large amount of time really researching the skills and abilities of the Enchanter. He had more or less taken the mage class because he liked magic (and his mother loved illusions), just like he had taken the Wolf Hair race because it was going to be the most obnoxious to use with the Enchanter class. Looking back on it now, it wasn't all that smart, but he had never been particularly famous for being intelligent. Anyway, he was more or less sitting around now, waiting for his MP to regenerate to acceptable levels before he went off to do more escaping, so he was going to do a little research while he waited. Investigator Youkai was on the case. Sort of. Scratching his head briefly, he moved through the interface and glanced at his stats, only to note that he had leveled up. Again. Was it just him or was this game really nice with its early levels? Renai somehow got the impression that it was going to get much, much harder later on, but it was what it was for now. He didn't have much choice except to accept the progression as it was, since it wasn't like he had an online guide to tell him how the leveling was going to scale in the future.

At any rate, there were things to investigate. The level up did help him get a bit better at regenerating MP and having more overall, but he still had to wait. Oh, wait, he got a new skill. Scrolling into the skill interface, Renai shuffled through the various skills. Something about sleeping and binding or something, some pointer skill, something about channeling mana to other people, regenerating mana, and a doom sphere or something like that. Ooooh, there was a mana regeneration skill! Renai stared hard at it, reading the description carefully. It was basically entering a trance or immobilizing yourself in order to greatly increase your mana regeneration speed. Perhaps a useful skill in a dungeon or when you didn't have all the time in the world to escape a swamp, but for the current Renai who had neither ally nor direction, that skill didn't seem useful in comparison to the other ones. The mana channeling skill might have been useful, had he had more friends than his imaginary one named Bosco, but because he didn't, it was pointless. It wasn't like he could channel mana at himself, and he certainly wasn't giving his opponents MP, so getting that skill at this point was something of a waste. The fuzz skill was probably useful later on, when monsters were actively hunting him down instead of the other way around, but it didn't seem useful right now. Besides, the point of it was very much to aid allies. The same with the Keen Edge skill. Not that making his blunt staff sharper wasn't useful, but its effect was far more pronounced in a party with other people. The binding skill did seem useful to Renai, but the fact that it allowed for over a meter of movement from those trapped made it a little unreasonable for the current Renai. He needed something that would let him attack without having to worry about dodging and something to use to help his escape. Something like... Nightmare Sphere.

If there was a skill that was perfect for his uses right now, it was that one. He could imagine so many uses for it right away, even without throwing in the obvious ones. He definitely needed this skill. The other interesting one was Mind Shock, but he wasn't sure how effective it would be against NPC monsters and its apparent 3 minute cooldown was a definite turn off. So Nightmare Sphere was his choice for his third skill then. A solid choice if there was any, he was convinced, and with such a solid choice in front of him, he had no choice but to choose it. Almost as if there wasn't a choice. Even though there was. Obviously. Because Renai was a creature with free will and not at all controlled by some third party watching from above and cackling in apparent glee at the trials and tribulations Renai was forced to go through. If that was the case, this onlooker would surely be a horrible person by nature, and so it was not the case and Renai did have free will.

And although this was a rather lovely tangent about free will in roleplaying characters, Renai did have things to get back to. Eating was high on his list, but he wasn't exactly sure what he could eat here, so maybe escaping would have to come next. The successive level ups from killing an immobile stump had granted him a fair amount of extra mana, and the extra mana regeneration from his level ups and the wait he had just gone through meant he was almost full on MP. As much as he wanted to wait around for his HP to regenerate as well, he got the feeling that such a thing was exclusive to other player classes or that his HP regeneration was so abyssal in a 'dangerous zone' that it was better to simply not wait. With this thought process in mind, Renai slowly descended from the tree he was perched on, landing on the soft, spongy moss and roots underneath. About time to get going.

