“This is it. What do you think of my plan?”

“Hmm…”

As I ponder Andreu’s plan, I watch his teammate, the fairy player, tilting her head and dead eyes. She’s sitting on top of his head. I don’t mind if she acts like this, sticking to Andreu all the time, because she’s too childish. There’s no way anything would happen between them.

“I was the one who told you there was a high chance that the golems would explode upon death, but… aren’t you taking it for granted? What if they don’t?”

“That’s why my plan is so great! When the players start paying attention to us, it’ll be easier to make them focus fire on the crystal, even if the golems don’t explode.”

“Hmm…”

With a finger over my lips and a seductive smile, I start analyzing his plan once again.

It could work. This might be the craziest plan he has thought of so far, but there’s a small chance it’ll work. If I take into account that if we do nothing, we’re guaranteed to fail, it’s worth taking the risk.

But there’s a huge hurdle we must overcome, something I’m sure he didn’t take into account.

“What will we do if that lady knight opposes you and convinces the players to do something else?” I say, pointing at the woman who’s trying to coordinate the players fighting the single awakened golem.

“Uh, what…?” Andreu makes a surprised face. “Why would she do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because she’s the only one who has been trying to put some order in this chaos? I’m sure she’d love to watch you barge in and break whatever plan she’s trying to put into motion.”

“Oh, that…” He waves his hand as if to shoo away the thought. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll manage somehow…”

I raise one eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, yeah... It’ll work, somehow. It always does... Hahaha…”

If he’s so sure, why is his voice faltering? Why are his eyes spinning in circles? He doesn’t look too convincing, but I don’t care. Regardless of the outcome, I’ll be sure to nag him about how reckless he was… and cheer him up if he fails. I’m looking forward to it.

After making him wait for a while, I nod to end his suffering. “...alright, do whatever you want. I’ll believe in you.”

“Nice! Hey, everyone! We’re stepping forward!”

He doesn’t waste any time before rounding up the rest of his teammates. Ah, how much I wish I was paired with him… I wonder what crazy stuff he went through. I wanted to stay by his side and help him where he fell short.

While Andreu explains the plan to the rest of his teammates, I start making adjustments to it. I’ll do my best to help where I can.

----------------------------------------

Nothing’s going as I want. Damn Bargrum and Iyrandar… they’re worse than cats and dogs; whenever they meet, they start fighting!

If they’re alone, they perform perfectly as guild leaders, so why can’t they keep their shit together when they meet each other? Why is it always me who has to mediate between them and take over their duties?

“I’m tired of this…” I shake my head. “I’m not suited for this responsibility…”

“What are you saying, lady Hyrja! You’re the most beautiful flower with the sharpest sword! It’s evident you had to be the one to take over the leader position!”

“...stop, Morg. I’m not in the mood for this.”

“But…” He tries to retort, but I glare at him. “Fine.”

My squire is a little bit too excited about serving me. Like the damn dwarf and elf, he’s a bit too much into his roleplay. From bootlicking to excessive compliments to overprotectiveness, he takes it a bit too far.

“How’s the situation over there?”

In the direction I’m pointing, more than half of the players are trying to take down the three golems. They’re the same size as the one we’re currently fighting, so there’s a high chance they’re as strong as this one. Four final-boss-level monsters… the devs have gone too far with this event.

“Well… The fools who dared disobey your orders–”

“Go to the point, Morg,” I interrupt him.

“... they have been fighting hard to slay the golems. They dismantled one. The other two are starting to move and will soon join the fight.”

I groan. “We’ve been too slow. We should have focussed on a single thing.”

With an indignant look in his eyes, Morg starts complaining. “It’s their fault! If they had followed your orders from the start, nothing of this would have happened! This is why…”

Leaving Morg’s long explanation as background noise, I observe the battlefield. The first golem, who we’ve been fighting all along, has no more than 20% of its HP left. But I can see two more similar figures standing up in the distance.

“...that’s why I say we must instill respect on those noobs who…”

“Morg,” I cut him, “go find Bargrum and Iyrandar and bring them to me. Drag them by their ears if needed.”

“Alright!” He leaves, happy to comply, and runs towards the dwarf and the elf who are competing for who kills more monsters.

