You guys rarin' for an intense and victorious boss fight? You are? Aha, well...
Please prepare to be sorely disappointed...
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The boss room was perhaps the largest room in the dungeon, spanning sixteen meters and length and nine meters in width, with a ceiling two stories above them. [Ilfang the Kobold Lord] stood on the other side of the room. It was a massive pig-like reptile wielding an ax and buckler - just like Rose said.
They engaged the boss. They fought for a good while but it was quickly becoming apparent that they weren't going to win.
Myrtenaster and Stormflower were doing a wonderful job at lowering the boss's health, and Crocea and Milou were doing a similarly good job at defending them. Unfortunately, despite how well they were doing, they just weren't doing enough. The two DPS fighters' damage output was high, but so was the mob's health was so much higher. Even with Rose and Gambol jumping in every now and again, their progress was still slow. The two defenders were also starting to run low on health.
Myrtenaster and Rose jumped out of [Ilfang's] range just as an ax swept across the floor.
"None of this is working," Myrtenaster said with a cold scowl on her face.
Rose merely nodded in agreement. She was right.
In front of them, the boss charged Crocea and Milou, shield raised and glowing. Well, that is new, Rose thought. She activated her [Detection] skill and tried to see what it was.
As she suspected, it was a high level sword technique for shields called [Battering Ram]. It was described as an forward charge attack with high stun and knock back. Sure enough, the two defenders were sent flying, leaving Stormflower to fend for himself with his low defense and health.
"Uh oh," Rose said, activating [Nimble Feet] to get to Stormflower in time. Myrtenaster was running close behind. "Get back!" she cried, already triggering [System Assist] for a sword tech.
With mighty clash of metal, Rose deflected the boss's overhead ax swing but broke her spear in the process. Luckily, [Ilfang] was sufficiently stunned that the two DPS fighters managed to push it back a fair distance before it regained control. It gave Rose time to equip another weapon.
How come it broke? I repaired it back to max when we were in town earlier. She shook her head. Whatever, it doesn't matter.
As Rose frantically scrolled through her menu, she watched as Mytenaster and Stormflower switch with Crocea and Milou, letting the defenders deal with the mob while they used their health items. Said defenders must have also healed up as they were both back to max health, even though a good chunk of their health bar had been removed when they got hit earlier.
Having equipped another spear, Rose stood and scanned the battle field for Gambol. The raven haired girl was leading three mobs in circles, tagging them with a quick swipe to the legs every time they tried to switch targets. She was doing a better job at handling the mooks than Wilt or Maggy, Rose felt. When she looked at them, it seemed that they were in the process of killing another one of them and in turn making said mobs stronger. At the rate they were killing, the mook mobs would equal or maybe even surpass the boss mob.
I really hope those things hit some sort of power-cap when they get killed enough times, Rose thought gravely.
Stopping for one final thing before jumping back into the fray, Rose checked the time. Her eyes widened and she felt blood leave her face. They had ten minutes before the clock struck twelve.
"Guys, I hate to say it, but it's almost midnight!" Rose yelled. "We need to leave! Like, now!"
"Everyone, attack the boss at the same time!" Crocea ordered. "That should stun it for long enough that we can run away!"
Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to the boss, weapons all glowing from the activating sword techs. Eight blades struck the boss simultaneously, causing it to stumble back several steps. That was their chance and they all bolted once they got it.
"I'll open the boss door," Rose said, sprinting towards the entrance, Gambol and the rest of them trailing behind.
Once all eight of them were out of the room, Rose just as quickly closed the door and fell to her knees.
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It has been said that the dungeon was hard to navigate. Everyone was well aware of how difficult it was. However, as they hurried through the fastest path to the dungeon entrance, that fact became increasingly apparent.
The tight corridors only allowed for two people to stand side by side - three if they didn't need to also fight. Again, they had to split into pairs. Fortunately, they were already grouped.
Crocea kept the earlier pairs and arranged them in the order of C-A-D-B.
Wilt and Maggy would stay at the very front and overwhelm any mob in their way with a combination attack of some sorts. He and Milou would be guarding the rear against anything that tries to chase them. The DPS and Strike teams would be in the middle because they had low health and defense.
For the most part, they were doing well, blazing past half of the dungeon in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, that short amount of time was around ten minutes.
"Wah! It's changing!" Magnhild cried, furiously hacking at the mob in front of her with her ax.
If his avatar could pee, Crocea would have surely wet himself right then.
The meter tall [Kobold Guard] was having a violent transformation. It grew twice in size; it's tiny claws turned into scythes as long at Crocea's arm; it's red scales became pitch black and it armor turned into pure white bone. With blood red eyes, the creature screeched. What stood before them was giant demonic raptor.
"[Prowling Extinction], level 30," Crocea breathed, reading the mob's status screen. "That thing's as strong as that boss we were fighting..."
The mob attempted to slash at them but its scythes instead bounced off of the dungeon walls, causing it to recoil.
It's too big, Crocea realized, feeling an alarming sense of hope. It can't move easily in this dungeon. We can kill this thing no problem.
There was a scream as Wilt's left arm was ripped off. The man stepped back, half of his heath just gone.
Okay, it bites. It still has attacks that can hit us, Crocea thought. But it doesn't have any range. He turned to his two friends. "Rose, Milou, switch with Maggy and Wilt. Keep a fair distance and push it back."
"Range over power. Gotcha'," Rose said as she and Milou moved to the front and started rhythmically stabbing it in turn. They raised their tempo after a few seconds of figuring out the timing. By that point, they were hitting it enough times every second that it was stun locked. Eventually, it died with no problem.
"Alright, it's dead, let's keep going!" Rose cried.
With that, they all continued their escape from the dungeon.
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As the eight of them trudged back to town, Myrtenaster reviewed in her mind all the things that they did wrong.
Number one, we didn't have enough people.
Rose said that all the bosses in this game had different stats depending how many players faced it. They are at their weakest when only one player is fighting it. They get stronger with more players present in the boss room, but the threat is still minimized - there was safety in numbers after all.
Since there were only eight of us, the boss's stats weren't too high, but it was just high enough that we couldn't wear it down before time ran out. Perhaps if Rose or Gambol weren't in the room with us then maybe the boss's defense would have been low enough that we could have killed it before midnight...?
She shook her head. No, that wouldn't have worked. Its attack and defense would have been lower, but our damage output would have gone down as well. We'd take just as long to kill it if not longer.
No, I am correct. We didn't have enough people. Rose said that this boss needed at least twelve players to effectively take it down. I will need to find a few more parties willing to help.
Number two is time. We didn't have enough time.
Well, that's not hard to get. We spent most of our night wandering the tunnels. If we take the shortest path to the boss room, we'll have at least five hours to kill it.
She felt a smile tug on her lips, even as a scowl still adorned her face. When we next enter, we WILL kill that thing...
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So, this chapter was originally supposed to be part of the previous chapter but I felt like it was getting a bit too long so I spit it in two. Unfortunately, the split wasn't even and this chapter is significantly shorter than the other chapters. I am terribly sorry.
Well, I'm not sure what you people were expecting but I originally planned for them to win, but one of them would die - and I'm not saying who. You know, like in episode 2 of SAO? But I figured that would be wrong. After all, this isn't SAO.
Of course, I haven't planned too far ahead yet and I don't have a clear picture of where this story will be going. This is basically an unfortunate side effect of me just winging it.
Anyway, sorry again for the short chapter. The next chapter, the boss will definitely be defeated. But you might have to wait a bit to get that chapter.
Until next time, guys. See ya.