The surrounding temperature increased and the air almost choked us thanks to it. Still, Jalal and Gao kept moving toward the cornered beast. I moved to fire an arrow, but Jalal had other plans.
“Save your arrows until the last moment!”
They still had some medicine for burn wounds, but I felt that they were taking the damage lightly. They were using tattoos that increased their Spirit as well, but even so… it was annoying to worry so much about someone when you couldn’t make the decisions for them.
Still, as we kept moving, those few moments gave me another idea… I got ready for it and waited until the monster began to fly to its left side. Since its left eye was hurt, moving in the opposite direction would make it lose sight of us.
“Now!”
We launched a barrage of arrows toward the boss and the creature flapped its wings to block the attacks. After the explosions ended, the beast noticed that something was off… one of the five targets had vanished. That one was me… I had moved away from the group when the explosions happened after using a scroll with the skill camouflage and when I noticed that the beast realized that something was off, I put my plan in action. While hard to notice with eyes alone, I used Power Shot, Critical Shot, and Silent Strike as well. From the perspective of the monster, an arrow suddenly appeared in front of its eye and then pierced.
“Krawwwwwwww!”
The monster croaked in pain, but it was still flying in the air… it could do that much while it was bleeding. The others began to attack the wings of the beast, but that wouldn’t be enough. They had lost sight of me for a moment as well, and they only found me when I used my other tool… the grappling crossbow.
The bolt pierced the wing of the monster deeply, enough to make the monster flinch in the air. Before the monster could understand what had happened, I pulled the creature down with all my might, hoping that the rope wouldn’t break.
The creature was a lot lighter than I had expected… Thanks to that, it fell to the ground with ease. Everyone opened their eyes wide, but soon they charged to attack the stunned monster. Rebecca and Clarice attacked the head of the creature with arrows and Frostbolt, while Jalal and Gao attacked the wings that the monster was trying to raise to fly again. As for me, I just kept trying to move away while pulling the body of the monster and ripping apart its wing. It was quite a dreadful thing to do, but it was better than holding back and then risking those kids getting hurt.
You received 1000 experience points.
You completed a trial. Please choose between the classes: Barbarian, Sharpshooter, and Cleric (Shadow Cleric).
We blinked in surprise when we received the notification at the same time, and soon Clarice and Rebecca sighed in relief… They were covered in sweat and exhausted thanks to the tension, while Jalal and Gao began to punch the air and then high-fived each other in celebration. They soon grunted in agony since their arms suffered some damage.
As for me, I was still a bit surprised and remained like that for a while… Another suspicious version of a class showed up. It looked like the variations so far were dark or shadow ones, probably related to my vampiric side and it also looked like they only affected the magical classes. Either way, I already had made my choice.
You obtained the Sharpshooter class.
You improved the Dexterity parameter.
You unlocked the Aptitude: Master of Precision.
You unlocked the skill: Piercing Arrow.
You unlocked the skill: Deadeye Focus.
Master of Precision: As a Sharpshooter, your focus is on pinpoint accuracy and deadly strikes from a distance. You gain ten points of experience per critical hit.
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Piercing Arrow - Fire an arrow that can penetrate multiple targets in a line, dealing damage equal to your dexterity and strength combined. Each target hit after the first receives 10% less damage. Cost: 30 Stamina
Deadeye Focus: Enter a heightened state of focus, increasing your chance of critical hits by 25% for 10 seconds. Each successful critical hit extends the duration by 2 seconds. Cost: 40 Stamina
I probably would choose an alternative class if I knew that it would improve my dexterity. The variations of the skill of the Cleric class would take a while to show up as well, so it wasn’t something that I could bet that easily. Regardless, the trial was finally over and we could go home.
“You two can focus on dismantling the boss. I will help the morons.”
Rebecca declared that… I was certain that she picked the Cleric class to help those two have an easier time recovering from damage. It looked like she was satisfied with her attack power and with her new arrows.
The giant fire crow had a lot of feathers and its bones should be pretty light. We also could use the beak and claws of the creature as well… I already had some ideas on how to use them, but it will be hard to pay for the materials and buy a share of everyone’s parts.
“Phew, that was a lot more intense than I had expected. I thought that my skills were good enough when it comes to fighting monsters, but it looks like I was more than a little wrong.”
