Afterlife Dream

Beneath us, the Red Asura roared when he noticed us falling. Or maybe it was our screams that alerted him. Whichever.

While we were falling and heading rapidly to the ground, I pulled at Aurendiria\'s arm and tried what I had never tried in life before.

I teleported mid-air toward the ground.

That was maybe a stroke of luck because as we disappeared mid-air and landed on the ground with a thump, the Red Asura literally jumped into the air to attack us. He was dumbfounded when his punch was met with empty air.

Meanwhile, we landed safely on the ground.

Aurendiria and I quickly got to our feet and split into two directions. When the Red Asura landed on the ground again, we started to bombard him with all kinds of attacks.

Angered by the intruders, the Red Asura started to stab us with his spear. Since we were attacking from two opposite directions, it was quite confused. He ended up attacking us both alternately. I deliberately hit the boss with my staff every time he turned away from me so that he would focus more on me than on Aurendiria. The girl was wearing a long robe that was typical for a female mage. It was not very convenient for jumping around and dodging attacks.

At one point I found myself stepping onto the Red Asura\'s spear. It did not make him any happier. He threw me off against the wall and then he lifted his arms while roaring toward the sky.

The buff cancellation move!

"Auren!" I shouted. "Mana Guard!"

Auren widened her eyes as she understood what I was trying to tell her.

"Oh."

It had been too long since she faced the Red Asura. Naturally, she forgot.

We cast our protective buffs as soon as possible. We made it just in time.

Not long after the buff cancellation move was made, an AoE attack followed.

My heart raced against my ribcage. That was close.

"YO, FASTER! ONLY 2 MINUTES LEFT!" Our very helpful party mate Ninja shouted from the top of the cliff.

I threw a look full of resentment at one of the shadows up there that looked a lot like Ninja. It was infuriating how these Dominion leechers acted around us!

Nonetheless, we managed to kill the Red Asura and cleared the game.

"Dear Adventurers, congratulations on defeating the Red Asura. Please release Little Sue and bring her back to the village!"

Aurendiria and I exchanged a relieved smile. We approached the huge cage that imprisoned Little Sue and undid the lock.

Little Sue sprang out of the cage happily and beamed at us. "Elder Sister, Elder Brother, thank you very much for saving me!"

I rubbed the little girl\'s head fondly. "You are welcome!"

"Congratulations on completing the game. Please pick your rewards!"

Two cards hovered in the air in front of us.

"Wait a minute," the other four players above the cliff protested. "How come we are not getting any cards???"

Aurendiria and I exchanged glances. The carnival was quite strict. It would only award the players who truly contributed to the stage completion.

We each picked a card. I gaped when I saw the number 40 flash before my eyes. 40 Life Points!

"Auren, how many did you get?" I asked Aurendiria in a low voice.

"45..."

"That\'s... a lot."

The scene around us changed again and in the next second, we found ourselves inside the blue tent again.

"Antares," Aurendiria tipped me on the shoulder and pointed at my hand.

There was something in my hand. When I opened my palm, I found a pin with Little Sue\'s face imprinted on it.

"Oh."

"Wait a second," Ninja complained. "Why are you two getting pins???"

"Because we were the ones who killed the Red Asura?" I readily answered.

And released Little Sue, to be exact.

Ninja, this arrogant rascal, did not even contribute anything but he dared to complain. How shameless.

"Pfft," he said. "This really sucks. We missed out on the Life Points and also on the pin. Whatever, I will get a pin in the next stage. You guys better not try to steal the stage from me."

I scoffed.

We approached the NPC and she announced cheerfully, "Hello everyone, welcome back! Please take one orb to proceed to the next stage."

Ninja reached out to take another orb, but suddenly a board with a huge red X appeared between his hand and the huge bowl of orbs.

"Dear Adventurers, party members are encouraged to pick the orb alternately."

"Hmph."

"I will pick it," I offered.

Ninja stepped aside and raised an eyebrow at me. I approached the huge bowl and went to pick an orb.

Just like what happened previously, the orb unfurled itself into a tarot card.

"Oh."

"Yikes."

Ninja pursed his lips and stared at me.

"You should not start gambling," he sincerely told me. "You will be broke in no time."

It was The Tower.

The Black Chimera, the raid boss for the level 120 raid.

"I think we gotta skip this one," Alcyone said. "Guys, we now have three pins. Can we please use one to get a free pass?"

Aurendiria nodded. "Sure. Let me do that because I have two."

Aurendiria turned to the NPC and said, "I would like to trade one of my pins for a free pass, please."

"Certainly," the NPC bowed her head.

Aurendiria clicked on her user interface screen and confirmed the trade.

The free pass was green in color and looked a lot like a train ticket.

"We would like to use this free pass to skip this stage," Aurendiria said.

"Certainly. Please hand over six free passes altogether to skip the stage."

"Wait, six???" all of us shouted almost at the same time.

One free pass could only let one single person skip a stage.

"What the fuck is this???"

Ninja glared at both me and Aurendiria.

"So only you two can continue. The four of us cannot."

I pushed Aurendiria behind me.

"So what?" I glared at Ninja. "We earned it."

Ninja gritted his teeth. We were staring at each other for some time. And then, PrecisionShot tapped Ninja on the shoulder.

"No need to sweat it. Let\'s go since we cannot complete the next stage."

"Fine."

Ninja and PrecisionShot exited the circus tent.

"Well then uhh. Thanks for the party," Alcyone said.

"Bye-bye," Kratos said with a wave.

"Bye."

And then there were only two of us.

"Antares, are you using your pin?"

"Yeah, of course."

I took out my pin and traded it against a free pass as well.

Now that our party only consisted of two players with free passes, naturally we were able to skip.

We received the congratulation for completing the stage that we did not enter, and again two cards hovered before us.

"This is the Black Chimera stage," Aurendiria whispered. "The reward should be good."

"Yeah," I said.

I expected that much.

We picked our cards at the same time.

Lo and behold.

105 points.

I mouthed a "Wow" as the card dissolved into nothing and the Life Points went into my user interface screen.

"I can\'t believe it," I said to Aurendiria. "We got so many Life Points in one day."

"The carnival has not ended, Antares," Aurendiria reminded me with a smile. "We can pick another orb to continue."

"You pick," I grinned. "I fear that I will pick the Dimensional Master next with my luck."

Aurendiria giggled.

"To be honest you were pretty lucky. At least for us because we have the pins."

I had to agree.

Aurendiria went to pick a golden orb anyway, and it gave us the easiest stage. The Fool - The Red Bubble.

"Wow." I was astounded. I couldn\'t believe it. I gave Aurendiria a look full of admiration. "If we go by Ninja\'s words, you really should try buying a lottery or something. Maybe you will win."

Aurendiria broke into laughter. "Silly. This is just a coincidence."

Coincidence or not, we were here to benefit from it.

I snorted.

"This is going to be so easy," I said as we went into the stage.

The Red Bubble stage of the carnival event was exactly the last stage of the Dai City Party Quest. It looked a lot like a playground with colorful children painting across the wall and huge sponge bricks and balls that were scattered on the floor.

I remembered during my noob days that I was not able to take even one hit from the Red Bubble boss without dropping dead. In my very first party quest, HellWitch soloed the final boss all by herself.

"Wow, it has been a while," Aurendiria remarked. "I can hardly remember the Dai City Party Quest anymore."

"This is where I met HellWitch and Lazarus," I told Aurendiria.

"Woah, you guys went way back."

"Yeah, we did."

Aurendiria and I descended the ladder from the safe platform to the boss spawning area. It was empty.