NOVEL WEB Chapter 26: Ahhhh! My eyes!
Thirty seconds was up. Knight's Valour effect was gone. I have restored my HP with potions. And I, uh.....
"I may have overdone it..."
The city is even more in ruins now. Hopefully, the people can fix it all once it's been liberated.
On the other hand:
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Liberation Quest: [Liberate the Holy City, Arialight.]
Arialight is under occupancy of the Umbra Lords. Complete the following objectives to free it from their control.
___________________
Kill all monsters in the city (2,247/2,365)
Destroy the Shadow Gates in the city (3/3) [Completed]
Cleanse the Sacred Altar (incomplete)
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I have killed a lot in that thirty seconds time span. My goodness, Knight's Valour combined with Multi-Casting, Snipe and Explosion is overpowered. Two thousand monsters have been eliminated just like that.
It was a spur-of-the-moment plan to do something like that. But man, it worked effectively well.
Too well, I might add.
Now there's only around a hundred monsters left for me to kill.
Time to go find them now, I suppose...
"Moon Walk."
Speaking of time, it would seem that a total of three hours have elapsed since I started the quest.
And seeing how big Arialight is, I may need another hour to hunt down the remaining monsters in the city.
I wonder if the Red Legion have cleared the quest already or not? They did prepare a lot unlike me, and they are doing it as a party. Plus, that kid is a pro at this game unlike me, so perhaps they've already cleared the quest and are celebrating being the first one to do so.
Well then, without further ado, time to hunt down the remaining monsters in the city.
Where are they at, I wonder~?
The city is big and the monsters are spread out. But fortunately, searching for them ain't that difficult because of the growling and groaning they make as they breathe. So, once I've found them, I razed them into the ground with Fireball and Firebomb spells, as Explosion seemed to be overkill for these levels of enemies.
And after killing them, I moved on to another area and continued my search.
All in all, it took a while but I have eventually killed almost every single one of the remaining monsters in the city. Leaving only a single Scrowler left, which is right in front of me, as there was something I wanted to experiment with before killing it.
The lone Scrowler pounces and attacks. Brandishing its claws at my face, which was then protected by a Magic Shield deployed from the effects of Diego's Magic Buckler.
The Scrowler then jumped back, whereas I took a step forward.
The Magic Buckler's Magic Shield follows when I did.
I had not noticed it earlier due to my focus being on the enemies when there were a lot of them. But now that I see it again, I've just realised that this Magic Shield deployed from the Magic Buckler was quite different from the Magic Shields I would cast. In that, this Magic Shield isn't stationary unlike the ones deployed by me.
I can move it around, shift its position from front to back to left to right, up and down even. And what's more, I can also expand or shrink it and have it attached onto my arm to make it feel like I'm wearing an actual buckler.
Granted. It's only possible to move it around with me as in the center. Therefore, extending it away from me or placing it wherever I want it to be isn't possible.
In addition to that, the Magic Shield deployed by the Magic Buckler only lasts for two minutes unless it's destroyed.
With that being said, what I wanted to test out was this.
With the Magic Shield re-positioned onto my left arm, I parried the Scrowler's next attack and bashed it in the head with that same shield.
"'Shield Bash!' Just kidding."
Not much damage was done it seemed. Maybe it's because my STR stat is zero.
But I wasn't done just yet.
Right after bashing it on the head, I jumped and quickly re-positioned the Magic Shield to be under me and expanded it. Resulting in the Scrowler to be pinned down by the Magic Shield while I sat on top of it.
It may be an effective method of pinning enemies down besides Thorn Bind. But I doubt it would do well against bigger opponents. But the fact that something like a Scrowler can be pinned down like this is noteworthy.
I wonder how it would fare against other players?
If I were to ever find myself facing another player, I might need to try this.
The two minutes was up. The Magic Shield disappeared as I ended up sitting on the Scrowler directly instead.
"Oops."
I quickly got off the Scrowler as it tried to attack me for one more time. However...
"Multi-Fireball."
...Its efforts were futile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Liberation Quest: [Liberate the Holy City, Arialight.]
Arialight is under occupancy of the Umbra Lords. Complete the following objectives to free it from their control.
___________________
Kill all monsters in the city (2,365/2,365) [Completed]
Destroy the Shadow Gates in the city (3/3) [Completed]
Cleanse the Sacred Altar (incomplete)
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And that's all of the monsters in the city.
Now, where is the Sacred Altar?
The third and final mission for the quest says to cleanse it. But honestly, a waypoint for this sort of thing would be most helpful considering that I have no idea where it is.
But since it's called a "Sacred Altar", I do have a clue as to where it may be.
And that is the cathedral at the very center of the city. Right next to the tower which I had climbed twice to get a high vantage point of the city.
It's quite hard not to miss, considering the size of the building.
It's also quite well intact compared to the rest of the city, which makes me inclined to believe that the Sacred Altar is there. Plus, it just seemed suitable for it to be located there.
Well sure enough, it is here. At least... I believe this is it...?
An altar with a statue of a godly figure sitting on top of it can be seen at the end of the cathedral hall. It gives off a sinister dark aura which is visually represented by the living black vines entangling around the altar and the statue, as if it was corrupting them.
"Now how do I cleanse it?"
Oh what am I saying...? Of course I'll have to use the Lumen Stone in my inventory.
The item is related to the Sacred Altar. It says so in its description. That's why, the moment I took it out and approached the altar, the stone beamed with light so bright the dark aura that was corrupting the altar and the statue was removed in a flash.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Liberation Quest: [Liberate the Holy City, Arialight.]