Renai's steps were somewhat slower now, a bit more careful, as he walked through the area. Although the real world didnt abide by the standard rules that one would expect of games and RPGs, this was an RPG. That basically meant that there was a possibility that the game would start sending enemies that could kill but, but were not guaranteed to, provided he did not intentionally wander into areas that only had high level enemies. For example, wandering into Balrog territory despite being a level 10 scrub in another game. So he was pretty careful as he moved from spot to spot, continuing to travel in the same general direction for what felt like about half an hour. He was hungry, tired, and gross, but it did feel like he was making progress. If he made it out of here, he definitely wanted a warm shower, but until then, he'd have to make do. If only he had the materials to make himself a tower or something. Shuddering at how absolutely inelegant he looked right now, he almost didn't notice that the game was trying to affirm his earlier thoughts about enemy scaling. Almost. The arrival of two wonderful goblins, the same kind he had fought when he had first been transported here, signaled that he was in for a 'treat'. Thinking back on it, the goblin had been a Level 1 creature at the time and he had handled it easily enough with a bunch of random hits and stomps and 'pafs', but he got the impression this wasn't going to be so easy. The goblins looked to be of the same archetype, but they looked healthier and didn't have clubs for weapons. One of them held onto a somewhat damaged looking cutlass, while the other held a menacing dagger. Their leather armor was also obviously in better condition as well, with more protection offered. Using his floppy-hand method of opening the interface, Renai took a step or two backwards and opened the interface in relation to the two goblins. Level 5. Level 5. Great. Perfect. neepING WONDERFUL.

He might have been able to take one opponent at a time, but dealing with two at once was going to be painful and possibly fatal. He could feel it in his weak, enchanter-class bones. Well, there wasn't any getting around it. This was the only stable path he could see, as the other sides seemed to be covered with water, and he wasn't about to backtrack for 10 minutes just so he could get to the other side. It was the hard way or the dead way, it seemed, and Renai felt he might have to experience both. Grumbling under his breath, he took up a position on a rather stable looking tree, considering simply climbing up and sniping. That... Actually, that was a great idea. Man, he was good. The weapons held by the two goblins were clearly of the melee type and his experience with this particular archetype left him relatively convinced they didn't have ranged spells or any special abilities with which they could wreck his face. And to think he had been about to foolishly go into battle against two melee opponents as a mage without any plan. Ha. Ha!

Scrambling up into the tree, Renai found a sturdy branch and from which to attack from and proceeded to do so. His clothes had gotten a little dirtier, he realized, but at this point, being elegant in his attire was an impossibility. He'd fix that when he was back in town and not afraid of absolute death. Clinging to the branch, he fired his first Pulse Bullet at the nearest goblin, watching with minor glee as the goblin let out a small screeching sound. They were both looking around for what had hit them, it seemed, but didn't find Renai. This was great. Firing another Pulse Bullet at the closest goblin, Renai almost let out a small cheer of happiness. The goblin was at ninety percent of its health, sure, and maybe Renai would have to fire forty bullets total with a 100% accuracy rate, but he wouldn't take damage. Besides, what else was he going to do, paf them with his staff? Yeah right. Letting out another Pulse Bullet, Renai's face fell when the goblin duo finally found out where the bullets were coming from. Good things don't last forever, clearly, but what were they going to do, climb up and try to attack Renai?

When they charged at the tree and scraped at the bark, Renai realized that was exactly what they were going to do. Crap. Laughing nervously, Renai launched another bolt at the goblin that was highest up the tree, realizing that the goblin wasn't exactly going to be deterred by being bobbed in the face by an attack that only took 1/20th of its health. Renai was more than a little concerned at this point, but he did have a backup plan. One that wasn't to abuse and flaunt his new Nightmare Sphere skill, actually. As much as he might have wanted to. Instead, he pointed, aimed, and fired one nice cast of the Inversion skill. The goblin was suddenly turned around, stubby claws no longer on the tree, and fell a rather ungraceful distance straight into the ground. On the way, it managed to knock into its comrade as well, giving both the goblins some rather nasty fall damage. This could work. Launching another Pulse Bullet with a somewhat gleeful expression on his face. Was he actually a sadist? It was possible, but these enemies were preventing him from leaving, so maybe he was justified in feeling good about removing obstacles? Either way, he had another Pulse Bullet to fire. Pewpew! The goblins were climbing up again, as if that was going to work this time, so in between firing Pulse Bullets, Renai did the right thing and inverted the closest one. Goodbye~ The skill was on low enough cooldown he could have probably hit the other one as well, but watching them boop into each other like bowling pins was its own reward.

