“Hyyaaaaa!”

  Adam stabbed the spear in his hand forward to activate the [thrust] skill and impale the [man eating bear] on it. A large number sign floated above the monster’s head. These monsters had a total of about 20,000 health, and his attack had just shaved away the last bit of it. The monster groaned and fell back with a dull thud. Adam paid no attention to the corpse and turned to the next monster.

  A large group of monsters was crawling out of the woodworks to confront them, but he, Aris, and Lilith were working as a team to keep them from coming near their long-range attackers. Aris used her speed to attack monsters whenever they tried to break through their formation, Lilith used her significant attack power to deal incredible amounts of damage, and Adam played whichever role was needed at any given time.

  In the center of their defense formation were Fayte, Kureha, and Susan. While Susan fired arrow after arrow into the horde of monsters, Fayte and Kureha were casting their magic spells. Since most of the monsters were plant types, they used [Fireball] and [Firestorm] to decimate the groups wholesale. Plant types were weak against fire. As the sweltering heat from their attacks caused sweat to break on Adam’s skin, Titania hid between them all and sang [Song of Valor] to increase their attack power.

  “That’s the last of them. Phew. I feel like I got a real good workout in,” Aris said after she finished cutting up the last [succubus flower]. They looked like plants with a green lady sprouting from inside its petals. Most of their techniques were based on seduction skills and were used to confuse targets into attacking their comrades. Too bad for them Adam’s party was far too strong for their skills to work.

  Skills that created status effects like [Confusion] were reliant on your stats being higher than your enemy’s stats. [Confusion], for example, was a skill that took the caster’s Intelligence stat and pitted it against whoever the spell was being cast on. If the caster’s Intelligence was higher than their opponent’s, the spell would work, but if it wasn’t, the spell would fail. And of course, a spell wasn’t always guaranteed to work even if the caster’s Intelligence was higher. There was just a higher chance of success.

  “I believe we should keep moving,” Fayte said.

  Adam nodded. “No sense in standing around here.”

  “Fine. Fine. It’s not like I disagree, though I wish you two would at least let me bask in my sense of accomplishment,” said Aris as she threw her hands into the air.

  The two shared a brief smile, invisible through their mask and veil respectively, but then continued on. Their party formation was simple. Adam stood at the front and took on any monsters that attacked head-on. Aris was beside him to act as his support. Lilith guarded the back. In the center were the long-range attackers. Since this was a forest and they didn’t know from which direction an attack would come from, they had decided this was the most useful formation.

  They wandered through the forest for what felt like several more hours before Susan suddenly pointed at something ahead of them. “I-I think I see something!”

  The group looked ahead. They didn’t see anything right away, but as they pushed aside some branches, they finally saw what Susan had likely seen. A massive lake. So large was the lake that Adam couldn’t even see to the other side, which meant it must have easily been several hundred meters across. That was bigger than most lakes in the real world. And situated in the very center of that lake was an island with something like an archway standing in the very center.

  “Is that it?” asked Aris.

  “Looks like it,” Adam nodded. “That’s definitely the dungeon we came here to conquer.”

  The lake was huge, and it didn’t look like there was a bridge they could use to get across it. Adam searched the area for some sign of how they were supposed to cross over the water, but he found absolutely nothing, which caused him to frown.

  “M-maybe we’re supposed to swim across?” suggested Susan.

  “I wouldn’t recommend that,” said Titania.

  “Why not?” asked Fayte.

  “Adam, throw a rock into the water,” Titania instructed.

  While he didn’t know why she wanted him to do that, he obliged. His throw was quite impressive. The stone skipped across the water’s surface several times—until a massive creature burst up in a spray of water. Susan shrieked as Aris, Fayte, and Lilith stiffened in shock. Kureha yipped and growled at the creature, easily fifteen times the size of a normal human. Its black and white blubbery skin looked glossy and slick. There were barnacles attached to its skin here and there. Gleaming red eyes the size of a human head stared viciously at them before the creature dove back into the water and disappeared.

  “What the heck was that?” asked Aris.

  “A [freshwater orca],” answered Titania as she cast [Scan] on the creature before it disappeared.

  Name: Freshwater Orca

  Description: A great whale that somehow found its way here from the ocean. Over time, it adapted to freshwater. It is a very powerful predator that will eat anything within its territory.

  Class: 1-Star

  Lvl: 40

  HP: 600,500/600,500

  MP: 100,000/100,000

  Strength: +5,000

  Constitution: +4,000

  Dexterity: +100

  Intelligence: +50

  Speed: +600

  Skills:

  Skill Name: Swim

  Description: The ability to swim through the water at incredible speed

  +200 boost to speed when in water

  MP Cost: None

  Cooldown time: 0-seconds

  Skill Name: Fin Attack

  Description: Smacks unsuspecting swimmers with its fin

  Attack does 100% damage

  MP Cost: 100

  Cooldown time: 1 second

  Skill Name: Geyser

  Description: Sprays water from its spout at speeds so fast it can cut through steel

  Damage = Physical Attack * 3

  Has a 10% chance of instantly killing enemy

  MP Cost: 2,000

  Cooldown time: 120 seconds

  Skill Name: Lightning Resistance

  Description: The freshwater orca’s skin acts as insulation, making it resistant to lightning attacks

  Lightning attacks only do 50% normal damage

  MP Cost: 0

  Cooldown time: 0 seconds

  This was the first time Adam had ever seen a water enemy before. He hadn’t been expecting something so incredibly powerful either. Even though it was only a 1-Star monster, its stats were far above the average. He wondered if it had something to do with the creature’s species, so obviously based on the killer whales of his world, which had been driven to near extinction in the past.

