Chapter 28: Mermaid Farming and the Piranha Parade

“It’s absolutely beautiful, Noona. Right?”

“…Listen, let’s talk later, Angel-A.”

“Do you like Eastern-style castles better than Western ones? Then I’ll find a Western one for you next time.”

“No, that’s not…”

On the other side, the weasel, AngelA, was following Han Gyu-tae around like a lost puppy. Seong-jin’s bearded knight character glanced their way before sharply turning his head. While I could tolerate my best friend’s tear-inducing Net-kama act, seeing a perfectly normal weasel tailing a cross-dressing scammer was starting to weigh on my conscience.

I hurriedly sent a whisper to Sephiroth.

[Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: Hey. [Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: AngelA is your friend, right? [Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: Can’t you tell him something? [Friend] Sephiroth: No. [Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: Just tell him that guy is a Net-kama. [Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: ? [Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: ???? [Friend] Sephiroth: ?

I was speechless at the sheer audacity of his question mark. Since I shared the sin of having a terrible friend, I lowered my tone a bit.

[Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: JustOneHitOppa <- this guy is my friend and he’s a DUDE. [Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: I think AngelA is being scammed and he’s suffering. [Friend] BlueberryWhiskey: Just relay the message. [Friend] Sephiroth: The one who gets fooled [Friend] Sephiroth: is the idiot. [Friend] Sephiroth: GL.

What?

I glared at Sephiroth in disbelief. He just shrugged as if to ask what my problem was.

Forget it. I’ll have to handle this myself later.

“Stop messing around and look ahead.”

Sephiroth’s voice cut in. My heart skipped a beat at the similarity to Na Eun-hyeok’s voice. Fighting to keep my expression neutral, I looked forward—and saw it.

Half-human, half-fish. To put it simply: a mermaid. The problem was that it was three times the size of a human, and its teeth and claws looked lethally sharp. SCREECH! A voice that shattered every fairy-tale fantasy of mermaids rang in my ears.

Sephiroth muttered, “Been a while since I hunted a mermaid.”

“They’ve appeared before?”

“During the Doltec quests. Doltec is the guy who ‘farms’ mermaids.”

Mermaid farming? Definitely not a positive image.

“Since there’s no guide, we’ll have to head-butt our way through,” Seong-jin said. At the bearded man’s words, AngelA—who had been playing around with ‘Gyu-tae Noona’—turned his head.

“You guys can rest for now.”

“Huh? But I’m the tank…”

“I’ll call you if I need you.”

Before I could even process AngelA’s words, Sephiroth bolted forward.

BOOM!

A massive explosion of bubbles erupted. Clouds of silt rose from where Sephiroth’s axe slammed down, turning the water murky. Through the hazy vision, I saw Sephiroth swinging his axe, relentlessly diving at the mermaid.

The first pattern was simple: a slight twitch of the right hand meant a swipe. This was always followed by a spinning tail whip that released sharp, needle-like scales. Scales that weren’t destroyed by DPS would embed themselves in the floor, making that area impossible to step on.

“What are you doing, Princess! Fight!”

Sephiroth’s shout echoed in front of the castle. The weasel who had been clinging to Gyu-tae turned his head.

“You usually tell me to get lost?”

“Not you! Blueberry!”

“Me?”

Why the hell is he picking on me suddenly?

This was a max-level party. AngelA, Sephiroth, Han Gyu-tae, and Park Seong-jin were all level-capped. Why on earth was he dragging a Level 17 newbie into the fray? When I hesitated, Sephiroth slammed the back of the mermaid’s neck.

KYAAAAAAH!

The mermaid shrieked, emitting a shockwave. The problem was that its face was pointed directly at where we were standing. The surging shockwave was incredibly fast. One hit and I’m dead. Instinctively, I ran left. My target was the wall. Pushing off the stone with my left foot to gain momentum, I practically flew. The moment I dove behind a boulder on the left, a terrifying force swept past.

CRASH!

“Whoa, I blocked with my shield but the damage…”

“Noona! Are you dead? I’ll save you!”

“N-no. Please don’t…”

Out of the noisy group, only I and AngelA had properly avoided the shockwave. The rock I hid behind was now half-shattered. In the midst of this, I couldn’t bear to watch the cute weasel scurry over to the ‘dead’ Gyu-tae to tear a resurrection scroll. That shockwave is insane. I was waiting for the next pattern when Sephiroth’s voice rang out again.