After a bit more of the same, Renai was starting to get confused. They kept doing the same thing. Was this just their programmed response once they had no other means of acting? Keep running towards your doom until you die? It was like they didn't learn at all, but now that he was thinking about it, it was probably better that they didn't. Evolving monsters were probably going to be a serious pain in the ass. So Renai had no choice but to keep inverting and shooting the goblins as they climbed, noting they were getting closer and closer each time. Once, one of the goblins even managed to get as high up as the branch Renai was on, but he just inverted the monster and gave it a firm kick in the rear, sending the monster crashing into the ground. The fight, much like the one against the stump, was settled from the start. The goblins really couldn't reach Renai up here and he was doing more damage causing them to fall with the MP friendly Inversion than he was with the DPS Pulse Bullet. There was almost no chance he was going to lose this fight, so he took it to completion and eroded the health bars of both goblins into zero before clambering down to collect his mega-chill loot.

Mega-awesome? Mega-great? These all sounded kind of stupid, so he'd have to work on an adjective or descriptor that didn't suck so much. If he ever used it with other people, it'd probably have to be some kind of elegant as well, or else he'd start hearing his mother yelling at him in his head. Not something he really needed. Clambering down again, he wondered if he'd end up leveling up from this particular battle as well, or if the scaling would finally slow down a bit. It was possible he'd have problems acquiring his next few skills after this and the leveling would come slower, but at least he was making progress. If he had to choose a new skill or two after this, it'd probably be Mind Shock and the chain skill. Both of those would be useful for running away and harassing opponents, for sure, but he was starting to feel bad for thinking only of skills that would let him run away like a coward.

If he had allies or something, then any of the other skills would be useful. He'd definitely have gotten Keen Edge at some point and probably the MP channel and regen skills, but it simply wasn't the case. In this forest and in life, it was no use relying on others. So he had to do it. He had to take skills that would directly benefit him. Had he gone on this adventure after meeting people, after getting allies, then maybe everything would be different. If he had been any other class, anything other than the zero defense, zero offense, full support Enchanter class, it might have been different. But no matter how many ifs he threw out there, the simple truth of the matter was that he had to choose skills that would get him out of pinches. Not ones that would make his allies more powerful. Not ones that would support his allies. MP channeling and Keen Edge could not be taken. The electric fuzz skill could not be taken. He might have taken the MP regen skill, but what use would that do him when he was alone?

Renai scowled as he moved further forward. The marshland sucked, frankly, and he wished that he could get out of here faster. It was dark, it was damp, and it kept reminding him of all his selfishness and his faults. So much for elegance. It'd be great if he could have made friends, if he could have been on a team, but that would never happen. How could it, when it was always about him and his plans and his schemes? Anyone that got one good look at the real him would turn around and run in an instant. And that was the good outcome. The bad one is if they told everyone else. It was certain that he certainly could not rely on others so easily, just as it was certain that he would have to and would continue to take skills that were for his own benefit.

Why had he taken Enchanter... Renai moved to push his glasses up and adjust them, only to realize that he didn't have any on him. He'd need to get that fixed soon, it was making him uncomfortable. Still, he kept walking, straight out of the marsh. There was nothing else to do except walk, march, and keep going. Every so often, he'd run into a goblin or a stump, but it was never a situation where he couldn't simply avoid the creatures and move along. He continued further and further through the marsh, eventually reaching a gap in the forestry through which he could see his surroundings. Climbing up the tree, Renai moved from one branch to the next, slowly making his way higher and higher up into the tree. One step after another, one branch after another, until finally he was near the top. Gripping on tight and wondering if he could somehow holster his stave to make this easier, he took a good long glance over the top of the forest. The marsh stretched far and wide across the land, but Renai could certainly see it. Far in the distance, in the direction he was traveling, the unmistakable architecture that signaled civilization. There was still quite a ways to go, but he could do it. He could make it.