  “This is definitely a problem,” Fayte muttered.

  “Underwater enemies are always difficult to deal with. It’s impossible to use most of our attacks underwater, and we can only hold our breath for a limited amount of time. Even if we had the lung capacity of an Olympic swimmer, we would eventually have to surface, and they could attack us when we come up for air,” Adam said.

  “So we can’t even get over there?” asked Susan.

  “I’m sure there’s a way to get over there,” Adam assured Susan. “We just have to find out.”

  “Let’s explore the lake’s edge,” Fayte suggested. “Maybe we’ll find some means we can use to cross the lake.”

  It wasn’t like anyone else had a better idea, and so the group moved off, walking around the lake’s edge in search of something they could use. They ran into the occasional monster, but none of them were hard to deal with. The problem was they couldn’t find what they were looking for. Adam had been hoping that maybe they would find a bridge if they traveled to the other side, or at least some kind of hidden mechanism they could use to cross the lake, but all they found was a whole lot of nothing.

  “Maybe this quest is impossible to complete,” lamented Fayte.

  “I doubt it’s impossible, but it will certainly be difficult with our current levels and abilities,” Titania said. She crossed her arms as she sat on Adam’s shoulder. “In cases like this, you would want someone who either specializes in water magic or underwater fighting to deal with the [freshwater orca] while the rest of us swim across the lake unimpeded.”

  “There are classes that specialize in underwater fighting?” asked Adam.

  Titania gave an almost absent nod. “When I was much younger, I joined the party of a young man whose class was Diver. He had the ability to dive deep into the water and use a variety of weapons with the same skill underwater as someone else on land. The Diver skill also granted him an incredible lung capacity. He could remain underwater for two hours before needing to surface. Of course, a class like that comes with limitations. All of his skills were useless on land and his stats dropped by twenty-five percent.”

  “So it was a class with a very specific skillset that could only be used for underwater battles,” Fayte concluded.

  “Yes,” Titania said.

  It took one whole day to travel from one side of the lake to the other. The group had to clear out the enemies around them and set up a tent for Titania and Kureha several times so the rest of them could eat, sleep, and bathe. Yet no matter how much they searched, they didn’t find anything that would let them cross the lake. It seemed like this quest was one meant specifically for someone with a class that let them fight underwater.

  “I think I have an idea,” Aris said during their second day there.

  “You do?” Fayte looked at the girl in surprise.

  Aris grinned as a mischievous twinkle entered her eyes. Adam, having known her the longest, understood what that look meant. She only had this look when she was about to do something she thought was fun… but was actually very stupid. When was the last time she gave him this look? Not counting the morning she gave him a blowjob in the kitchen while Fayte sat on the couch in the living room, it must have been two months before her parents contracted Mortems Disease. She had decided she wanted to fly and attempted to do so by creating paper wings and leaping off the roof of their house.

  Adam still remembered the scolding her parents had given them, her for doing something so dumb, and him for going along with her whims.

  “Whatever you’re planning, I don’t think it will work,” he said.

  “You don’t know that,” Aris countered. “It could work.”

  “It won’t.”

  “We’ll never know unless I try.”

  As Adam and Aris argued, Fayte, Susan, Lilith, Kureha, and Titania looked back and forth between the two. There was no heat behind their argument. However, it was clear they both disagreed and neither side was willing to give up. Adam didn’t want Aris doing something that could potentially hurt her, while Aris wanted to try something she’d never done before… even if it blew up in her face.

  Finally, Aris placed her hands on her hips and sighed. “Look, Adam, I understand that you want to protect me, but this is just a game.”

  “Just a game?” Titania muttered in a dark tone.

  That tone worried Adam, but he ignored it for now. He needed to convince Aris that her idea, whatever it was, wouldn’t work.

  “That may be so, but I still don’t want you to do anything reckless.”

  “It’s no more reckless than you fighting against enemies thirty levels above you.” Adam grew silent since he had no rebuttal, but he didn’t like the fact that she was using his own actions against him. Aris sighed, then smiled. “Look, I really do get that you’re worried. However, we need to do something. If this works, then good, but if it doesn’t, all that will happen is I’ll lose a level and resurrect at the cathedral in Solum. Please, let me do my part to help out.”

