Starting from Zero

Lucky took me above the enemy ships when they try shooting me with their arrows. But unfortunately for them, those things can’t reach this high. Even if some of them managed to catch us they don’t have the power to hurt Lucky\'s scales.

"Hey look out!"

We\'re flying towards their flagship when Zirai alerted me from behind loudly. I lowered my head to see something flying towards us while leaving a smoke trail behind it.

A rocket??

"Lucky, incoming!"

The rocket missed us when Lucky simply folded his wings. As a living creature, Lucky\'s way more agile than airplanes. Of course these obvious attacks won’t hit us easily.

Or that\'s what I thought. The problem is, the rocket made a 180-degree turn in the air and headed towards us again. They got homing missiles in this game??

No time to think about it. It\'s coming fast!

Lucky made a sharp turn with a flick of his tail, dodging the rocket. But it soon came back!

"Phiona!"

I asked Phiona to go for the rocket since her slim body is swifter than Lucky. She chased around the rocket for a while and successfully caught it in her claws.

However, it seems the rocket is really a powerful one. Phiona can’t hold it in place, so I ordered her to try to keep it stable as best as she can, while Lucky went ahead and sliced the rocket\'s tail off using his tail spike. The smoking rocket bottom tumbled away and is destroyed by a following fireball from Lucky.

Phiona torn the remaining body of the object apart and--

There’s a Japanese player wearing starter equipment lying INSIDE the rocket! So this is another of their kamikaze attacks. They do love this stuff. The 20-level player won’t lose anything even if he’s killed, and he can just gain another level quickly and return to the battlefield again. If we don’t consider the ethics I must admit this is yet another genius invention.

This guy is holding a bunch of fuze connected to a pile of explosives, and a lighter in his other hand, which means--

"Get away from him!!"

Lucky turned tail while Phiona quickly dropped the broken rocket away.

The player yelled something loudly before he lit everything up. I guess it\'s something like "for the motherland"?

There is almost no delay between the ignition and explosion, since they don\'t have to consider the player\'s safety in the first place. We didn’t get far enough. A powerful shockwave threw us away. Lucky lost his balance and dropped into the water, and Phiona crashed into one of the enemy ships.

Phiona is fine. She spread her wings and took off before the enemies can do anything.

I can’t say the same for Lucky and me though...we were falling too fast, it felt as if the water surface is solid stone floor. The impact on the water surface caused me to lose all my flying swords plus my helmet.

Lucky hid his head under his wings out of instinct, while I don’t really have anything to protect myself. Now I only feel my head burning with pain. Still, I managed to float back to the surface. I’m using my master sword and my armor ability to recall everything when the water ahead of me rose. Lucky caught me and lifted into the air just before the Japanese ships fired at us. He turned and rolled among the cannon shower and escaped the rain of hell safely. We climbed high enough before the enemies can shoot another round.

"You alright?" Zirai approached us.

"Barely. I\'ll become big laughing stock if that level 20 newbie actually killed us."

And--oh shit. We don’t know how many of these rockets they still have. Judging from that power, they can probably take down a ship with just two shots. And of course they fly farther than cannon rounds!

A dozen more "human missiles" went away from the enemy ships before I can contact my fleet.

"Stop them!!" I yell to Zirai and ordered Lucky to charge.

Seeing that we’re not going to make it, Phiona rushed inside the rocket group and turned into a giant fireball. The temperature ignited all of the weapons, but Phiona died in the explosions herself. Thank god she can still come back alive for once today.

But another dozen rockets are in the air soon! I saw a series of rocket launchers on their deck. There are like 30, no, 40 of them!

Out of desperation, Zirai charged into the rockets and caused more explosions. No rocket escaped the scene this time, but I never found Zirai and Skyfire.

The launchers below are firing again. What can I do?? Sacrifice myself too? No. The other ships are releasing rockets as well. They have more than one rocket ship, I feel totally helpless when I see almost a hundred of them taking off!

Aldeina appeared behind my back without my summoning. "Are those things controlled by humans?"

"Um? Yes. You have an idea?"

"Let me try!"

Aldeina moved onto Lucky’s head.

"Ahh----"

She\'s...singing? And with extremely high-pitched voice. Her voice gradually turned into a horrible stinging noise like when you use metal shards to move against glass. Then it disappeared. Maybe it went beyond human hearing range.