Arialight is under occupacy of the Umbra Lords. Complete the following objectives to free it from their control.
___________________
Kill all monsters in the city (2,365/2,365) [Completed]
Destroy the Shadow Gates in the city (3/3) [Completed]
Cleanse the Sacred Altar (Completed)
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[Update!] Liberation Quest: [Liberate the Holy City, Arialight.]
The Umbra Lords' influence over the city has been removed. Their minions of the shadows have been eradicated from the city. Now, all that's left is to purge the darkness from this region.
____________________
Place the Lumen Stone on the Sacred Altar (Incomplete)
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Wait... That's it? That was the easiest out of the three missions I had to do!
And now all I need to do to finish this quest is to place the Lumen Stone down?
Mission accomplished, I guess.
However, there was one thing I did not expect as I placed the Lumen Stone on the Sacred Altar, right in front of the statue of a god. Because right after I did that, a pillar of light suddenly flashed in my face as it extended up beyond the ceiling of the cathedral. Most likely, all the up to the sky.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
I screamed in agony, however, as the light blinds me with its unexpected flash.
"My eyeeeeeesssss!"
I fell to the ground. Holding my eyes shut as it started tearing up from the damage.
Holy shit! Fuck you, developers! Seriously... fuck you! That hurts a lot!
I cursed the developers of the game in my head as the profanity filter would censor it out.
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Congratulations! You have cleared the Liberation Quest: Liberate the Holy City, Arialight!
Now calculating rewards......
Calculations completed.
_______________________
EXP gained: 27,681
[You have levelled up to LV 21!]
[You have levelled up to LV 22!]
[You have levelled up to LV 23!]
Reward(s) received: [3,000,000 gold], [Equipment Selection Box - Holy Magus Set ×3], [Skill: Liberator of Arialight], [Umbra Crystals ×5]
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[World News! Liberation Quest: Holy City, Arialight has been cleared for the first time single-handedly by Yoru. Light has now been restored to the Lucidum Region.]
[Day & Night mode is now available to all players in the server. (Time will act accordingly to time in real life.)]
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🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫
Meanwhile... a few minutes before the World News was announced...
Red and his party were about to clear their attempt on the Liberation Quest.
Although there are many in the Red Legion attempting the quest, the maximum amount of players that can attempt the Liberation Quest together is six. Therefore, they were split into several full parties of six, where each party is attempting to clear the quest on their own, using the strategy they had planned beforehand.
Red, his companion and maid in real life, Sayaka, as well as four other members are one of those parties attempting to clear the Liberation Quest.
Their plan for it was simple:
Red and three members of his party would mainly focus on eliminating the monsters in the city. Whereas Sayaka and the last member would focus on the task of destroying the Shadow Gates to prevent the enemies from spawning further.
It was a simple but effective plan. Yet, it can be considered difficult to execute as well because of the difficult nature of the Liberation Quest.
Fortunately, through teamwork and resilience, Red and his party were able to execute their plan flawlessly within four hours.
The monsters were all eliminated and the Shadow Gates were successfully destroyed.
And now all that's left for them to do is to cleanse the Sacred Altar and clear the quest.
Without a moment's waste, Red excitedly hummed in joy as he and the party made their way to the cathedral where the Sacred Altar is.
"Young Master, you're getting a bit too excited."
"Of course I am! We've practically cleared the Liberation Quest and we're gonna be the first to do so! By the way, how are the others doing?"
"About that, Captain... It seems we are the only ones left. The others have failed according to their reports in the group chat. They are also very excited to see your name be announced on the World News."
"Hahaha! In that case, let's not keep them waiting. Onwards! To the Sacred Altar so that we can finally clear this que—"
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[World News! Liberation Quest: Holy City, Arialight has been cleared for the first time single-handedly by Yoru. Light has now been restored to the Lucidum Region.]
[Day & Night mode is now available to all players in the server. (Time will act accordingly to time in real life.)]
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"Huh?"
"What!?"
"No way...."
A dead silence loomed around Red and his party as they stared blankly at the World News announcement.
Then, Red let out a laugh.
"Hahaha! What a weird way to announce that we've cleared the quest. Since when was our party named Yoru, I wonder...?" said Red, snorting copium.
But then, Sayaka gave him the reality check. "...Young Master. Yoru is the name of a player who seemed to have soloed the quest. Also, we have yet to complete ours."
"Quiet! I know that!" Red bellowed, as he fell to his knees.
"Whhhyyyy!?" he shouted in frustration. "We were so close to completing it as well! Just who in the world is this Yoru person!?"
Red, acting appropriately for his age, starts whining in tears, being understandably salty at the situation.
All of that hard work and planning. Only to have the achievement taken away by someone else, who had what's more, soloed the Liberation Quest which was said to be near impossible to do alone. The pain and frustration undoubtably hurt Red on an emotional level, as it did with everyone else.
Fortunately, the young lad has his maid to comfort him as she knows exactly what to do in this type of situation.
"There there, Young Master. Let us finish the quest first. Once we log out, I'll serve you a glass of my special milk beverage, so cheer up, alright?"
"Mm. Ok. I want a big cup of Sayaka's milk."
"Of course. You shall have the biggest glass of my milk."
And like that, Red stood up and moved forward.
As for the other four players in his party, they couldn't help but to collectively think "Lucky kid..." with a deadpan expression after unintentionally overhearing their conversation.
