Afterlife Dream

I had not been in Twelve guild long enough to get to know every player inside the guild, but the guild cleanup still gave me a mixed feeling. Gone was the familiar atmosphere I got used to whenever I checked the guild chat. Everyone went oddly quiet. BlackPuma did not call out the players that got kicked out of the guild for not actively playing the game. I assumed that he sent them private messages one by one. Within an hour, the residents who did not want to contribute to defeating the Dimensional Master started to leave the guild one by one. Each of them expressed their gratitude for having been accepted to Twelve guild and having spent a wonderful time with all of us. Good time was always too short. And then they said goodbye and left.

Cecilia was the last one to leave. She told us all that we would still be welcome to Oakstone Tavern anytime.

The Twelve guild that once housed 50 players was reduced to a mere number of 20 players after the cleanup was completed. And then, one by one, the active levelers from Dominion and Adventurers joined the guild. This included the two players that DragonTalon and I blacklisted for our Love Dungeon runs, Ninja and PrecisionShot. I was surprised to see that ZhaoYun and Livina also made it into the guild.

"Welcome, guys!" I wrote in excitement. These two players knew me best of all Twelve guildmates, so they were glad to hear from me as soon as they entered.

"Thanks for accepting us," ZhaoYun wrote. "We will work hard to contribute."

"Welcome, don't be too shy. Ask for help anytime you need it," Ingenious kindly wrote back.

As more and more players entered the new Twelve guild, the guild was finally full again.

"Yo, everyone," HinoKun greeted. "Can't believe that we all now belong to Twelve. Hope everyone can get along well."

All the new players started to talk to each other in high spirit. I noticed that some original Twelve players did not talk much at all. DragonTalon completely clamped up right after Ninja and PrecisionShot entered the guild. I wonder if the other guildmates also secretly hated some of the new guildmates. In the afternoon, I went to check on Kitty and Wolfhound at Marsh City.

On the way to Marsh City, I killed four Undead Tree Stumps for a few players in distress and told them to either come with me to Paradise Island or go back to Marsh City with me. All of them, players that had just reached 50 to do the second job advancement, were so terrified about what was to come in Paradise Island that they unilaterally decided to go back to Marsh City instead. It was of course good news for Marsh City.

Over at Marsh City, the situation had become controlled once again. The influx of players from Fairy Forest worked wonders. Even without trapping the Giant Mushroom in a glitch, the players confidently took on the Giant Mushroom and killed it together every thirty minutes.

I went over to Kitty's and Wolfhound's farmhouse and found them working on a huge cage.

"Hey, people," I greeted them as soon as I walked into the front courtyard. My eyes were pinned on the massive cage.

"What is this cage for? For cattle?"

Kitty laughed.

Wolfhound was the one who answered me. "No, Anty. We want to test a new trap for the Giant Mushroom.

"Oh? Why? Everyone is killing the Giant Mushroom just fine. There is no need to trap it."

Kitty waved her hands hastily. "Oh no no Anty you are mistaken. We are not trapping to kill. We are trapping it to immobilize it."

Well, I doubt that Kitty planned to keep it as a house pet. Unless she did. Why not just kill the Giant Mushroom again and again? More money and experience throughout the day. And night. I raised my eyebrows at my two friends when it finally hit me.

"You want to trap it during the night," I said more to myself than to them.

"Exactly!" Kitty and Wolfhound shouted in unison with bright smiles on their faces.

The mini-bosses were going to spawn again and again every thirty minutes. Day and night. Those at Dai City did not need to be worried because the Red Bubble boss was stuck in his spawn spot. The Giant Mushroom on the other side might just stomp away and wreck the entire Marsh City within the night. There really was a need to contain the mini-bosses during nighttime.

While Kitty and Wolfhound continued working on the cage, I wrote a quick message to the guild.

"Everyone, Marsh City is building a cage to contain the Giant Mushroom during the night. This might be something that all areas should attempt to do."

The reactions that I got were largely positive. Players started to think and discuss the best methods to do just that.

"It is quite impossible to do that for flying bosses," HinoKun remarked.

"It is possible if you can somehow trap it before it even set off from the ground."

"Yup, none of them spawn in mid-air."

"So maybe also some sort of a cage?"

The guild chat became increasingly noisy until BlackPuma had enough and interfered.

"Each area can improvise.

Antares, come to Paradise Island, please.

Level 71 to 100 please help with the trapping and fighting at Paradise Island.

Level 101 to 130, to Chinatown, please.

Level 131 up, Frozen Tundra Land."

I thus said goodbye to Kitty and Wolfhound and made my way back to Paradise Island. When I passed by the Fairy Forest again, I killed all the Undead Tree Stumps that I came across.

Paradise Island was quite crowded. I found my guildmates busy with killing mini-bosses. General Aardvark was a menace with 6 people. Not that much with 100 people. I wrote in guild chat to ask where the cage-building team was meeting.

Perennia told me to come to Oakstone Tavern.

Inside Oakstone Tavern, a few Twelve guildmates were sitting together with those resident players that already left Twelve. I was surprised to find BlackPuma and Aurendiria among them. Cecilia winked me over with a smile.

"We are thinking of taking over the task to build the cage," Cecilia said, referring to herself and the other residents. "We do not want to contribute to the final battle, but it does not mean that we would sit idle and just wait for the outcome."

"That is a great idea," I praised.

BlackPuma turned to me and said, "Antares, you should focus on leveling. We will get all High Priests all the end-game equipment they can get so we can slowly advance to the other raids."

"So... should I join the mini-boss vanquishing troops?"

All of them laughed at my choice of words.

"No, I am in the middle of putting together grinding parties. I should be done by tomorrow, 7 AM," Aurendiria said.

"Great, I will be waiting," I said.

A ding on my user interface screen revealed a message from Hime.

"Hey, Antares. There will be a level 70 raid tomorrow at 16.00. I posted the set-up in Guild Notice just now. Please complete the level 60 precursor raid by today so you will be ready to join the raid."

"Oh, okay."

I opened the guild notice to check the setup. My eyes scanned through the list of players and loot order. Yikes. A lot of people had yet to loot. We went by level, so naturally I would not be the first to loot.

I sent a message to my friends to ask whether they would be interested to do the level 60 precursor raid with me.

Here was the thing with precursor raids. Although it was possible to complete the raids individually, it would take ages to do it alone as a High Priest. It was practically impossible to do it as Healer. No Healers in their right mind would try to solo the precursor raids.

HellWitch, Lazarus, and DragonTalon just happened to be heading to the Summer Rainforest, the area for level 60 and 70 raids.

"Wait for meeeee!" I typed hastily while teleporting myself all the way to the Giant Macaw Port.

When I said Giant Macaw Port, I was literally referring to the port where a giant macaw stood ready to carry passengers inside a basket. It moved back and forth between Paradise Island and Summer Rainforest.

At the port, my three friends were chatting with each other. They looked up and said hi when I arrived, but then they continued chatting in a low voice.

"I personally dislike having those arrogant bastards from Dominion enter our guild," DragonTalon openly said.

"Ninja and PrecisionShot?" HellWitch guessed.

DragonTalon raised an eyebrow in astonishment.

"How did you guess so quickly?"

"Oh, well it was way before you two enter the guild, so you might now know. Ninja once stole a Fire Golem Helmet in an amateur raid."