With his eyes glued on me, the one holding Buddug’s Daze, Targaroth starts casting a spell. From the red circles forming around him, it must be the same one he used the first time we found him.
“Run!”
Everyone scatters at my command. Well, everyone but Balmy. As much as she struggles to get free, I grab her by one leg and pull her with me.
It’s not that I want her to die with me, no, although I wouldn’t mind sacrificing her for the ‘greater good’. I grab her because I haven’t heard her report yet.
Hiding between the rocks, I pull her close to my face.
“Did you see anything we need to be wary of?”
She crosses her arms, angry. “Will you let me go, first?”
“No. I don’t want to lose you while running.” Or that you run away. I wouldn’t be surprised if she suddenly flew to the other side of the cave just to avoid the incoming attack. Of course, I don’t say the latter part out loud.
“...fine. There’s nothing. Not that I could find, at least. The only thing that caught my attention was near the lava waterfall. When I tried to get close, the lava burst at a high pressure and swept me away… I thought I was going to die…” She pouts.
“I see…”
Then it means we don’t have to worry. Whatever it is that she found, it’s too far away. I don’t think it’s a danger to us.
Not that we could do anything if it were, because it’s now protected by the increased flow of the lava waterfall.
*Fwooosh!*
Lots of fire bolts appear and start flying everywhere. Like red snakes, they turn and search for us, chasing Moo, Muribelle, and me. I don’t know if they have autotargeting or not, but one thing is clear: they don’t chase after the closest player. Some of them pass near Calaban’s party hiding place, ignoring them.
Explosions soon follow, as they hit the ground, ceiling, and walls. Lucky for us, it’s easier to avoid them now that we’re in a wide space with lots of cover than when we were in the straight tunnel.
The ground shakes with the consecutive blasts. All I can see and hear are red flashes and explosions everywhere.
I do my best to avoid the ones coming at me, avoiding at the last moment or hiding behind cover, but some manage to hit me. In the middle, I throw Balmy as far away as possible from me, diverting a few of the fire bolts chasing us. This way, we’ll both take less damage.
“Kyaaaaah! Don’t throw me like that, you brute!”
Let’s ignore that shout.
When the last fire bolts are extinguished, I realize my HP has fallen by more than 10%. To think all this was from a single skill…
“Woaah… I want to know what skill this is…” I hear Muribelle’s voice from afar. “Maybe I can ask him…”
No, stop! Don’t fall to the demon’s temptation!
But I don’t have time to change her mind. A shiver runs down my spine. I immediately jump to the side, feeling something split the air next to my skin.
*Bam!*
When look back, there’s a large stone axe embedded into the ground. An axe with a blade as big as I am.
…I don’t want to know what would have happened if I didn’t avoid it on time.
“Hoh, you avoided that.” A masculine voice reaches my ears. “Are you good, or lucky? Let’s try it out again. Hahaha!” Targaroth smiles wickedly, licking his lips.
Fuck! I’m not into that kind of stuff! If you want to ‘play’ and ‘hurt’ somebody, go find Moo instead of me!
It makes sense he wants to deal with me first since I’m the one with the item he’s wary of. But this doesn’t mean I want to play with him too.
Targaroth opens his wings and flies at me. But then, the ground below him erupts, sending several projectiles of molten rock into the air. Most of those molten fragments land on him, who’s flying right above.
“Nice job, Muribelle!”
“Yeah, eat this! Nobody can beat me when it comes to fire skills! Hahahaha!”
Usually, Eruption is hard to land, because the projectiles are thrown at random. But if it just happens that the enemy is flying and you properly predict its path, detonating it right below them, you can make them eat most of the projectiles.
Targaroth loses control and lands on the ground. Moo takes this chance to run at him. He uses Shockwave to disorient it even further, followed by a brutal charge.
“Moooooo! I want to partake tooooooooo!”
The poor Calamity’s body is sent flying, slamming into one of the walls. He’s so unlucky that he lands on the rising lava.
“Hahaha, he fell for his own trap!” Balmy starts laughing. “Are you sure he’s a pro player?”
“Hmm…” A beam of light of multiple colors leaves my hand and hits him on the back. “It’s true… it’s weird that a pro player would fall like that…”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
If I compare him to my sister, he isn’t worthy of being a pro player. But I have a bad feeling about this… Like we’re missing something.
Targaroth stands up from the lava without any hurry. He’s covered by red flames which I immediately recognize because it’s one of Muribelle’s skills: Ignite. But as far as I know, she didn’t use it during this fight…
…no way! Did he use it on himself!?
I inspect Targaroth’s body and notice a black and red aura starting to grow over his body. “N-no. No way…” I stagger. “He’s been playing with us…”
Leave it to a demon player to play with their victims before ‘eating’ them. Or in this case, deleting them with sheer raw power.
“Hahahaha!” He smiles when he hears me. “So you’ve noticed. Took you a while.” Slowly but steadily, he starts walking in our direction, not minding at all that he’s taking damage from the lava.
Muribelle, Moo, and Balmy go near me, taking their usual positions. They look at me, not understanding what’s going on.
“Why is he laughing? Did he go crazy? Did he hit his head too hard?” Balmy says.
“Everyone.” I gulp. “Don’t use any damage over time effect on him. And avoid multihits if possible. He’s got the Wrath innate skill.”