A rocket suddenly lost control in the air and exploded on itself. Then followed by more rockets. Some of them didn’t explode, but they went down into the water and never came back.

Furthermore, those rocket launchers on the enemy ships blew up one after one. Some burning players ran amok and jumped into the water.

Aldeina kept it up for about 20 seconds. When she\'s done I quickly leaned aside and vomited. Ultrasound weapon! Now I\'m feeling as if two armies are fighting inside my head. The headache and urge to throw up won’t go away. Being my companion, Aldeina\'s attack effect should be already nerfed when reaching me. Now I wonder how the enemies are feeling.

I\'m reaching my head aside to vomit again, when Lucky suddenly trembled and began to fall. We three went into the water. I quickly summoned Loong\'er to drag Lucky back.

His eyes are swirling. So Aldeina\'s voice stunned him as well. I got to say this will probably be the only time when I’m seeing a dragon upside-down in the water while giving out bubbles like a dazed fish.

Aldeina swam to us. "Sorry! I should\'ve warned you to stuff your ears with something."

"What was that?"

"Dual sonic cannon. I was gathering power when you can still hear me. When you cannot, it means I began the attack with both ultrasound and infrasound. The ultrasound can detonate explosives, while the infrasound makes people sick."

"Nice one. Do tell me before next time so I can move away. Ughh. I think I gonna throw my stomach out. Hey Loong\'er, let\'s get back to Bi-Lin now. And stay under water."

The airstrike wasn’t really successful but we can’t keep going now. Lucky is still unconscious, and I’m not feeling really good either.

My team swarmed up on me when I climbed onto the deck.

"You okay? We saw you falling down at the end. What happened?" Rose asked for everyone.

"I\'m good. We weren’t hit, it’s just, well, Lucky\'s unconscious."

"Your dragon?" King looks surprised. "What on earth happened to him?"

"Gimme a break. Aw my head\'s cracking. Need a medic here!"

They just realized my condition, so Rose and Yuri helped me to the cabin.

When I lied down on the bed I heard our crystal cannon firing. I bet the first shot was Wuyuu again. So the enemies are within range now.

I went into sleep without realizing it. I felt as if I just got car sickness, while badly drunk.

----------------

"Ziri! Hey Ziri! Get up!" Someone shook me awake. I see Zirai and Rose.

"What\'s wrong?" The headache went away but I still feel heavy.

"Easy." Rose quickly assured me. "We already wiped them out. Rhona took her men to collect the loot. We brought their flagship too."

"Nice. Do we have any loss?"

"We stayed at the safe distance and they never reached us with their attacks after you took out their rockets. The battle was easy. The only pity is the Koreans were also wiped. We came too late."

"Ziri!" King came in. "What\'s our next plan?"

"Next plan?"

To be frank, I rarely do plans. I usually decide on something when I see it.

"Yeah!" Hawk entered the room too. "Do we keep going for the remaining ships or go straight to their port?"

"We do both." I gave them another answer. "You guys stay here and fight the other ships, while I go to their territory and scout the area."

"No!" Hawk protested first. "You\'re the commander here! How should you leave?"

"Well I don’t really know how to command people. I may have contributed the most money in building our fleet, but I\'m no good at overseeing a naval war. King Conqueror\'s way more experienced than me, so better let him take it over." I spoke to King. "As I said, you\'re good at this and I know you always want to fight it out with the Japanese. Now I lend you my ship, do as you see fit."

"I don’t think so." Rose spoke up. "It\'s too dangerous to go alone."

"Come on, you know me. I can always run if I can’t win a fight."

THAT I\'m confident. Who can catch me when I can teleport away anytime?

"At least take me with you." Rose made her last effort.

"I can take someone but, sorry dear, not you." I patted her shoulder. "You\'re a healer. You can be more helpful here than going on an infiltration mission."

"I\'ll go with you then." Zirai stepped ahead. "Skyfire, Big Bill and Little Bill, that’s enough firepower."

"Take me too!" Red Moon nudged into the crowd. "You won’t reject the help from the No.1 caster in our entire region right?"

I looked among them. That\'s two decent damage dealers, and Aldeina is master at almost all water-based spells, most of which are support and healing ones, so she can be our temporary healer.

"Okay. Red Moon and Zirai, with me. Blue Wind, you\'re a Hunter right?"

"Eeyup."

"Can you like, make traps?"

"Of course. How can someone hunt without traps?"

"Can you come with me too?"

