Crimson stared at the boss door in front of him with hungry eyes, a new sword in his hand. He’d bought 6 new swords last night, after training had ended, and came to the dungeon to investigate Horrakin, the other boss. His goal wasn’t to win, but to understand the boss. From that information, he wanted to determine what he was missing to be able to take him down.
His training against groups was to solve the first problem the fight presented, but the second big problem, the boss’ buffs, was one that lacked an immediate solution. Ergo, why he was investigating today.
He inspected his sword quickly, it was a basic longsword, and of a much cheaper make than he would usually buy. His [Blade Spirit 3] was making up for its laking stats with an additional 13 durability and 10 attack, adding that to the sword’s base stats put it on the level of a Lv.3 sword. Still not great, but he couldn’t afford to lose any of his good swords to this madness.
A deep breath followed by a sigh accompanied the sound of the opening door, and Crimson stepped into the room.
It was the same set up as last time. The boss was sitting on its throne, leering at him. Two archers flanked the dais that the throne was sitting on. They were standing on banquet tables that had been stacked, one on top of the other, giving them a height advantage and making it harder to approach them.
There was a pair of rogues and a pair of knights to act as the melee fighters. Like before, Crimson noted that it was like facing two full parties at once.
The goblins and he inspected each other for a long moment. Eventually, the still was broken by one of the archers, who fired an arrow at his face. [Ru Mikiri] triggered, and all he had to do to dodge it was tilt his head.
In response, the archer had a confused expression on its face and it tapped on its bow a few times, seeming to wonder if it was broken.
The other goblins charged, and he began running them around the room in circles, dodging arrows the entire time while he watched for every detail he could spot. It was a good thing his INT was so high, because he’d devoted part of his attention to counting, trying to figure out how long it would take for the boss to use a buff.
After five minutes of dodging like a maniac and leading the melee goblins in circles, Crimson realized something fundamental about Horrakin: he was lazy.
Crimson’s first attempt had been finished before five minutes had even passed, and the boss had used its first buff within a minute for that attempt. Seeing as it hadn’t done anything, it must assume that it didn’t need to take any action and he would die.
It was a very humanlike laziness.
The part that was inhuman was its patience. Most humans wouldn’t be able to watch a murderous intruder run around in circles for this long without doing anything.
There was a possibility that its buffs were revenge based then, and the perceived laziness was his mistake. The boss had only started using buffs after Crimson had killed one of the rogues last time, so he would need to test that again.
He glanced back to see which rogue he should take on and noted that the two knights had finally dropped out of the chase. They were laying on the ground panting. There was a potential strategy in what he saw there.
He turned his attention back to the archers, and right as they fired, he slammed one foot down and turned, thrusting deeply into the neck of one of the rogues, inflicting [Rapid Bleeding] and simultaneously dodging the arrows.
Right on queue, five seconds after the first goblin was dead, the boss cast a buff. Last time it had been a defensive one, and that hadn’t changed. There were clearly patterns to the fight. Even if the boss wasn’t a bunch of computer code it followed some kind of predefined behavior.
That said, he’d want to test it three or four more times to be sure that was actually the case. He was still just gathering information. Trying to draw solid conclusions off of untested assumptions would only get him in trouble.
He swept aside an arrow with his sword and side-stepped the other before swinging at the other rogue. His [Defense Pierce Skill] had leveled up, so he wanted to see the difference that it made.
The answer was a little. His sword dug a little deeper into the rogue’s flesh, but didn’t do any real damage. If the first attempt had been like a paper cut, this would be a cardboard cut.
He wasn’t that focused on dealing damage. Instead, he was counting again. He could deal with a defensive buff, all he had to do was keep running like before, but he wanted to know when the next buff would be place. This time, it took 25 seconds for the attack buff to appear.
Still no problem to deal with, so long as he kept running and not getting hit, it wouldn’t make a difference, but there was no option for him to attempt to take on any of the goblins since that would open him up to blows.
Under that attack buff, any hits he took would quickly overwhelm him and he’d die before learning anything else.
Once more, he was counting. He didn’t know if there was a third buff, but if there was, he wanted to know how long it took to be applied. At 125 seconds, he felt another wave of [Mana], indicating that a buff had been cast.
What would it be? A speed buff? A regen buff? He couldn’t tell, but he started counting again. Nothing had changed in the fight, so what had that buff done? After another 125 seconds, he sense another buff being cast, but he couldn’t tell what this one had done either.
Unfortunately, his exertion finally caught up to him and an arrow scraped by him, leaving a deep gash through his flank and causing him to stumble. The rejuvenated knights caught up to him and skewered him to death. It was an annoyingly abrupt end, especially since he’d managed to get the rogues to drop out for a break a short time before dying.
His sword had enough durability for another attempt, so he charged back to try again. He’d set aside the entire day just for figuring out this fight.
—————
On the 21st encounter with the boss, Crimson finally felt confident in the conclusions he’d drawn about the fight. The buffs that occurred on 125 second cycles were just reapplications of the two original buffs. The first cast of the attack buff and the defense buff each lasted for two minutes before running out. That meant that there was a bit of a window between when the buffs expired and when they were reapplied.
