I slid into my chair and put on my earphones as my computer started up.
I immediately clicked on the chatting application which brought up a window on my screen and I was already flooded with notifications from people messaging me.
Moving my cursor to the chatroom, I joined the voice call where about two dozen people were already waiting inside.
I cleared my throat, "Ahem… Sorry for being late guys. I got held up."
Almost immediately, the voice chat came alive with several people talking at once.
"Oh!! Leader!!"
"Leader's finally here!"
"We almost thought tonight was cancelled!"
"Hell yeah, we gonna start soon?"
I moved my cursor to another icon with the words 'Erednay Online' on my screen and double clicked, "Yeah, I'm logging in now. The raid will be happening tonight."
"Well hurry up then, leader! Everyone's waiting for you already!" One of my
I let out a soft sigh as the game started.
This was one of my few places of refuge from real life.
I'm talking about games of course, which was a little ironic considering my life could be considered a game with all the rifts and Anomaly hunting.
Then again, I started playing this game before I became a Vanguard so you could say that I was continuing it because of all the time and effort I had already put into this game. And also the friends I have made there, of course.
I had started a guild and as the leader, I didn't feel comfortable just abandoning everyone as well. Especially since everyone else was still playing the game and the popularity of the game remained pretty high.
Too bad Dan is too busy with his family and quit the game.
On my character selection screen, I selected the white haired female character I painfully personalised to my taste and logged into the game, my avatar appearing in the middle of a city.
"I'm in. Where are you guys?" I asked.
"At the entrance of the Dungeon waiting for you, leader! Get your ass over here!"
I manipulated my character to move towards the meetup location where a bunch of people were already gathered.
"Leader," one of them greeted me, their avatar raising a hand in greeting.
Above the character was the name 'BaskervilleX'.
They were playing as a mage but the avatar they made was an exceptionally buff dude with tattoo markings over his body.
I waved back, "Hey Bas. Thanks for holding the fort."
"Anytime, leader."
He was my Guild's sub leader and honestly, I've been relying on him a lot to keep the administrative stuff going.
Without him, the Guild might have collapsed long ago since I really didn't like the admin side of things.
If you asked me to lead a raid, I definitely could. Organise the admin stuff where we have to keep track of guild expenses and profits? Count me out.
I turned to the rest of my Guild members, "Alright! Everyone ready? Today we're going to be challenging the sixty ninth floor and beating the boss! We'll be applying the usual drop rules, classes get priority, everything else is up for rolls! Squad leaders take charge of your own group! Any questions?"
No one said anything.
"Alright, break off to your own voice chats. We're moving out immediately."
The number of people in the voice call quickly dwindled until only six other people remained in the call aside from me.
Our raid party was split into six parties including mine and each party had seven people so aside from me and Bas, there were five others who were directly under me.
Using the in-game voice chat, I gave the order for us to advance and our entire raid party was teleported to the sixty ninth floor.
*
"Team Two! Maintain formation and taunt again! Grab the boss's attention! Team three! Focus healing on Team Two! Team Four and Team Five! Move into flanking positions!! Team Six and Team One! Follow me!!"
I led the charge towards the giant bipedal beast that looked like a cross between a bull and a werewolf, its eyes glowing red as the taunt effect of my tank party got its attention.
My party surrounded the monster and wailed on the monster.
The monster raised its arm, ready to strike down on my tank team.
"Team five! Use the CC now! I need him paralysed!!"
A bunch of spells flew towards the monster and struck it in the chest.
The monster froze up, electrical sparks appearing on the surface of its body as the paralysing spell took effect.
"Team Three! Switch to damage buffs! Team One! Gather on me! Everyone else, full DPS now!"
My party gathered around me and I started up my super spell, using my party members as anchors to charge my spell.
A magic circle appeared underneath us and my spell started to take effect.
I kept my eye on the icon that showed the status of the boss monster, the number on top of it slowly counting down to zero where the monster would be freed from the paralysis.
"Team Four! Traps placement, now! Team Two, get ready!!"
My guild mates moved as I commanded, right as the icon disappeared and the monster moved again.
It swung its claws downwards, only for its claws to clash against a wall of light that my tank squad projected in front of them.
As the monster was deflected back, the traps that my other party placed activated and ropes and vines exploded out to wrap around the creature and stop its movements.
I then aimed my spell at the monster and activated it just as the bar indicating its charge state reached the maximum.
The magic circle underneath my feet lit up and disappeared in a flash of light, right as another one appeared above the monster before a giant beam of light fell down on the monster.
All of us watched as the monster's health bar slowly moved towards the end.
My instinct told me this would still not be enough to kill off the monster.
"Team Two!! Guard up again!! Taunt once more!!"
Sure enough, the monster remained alive with just a little bit of health left and tried to do an AOE attack that might have insta killed several of our members.
But my tank squad used their taunts once more and the monster stopped the attack to turn its attention back to the tanks.
That was enough for us to send another wave of blows which ultimately reduced the monster down to zero health, turning it into particles of light and causing a screen to pop up to show our completion rewards.
I let out a breath that I didn't realise I had been holding and leaned back in my chair as "GG"s filled up my chat.
All of my guildmates rejoined the voice channel again.
"We did it!!"
"Good work leader!"
"That was awesome!"
"Hey, didn't leader get better than before?"
"Yeah! I feel that the raid this time was better too. Leader has been practicing huh?"
"I thought so too! Leader definitely commanded better than the last time! Were you going for commanding class or something? Hahaha!"
I rolled my eyes, "Are you trying to say that I suck before or something? Shut up."
Unexpectedly, Bas also spoke up, "I agree with them, Leader. It feels like you were doing way better than before. You were predicting the monster's movements and this should be our first time fighting it, right? Usually our raids would go for longer but you managed to counter the monster pretty effectively. And I think the team also performed better than usual thanks to you."
I huffed, "If you guys are all just trying to butter me up to get more rewards, it isn't working. The usual drop rules apply, roll for what you want if your class doesn't get priority."
There were a few laughters coming from the voice chat and I ignored them to look through the loot tables, checking if there was any item that I needed.
Seeing that there wasn't any, I abstained from rolling for the loot and let the rest of my guildmates have the drops.
I then privately messaged Bas to join me in a private call before moving both of us into a private chat room.
"What's up, Leader?"
"Bas… I'm going to be serious for a moment. Do you want to take over as the Guild leader?"
There was a pause, "Are you quitting?"
"I… Don't know. But I might not be able to play as often anymore. So I was thinking of passing on the torch."
"... If… If Leader is not here… Then I don't really want to play anymore either… I'm only playing it because you are playing it, Leader."
I raised an eyebrow, "Really? I mean… Why?"
"It's… Fun playing with you. Without you here… I feel that the game isn't fun for me anymore…"
"I'm pretty sure all I did was to pass all the administrative tasks to you though."
"But I feel fulfilled doing it… If it's not for you, it would be a different case altogether… I'm sorry, but I can't take over as the leader."
"Hmm… No worries, it was just a question. Don't worry about it."
"Thank you."
Not sure what he is thanking me for but ok…
The real reason why I was thinking about passing on the torch was, of course, there was a possibility that I might not return after today… Though that remains to be seen, I guess.
Hopefully I won't be turning into an Anomaly soon…