That was his thought right until a goblin seemingly appeared out of thin air, axe drawn, and slammed the weapon downward at Renai. Barely able to block with his stave, much less counterattack, Renai watched the goblin on the branch zoom up and away from him. He was falling. He was going to die. He was definitely going to die. Even though he could see the city, even though he had been doing so well, one stupid sneak attack was going to get him. Snarling, the player activated Nightmare Sphere underneath him, turning it into a cushion for himself instead of a hindrance. His speed dramatically dropped once inside the sphere, allowing him to redirect his landing posture so he landed on his legs. It wasn't quite enough to nullify all the damage, but he managed to reduce the bulk of it as his legs buckled. So there was another opponent that wanted a piece of him, huh? Fine. Fine. He could take them all on. He'd break them all.

Just another Level 5 Goblin. His hand swept in front of his body, engaging in the his floppy-hand tactics to get a read on the opponent. He knew he looked kind of silly doing it, but with his legs shaking and his body wobbling, he didn't really care. So his legs wouldn't move. So his ability to fight alone was tiny. So the odds were stacked against him. This wasn't the first time. This wouldn't be the last time. If there was anything he had learned from his 23 years of life, it was that just because he was alone did not mean he had lost. Expecting help was stupid. Hoping for a hero was stupid. Heroes didn't exist. There was no cavalry that was riding in to save him. His eyes narrowed as he locked onto the goblin and sniped, firing one singular Pulse Bullet at the creature. Almost directly behind the bullet was a cast of Inversion, moving in the first attack's shadow in an attempt to catch the goblin unaware. Renai succeeded. When the Pulse Bullet hit, the goblin seemed ready to deal with it, as if it was bracing itself for impact. No matter how you braced yourself, however, suddenly being turned 180 after being hit without losing momentum was a recipe for your own failure. The goblin fell fast to the ground, scrambling to try and save itself. Too bad it didn't have any nice skills to prevent its death by falling.

Too bad death by falling was too good for the creature. Renai's eyes shifted colors, turning a serpentine yellow as he felt a burst of strength flow through his body. Shooting forward and bounding off of the roots on the ground, Renai's empowered hands gripped his stave tightly. Lining himself right up for the goblin's fall, the Enchanter took a deep breath before swinging with his stave, slamming the wooden weapon into the goblin as it fell. His arms trembled and his wrists cried for mercy, but he would not relent, changing the goblin's direction from straight down to straight into a tree. The slamming noise echoed in the marshlands as Renai slammed his hand into the goblin's cheeky face, slamming it against the tree before unleashing a Pulse Bullet to end its miserable life. Enough was enough.

He was making it out of this forest even if he had to drag a bloodied goblin corpse across the forest with him and slap every opponent that even looked at him with the dead remains of their comrade. And then he'd kill them too. Clenching his fists, Renai made a 'hmph' noise before slipping forward into the marshlands. He knew the direction he had to go now, all he had to do was keep going. And he would keep going, come hell or high water, because that was what he did. He made the impossible possible. He beat whatever nonsense was thrown against him and he most certainly did not lose to asshole NPCs that thought they could get the drop on him. His blood was boiling.

Despite his best efforts, his blood was boiling. Rubbing his forehead, Renai let out a long sigh. That wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want to be like that. Clenching his fists tightly, the Enchanter took a few deep breaths and tried to calm himself down. If he was that upset, he wasn't going to be able to accomplish anything good or positive. He'd just be leading himself down a path of senseless slaughter. His parents had warned him. People in their family were prone to violence. It was 'in their blood', they had said. Both of them were well versed in combat, to their chagrin, and he knew how to take care of himself as well. Perhaps one of the few things they all agreed on was that they wished that they weren't.