"Do you have to ask?" He displayed his bow. "I was worried you might now take me."

"Hey I\'ll go too!" Wuyuu jumped.

"Nah. If you\'re there I\'m sure you’ll attract half of the population in Japan into chasing us within half an hour. Merciless, Coin and Razor, we need someone fast too. Also, we can try blending in with a ninja in our team."

"Got it!" The three nodded.

"Finally, I can find someone to level up my [Steal]. Oh hohoho!" Coin giggled.

"But...how do you get there?" Hawk asked. "We\'re still pretty far off from their land."

"We use motorboats. Seven people...four boats are enough. Better not take more people so we don’t draw too much attention. We can pretend to be a small leveling team. As long as we don’t speak in the open, and Coin doesn’t display her Taoist skills, no one will notice anything."

"Buy the translation service too." Red Moon said. "Speaking through the translation will still expose us, but at least we can understand what the locals are talking about so we know about their idea. Leave it to Razor if we must talk."

"And potions!" Yuri spoke. "It won\'t be convenient to buy from local stores, so you should take enough with you! Everyone give them what you can spare."

I quickly stopped them from trading me items. "No no, no need for that. When I learned the lesson last time I always keep enough items on myself."

I took out a giant package from my bracelet inventory.

"See? I have enough here to last us for a week or two even if we have to eat them as food."

"Woah shoot. Why the heck do you carry so many drugs on you?" Wuyuu and War Chant don’t know me much and now they\'re looking at me as if I’m insane.

There\'s no big reason, just...I’m too lazy to run between the shops so I stock up as much as I can.

"Let\'s go then!" Red Moon looks anxious.

"Not yet. Hey you, get me the pigeon." I spoke to a sailor.

When he returned I handed one of the bird to Rose. "Use this to contact me since we can’t sent messages by other means. If there’s a real emergency, get off the game and shout into my ears."

"Into your...huh?" Hawk is confused for a moment.

"They\'re lying on the same bed dude. They can switch to another ‘game’ by simply flipping over." Zirai explained to him.

"Hey!!" Rose yelled.

"Oh...!" Everyone else nodded. Now my face is burning!

"Ahem! Let’s move out now." I quickly ran outside the room with my team.

We found four motorboats in the bottom level and headed out. Zirai stays with me, Blue Wind carries Coin, Merciless brings Red Moon, and Razor by himself. Our vehicles left Bi-Lin to the horizon with great speed.

---------------

After a while.

"Hey Ziri! We don’t have a clear view now, we’ll run into enemy ships like this!" Red Moon said.

"Leave the job to Lucky."

I summoned Lucky to scout for us. He probably won\'t have enough stamina to fly all the way to Japan, but I have more flying companions.

However, Lucky made a turn in the air and rushed to the opposite direction.

"Lucky! Hey, go ahead, not behind! Where are you going?"

He ignored my order and kept heading back as if he really needs to toilet. Well, if a dragon even needs that thing, that is.

His Loyalty is full, 100. On theory, a companion with full Loyalty will do literally whatever you ask.

Zirai shot me a doubtful look. "What’s going on with him? "

"Oi! What\'s the deal?" Blue Wind approached us too.

"I don\'t know! He just, left! He never did that before."

Lucky soon headed back as we\'re talking. "Sorry, Sorry!"

"Where on earth did you go?"

"I uh, had to...relive myself with...something. I think I ate something bad this morning, and it\'s getting back in my stomach."

By something bad he means those players he ate.

"Oh no...oops, give me a moment master! "

He left again!

Oh Crap. I did bring a lot of potions and such but I never took any antidiarrhoeal stuff.

The others are laughing their guts out on the boats. Ugh. No excuses.

Lucky returned after a while though he still looks not in his best condition.

"Get some rest then. Tell Phiona to come out."

I de-summoned him. He’s not going to fly anywhere like that. Dragons can get purges? I’ve seen enough strange things today.

Thank goodness Phiona isn’t keen on eating players so she can well perform the job.

We reached the land of Japan without any trouble. But before we can actually get ashore, we have to get past the shallow waters. Unfortunately such area is usually packed with grinding players. As a nation on the island, their naval industry is extremely advanced. And of course the waters are the most populated training grounds for them.

Now our first problem is to consider how to reach their soil safely. Simply charging ahead is totally a no. We can’t expose our motorboats cause we probably need them later to escape.