Nobody cares who wins your stupid competition! Just snap out of it and do your job! “Now isn’t the time to argue. We must-” I stop talking because a meteor appears from the fog, dropping from above. “Who’s the idiot who did this!? Evacuate the area! Everyone, run!”

The area affected by the Meteor spell is so huge that half the boss room will be affected. Thanks to my shout, a chain reaction starts with the closer players. They look up, realize what’s going on, and start running from the impact area. Then, the nearby players follow the same steps and soon, most of the players are running away.

Before the two golems started to create mayhem, I wanted to set everyone’s positions, but now it’s impossible.

Fighting more than one boss at the same time doesn’t necessarily make the fight more difficult. As long as you know their patterns, a good team can set up a good formation and protect and attack at the same time. But now that everyone is scattering to avoid the meteor, it’ll be impossible.

“Run to the edges of the dome but don’t enter the fog! The meteor won’t hit you there!” I shout.

Meteor isn’t a lethal spell. The damage it deals isn’t something to scoff at, but it won’t kill any player of the same level as the caster. This doesn’t make it any less dangerous, though. The sheer size of its impact area makes it a very powerful spell against hordes of enemies.

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I never wanted to be the guild leader. I liked being the second-in-command more. Why can’t anything go my way…? Sigh.

Following my own advice, I too move to the edge of the dome. The players run as if possessed, ignoring everything around them. The boss chases after the running players, but it’s slower than them, and the other two golems are still waking up and don’t move away. They’ll all suffer damage from the spell.

The explosion created by the meteor makes the ground tremble. The loud explosion sound is followed by the unusual clinging of breaking glass. The visual effects prevent me from seeing anything, so I don’t know what made it.

When the dust clears up, a player laughing on top of the collapsing dark crystal gets everyone’s attention. As he cackles maniacally, the crystal starts repairing itself.

“Fufufu! Hahaha! Good job surviving that, everyone!” The players throw swears and insults at him, but he doesn’t care. “Ooh, thank you for your cheers! Now, if you wouldn’t mind, can you all attack this golem to finish it off?” The player points at the first golem, the one we’ve been fighting all along. After the Meteor struck it, its HP has finally fallen below the 10% mark. “You see, our team has run out of MP and can’t finish the job–”

Before he can finish, the three golems throw a coordinated laser attack at him. But before they hit, a barrier blocks them. It’s then that I notice a few more players standing around him. He’s so loud that they went unnoticed.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…!” He shakes his finger to taunt the golems. “Did you expect we’d take the Meteor head-on? We’re prepared for this! Hahaha!”

The only thing affected by the golem’s attacks is the giant crystal they’re standing on. Every time one of their lasers, flamethrowers, or fists lands on the players, the crystal breaks and starts regenerating.

Some players do follow his instructions and start attacking the wounded golem. Though I’m not sure if they do so because he instructed them or because they’re aiming at him at the same time.

“Who does he think he is, to disturb the raid like this…” Anger wells up from within me. “Everyone, stop! Don’t help them! We’ll let them die and restart the raid–”

“Don’t interfere.”

I turn around at the voice coming from behind. There shouldn’t be anything behind me, just the black fog. When I do, I find someone blending inside the fog, barely visible. The single element standing out of the darkness is her halo.

“Don’t interfere,” repeats the same familiar voice.

“Y-you’re… What are you doing here, s-sempai–”

The shadow in front of me suddenly disappears. At the same time, I feel something hard on my neck, sticking between the chestplate and the helmet.

“Shht! Didn’t I tell you to never call me like that again? Assist him if possible, he might save you all.”

“Save us, what do you mean…?” I turn around to face the speaker, but I find nobody. She vanished as quickly as she appeared.

Her voice reaches me from inside the fog, slowly fading away. “I wasn’t here, and I didn’t tell you anything, okay?”

“Wait…!”

By the time I react, it’s too late and she has completely disappeared.

“Lady Hyrja, I brought them with me! What are your orders? And who were you talking to?”

“N-nothing. It’s nothing.” I shake my head, observing Morg and the two guild leaders he brought with him. They’re glaring at each other with their arms crossed.

So she came to warn me. That we shouldn’t stop that player from doing whatever he pleases, and that I should instead assist him. She’s always right, so I’ll do as she says.

I point at the players on top of the crystal that’s slowly getting shredded by the coordinated assault of the golems and the players.

