Chapter 13
"As a man who stood on my own two feet, I command..."
Ark, a young man wearing leather armor, recited calmly in a low voice in front of a large cave. He was performing Spell Casting, a magical language for aggression, toward the empty space inside the large underground chamber. Suddenly, something strange happened.
Whoosh––!
A shimmering, three-meter wide magic circle rose in the innermost part of the cave. It began to swirl in the air and changed into a sphere. Shortly after, the round solid figure disappeared after spitting out a Lizard Lancer that had a pair of 1.5-meter long spears on its head.
"GRRRRL..."
The creature then prepared for combat. Unlike the other games, the recognition system in D.I.O.[1] started immediately when the monster found a user. Thus, no matter how far away the user was standing from the monster, the creature in D.I.O. would identify the player as an enemy the moment the person entered its sight.
The programmers of this game didn’t make the monster's AI that simple, so the creature wouldn't just pounce on the players right after recognition, but once the monster perceived its surrounding enemies, users found it very difficult to raid. Thus, a perfect hiding skill or an imperceptible, long-distance attacking skill was necessary for the users when they encountered a monster.
"Whoa, so this one is Level 7, right? Will you be okay, Ark? He's two levels higher than you."
Surprisingly, a talking cat was sitting behind Ark. She was Elley, a Russian Blue with green eyes and blue-black hair. Ark stopped casting the spell and grumbled, "It doesn't matter, but.. hmm... the Regen[2] time is definitely random. Earlier, the monster appeared very late, but now it came out too fast when I still have about five minutes of Spell Casting left."