We were all just jumping from one tree another almost like monkeys. Zombies would look at us but at the same time would not be able to do anything.

"Quit looking down, Kuronto," I did not need to look at Luntra to find a note of irritation in her voice.

"Eh, okay."

"You sound really relaxed for this situation, my friend," Meqro was somewhat right in this situation. I never knew when I could fall down and have troubles with beating enhanced zombies that are actually quite tanky. And it could happen to anyone at this point.

Half an hour passed and yet we still hear the same sounds: zombies' groaning, our group jumping from a branch to branch. A sudden change happened though: what appeared to be a blood bolt almost hit Kenmo, which still made him fall down. Whatever it was, me and Meqro tried to catch Kenmo to at least decrease his fall damage. Surprisingly enough we both caught him just before he hit the ground hard. Before we could think of what to do next there was a blood bolt flying right at Meqro and dealing whopping 31 damage. We knew approximately where the enemy was so we all hid behind the nearby trees. What also felt off is lack of any zombies nearby. I mean, their concentration was decreasing as we moved further but now there were no zombies nearby.

"Apparently we've met it," said Meqro.

"Who?"

"The half-dead. You should've read the crimson moon thing."

"And considering there are no zombies nearby..."

"It must be a mini-boss."

Mini-bosses. They are generally not powerful enough to be considered separate bosses and usually appear during some events. But they are not the weakest beings either. Look down on one of those and the only thing remaining of your health bar will be a void. I myself decided to take a peek on it and saw that it was not called half-dead for nothing: one half of it was pretty much alive and the other half had some abominations on it, maybe overgrown muscles. But generally that was a creepy thing. I saw its power in long range but its melee power must be immense as well.

"Hiding from me, huh?" the voice of that thing contained no emotions. So it was a thing that could fight properly, talk and maybe even think.

"Luntra, use your spell on that thing!" shouted Meqro, revealing his approximate position.

The blood bolt it was charging did not take even a second to apparently fully charge and hit the place where Meqro's head was supposed to be. Luckily for Meqro though, the tree tanked the shot and since the spell did not count as an instrument we could just hide behind the trees. However, that did not stop the creature from shooting at where Meqro was. What confused it though was apparently Luntra's spell, which we all used as an oppening to quickly run to the creature, get our stone knives and rush to the half-dead with our elemental infusion. To make the attack more effective, Kenmo ran to the left and Meqro ran to the right. I knew that I could die if I decided to attack head-on so as I approached the enemy's vision zone, I straight up used water boost to jump upwards, which made it focus on me and gave the two some time to chop it and run away. At this point, half-dead lost sight of me as I was landing on it with water boost. I instantly jumped away because I knew that Luntra could not maintain the spell for too long.

"We can't really repeat that attack!" shouted Meqro, which once again made tree tank continuous blood bolts.

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After some time of thinking about strategy again, the blood bolts stopped shooting at all. Meqro, Kenmo and me carefully peeked to see that it could not use blood bolts again. So, everything had a mana limit. At that point I felt that I just needed to attack head-on, which did not give enough time for Kenmo or Meqro to think the entire plan over and made them just try to catch up to me. What surprised me the most, though, was the fact that I saw a bloody tear run on half-dead's cheek as it stood still and seemed to accept its fate. A couple of quick slashes with water infusion and the bloody thing appeared to vanish, unlike the person who was half covered by that thing. It appeared to be an actual girl and she even wore the same clothes as us all.

"Now that is very interesting," Meqro seemed very surprised for he did not expect an actual human being to emerge from that. "What should we do now?"

"Be extremely careful," Luntra came down to see situation for herself, "we will try to save her but be on guard at all times."

"How do we do it again?" I felt as if that was a type of a question that needs to be brought up. However, it made everyone look stupid because we had never ever treated a person in this condition. But then everyone around got the same message:

"Treating A Person In Severe Condition

The person near you is in critical condition and needs treatment. To treat someone, make sure they consume enough water, food and (if needed) certain potions for 1-24 hours (depending on severity. The person you rescue will then be considered in fine condition again and start regenerating HP. Stay aware of that person because you can't tell what they're planning!"

"What do we do now, leader?" Meqro specifically focused on pronouncing the word "leader", making Luntra realise that whatever happens will now be her choice. But that choice is a hard one: let a person die or save the person and have the chance that said person will betray you later. But she made a decision:

"We'll save her and make her owe us a huge one. Kenmo, you'll be the one monitoring her."

"Tsk, what a drag."

"Quit being lazy and useless and get to work."

"Argh, fine."

Never before have I seen Kenmo put girl's hands on his shoulders and basically walk with her while holding her by the legs.

"That will limit our mobility though..."

"We can stay here. Change of plans due to unexpected circumstances."

"What about zombies?" Kenmo was still worrying about that.

"It's a zone with mini-boss. The sun will rise by the time zombies show up," at this rate Meqro might very well overcome Luntra as a leader.

Using the entire ordeal, I had decided to check if anything new was in my inventory because I was almost sure I got a notice about me completing something. And there it was in the Quest tab:

New Hidden Quest completed! [...]

So, apparently beating the half-dead gave me a new reward. But I was still curious whether making sure the girl is alive or beating the half-dead made me complete the quest:

Exorcist

Quest: Save a person from being absorbed by the dark forces.

Reward: +2500 EXP, +100 gold, +1 Holy Water.

Bonuses: New Recipe learnt: Holy Water!