Re:Start

Chapter 6

Hideki and Cristal stood motionless, not knowing how to handle the spawned boss. The tutorial quest was changed due to Hideki and Cristal being in a party. Instead of ending after killing ten blue slimes, it progressed to a boss fight.

By looking at the Purple Slime, Hideki could see the status window of the slime.

PURPLE SLIME  Level 5    (Boss)

a slime who got enraged from seeing its brethren killed. Summoned by killing ten slimes as a party or fifty slimes if solo.

Skill:
Glutenous Gel (passive)
Damage dealt to this monster are blocked by the outer layer of its gel.
Damage reduced by 10%
Immune to critical damage

"Hold it for a minute!" Cristal said. "I'm going to distribute my stat points."
"What do you mean 'hold it'?" Hideki asked.
"Just let it follow you." Cristal replied moving away from the boss. "After I'm done, let's switch, I'll get its attention while you allocate your stat points."

Hideki didn't know what to do. Just what did he mean 'let it follow you'?

Bur this question was answered instantly. Right after the Purple Slime lost Cristal in its range, it changed its target to the other one left in range, which is Hideki.

The slime slowly moved towards him. He tried to slash it but it only did 10 damage. The boss still have 990 HP. Since he can't efficiently deal damage, Hideki just ran away and let the slime chase him.

"I'm done!" Cristal said. "Your turn. Move out its range, you'll know it once the boss started to become transparent."

Hideki ran back. It was a matter of seconds for him to outrun the slow moving Purple Slime. "What should I do?" He called out to Cristal, who swapped out his sword to a bow, and was running away from the slime while shooting arrows.

"Open your Status Window. Then distribute your points." Cristal said. "Faster! I can't hold on longer. My stamina is running low."

Hideki did what he was told. He opened the status window. It showed five different attributes. STR, AGI, INT, DEX and LCK. He has 4 stat points from levelling up awhile ago from blue slimes.

He looked up, he was about to ask Cristal where he should place his stat points, but he was far away.

He looked at the window again. Hideki thought about it very carefully. Would he level up Strength? But the slime is resilient to damage. How about Intelligence? It won't be that useful since he doesn't have magic yet. Dexterity and Agility are not very useful in the situation since both of them increase critical chance and damage, which is, again, negated by the slime. The only thing left is Luck. In most MMORPGs this stat is neglected since it affects Gold drops and item finds. It also increases the chance of rare events to occur.

Finally, Hideki decided where he would put his four stat points. He pressed the Luck button and levelled it up to 3, then he placed the last stat point to Strength. He doesn't know if this would work or not, but based on the status of the Purple Slime, any other attribute would be worthless.

"What did you increase?* Cristal asked as Hideki rejoined him.
" Luck."

There was a moment of silence between the two as they were running to keep a safe distance from the slime.

"What?! Why didn't you just increase Strength? It's a rule of thumb in RPGs. 'Level up Strength first when starting a new game'." Cristal exclaimed.

"But the slime would block the damage with its passive skill." Hideki said as he shot an arrow to the slime, he also swapped to a bow.
"But it would still increase your damage!" Cristal shouted. "I hope your Luck does something at least. It can trigger a rare event with a chance of 0.03%."

"What rare event?" Hideki asked as he loaded an arrow in his bow. He was preparing to shoot it, when he notices the metal tip was not actually metal, it was shining. He was sure that the other arrows he used were metal. But this is different, he had no time to inspect it more since the Purple slime is nearing.

He let go of the string of the bow and a dazzling light came from the arrow he shot. The flash was bright like a flashbang.

"What did you do?" He heard Cristal but the flash was still intensely bright.
"I don't know. I just shot an arrow."

The light died out and the screen went back to normal. Because of his luck, it triggered an event.

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While he was reminiscing these past events, Hideki turned on his PC and connected his Virtual Console, which is a Virtual Alpha 2.0, an old Virtual Console which was heavily used since he got it on Christmas back on the year when he started playing Qualos.

He launched Qualos and it took him to the loading screen. He wore the Console on his head like a pair of headphones. The way these devices work is that they send signals through the ear canal and directly to the brain. It simulates sensations for you to feel and at the same time you use it to control your character as if you are controlling your body.

As the game loaded, Hideki thought 'It won't hurt if I try it a bit'. Then he was welcomed with the title screen and a text box asking if he is a new player or not.