Versatile: Alternate World

Chapter 425 Sudden Maintenance

Despite decimating most of the monsters that appeared in the portal, their numbers seem to not have reduced at all. More like they have increased more of their numbers every time we kill one. I also noticed that my exp counter is not increasing. Even though we are killing more than usual, I am not receiving a single experience point, not even a 0.5 or 1 exp point, nothing at all. It kind of pisses me off, but I think this was designed since the portal is releasing multiple enemies every time, and having a high leveled enemies spawned, it might make a good place to farm. To avoid that from happening, they remove the experience you receive from killing them all.

Not only we don't receive a single point of experience but we also don't receive a single bronze, silver, or gold coin from them. Not even a single common drop or a trash drop at all. Literally nothing. It's kind of sad that we are fighting enemies here that we don't even get to earn a single dime by killing them. You waste too much energy and time and yet no reward for that.

However, if this road is the only way out, then even if there is literally nothing to be earned by dealing with this trouble, I still have to do it.

"Master, I am running out of Mana!" Lucia shouted.

"Alright, don't worry, I got this!"

Dousing Lucia with the Splash Mana Potion, her MP is refilled and she is back to the action.

"How about you there, Tina, are you still fine?" I asked Tina who is still floating above us and continuously firing poison dust at enemies.

"Don't worry master. My Mana Regeneration is fast enough to replenish the mana that I have lost. I can continuously fire these things without exhausting my mana reserve."

I turned to look at Lina and currently, she is chanting a spell. I don't recognize the chant so perhaps it is a spell that is exclusive to her. I didn't interrupt her and instead just directly doused her with the Splash Mana Potion.

"Are you fine, Atlas? Need any Mana Replenishment?"

"I don't think I needed it master, but thanks for the concern."

Atlas is still wild as ever and he keeps on decimating monsters as fast as he can with his greatsword.  Since everyone is good now, I returned to my battle stance and continue fighting against the horde of monsters. I slash here, I throw a spell over there, I pull my trigger here, I defend, I heal, I punch, I did almost everything just to keep the monsters at bay. And as I did that, I also keep approaching the portal. The only way to stop the amount of monsters spawning is to close the portal.

But how do I close the portal? I have never encountered a single portal in my previous life and I don't have a single inkling of how to close a portal. It is something I am not even used to doing.

As I was trying to figure out how to close it, a message suddenly pops out on my face and blocked what I am seeing.

"What the heck?"

I tried to close it to focus on the battle before me but it refuses to close so what I did is a retreat to an area where the monsters are not focusing much before quickly skimming all of the words before me and seeing why is it blocking my face.

[Announcement to all players:

We will be conducting a surprise maintenance today. We advise the players currently online to log out from the game within 30 minutes before the maintenance begins to avoid data loss. If you are unable to log out due to some special circumstances(quest-related, punishment, etc) within the time limit or you just refuse to log out, the system will forcefully kick you out of the game instead. The progress you have right now will be unaffected so rest assured there is nothing you will lose after this maintenance. Maintenance time will last for 48 hours. We apologize to all the players for conducting it in surprise. Thank you for understanding.]

Surprise maintenance?! I almost cursed reading it. And the notice can finally be closed after reading the whole thing. I turned to look at the big portal before me and frowned. I have no idea how to close it and I don't have any pressure on how long before I can figure it out, but now that the maintenance is now currently ongoing, I can't even do a single thing and can only force myself to think of a solution on how long before I can even get myself to close it.

Then, I came to a solution though I can't call it a solution as it doesn't solve anything.

"Everyone, return to the Summon's Area!"

"What?! Master, what are you talking about?" Lina looked worried after I said it.

"Just return to the summon's area. I will be handling things here by myself."

"Master, are you wishing to die?! You can't handle this many enemies all by yourself!" even Atlas who is easygoing on anything is against recalling them.

"I know what I am doing everyone. So please return to the Summon's Area. I will take everything from here on out..."

Everyone did not move and refuses to return. I sighed and looked at everyone and shook my head.

"I apologize for this everyone but I have to do this. [Force Recall]!"

In a single blink of an eye, everyone disappeared like they were bubbles popped by an object or colliding with something. They disappeared without leaving a trace, leaving only myself in the middle of the horde of monsters. Now that the monsters that were currently engaging in a fight with everyone just now are gone, their attention was redirected to me who is left behind on the battlefield.

"Master! Why are you doing this?!" I can hear Lucia's voice in the summon's area but I didn't respond and decided to ignore their cries inside.

Why did I do this? Because once the maintenance begins, if you are forcefully logged out from the game while your summons and followers are currently out in the open and are currently fighting will not be recalled once you are forcefully logged out and they will remain in the world while you are gone. In normal cases, it should have been fine if you are in a neutral area or inside the towns, cities, kingdoms, or anywhere safe enough for NPCs to exist, but on a battlefield like this, you will just leave them to die instead if you were forcefully kicked out from the game due to the maintenance.

There are no permanent deaths in the game once a follower dies, just like players, they will start to respawn if they die but it takes half a month before they can respawn if they ever die and a week if they are pets. I know that they will respawn if they die but I treat it as a permanent death so instead of letting them die and wait for 15 days to wait for their revival, I would rather protect them from harm's way instead. It is much easier and beneficial to me instead.

Now that everyone is back to safety, I am left vulnerable against the monsters, and without Tina giving out doses of poisons to monsters, I am stuck with full-powered monsters, ready to pounce and kill me anytime. But who said I am going to die here? I have thirty minutes left to fight back before the game kicks me out. That is plenty enough for me already and if I managed to find a good solution on how to close the portal then that's even better.

"Hey, hey, you monsters. Don't just keep on growling there! Give me a thrill on fighting you all and make sure you don't bore me out to death, alright?"

The monsters angrily growl and started to rush towards my position. I pulled out my Versatile Weapon and changed it to a Magic Sword. I also pulled out the Pain Delivery and started to shoot multiple bullets at the upcoming monsters. All of the surrounding enemies are nothing but monsters, so even if I close my eyes, I will not miss if I shoot randomly and I will still hit something.

"Come on! Come at me and fight me!"

Blood splatters, guts explode, different kinds of monsters appear, and multiple monsters die in my hands. I am not even caring whether I smell bad from all the blood and guts that are covering my whole body right now. Instead, I keep on slicing, shooting, slicing, and shooting without break. I don't even know how many monsters I killed already from doing this. All I know is that I am just doing it without a break.

Then, my vision blacked out before I opened my eyes and I realized that I have returned to the real world. I sighed. I didn't even get to close the portal before the maintenance begins.