He had taken these skills to be able to run, not to fight. He took Pulse Bullet for those unavoidable fights, but maybe that was wrong. Maybe there was no such thing as an unavoidable fight. Still, if he could do it, he wanted to do it. He wanted to be able to stop fighting. Maybe his next skill would be that one about creating a light to illuminate an area, or maybe even that mana regeneration one. He couldn't keep doing this. A heavy sigh slipped out of his lips once more as he stepped further into the mess of a swamp, slipping by a rather nasty looking group of goblins. Rather than assaulting them from a tree like last time, Renai carefully threw out a distraction, sending a Pulse Bullet to slam into the mud in the complete opposite direction from he was standing. Moving quickly away, he threw a Nightmare Sphere in that same spot while the goblins were focused on the strange impact. In doing that, the sphere caught a goblin or two and caught the full attention of the entire group.
With that small gap in attention that he had created, Renai put on a burst of speed and shot forward past the goblins, using the firm roots of the trees as stepping stones. In no time at all, he had slipped past the creatures and managed to create quite a distance gap. It had only cost him a minor amount of mana as well, so while he might have been depriving himself of experience or new skills, it was an awfully convenient way of escaping. Maybe he was a coward, but Renai was starting to feel pretty good about his coward's tactics. Managing a small grin, the player slipped further forward into the swamp, eyes set on the city. He'd definitely make it. Definitely.

[Renai]

Renai cringed as he stepped further through the swamp, shaking more of the mud off of his shoes. He was craving a shower like a pregnant woman craves peanut butter and tortilla chips, and he wasn't exactly getting the solution to his hunger with this ridiculous mud that was everywhere. It was almost unbelievable how disgusting this swamp was, but then again, it was a swamp. Swamps tended to be icky and sticky and gross. Well, he was making some level of progress, so he should be happy for that. Still, it was a little difficult to be cheerful when all of his senses were being assaulted nonstop. With a scoff, Renai continued along his path, wondering just when he'd run into another opponent. He was getting pretty good about avoiding enemy goblins and the tree stumps couldn't move, so unless a crocodile or some ridiculous treant beast showed up out of nowhere, he'd probably be alright. Probably.

Oh, to be so naive. Perhaps it was years of dealing with his family or the scrapes he had gotten into in the past, perhaps it was a natural sense of hearing that was aided by his canine traits, perhaps it was simply pure luck, but Renai heard it before he saw it. The cracking of a branch above him, the soft creaking of someone applying pressure to those wooden limbs. Without thinking about it, the enchanter threw a Nightmare Sphere above himself as he dove forward, spinning quickly around to see just what he might have caught in his magic. He was expecting some sort of goblin or something ridiculous, but what he saw instead was a little brat of a human, possibly young enough to not even be considered a teenager. Perhaps unbalanced by the Nightmare Sphere, the rapier toting player seemed to stumble as it fell out of the Nightmare Sphere, tumbling and falling to the ground.

Renai wasn't exactly sure what to think, not until the kid (a girl, he now realized), called out to some unseen partner. "Maribel! The monster can use magic!" Wait, wait, he wasn't a monster. Were these kids serious right now? They thought he was an enemy that they could defeat for loot? Wasn't it obvious he was a humanoid player? Renai would have tried reasoning with the brat, but there was a bigger problem on his hands. There was at least one other brat lurking in the shadows somewhere, aiming at him. He wasn't going to get anything explained as long as he was being targeted. It was probably a good thing he was on high alert, as he would have seriously been impaled by the massive icicle that crashed down where he was supposed to be. Landing softly on a few roots a couple of feet back, Renai instinctively threw a Pulse Bullet where the Ice Spear had come from. The small 'eep' that came from the treeline and the accompanying player that hopped out meant that Renai had halfway decent aim, but both of these brats looked desperate and angry. Not good.

"Usami! What's up with this monster!" "H-Hey, I'm not a-" Renai put his hands up in front of him as a non-confrontational gesture, palms open to indicate he didn't mean any harm, but what he got instead was another Ice Spear directed to his face. He knew he wasn't the most social of players and perhaps he was a little rough around the edges, but was that really any reason to try to kill him? Freaking rude, these brats. He kept his distance, carefully using the roots of the swamp trees to maintain stable footing, but it wasn't really helping when 'Usami' started charging towards him. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. He was not dealing with this right now. Enough already. He had tried to explain. He had tried to avoid confrontation. But these brats were seriously asking for it, right? His stave swished around in front of him into a defensive guard, another telling factor that should have given away he was a player, but Usami wasn't stopping. It seemed that 'Maribel' was holding back because her Ice Spear might have engaged in some accidental friendly fire, so he had a bit of reprieve.