“You coming or not?”

“Hey!”

The moment the mermaid turned its head toward me, Sephiroth slammed its neck again. The mermaid shrieked once more, unleashing another shockwave.

Is this crazy bastard…?

Since it was already cracked, this rock wouldn’t survive another hit. Before my brain could calculate, my body rolled. As I skidded to a stop, the shockwave grazed past me by a hair’s breadth.

“Bluey.”

“F*ck, I’m coming! I’m coming!”

What did that jerk just call me? No, no time for that. One more shockwave and I was 100% dead. There was no room to run this time. As I scrambled toward Sephiroth, his satisfied voice rang out.

“Should’ve done that from the start.”

As if!

By the time I reached him, Sephiroth had already shredded a fifth of the mermaid’s HP by himself. There wasn’t a dedicated tank, but Sephiroth’s health bar was barely moving, proving the old gamer adage: ‘If you don’t get hit, you’re the tank.’ Sephiroth leapt off the mermaid’s waist and swung his axe upward. As the blade bit into the gaps of its scales, the mermaid wailed in agony.

“KYAAAH, KYAAAAAH!”

There wasn’t much for me to do. I mostly ran around the mermaid dealing 1 damage per hit. Even that was hard because if you hit the center of a scale, it counted as a block; I had to aim precisely for the gaps.

The mermaid’s health bar had nothing to do with my attacks. Sephiroth used the Berserker skill ‘Resolve’, sacrificing his own HP to explosively boost his attack power. The mermaid’s health plummeted. I had no idea why he invited me; all I was doing was losing my mind trying to dodge the mechanics.

Soon, a third of the health was gone. The mermaid turned deep red and let out a massive shriek. Sensing a phase change, I backed away just as silver scales poured out of the mermaid’s gaping mouth. They looked like ginkgo leaves but with serrated edges. As I twisted to dodge, the scales that hit the ground transformed into silver fish.

“Fish?”

I swung my sword at a fish flying toward me. My HP dropped by 1.

“The fish have a reflect buff,” Sephiroth warned.

“Can they be killed?”

“They’re invincible.”

We exchanged quick words and scattered. The fish spawned from the scales lunged at me. These weren’t just fish; they were piranhas.

The mermaid, battered by Sephiroth, shrieked again. I raised my sword in a ready stance.

“I’ll try to hit the scales before they land.”

“Got it.”

Sephiroth had the same idea. He dodged the swarm of silver piranhas and steadied himself. As another volley of scales shot from the mermaid’s mouth, I moved fast, swatting them mid-air with my blade. For the ones I couldn’t slash, I timed it to stomp them into the ground. Scales hit this way didn’t turn into piranhas.

A fleet of invincible silver piranhas chased me and Sephiroth, but we could handle that much. A few seemed to head toward the other three, but I figured they could take care of themselves.

“Don’t die, Noona!”

“Please… stop calling me Noona…”

“Noona!”

…Then again, maybe they couldn’t.

It was a shame the Net-kama died, but it wasn’t my concern. I sharpened my focus on the mermaid. Since the clear would be faster if Sephiroth focused on DPS, I put all my effort into kiting the aggro of the existing invincible piranhas. Even with the reflect damage, it was only 1 HP per tick, so it was manageable. Of course, 1 damage can still kill you if it stacks, so I chugged potions in between.

“Revive your friend. I’m using lifesteal.”

“Okay.”

If a party member died while the mermaid was enraged, its health would regenerate. Since Sephiroth was solo-DPSing, the healing speed was matching his damage, putting the HP in a stalemate. As I ran toward Gyu-tae, the weasel stood up.

“I’ll take over here.”

“Okay.”

Since the weasel hadn’t died once and had already resurrected Seong-jin once and Gyu-tae three times, I nodded quickly. A Magician is a hybrid class capable of both damage and healing; he could handle the Gyu-tae situation.

…Wait, did he let Gyu-tae die on purpose just now?

I shook the dark thought from my head and drew the aggro of the piranhas hovering around Seong-jin. Watching the swarm of piranhas trailing behind me, I felt like a parent fish leading its fry.