For the first time in a while, I switched my skills and gear back to a tank setup and diligently rounded up mobs. Every time I held back the urge to drag them straight onto 『rainfall』, he neatly shredded the monsters before I could change my mind.
『rainfall』 [Dark Hold]
『rainfall』 [Arctic Fist]
『rainfall』’s [Dark Hold] pinned the mobs I’d rounded up in one spot, and [Arctic Fist] slammed out a wide-area attack while freezing the monsters at the same time.
Even if they were just regular mobs, at this level their freeze resistance should’ve been high, but however much money he’d burned, everything he hit froze on contact.
And it wasn’t just the freeze. People could say Archmage was a degenerate-meta class all they wanted, but the damage numbers popping up over the monsters’ heads were not normal.
Honestly, if he’d started whining, I’d been planning to help with the damage, but whenever I just parked the mobs properly, 『rainfall』 handled his movement and killed them just fine. This was qualitatively different from those crybaby ranged DPS types who insisted on turret-DPSing in a 2–3 man party, complaining their casts were getting interrupted and somehow still doing less damage than me.
Well, if he were on the same level as those clowns, he wouldn’t have been able to slice me up in the first place. Thinking about it, it was obvious, but to me, 『rainfall』 looked stronger in PvE than in PvP.
Since we were duoing and it was our first run, there were a few crisis moments, but we somehow cleared without either of us dying. Sure, we were dumping potions on cooldown, but still.
[Party]kk1234: gj
[Party]『rainfall』: Thank you for your hard work
Whether it was a habit or a macro, as 『rainfall』’s polite thanks popped up, a window dinged open in front of my eyes.
[Hidden Quest: Princess of Riphart, Cecil]
The fallen [Black Trola] is in possession of a pendant belonging to the missing princess of Riphart, [Cecil Riphart]. Investigate the surroundings to see what happened and track the whereabouts of [Cecil Riphart].
Condition: Talk to NPC [Cecil Riphart]
Reward: Cecil’s Pendant
※ This quest was shared by ‘『rainfall』’.
I had to blink at the last line for a second. Sure, when a quest triggers, you can share it with your party members, but honestly, me and 『rainfall』… it’s not like we’re on “sharing things from the heart” terms.
But 『rainfall』 shared the hidden quest with me like it was nothing.
Of course, I wasn’t moved. It wasn’t that I thought he was some saint or pushover; it was that I could feel his determination to monitor me that obsessively, and it gave me chills.
[Party]『rainfall』: You’re not taking it?
[Party]kk1234: I am
Creepy is creepy, but I’m still taking what I can get.
After being chased nonstop and now having him glued to my side watching me, if this was the price, it wasn’t even expensive.
[Party]kk1234: The reward’s pretty decent
[Party]『rainfall』: It is
It wasn’t some god-tier reward or anything, but it was obviously a chained quest. If the first reward was this good, the final reward would be way juicier.
[Party]『rainfall』: Let’s find the princess
[Party]『rainfall』: She’s probably in the forest
I pictured the map we’d run across to reach the dungeon.
That stupidly huge, sprawling map.
[Party]kk1234: That place is fucking huge
[Party]『rainfall』: That’s why she’d be there
Stupid question, solid answer.
No wonder the scale felt so big—did they really expand the map just to stick in a quest like this? Well, hidden quests auto-generate by AI, so it’s not like it had anything to do with Godrity’s “intentions.” Still, when annoying content shows up, blaming the dev company is the right move.
[Party]『rainfall』: If the two of us search, we’ll find her faster than you think
[Party]『rainfall』: Let’s go instead of talking
[Party]kk1234: ok
『rainfall』 wasn’t wrong either. After leaving the dungeon, we decided to split the map in half and search. You couldn’t see much on the map itself, but if we poked around, some related NPC or item would turn up.
I got on the flying carpet I’d gotten from an old kit, and 『rainfall』 mounted a rainbow-colored unicorn. Of course that bastard had no concept of color coordination.
[Party]『rainfall』: Let’s start from the bottom
[Party]kk1234: ok
He’d said he’d give up leveling and just chase me around, but seeing him this motivated now, maybe that was just talk and he’d already fallen off that plan. Did I make a mistake accepting his friend request?
No, thanks to him, I’d just gotten a hidden quest for free, so it was a massive win. Because of that, my hostility toward 『rainfall』 had dipped a tiny bit.
[Guild]kk1234: 『rainfall』’s not as bad as I thought
[Guild]Rete: ?
[Guild]Changcheon: What happened?
[Guild]BoomerLatte: Be,,,happy,,,
[Guild]ScamMage: What’s with the 180..
[Guild]BoomerLatte: But,,,what brought on,,this change of heart,,?
[Guild]kk1234: 😂
I just tossed that out there and ignored my curious guildmates, switching the chat window back to party only.
[Party]『rainfall』: Found her
Checking the map, I saw that the spot 『rainfall』 had found was on the exact opposite side from where I was. I clicked my tongue and started heading his way.
[Party]kk1234: Hey
[Party]『rainfall』: What
[Party]kk1234: Wanna get married for a bit?
[Party]『rainfall』: Die
[Party]kk1234: Is that “die” a macro or are you actually typing it?