The first reapplication was the longest. The buff lasted for two minutes, and the boss had to wait 150 seconds to reapply the defensive buff, plus 5 seconds of casting time. That left 35 seconds where they were completely open to Crimson, and he was able to kill the rogues in less than five seconds, the knights took a little more than double.
The issue was, of course, the archers. Since they were constantly firing at him with scary high accuracy, he couldn’t stop and focus down the melee range goblins during that gap. If he tried, he’d be swiftly reminded that the attack buffs hadn’t run out quite yet.
Of course, he could try taking them down one at a time between cycles, but the reapplied buffs lasted twice as long as the original casts. 240 seconds for them to expire. That left a 10 second gap with the casting time of 5 seconds already factored in. Enough for a kill in a one-on-one scenario, but difficult to actually pull off in live combat.
If he had infinite stamina, then he could just wait for a moment between the cycles when the defensive buff had dropped and one goblin was a little more isolated than the others to act, but waiting for the perfect moment wouldn’t work.
Taking down the adds was just the first problem, that wasn’t even mentioning the problem the boss presented.
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The boss was very slow, being both fat and lazy, so it wouldn’t attack him directly unless he approached, but attacking him wasn’t very feasible as he’d be immediately pincered and killed. He had made a few direct attempts on the boss anyway, and found that the boss wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous when he hadn’t buffed himself.
Crimson thought back on one of the attempts that was most interesting. He had charged the boss directly, without engaging any of the other goblins. The little guys had been stunned by his behavior and taken a few seconds to respond. The boss had been taken aback too, and given him enough time to approach and sink his weapon into it.
He’d only managed to land a blow on an arm, but it was noticeably more damage than he’d given the boss on his first attempt.
Horrakin had immediately screamed, it was a [Skill] empowered scream, so it caused Crimson to stagger back, clutching his head.
The boss leered at him then cast both its attack and defense buff simultaneously on itself and its minions while he tried to recover. Two arrows in the back finished him off after that.
That attempt had been so profoundly different from the others that he tried again, this time prepared for the scream. He still died quickly, but he wanted to know if there was something different about the buffs that were cast simultaneously. It took a further three attempts, and he eventually found out what those differences were: the simultaneous buffs lasted for only lasted for 5 seconds, and they were a lot more powerful than the regular versions.
It should be a greater indication than anything else of how powerful those buffs were that it took him four full attempts to survive those 5 short seconds. His last, most recent, attempt applied everything he’d learned about attacking the boss first with one singular goal: see how long it takes for Horrakin to apply another round of buffs after the desperate simultaneous ones.
Crimson had worked extremely hard to prepare for those 5 seconds. He stuffed a bit of cloth into his ears to dampen the noise of Horrakin’s scream, cast [Healing Orb] on himself before entering to help his survival, and used the least committed attack that he could to ensure that he could start booking it immediately after hitting the boss.
Arm extended as far as it could, he applied a shallow cut to the top of Horrakin’s foot, and turned the second he felt it make contact. He got a few steps away before Horrakin screamed. It still jostled him, so either his makeshift hearing protection wasn’t good enough, or hearing protection wouldn’t stop the effect.
The biggest thing that seemed to help was the little bit of extra distance he had from the boss, and his swimming head cleared up a lost faster than before. Typically, he’d be stunned until the boss managed to finish casting its simultaneous buffs, but this time he recovered right as the boss began casting, giving him a five second head start.
That head start made his difficulties surviving the five second simultaneous buffs seem like a joke. He easily made it past the expiration of the buffs. It was no different from how he normally ran circles around the room. They still hadn’t gotten any speed buffs, so as long as he wasn’t stunned it wasn’t any harder than usual.
125 seconds after the simultaneous buffs expired, the cycle began anew. He attempted to attack the boss once more after that to see if he could ignite the same response, but by that point, exhaustion had long caught up to him, and a knife to the back from a rogue allowed an arrow to slam into his throat. [Rapid Bleeding] had been what finished him off a few short seconds later.
Stepping out of the fog wall, back into the real world empty handed, his last sword now broken, Crimson looked up at the night sky and sighed. The last wagon had gone back hours ago, and there wouldn't be any tomorrow since it was Highday. He had known the consequences of his actions when he chose to keep going, so there was no reason to get mad, but it was a little annoying.
He tried to jog, but tripped and fell very quickly. A bit confused, he investigated his own condition under the light of a [Magic Light] and realized that he was shaking violently. He had died 22 times today. He had died, and without the task of learning the boss to distract him, and the loss of adrenaline, there was nothing to stop his body from finally responding to the amount of pain and fear he’d experienced.
The only thing to give away that something was wrong was his shaking body. Mentally, he could say that he felt fine, though tired, so he hadn’t realized that anything was wrong.
He tried to force himself to his feet and failed. He did everything he could to try and force the shaking to stop and failed. Eventually, he started to feel nauseous and dragged himself to the side of the dirt path to puke.
The rocks digging into his stomach and ribs, the dirt going down the collar of his shirt, it was one thing after another to make the process more miserable.