“We’ll use them as bait. If they’re trying so hard to get the golem’s aggro, we’ll use this to our advantage,” I say, glaring at the dwarf and the elf. “And you’ll assist me in this. I don’t care if you hate each other, now you’ll follow my orders, understood?”

It’s time someone takes the reins.

----------------------------------------

The crystal below our feet starts collapsing.

“Shit, shit, shit! My plan is falling apart!” I scream. “This shouldn’t be happening yet!”

“What are you saying, Koala!? We did everything as you ordered!” Screams Balmy from the top of my head.

“Shut up, Balmy!”

“No, you shut up, Koala! Kyaaaaah!”

Nice, job, me. Why couldn’t I shut up before it was too late? Now not only is my plan falling apart, and I do mean it literally, but my eardrums also hurt.

Where? Where did my plan start to fail?

Was it when we found too much resistance getting to the central crystal? Except for Muribelle, who had to use Meteor, we spent almost all our MP and EP just to get here. But no, this was within my calculations.

The meteor hitting the three bosses and getting their aggro was also part of the plan, so it wasn’t it.

Was it that Calaban’s last resort, the upgraded Aegis, failed? No, although its effect has ended already, it did protect us from the Meteor, from the golem’s following assault, and from the player’s barrage for long enough.

Then, is it because of the players? I must admit I didn’t expect them to get so angry at the fact that they were almost all blown up by Muribelle’s Meteor. Furthermore, there are a few of them who we ‘accidentally’ hit with our previous attacks and might have wanted revenge. But still, this was within my calculations too.

No, no, no. Nothing of the above matters.

The only thing that matters is that the black crystal that seemed impossible to destroy was too fucking weak!

How? Why!?

Who could have expected it to break so easily? It just took one meteor, the concentrated attacks of three boss monsters, as well as the barrage from a hundred players to take it down! Can’t you see this is ridiculous? Why isn’t it notwithstanding everything as it should? Why didn’t the developers predict such an outcome? And worst of all, why did it break after taking such meager attacks!?

The plan was to make a golem blow up right next to the crystal. Why did the crystal break before the golem died? It makes no sense!

“Shit, shit, shit…!” Do I sound like a broken record? I don’t care if I do, that’s why.

The crystal collapses, broken beyond repair, and we start falling to the ground with it. As we fall, surrounded by the falling debris and crystals that once formed the giant crystal, I read again and again the window that just popped up in front of me.

So, if we have achieved our objective, why am I complaining so much? Well, it’s because my whole plan is useless if the purpose of my plan isn’t achieved.

Just read this message.

Congratulations! You’ve achieved the impossible and destroyed ???? before it could…

No, not that one. This one.

Urgent Mission: Survive! Escape the area before everything blows up. If you die now, you won’t obtain any points for completing the secret mission. Good luck!

Ah, by the way. The thing that’s about to ‘blow up’ that is mentioned in the message is the three golems… which just happen to be surrounding us. They stopped moving as soon as the crystal stopped regenerating, and are now about to explode.

Have you ever seen a golem about to blow up after being defeated in any game? Well, they look like that.

Do you understand it now? Do you understand my frustration? My plan worked perfectly, or was supposed to, but we find ourselves in such a predicament.

And ‘good luck’!? Good luck my ass! Who wrote this? Who designed this bullshit!? I demand compensation!

Everyone ran away from the meteor. Even those players who couldn’t escape on time, are now on the edges of the dome. As soon as this message pops up, they start running into the fog, not caring about how many players died or got lost when we came here, just to survive.

We’re the only ones who can’t run away. And if we want to get any reward for clearing the final mission, we have to survive… somehow. I can’t see how, though.

Isn’t it ironic? We’re the ones who got the job done, but we’re also the only ones who are about to die and lose our reward.

“Hey, tell me, Calaban,” I ask as a last resort, “can’t you use Aegis another time?”

He shakes his head, “No, that was the last…”

Balmy starts poking my ear. “Hehe, are you mad, Koala? I’m sure you’re mad that your plan was a mess.”

“FUUUUCK! This isn’t funny!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

It never feels good to be on the other side. Andreu learned this the hard way that day.

Did he change his way of doing things, after realizing how awful it feels? If you consider that doubling up on everything he did, to inflict the maximum despair on his invaders, is part of the learning experience… Then yes. He learned it properly.