After about a week, I realized that I had reached my limit in setting records. Where I could, I had already set them. Where I couldn't... Where I couldn't, the results I was achieving were too far from the best. Moreover, there were many dungeons I could not pass alone. The monsters there literally trampled me into the ground, swarming all over me. And even a pet's ten million health wasn't enough to survive. After all, these were dungeons designed for a group of 25 people.
Then one ''beautiful day'' I walked out of another dungeon, annoyed at my failure. It was my second attempt in a row, and the second time was only a few seconds longer than the record time.
“Big Brother Cheater, I see that you're trying to set a record here?” - I heard a player's voice.
When I turned around, I saw a demonologist surrounded by a pack of pets, and he bowed to me respectfully. He was a member of the Burning Foundations Clan guild. Nearby stood a throng of players from the same guild, who looked warily at me. From time to time I destroyed any players who were unlucky enough to see me, so people tried not to approach me without necessity.
“Yes, I'm trying to.” - I answered.
Actually, I had nothing to hide. The dungeon was considered a no man's land, and too far away for any of the stronger guilds to have sent their best forces here to try to kill me. They stopped sending all sorts of morons after me after I'd slaughtered a couple of dozens of those rabble-rousers.
“I see that Big Brother Cheater is one step away from setting the new record, and I'd like to offer my help. If you will agree to lead our raid, we can certainly set the record. As for our interest, even just getting through this dungeon would be a boon to us.”
Hmm, somehow the sycophant was right. If I was the leader of the raid, I would get the record bonus. At the same time, for normal players, the value of this dungeon was not in the loot from the bosses, but in completing the quest in the quest chain. It wasn't hard for me to pass it alone. However, the level 12 players in front of me needed to group together in order to just not die in the process.
Admittedly, I doubted that adding this ballast under my command could improve the outcome rather than make it worse. After all, I would still be the main force, and the others would be, at best, a moral support group.
“Are you so sure that with your help I can set a record?” - I asked.
“Of course! Despite the fact that we do not yet have players of the thirteenth level, we are professionals. Our cohesion and teamwork always lead us to victory.”
I was not impressed by all these sweet speeches, but the players next to me all 'blazed up' with fighting spirit. Heh, like children. What a naive people here.
“Good.” - I nodded. – “But if we can't set the record, I'll kill you all.”
It wasn't a threat; it was a statement of fact. I was strong enough to crush this raid into bloody mincemeat without the slightest effort.
“Big Brother is cruel but fair.” - Flaming Justice shook his head.
Damn, I noticed his name too late. If I'd read it at the beginning of the conversation, I would have cut out this whole raid right away. How could anyone take a name like that? Where is there any justice in this world at all? Who has ever seen it? But since I agreed, it's worth waiting until we get through the dungeon. Then I can, with a clear conscience, establish flaming justice by incinerating this nest of vice into hell.
I received an invitation to a raid. There were now fifteen people in it with me, which was considered the minimum recommended number for this dungeon. I could see why that prick had decided to invite me, and had even agreed to my condition. Without my help, they would have been almost hundred percent likely to fail on the final boss.
“So, the technique of passing through the dungeon will be simple.” - I began instructing the unexpected minions. – “We immediately rush forward along the main passageway, cleaning up any enemies we encounter. We get to the first boss, I quickly kill him, then we run even faster to the second boss. If you stop, you'll be overrun by the crowd of monsters we ran past in the beginning. I'll take down the second boss as well, and at this point you should already be standing near the opening gates to the third part of the dungeon. I'll hold off the monsters for a bit, then I'll catch up with you, and together we'll start beating the final boss while clearing those monsters that will be running towards us from the whole dungeon. I'll take the boss, and you'll have to deal with the little monsters.”
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Little monsters are the usual elite monsters?” - One of the players asked me in a trembling voice.
He was a priest, and he knew better than anyone what would happen when a raid was attacked by not just one elite monster, but by a whole crowd. I might not even have to kill anyone myself, but they'd all die on their own. After all, the standard tactics weren't good enough to set a record.
“Exactly.”