After he finished discarding the contents of his empty stomach, he rolled off to the side, just far enough that he wouldn’t lay in the puddle, and pressed his face into the cool grass. It felt pretty nice, though prickly. It helped distract a bit from his throat, burning from all the stomach acid that had violently passed through it.
Rather than force himself, he choose to just calm down, and wait for the shaking to stop on its own. It might take a bit, but there wasn’t anything he could do to speed it up, so patience was the best choice. Though, he did try to distract himself.
He could cast magic perfectly fine, so he got himself some water to drink using [Gather Water] to clear a bit of the burning. It didn’t take long for that water to also come up to say hello, so he drank more. Better to be puking water than stomach acid alone.
It took about half an hour for the puking to stop, and another hour after that for the shaking to stop.
Anyone walking by would be baffled by the state he was in by the end of it all. His head rested on a carefully sculpted pillow made of ice and sand that he had gathered and formed using magic. The ice was to cool the sand down even more, and the sand offered a bit of insulation from the ice so he could maintain contact with a cool surface.
The rest of his body was still sprawled on the dirt path, covered in dirt and dust. There was a rock poking him in the hip that had been a source of major annoyance, but he had left it alone. He couldn’t say why, but he felt like he didn’t deserve to mess with it, like he’d earned that little extra bit of discomfort.
It was a confusing feeling.
Crimson waited a bit more after his shaking had stopped, then slowly climbed to his feet. After waiting for a second, he started walking. He didn’t fall this time, but he didn’t trust himself enough to run, so his accompaniment on the long road was his own footfalls.
In the grey pre-dawn light, he finally arrived at Falst. The gates weren’t open yet, but there were a few people lined up to enter already. They’d clearly camped outside the walls, and were eager to get in.
He settled in line with the rest, and finally felt curious enough to check his [Blessing]. It was obviously reset to the state it was when he entered after every death, so he wasn’t expecting progress, it was more so out of morbid curiosity to see how many levels he’d have to earn to be able to level up again if he didn’t want to wait. The answer was bigger than even expected. 113 Levels worth of EXP.
That was likely close to as much EXP as he’d earned in his entire life. There was no reasonable way to…well, maybe he could pay it off in a week, but it would require a dungeon trip like he’d just experienced every day, just grinding enemies until the last wagon. Maybe then he’d earn enough, but it wasn’t a good use of his time.
He wasn’t planning on leveling up any time soon, so waiting out the 1 week timer was no big deal. Actually, there was a note in his logs indicating that it would be 2 weeks instead. Something about the number of deaths greatly exceeding allowable limits.
He might actually be able to pay off the debt in that time frame if he was so inclined. He considered it for a moment, frowned, then thought about it a little more.
Just in case…it would be a good idea to pay off the debt. There’s a chance that he might get in trouble in some other way for not doing so. Or he might lose other benefits. Nothing was free, and the timer seemed more like an out than the recommended option.
It would be hard, but if he spent his time hunting the higher level goblins in the manor, the Lv.9 and Lv.14 goblins then he could be efficient about it. He could also view it as practice for dealing with them for the boss. The situation wasn’t the same, but viewed positively, there should be something he could take away from it all.
That decision reached, he turned his attention to something important in his [Blessing]. He hadn’t expected the Gods to grant him any [Quests] with all his deaths.
—————
-Generating [Quest(s)]
- Catch da arrows boi!
-Requirements:
-Deflect a Ranged Projectile
-0/60
-Use an Enemy’s Ranged Projectile to Harm Another Enemy
-0/5
-Intentionally Dodge an Arrow Without Looking at the Archer
-0/1
-Reward: [Skill: Target]
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: N
-Accept?
- Against the Odds
-Requirements:
-Kill an entire group of enemies, 3 individuals or more, alone, without retreating.
-0/15
-Escape from being surrounded.
-0/10
-Survive for three continuous minutes while completely surrounded.
-0/1
-Reward: [Skill: Surmount Sense]
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: Attempt the third requirement more than 6 times.
-Accept?
-Note: The following [Quest] counts prior progress.
-Mind Numbing
-Requirements:
-Be exposed to mental interference type [Skills].
-7/20
-Resist Mental Interference.
-38/10
-Overcome Mental Interference of 5 different types.
-2/5
-Reward: [Skill: Mental Resistance]
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: N
-Accept?
-Note: The following [Quest] counts prior progress.
-Bone Deep Terror
-Requirements:
-Escape Death
-1/10
-Die
-25/10
-Reward: [Skill: Somnus]
-Time Limit: Your True Death.
-Failure Condition: Give Up.
-Accept?
—————
Clearly one of the [Quests] was from Raften. Two were either from sane gods, one other god, or were automatically generated. The last one was clearly from a god that was unhinged enough to make Raften look tame. Not that he had a reason to refuse any of them. All these [Skills] would be useful, and he could easily see [Surmount Sense] being necessary for him to beat Horrakin.
He went straight to bed after being let back into Falst. He managed to greet Fade right as his roommate woke up, and passed out without answering any of his questions. It felt like he’d need to sleep for a hundred years.