[Party]『rainfall』: Die
[Party]kk1234: No, listen
[Party]kk1234: Think about it
[Party]kk1234: Are we gonna manually run every time we comb a map? It’s better to get married and teleport
Like other games, Aurora also had a marriage system. And thanks to its open setting, male-male marriage was totally fine too.
Anyway, if you got married, there were a few special effects… and the best one was that if you wore the wedding ring, you could teleport straight to your spouse’s side.
It was so convenient that, to prevent abuse, there was even a cooldown on marriage and divorce…
[Party]kk1234: Are you on divorce cooldown or something?
[Party]『rainfall』: I’m pure
[Party]『rainfall』: I don’t make hasty marriage decisions for reasons like that
Right.
This is a game, you crazy bastard...
Then again, for a bastard who clung to revenge for seven months, game marriage obviously wasn’t some light thing either.
[Party]『rainfall』: Sounds like you’ll marry just anyone
[Party]kk1234: If I need to, sure
[Party]『rainfall』: Slut
[Party]『rainfall』: You go seducing randos for online romance or what?
[Party]kk1234: ? fuck, does this look like me hitting on you right now??
[Party]『rainfall』: Yep
[Party]kk1234: This is so fucking unfair
[Party]『rainfall』: Hard pass on online romance
[Party]kk1234: I don’t want that either???
If anything, I’d always shit on the people doing online romance—never seen anyone stuck in the middle come out of it looking good—and I couldn’t remember ever once being in favor of it. What kind of bullshit was he spouting at me?
Online romance with 『rainfall』, of all people?
I’d die before that. No, that would never happen. Aurora shutting down would be faster.
[Party]『rainfall』: Coming at me with “let’s get married” right out the gate
[Party]『rainfall』: Gross
[Party]『rainfall』: Die
[Party]kk1234: Wait
[Party]kk1234: Wait a sec;
[Party]『rainfall』: 😂
[Party]『rainfall』: I’m kidding
『rainfall』 laughing as he called it a joke awakened my violent tendencies. But faced with someone even more violent than me, my fake anger-management issues curled up and went right to sleep. All I could do was hammer on my keyboard.
[Party]kk1234: Ah fuck
[Party]kk1234: Don’t joke around, you’re scary
[Party]『rainfall』: 😂😂😂😂
[Party]『rainfall』: What if we’re opposite sexes in real life
[Party]『rainfall』: I might cling to you begging we die together
[Party]kk1234: You already clung to me
[Party]『rainfall』: I didn’t cling to die together
[Party]『rainfall』: Only you died
[Party]kk1234: ?? Did you forget you died to me too?
[Party]『rainfall』: I forgot
This bastard was funnier than I thought.
[Party]『rainfall』: For all you know, our ages might be different to a criminal degree
[Party]kk1234: How old are you
[Party]『rainfall』: Older than you
[Party]kk1234: ??
[Party]kk1234: You know my age?
[Party]kk1234: You did a background check?
Given how he threw money around even more than Rete and how obsessive he was… he totally seemed like the type to dox me. 『rainfall』 laughed again, as if my line was the funniest thing ever.
[Party]『rainfall』: My mental age is older than yours
[Party]kk1234: ♥♥
Either way, we’d been chatting as we crossed the entire map. 『rainfall』 dismissed his mount and stood still.
[Party]『rainfall』: Here
[Party]kk1234: Oh
[You meet the entry conditions.]
A portal entrance. Inside, an NPC was standing there. The name above her head read [Cecil Riphart]. The princess of Riphart.
As if to scream “hidden quest NPC,” she was a blonde female character wearing [Sacred Royal Formalwear (Female)]—worth 80 million gold on the market—dyed with a white base and blue accents.
If all we’d found were the princess’s corpse or traces of her, I’d have thought, guess this quest ends anticlimactically. But the fact that the princess was still alive hinted at a long story to come, and my chest swelled with hype.
[Cecil Riphart] What brings you to a place like this? From the look of you, you don’t seem to be from around here…
Then why are you holed up in a place like this? She was an NPC that just screamed “I have a whole tragic backstory.” Now she’d go on about what circumstances she was in or whatever… then tell us to bring items or clear some dungeon.
I skipped the dialogue roughly. There might’ve been hints in there, but 『rainfall』 would read them anyway.
As soon as the conversation with the princess ended, a golden pillar shot up around my character and I leveled up. I went up a full level in one go and then another 20% on top of that.
Definitely juicy. Even main quests didn’t give this much EXP. I dragged my eyes off the EXP bar and checked the newly appeared quest.
[Hidden Quest: The Royal Family’s Lost Legacy]
The princess’s disappearance appears to be the scheme of Riphart’s chancellor, [Ast]. The princess wishes to expose the chancellor’s betrayal. To aid the princess, prove to her that you have the ability to involve yourself in this matter.
Condition: Defeat the field boss monster [Dark-Blue Beast King]
Reward: Title ‘Princess’s Guardian Knights’
※ This quest is designed to be cleared by 2 or more players.
As I was reading the quest with a serious look, a golden light shot up from 『rainfall』’s character. Looked like he’d finished reading the princess’s lines too.
[Party]『rainfall』: You
[Party]kk1234: Yeah?
[Party]『rainfall』: You’re going all the way with me, right?
It was a bone-chilling thing to say.