“Wrath…?” She tilts her head to the side, intending to look cute. But to me, she just looks dumb.
Wrath (Innate triggered skill) When you take damage, increase all the damage you deal by 0,5%. This skill can stack and the buff lasts until combat ends.
“He has allowed us to land our hits on purpose,” I explain. “He has been building up his damage while we were unaware of his skill. Now that this black and red aura is visible, it means he has increased the damage bonus to at least 20%.”
Haa… why are all the skills from the demons so obnoxious? Even if you know about them, they’re equally terrifying.
Targaroth grins at us. “Shall we start round two? This was a nice warm-up.”
This time, he doesn’t even bother stepping away from the rising lava, which has already covered a quarter of the cavern floor. He might not use his wings from now on, unless he needs the extra mobility, because as long as he stays inside, his damage will keep increasing infinitely. At the same time, the lava will work as a barrier against us.
The problem is that even with all our hits, the constant damage from the lava, and his own Ignite, his HP hasn’t fallen under 80%. His HP bar is almost as full as mine!
“Mister rat-headed humanoid. What do you say? Shall we start round two? I don’t mind waiting for a bit if you need to talk between yourselves.” His nasty grin makes me want to vomit. “You know, here, there’s a pretty nice and warm bath. I don’t mind relaxing inside for a while. Hahahaha!”
I’m starting to doubt if we can beat him.
I know we can do it. The problem is… that we might not survive long enough for our plan to work.
For the third time today, red magic circles appear all around Targaroth. Another volley of fire snakes is incoming.
----------------------------------------
A bunch of red snakes appear from the Calamity, and Koala and his team scatter and run around, doing their best to avoid them.
“Calaban. What do you think?” Thunder Thighs whispers next to my ear. “Shall we stay or try to escape? It seems like they’re struggling.”
“Eh? Ah…” I snap out of my thoughts. I was too focused on Koala and his team. “Uh… What do you think?”
“Me?” She asks, pointing at herself. “I want to see this through. I want to know more about the secret lore behind this Mystery Event. But I don’t want to forcefully drag you all with me.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t look like Koala’s team can buy us enough time.”
She’s right… If we stay here, we might die without being able to fight back. But I can’t make this decision by myself.
I walk closer to Navigator and Warpoke, who are busy setting our ace card.
“What about you two? Do you want to stay or leave?”
“Hmph.” Navigator grunts, crossing his arms. “I don’t mind. We’ve already cleared our objective, I don’t mind risking it to get extra points and maybe clear the secret mission.”
He then shuts up and shows no signs of walking to say anything more. As usual, a man of few words.
“I-I want to stay.” Stutters Warpoke. “I believe in the Evil Mastermind’s plans. The other players wouldn’t call him like that if his plans failed. What about you, Calaban?”
I nod.
The Evil Mastermind. Or as he wants to be called: Koala. He… he’s an interesting guy. And his plans are… reckless, for lack of a better word. We’ve been cooperating for about half the Mystery Event and he never fails to surprise.
I didn’t believe Warpoke at the start, but he insisted on following his crazy plans. Plans that are so intricate and look so random, that you would say they’re a joke. But they, somehow, end up working.
He’s unpredictable. He changes the way he speaks and acts depending on the situation. But at the same time, he rarely misses anything, though he feigns to do so quite a lot.
“I… I want to stay too.” I finally say. “I want to see if he’s as good as everyone says. Maybe he’ll carry us to the end of this Mystery Event.”
I turn to look at Koala and his party. They’re struggling to stay alive. They spend most of the time running away or evading attacks, while the Calamity relentlessly chases after Koala. One must say it’s because he’s the one holding the item that can stun him for ten seconds, but, after seeing his behavior, anyone would understand that isn’t the only reason.
“Fufufu! Hahaha! Are you looking for this?” Koala takes out Buddug’s Daze out of his pocket. “You’re going to try harder!” He waves it around, and the Calamity flinches. “Oh, wait. Are you scared of it? Are you going to cry? Buaaah, buaaah. I’m a pro player, but I’m scared of a random nobody…”
The Calamity, enraged, charges at him at an astonishing speed. But Koala somehow manages to avoid him. He turns around, sticks his tongue out, and provocatively moves his body, taunting the Calamity.
“Ooh! Nice try! Let’s play catch! Let’s see if you can catch me! Fufufu! Hahahaha!”
I’m not sure if he’s like that or if it’s all roleplaying, but one thing is for sure. He sure knows how to get someone’s aggro.
More fire snakes appear from the Calamity, forcing him to run away at top speed.
Still, I’m surprised he can keep up with the Calamity. Any normal player would struggle against his sharp and tenacious attacks. I would have died a long time ago in his position.
“We’re finished here.”
Warpoke interrupts my thoughts.
“Nice. Let’s move on to the next point as quickly as possible. And make sure the Calamity doesn’t spot you.”
The only problem that remains is the inexorably rising lava level. We didn’t take it into account when making the plan. We must make haste before it’s too late.
image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“This game has more stuff than one might expect. Even expert players will find or discover something new now and then. From skills you didn’t know existed, to new monsters, to synergies you never thought possible, to faction mechanics you never heard of. Never think you know everything or that nothing can surprise you.”
- Excerpt of an interview with a random DMA player.