Chapter 102: Pets

Joe had wanted to say something cool, but he slipped and fell off the barren giant’s body before he had the chance.

That was when he realized that the gunk covering his body wasn’t blood or anything, it was a slick and sticky petrol-like substance.

The barren giant only had a sliver of health left, so the players were less fighting it and were rather fighting each other for who could get the last hit.

The barren giant, on the other hand, had lost its will to fight, running back towards the cliff hoping the Mountain Bandits could come and hold the players off.

But a few eagle-eyed players (mainly the Rangers) noticed that the mountain bandits’ hideout at the side of the cliff was completely empty. Some time during their fight with the barren giant, the bandits climbed to the top of the cliff through a secret passage to escape.

Looks like they had never intended to help the barren giant from the beginning.

It wasn’t hard to understand the mountain bandits’ choice. In their eyes, the barren giant was an invincible being capable of destroying even the Holy Corps.

It was this mentality that gave them a false sense of security, but when the player’s toppled the earth elemental with their ferocious attacks, the image of an unstoppable giant faded in the mountain bandits’ minds, and with it their pitiful ‘bravery’ vanished.

As for why not a single mountain bandit came to help the barren giant, even Xi Wei, the God of Games himself, couldn’t completely disable ‘Friendly Fire’, so the Lord of the Peaks wasn’t able to do so either. For a monster the size of the barren giant, even their steps were AOE attacks, if the mountain bandits tried to assist the giant, they would most likely get wiped out before the players even had the chance to attack…

The players understood their reasoning, but as the victim (and as a monster), the barren giant was distraught.

The giant let out a loud wail full of sorrow and anger, it was deserted by the people it had trusted the most.

The barren giant seemed to have lost all its will to live, using all its force to drive its rocky head through the cliffside, its thousand-ton body slamming into the mountain with the force of a meteor, turning the previous mountain bandits’ hideout into little more than dust!

The cliff wasn’t structurally sound enough to be able to withstand such a beating, roughly ten seconds after the mountain bandits’ hideout had been destroyed, the entire cliff face started to collapse. The fleeing bandits couldn’t outrun the destruction and almost all of them were buried alive under the rubble of their former base!

The barren giant was trapped too, only its neck, head, and one of its shoulders sticking out of the rock. It lay there, taking in its last breaths.

Joe stood in front of the dying giant, he was chosen to be the one who would deal the final blow. After all he had gone through the quite traumatic experience of dying a couple dozen times…

Joe wasn’t laughing or celebrating like the other players for finishing their quest. Being covered by the blood (oil?) of the barren giant and having its gigantic singular eye staring him down, Joe felt the giant’s sorrow and frustration.

He didn’t mock the giant to get back at it for the damage it had done, instead Joe became serious. “In your next life, find some better masters.”

With that, Joe plunged his sword into the barren giant’s eye, killing it once and for all.

The very next moment, almost every player involved in the fight was showered with light indicating that they had gained a level!

But the players hadn’t expected the defeated barren giant would vanish too, leaving a hole in the pile of rubble where it once was and causing a small-scale landslide. So the number of players who were damaged increased too…

What was even more troublesome was that all the equipment and items that the barren giant had dropped were all buried under the huge mound of rock and stone, they still had to dig them out.

But they were rewarded with quite a few pieces of Elite equipment, so the whole process was somewhat bittersweet.

And this sweetness reached its peak when they pulled out the golden Legendary-tier sword, the Giant’s Toe.

Almost every player was making a fuss over who this piece of equipment should belong to.

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Based on the player who had the highest ‘Damage dealt to enemies’ and ‘Damage taken’, the players decided that Joe should be the one to receive the first Legendary weapon sent to them by the God of Games.

“Ah…” Looking at the players passionately digging through dirt, Terry suddenly remembered something. “The choco…”

Before he could finish, Jom covered his mouth. “Shh! Let’s leave, now!”

Actually, Jom’s original prediction was right, there was indeed a birdcage in the mountain bandits’ hideout (something akin to a horse stable, but for chocobo’s), but now with the hideout being turned to pebbles by the barren giant, the chocobos weren’t exactly fit to be pets right now.

Having consecutively broken two promises to the other players, Jom was most likely going to have to repent if he waited for the other players to realize, so he decided it was best if they left before then.

After all, Jom and Terry had originally come out to explore the Trinia Forest, running into the mountain bandits was just a detour on their grand adventure… At least they probably weren’t returning to the town until after their promise had been forgotten.

Terry let out a muttered sound of agreement and nodded his head. He didn’t really care what they did next, plus he was too lazy to have to use his brain, so he might as well leave all the thinking to Jom. He just thought that if Jom didn’t let go soon, he was going to have his first death of the battle right there.

Just as the two were sneaking away, Jom noticed the gray Shar-Pei sitting alone atop a small hill of crushed rock.

He hesitated for a moment, but ended up walking to the dog’s side, asking it, “So you’ve avenged your owner’s death, do you wanna come on an adventure with us next?”

The gray dog tilted its head to stare at Jom, and then looked over to the smiling Terry. After a long moment, it slowly started to wag its tail.

Jom couldn’t help but smile.

“Let’s give him a name.” Terry squeezed over. “We’ll call him Schett Kiviak Beast!”

The dog bared its teeth and gave a warning howl.

“He loves it,” Terry said, completely unable to read the dog.

“Why the snarl…” Jom scratched the dog’s head with a blank face. “Since we don’t know your old name, from today on we’ll call you Pikes!”

The dog gave a very simple answer.

“Woof!”

“Okay, now that that’s settled…” They were ready, Jom and Terry brought their dog along with them, trying to sneak past the other players while they were preoccupied with digging up items and equipment.

[Ding! Player Jom has acquired the first pet. The system will activate the ‘Pet’ and ‘Mounts’ systems in ten minutes, all players please take note.]

[Pets are creatures that help with fighting, item delivery and mood checks. Recommended pet: Docile Chocobo]

[Mounts are creatures that could be ridden. They are needed to unlock the Rider class in later stages.

Recommended pet: Sprinting Chocobo]

Jom froze, he slowly turned his head, finding the gaze of every single player present trained strictly on him.

All he could do was give them an extremely stiff and awkward smile.

“Hoho, I’m doomed…”