In Etherveil, the ninth to tenth dungeon key is dropped by a special monster. And for five months, we have been searching all over the first haven for that monster, and have had no luck.
We thought of giving up, but something unexpected happened today.
The Enchanted Gnome, the monster that drops the ninth dungeon's key, was spotted running in the woods by a male scout whom a mysterious world rank player hired.
"MADAM!!!" the scout shouted, firing a signal flare. "I FOUND THE GNOME!!!"
The scout's voice caught everyone's attention.
"He found that pesky gnome?" an assassin resting on a tree trunk said.
"What are we waiting for?" a warrior said, clenching his fist. "TIME TO MOVE!"
While they spent their time talking, I ran as fast as I could to the location the moment I saw that signal flare.
"I wonder what this gnome looks like..." I thought, running through the woods. "I bet it drops some sort of special item to the one who deals the final blow."
A surge of pink energy suddenly came through the sky like a missile.
I raised my left eyebrow. "What the hell was that?" I thought.
"You pesky gnome!" a woman yelled from a distance, probably close to the location.
The ground shook after she yelled, causing me to trip slightly.
"That must be the world rank player..." I said, maintaining my balance after nearly tripping. "...A female world rank player???"
Pink orbs came raining from the sky as I was getting closer to the location. It was clearly aimed at the gnome who was on the run.
"I'm not letting this woman hoard all the loot!" I said, activating a copied skill: Frenzy, boosting my movement speed while running.
"Almost there!" I thought, coughing a bit from the dust I inhaled as I was getting closer to the location.
When I finally arrived, the air was covered with the scent of ozone and burning grass.
Above the scarred ground, a woman covered from head to toe in a vibrant pink robe was levitating in the sky. Her arms were extended, and with every flick of her wrist, she launched searing pink orbs that whistled through the air, carving brilliant streaks toward the ground.
Her target was the Enchanted Gnome.
The Enchanted Gnome was a pint-sized figure, dressed in vibrant orange-red colors, topped with a pointed hat that had a tiny red square at its peak. Its face was humanoid, and had blocky, bright blue eyes were locked forward in panicked focus as it sprinted for its life.
"Eeeck!!!" It shrieked.
My jaw dropped. "....That's the Enchanted Gnome?" I thought, scratching my head in disbelief, hiding behind a giant tree. "No wonder we couldn't find this monster because of its size..."
The Enchanted Gnome continued sprinting in a dizzying, unpredictable zig-zag pattern, dodging the attacks with inhuman agility. Each time an orb streaked toward its head, it vanished, slipping out of the impact zone the way a fly disappears from your sight the moment you try to kill it.
My eyes widened. "What? Did the gnome dodge that naturally, or did it vanish to dodge it?" I thought. "...What's going on?"
The woman kept on firing the same attack until she realized she had enough.
Instead of orbs, she launched a giant, humming laser beam of pure pink energy that didn't streak but swept across the ground, burning a wide, smoking path directly toward the frantic gnome.
I thought it was the end for the gnome, and my objective of dealing the final blow.
But as the beam swept over where it should have been, the gnome simply wasn't there. It suddenly reappeared five feet to the left, having evaded a blast of impossible scale with a movement that was barely even a flicker.
I realized that was it. That was the trick. Blinking.
This monster wasn't insanely fast. It used short-range, instantaneous teleports. I also realized that its blinks weren't random. Its blinks followed a simple and predictable pattern of evasion.
I smirked. "So that's how you stay alive, huh?" I said, pulling my spirit dagger from my hip.
I focused and threw my dagger, aiming not for the gnome but for the empty space where its frantic sprint would end, a spot dictated by the woman's sweeping laser.
As my dagger cut through the air, I activated its skill: Intangibility, making it invisible. The gnome wouldn't see it. It would only feel the ground where it intended to appear.
The moment the dagger hit the predicted location, I activated its skill: Ownership, leveraging the dagger's bond to me.
My vision tunnelled, the sound vanished, and I teleported, snapping into existence right beside the dagger's hilt, just as the gnome blinked into place.
And before it could even process the shift in location, before its blue eyes could even widen in surprise, I lunged.
My pupils dilated out of excitement. "Got ya!" I shouted.
My hand closed around the dagger's hilt, and with the momentum of the instantaneous jump, I drove my dagger straight into the gnome's unprotected back as it shrieked in pain.
"Hey, that was my kill!" the woman shouted.
"Oh, my bad..." I replied.
"Whatever!" she said.
When the Enchanted Gnome shattered into fragments, a detonator suddenly appeared in my right hand.
Without a second thought, I slowly reached for the button with my finger.
"DON'T FALL FOR THE GNOME'S DETONATOR!" a man's raspy voice shouted from the woods. I could hear him running along with the other players toward our location.
I laughed. "I don't share treasure chests," I said, pressing the button.
"DON'T!" the woman shouted. Her words were put to a stop the moment I pressed the button.
Then, the world suddenly changed.