Red Moon looked around. "Let\'s move along the coast. We\'re too close to the port city, there should be fewer players far off."

"Agreed!"

Our team of seven stayed in a safe distance and cruised around the land for some time before we realized that this won\'t do. The game region of Japan is more crowded than we expected. Player teams lined up from one port to another, there\'s almost no vacancy! I thought China is congested enough already. Now I see worse!

"What should we do? We\'re never going to get past them while keeping the boats safe." Coin said.

"How about stay under?" I suggested.

Blue Wind looked at the land and made some calculation with his finger. "It’s possible. Our boats are fast enough to take us there within one breath."

"I mean, we swim, and leave the boats right here."

"You\'re joking right? We still need air in this game, and there\'s no way we can swim that far without resting." Maybe Coin is bad at swimming.

"Let me see. Aldeina!" I summoned the mermaid and took off my helmet. "My helmet can let us breathe in the water. Leave the boats here, we use the helmet and sneak to the shore one by one, and let Aldeina to take the helmet back here each time someone\'s done."

"Good idea!" Coin clapped. "Now I can safely tell you that, my swimming sucks."

We drove the boats underwater and hid them in a safe spot, then I departed first. Aldeina stayed behind me and pushed to help me go faster. Though we still remained at a moderate speed so we don’t get spotted.

There aren\'t many monsters on the shore so I don’t see many players here. I gave my helmet to Aldeina, then hid myself behind a pile of rocks. The rocks are all pale which isn’t really a good hiding place for my dark armor but...I can’t find anything else.

Unlike us however, it seems Japanese players prefer to stick to their own business so no one really paid any attention to me, save some curious glances.

One after one, my team all reached me. We pretended to be a leveling team and walked among the crowd. Again, no one noticed us.

Upon leaving the coastal area, we quickly switched to smaller paths so we ran into fewer people. I have no idea where we are. The system map only shows my coordinate but not the name of the area. Probably because I can\'t read that information as a foreigner.

We never actually found a place completely empty of other people, but at least we can speak now, quietly.

Blue Wind and Red Moon aren\'t my guild members so we spoke in the team channel.

"Plan?" Red Moon asked first.

"Find a bank or something and make a fortune!" Coin answered without much thought.

Razor spoke: "I think we should go look around their shipyards. They have so many weird ships and weapons. We can learn about how they come up with all those ideas. And if we can’t, we burn them all."

"Let’s do it then." I confirmed. That IS a question which has been troubling us for some time now. Since we are here we better get it over with.

"Ask about their crystal cannons too. We destroyed like 30 of them on the way. How did they find so many of them?"

"Got it."

Razor headed towards the nearest city. I asked Blue Wind to follow him just in case. His traps would come in handy if anything happens.

The rest of us tried to avoid any other player groups. But there are just too many of them. Someone even talked to us. We can understand them through the translation helper but we can’t speak back since the translation doesn’t cover our strange accent. Whenever someone asks us to level up together, we would just shook our heads and walk away.

We waited for the pair to return. But someone else found us first. A group of rogue players approached us, and the leading one displayed a typical villain plot you would find in any movies:

"Hey dude, that\'s some nice chicks you got. Come on, don\'t enjoy all by yourself!"

He was speaking to Merciless. I just remembered that I took off my helmet to get rid of the wetness. Now these people think I’m a woman, which means Merciless is the only guy in their eyes.

None of us spoke. We can\'t! This gave the thugs more confidence that we’re scared. Their leader took the advantage and reached towards my face.

Before we decide to get rid of them quick, Razor appeared behind them. "Sorry my friends! They\'re uh, my girls."

"A fellow businessman I see. Perfect!"

Razor could have made the explanation better but I can only stay silent at the moment.

The thug leader asked him while pointing at me: "How much for this one here?"

"10 million crystals. Just one time." Razor actually answered him with a straight face.

"Hey! You messing with me huh?"

Razor quickly winked at me, then he moved my head to face the thug.

"Come on, just look at her. You don’t find such woman everyday. Look at those armors, they\'re all artifacts! I spent a ton to get her here, trust me, she can easily defeat any one of you or us if she wants to. You see what I mean? Such a strong one, serving you however you like overnight! 10 million is absolutely worth it!"

"But, I don\'t have enough money! You see bro, I\'m from the Black Dragon Force, can I just owe you this time?" The thug displayed such an expression which I can only call it "lewd".