  Adam really wished he could just deny this girl, that he could be stern and tell her no, but Adam had never been able to outright deny her anything. It was the reason he had let her try to fly way back then even though he knew it wouldn’t work. She was his one weakness. His Kryptonite. As she stared at him with those big, doe-like eyes, wide with innocence and imploring him to let her help, he felt his will crumble.

  “That’s not fair. You know I can’t deny you anything when you look at me like that.”

  “Tee-hee. I know. Why do you think I mastered this look?”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  Since it looked like the two of them were finished, Fayte stepped forward to get between them. “Since it looks like you’ve worked out your issues, Aris, why don’t you tell us what your plan is?”

  “Of course.” Aris nodded, placed her hands on her hips, and proudly puffed out her small chest. “My plan is to use my Speed stat to run across the water’s surface and draw the [freshwater orca’s] attention. While it’s chasing after me, the rest of you will swim across the water. I’ll join you once everyone has made it onto the island.”

  Everyone stared at Aris as she looked at the group with pride. She clearly thought her idea was amazing. However, judging from the look on almost everyone’s face—except for Titania’s, who looked thoughtful—no one else agreed with her. Fayte decided to voice what they were all thinking.

  “That sounds like a horrible idea.”

  “What?! Why?! What’s so bad about it?”

  “Susan, can you explain this?” asked Fayte.

  “Y-you want me to explain this?!” Susan asked with a startled squeak.

  “You know more about this subject than I do,” Fayte told her with a gentle smile.

  “W-well, okay. I’ll do my best.” Susan turned to the others, placed a hand on her chest, and took a deep breath before beginning. “So… there was a group once that ran several experiments to see if it was possible to run across water. It was theorized that humans could run across the water if they ran fast enough. The idea put forth proposed that each time their feet slapped the water’s surface, it would provide an inertial force from the water, and if they retracted their feet fast enough before the water collapsed, they could continue moving. However, moving fast enough to run across water is a feat beyond human ability. The research shows you’d need to run at least thirty meters per second.”

  Adam was a little surprised Susan knew so much about such an obscure subject, but he realized this was likely something she had researched for fun while stuck inside her house. Susan was a very sheltered child from what he understood. He could picture her sitting at her computer, scrolling through articles on the internet.

  Susan’s father was Eugine Forebear. He was not a business tycoon like the head of most families but a powerful politician who rose to prominence when he was just twenty. It was thanks to his remarkable policies that the American Federation had managed to recover so many of their assets after World War III and Mortems Disease ravaged the world. He operated numerous charities for families who had lost relatives to war and disease, making him very popular among the people. Thanks to his popularity, he not only received a lot of donations, but many powerful families like the Pleonexia Family tried to get in his good graces by offering favors.

  Adam did not know much about the man himself. Everything he had learned was something he’d discovered with a simple web search. There were a lot of articles on him.

  Why would a man like that let his daughter marry Connor Sword? Surely he knows what kind of person Connor is? No, I guess he wouldn’t. He and Levon have hidden their darkness so deep few people can see it. Even I only saw it because I was in the way. So long as Eugine doesn’t attempt to get in his way, Connor will keep up his public facade for as long as he needs to.

  Thinking about Susan reminded Adam that he had yet to ask for her help. He wanted to use her talents as a hacker to hide any and all information about him and Aris so Levon could never find it. That would be something he could do after this mission, however. It wasn’t an immediate problem since most players used fake names.

  “Excuse me,” Titania’s voice cut through his thoughts and the argument taking place. She fluttered off his shoulder and floated between the group, hands on her hips as she glared at them all. “Since all of you are so dead set on arguing, I feel like I should mention that Aris’s idea actually has merit.”

  “It does?” asked Fayte in surprise.

  “Of course it does.” Titania looked at her as if wondering why she couldn’t see it. “I knew someone who could run across the water. He had a Movement stat of +10,000. Aris’s Speed is more than enough to run across the water like he did.”

  The fairy’s words reminded Adam of something important. Age of Gods was a game, and it didn’t necessarily follow real-world logic. Aris’s ridiculous Speed and Movement stats were proof of this, which meant it could very well be possible for the girl to run across the water’s surface.

  Nobody could contest Titania, who was the most knowledgeable person they knew. Thus, Aris was allowed to try out her idea.

  The person in question wore a cheerful grin as she did some stretches to limber up. Adam’s heart pounded in his chest as she adopted a kneeling position as though getting ready to run the hundred-meter dash. She placed her hands on the ground, put her dominant foot forward, and then disappeared. Adam blinked. All that was left to show signs that someone had been there were the footprints on the ground.

  A sound caught his attention seconds later. It was the sound of splashing. He looked at the lake and saw several splashes appear all across the lake, but he still couldn’t catch sight of Aris. That was when he realized something he’d forgotten in his worry.

  His lover’s Movement stat was +56,000.

  The Speed stat was a measure of how fast someone could move, while Movement indicated how quickly someone could cover a specific distance. The two stats were linked together because a person’s speed affected their movement. With a Speed of over +6,000 and a movement of +56,000, Aris could travel close to one hundred meters per second, more than fast enough to run across water according to the theory Susan had mentioned.