Usami thrust forward with her rapier and Renai reacted accordingly. His only melee weapon as an enchanter, the staff, smoothly came in between his body and the rapier. Stepping with his right foot straight into Usami's guard, Renai bumped her slightly with his body, preventing her from making a quick escape. What he did next was perhaps needlessly cruel, but the caster didn't have very many options available to him. It wasn't like he was going to gut punch some kid or knee her in the groin. After all, she didn't have his purse. With the bottom of the staff swinging up, Renai slid his upper hand down to catch Usami's sword arm. In the next moment, his staff had positioned itself at her back, underneath her armpit, with Renai's top hand preventing her arm from leaving or running away. All he had to do was turn himself and his stave to send the poor girl straight to her knees and her face, shoulder eating dirt. The sudden action and forceful maneuver caused her to let go of her weapon, allowing Renai to kick it aside as he held the kid to the ground.

It was a good thing he glanced up at Maribel, because the next thing he saw was an Ice Spear coming straight at his face. Unfortunately for him, his stave was still trapped in the pin he had Usami in, so he had to drop it and jump aside. Wolf Hair or not, he wasn't taking an Ice Spear to the face. Grumbling under his breath, Renai rolled across the muddy swamp. The slow decrease in his health was concerning and the dirt he was attracting was pretty disgusting, but the bigger problem here was how desperate these kids were. Who launched that sort of Ice Spear attack at an opponent who had your friend in a pin? If Maribel had hit Usami, it might have been over for the melee fighter. That desperation was simultaneously familiar and terrifying, and it pissed Renai off. Was there any need to be so intense about it? Really? It wasn't as though dying would lead to permanent death anyway, so what was up with these kids? There were too many questions and not enough answers for the enchanter, but before he got answers to his questions, he'd have to silence the magician.

Jumping forward, Renai landed close to the magician. She was making the motions for another Ice Spear, but Renai wasn't about to let her get another one of those off. He wasn't a monk, yes. Technically, he shouldn't have even been using martial arts or barehanded attacks at all. Certainly, as an enchanter, expecting a barehanded assault from Renai was tantamount to foolishness. That was perhaps why it was so effective. It was unreasonable. It was unexpected. It was effective. He almost felt bad, since these kids were half his height, but they were trying to kill him. So he did what he had to do. Namely, he shoved the girl's shoulder and stuck his foot behind hers, forcing her to tumble and fall to the ground as well. As if he was going to play fair. She thumped against the ground forcefully and Renai would have considered that to be that, had a rapier not sliced clean into his arm and created a massive gash. Usami was back. Great. Honestly, these kids were insufferable.

Snarling under his breath, Renai turned quickly and did exactly what he had felt bad about considering before. Without any warning, he kneed the smaller player in the gut, driving his leg straight into the small frame and toppling the player over. Ugh. It felt a little like he was bullying them, but they simply wouldn't let off or let him explain before he had to dodge yet another assault or something. He was almost used to the unreasonable desperation at this point, so he ducked without thinking and dodged yet another Ice Spear. That one nicked his shoulder, creating a rather lovely gash, but he didn't have time to check it. After all, if he let up for even one second, he was certain Usami would be back on her feet. Even if she was clutching her stomach and trying not to vomit, she'd come at him again. These idiots. Jumping backwards quickly, Renai let out a sigh. Time to finish this.

He wasn't so fond of using skills he had no practice with on intelligent opponents, but it had to be done. If he didn't do it, these kids would surely cross a line. Cringing as he cast his spell, Renai locked down the swordswoman with Astral Bind. A moment later, he cast his second trick, Mind Shock, targeting Maribel. Taking a few steps backwards to make sure she had to turn to target him, he plopped down and put his hands up. "Geez, you brats. I'm a player. A P-L-A-Y-E-R. I can't keep knocking you guys around. Once those spells wear off, if you have the guts to kill me, then do it. If you can kill another human being, then go ahead. I won't fight anymore." The player's expression was somewhat exhausted. Seriously, enough already. No matter how abrasive Renai was, he couldn't keep pushing these kids around.