After these words, the healer looked at me with bulging eyes, but said nothing. He sighed heavily and walked back to the company of three other healers, with whom he began to discuss my insane tactics. It was only crazy in their eyes, however, but that' s how the strongest guilds set records.
All dungeons were divided into two categories. In one, you had to kill every single monster to pass, but they all rushed to the rescue when the main boss attacked. The second category dungeons required killing only the final boss, and no one went to his rescue. In these dungeons, the main 'profit' was obtained by farming the usual monsters and side bosses, and setting a record meant a loss of money and resources. After all, most dungeons had a one-day attendance limit.
“Let's go in.” - I gave the order and headed toward the dungeon, figuring out my role as raid leader. The first thing I was interested in was the distribution of loot. As long as I was going to carry the whole guild, all the loot would be mine.
I routinely steered my scolopendra toward the dungeon entrance. When the regular players saw my 'pet,' they jumped back in horror to avoid being trampled by it. I looked at the mere mortals as if they were the dirt underfoot that they actually were. To my Fox, all of the players around me were one bite at a time. If I had been in this game for fun, I would have behaved more simply, organized a group of friends, fought for 'power' with other guilds. But I was fighting for the survival of my soul, so I had no time or inclination to get distracted by trivialities. So now my behavior was the standard of an arrogant, bourgeois. However, people around me did not expect anything else from me, because they would behave the same way themselves in a similar situation. Eh, to live with wolves means to howl like wolves.
Surprisingly, as we began our run through the dungeon, the difference between going it alone and as part of a raid became immediately apparent. As we moved forward, I grew some Angry Blackthorn bushes around me, which were supposed to reduce my enemies' health at least somewhat. But now the extra damage from players wasn't just reducing life, it was managing to kill enemies. Plus, the monsters were attacking the players first, not my 'flowers,' so there was enough damage coming in to kill them in just a few seconds.
But none of that really mattered, because those monsters wouldn't live to see their first boss anyway. I kept spreading my mushrooms around, and they'd hang poison for five minutes. So by the time I usually reached the boss, the monsters that came my way would be dead.
Because the speed of the players was slower than my scolopendra, I had to slow down, which was a disadvantage to being able to set a record. But it was too early to say that I wasn't going to succeed.
When I got to the boss room, I immediately set the Fox on him and started attacking the monsters that were crawling out of the doors. In between planting mushrooms, I still had to heal other players who couldn't be healed by the regular healers. The boss only lasted thirty seconds, after which our whole crowd ran forward again, ignoring the monsters still running out of the passageways. A few seconds later, I saw a future in which the enemies were able to stop and kill three of our mages who were running last. I immediately turned around, reached the rearguard, and launched a Wave of Cold, which froze the nearest monsters and blocked the path of the others.
“Faster, faster, don't stop.” - I shouted, getting back to the head of our procession.
The second boss we beat together, because I had sealed the only entrance to the hall with ice. Within 10 seconds, while the ice melted, our raid had chopped the boss up, and we rushed forward accompanied by a furious howl of monsters. When I flew into the hall of the final boss, I immediately attacked it, remembering to heal my allies and grow new bushes to replace those that had been destroyed.
“Come on, all together! We can do it!!!” - Shouted Flaming Justice, encouraging his comrades, who stood against the endless stream of elite monsters that they had previously only risked to beat one at a time.
But I didn't share his optimism, because we were already running out of time to meet the requirements of the record. So while I didn't stop attacking enemies, I was already mentally assessing which ones in the raid I would kill first, and which ones I could leave as an appetizer.
Finally, the boss died, the flow of monsters dried up, and I received a notification that a record had been set. This message surprised me a lot, because we were fifteen seconds late. I immediately psionically began to read the data on our journey and found out the reason for this 'anomaly'. It turns out that the game AI considered the presence of allies not as a help, but as an additional 'handicap'. After all, none of my subordinates died during the entire walkthrough. In fact, I not only cleared the entire dungeon on my own, but also 'dragged the whole raid on my back'. So this ''feat'' was the reason for crediting me additional rating points, on the basis of which the owner of the record was determined.