Despite saying that, Clarice looked refreshed. She said that she would return one day to create a party with people from all places, but it looked like she was really determined to become a dungeon diver or a labyrinth hunter. I could tell by looking at her eyes that she enjoyed the thrill of the battle a lot.
“It seems that you have trained a bit to become this skilled, or perhaps it is the natural talent of the Elves. It also seems that you never put your skill to a challenge like this.”
“I trained hard enough, but you do have a point. My annoying brother is a lot more skilled, but I never thought about the point of it. I can understand a bit now.”
I looked to the side and then saw Rebecca’s hands glowing and healing the hands of those two after she applied the ointment to their arms. It made sense. Burn wounds can slow down the effects of healing magic for several reasons, both magical and biological in nature.
Burn wounds cause a lot of tissue damage that goes beyond simple injuries. In severe burns, multiple layers of skin and even underlying tissues like muscles and nerves can be affected. Healing magic works by accelerating natural healing processes, but with burn wounds, the body’s structure is so compromised that the magic has to work harder to regenerate various tissues.
Burn wounds also carry a residual magical effect from the magical attack. The lingering energy from the burn could disrupt or slow the healing process until it was neutralized or dispelled. Before long, those two looked a lot better… We finished dismantling the boss, but we still would need some time to get the bones out of the parts. That could be done later… for now, we had to move.
“Good job, everyone. Clive acted out of the strategy, but all's well that ends well.”
Jalal approached and then his arm behind my neck and grinned. I couldn’t help but sigh… perhaps that was a common kinship between adventurers, but I wasn’t that used to it.
“Anyway, what kind of weapon was that? To think that you would be able to pull a monster that easily… you are stronger than you look.”
“I am just average. Anyway, let’s leave.”
Gao approached since he looked interested, too. As for the girls, they were more confused than interested. They had never seen something like that, after all. It was the kind of tool guys would like to have, so it made sense.
“All right, but this time, you will drink with us until sunrise!”
“I am not going to promise anything.”
We left the boss chamber in pretty good spirits. Those three looked pretty proud since only a couple of parties managed to reach that deep into the dungeon, after all. While they had some outside help, it was still an accomplishment.
As for me, I was already thinking about my next steps. There was one thing that I wanted to accomplish next. Albert only mentioned it once, and I didn’t find much information about it. Still, I knew that existed since something similar happened to me before… the class upgrade. Simple class upgrades happened when you had one class and picked the same in another dungeon. You usually only get the next class with a similar title and similar skills, but I wanted one that involved more than two classes.
“Geez, you are no fun. You should stop thinking about work all the time. At least take the day off.”
Clarice began to poke my cheeks while saying that. It seemed that she had forgotten the lesson about gender equality that I gave her yesterday already. I had better things to do than to poke her cheeks, but she definitely wouldn’t want me to do the same to her.
“Oh, right… don’t do things to others that you don’t want them to do to yourself… thing! Sorry.”
Yeah, she was simply too much to handle. I let out a sigh that made me realize how tired I was. We walked half of the morning and all afternoon and despite the monsters blocking our paths, we managed to reach the first section at sunset.
When we returned to the place in front of the boss chamber of the first section, I didn’t find Rowan around… he wasn’t there when we crossed the place the last time either. In the end, we camped a bit away from that area since I wanted to spend the night hunting monsters while everyone else rested.
“Clive, can we consider ourselves even if I give you my share of the boss’ parts?”
I stopped to think for a moment… that wasn’t half bad. Rebecca owed me close to six Aqua coins since I enchanted fifteen arrows for her. It was hard to say if her share would be enough, but I wanted rare materials and boss materials had a lot of potential.
“I guess we can do that.”
“You can keep my share too. I don’t need to bring any trophies back home and it isn’t like I need any new gear.”
“We have a problem, then. I hate owing favors to others.”
“You can’t force my share on my magical bag, so too bad.”
Yeah, me and Clarice will never get along. I guess it made sense that a middle-aged man like me would find kids like her very hard to deal with. In any case, Jalal and Gao decided to sell their share for me as well. Each one of them sold me their share of five Aqua coins. Hopefully, I will make a profit out of this.
At noon the next day, we left the dungeon and then breathed the fresh air outside for the first time in nine days. It was weird to see that nothing had changed while we were away. Regardless, we headed to the guild to trade the materials and mana cores for money. After that, I was dragged to the nearest tavern by those guys. It was fine. I would sneakily escape as soon as they got dead drunk…