The party was well-pleased to be clear of the terrible Acidic Bath debuff. The game’s sun was starting to fall, leading to a sunset, half-lit atmosphere in the jungle. But they were freed from the tunnel.
“I feel like my character’s sense of smell is gone,” Ken complained. “All I can smell is burning acid. This is horrible.”
“Mine, too. I’m happy,” Sarah said, drawing some strange looks. Everyone else was feeling severely uncomfortable. “I can’t smell Ken anymore.”
Ken tried to tackle Sarah, as he had done to Jenny, but was completely stonewalled. Sarah’s character was much stronger and clad from toe to neck in plated armor. She flicked him on the nose, and they started bantering about who smelled worse. It was utterly nonsensical. And it was the moment things began to line up for Jay.
After all of Ken’s talk about not flirting with his sister, Jay finally realized that the other player was flirting with his. Sarah was plenty perceptive to notice the flirting, but she didn’t seem to mind, either.
Jay Miller started laughing maniacally, which drew concerned stares. He couldn’t stop. It wasn’t about stopping Ken. Jay knew Sarah could make her own decisions, and she would make good ones. But the whole thing was very ironic.
“What’d I do?” Ken asked, completely missing what Jay could easily see.
Jay wouldn’t embarrass the other player by explaining it in front of the whole party. He could talk to Ken later and needed to remember that the teenager was still young. If something really started, Ken and Sarah wouldn’t be the first people in the world to date someone they met online.
“What’s the next step?” Taylor Lynn asked once Jay had settled down somewhat from his fit of laughter. “I got a few thousand experience points for those kills, but I think the quest is a bust.”
“I actually think we might have satisfied the conditions,” Jay stated, preparing to explain himself. “We did kill several of those monsters in the tunnel. I think that’s what Olar heard when he was here. The quest didn’t autocomplete, but I think we might be done once we bring him back one of these teeth.”
He summoned one of the Charybdon teeth from his inventory to show them what he had picked up. The shower of sparks coalesced into a three-inch-long fang.
“Oh, cool,” Taylor Lynn said. “We should turn that in, but I think the question still stands. After we do, should we grind more? Start hunting down their camp? We’ve been through the full jungle; they’re obviously set up in the swamp somewhere.”
“It seems that way,” Jay confirmed. “I’m not sure. I’d expect enemies within the level 40 range, and we have Sarah’s potions to protect us from the Fear. We could always see if there are any elites in the swamp area. If we stumble upon their base, we handle it. If not, we keep grinding.”
“To be honest,” Carlos said, immediately drawing Jay’s attention. The man didn’t speak up often, so it was probable to be insightful. “I want to leave this island. I agreed to help Lester, but this running and grinding all day is putting a strain on my family. The sooner we can get this done, the better my life will be.”
“It isn’t exactly what you signed up for,” Jay admitted, thinking over the problem. Carlos had initially signed on because of Lester, whose character was now deleted. Despite that, his method of winding down after the work day was compromised. He was forced to play with Jay’s team for longer than usual and at significant risk to his character, representing an investment of time.
Jay looked to Sarah, hoping she would provide some guidance on how to navigate the tricky situation. He wanted to be as prepared as possible, but he didn’t want to make Carlos’s life harder than it needed to be.
“The best thing we have is Jay’s Survival skill,” Sarah pointed out. “We can start combing the swamp and look for tracks. It might be hard to see tracks there, but at least the boosting item will help.”
Jay heard something akin to the ground shifting. Looking around, he searched for signs of mole people. Something like a mole obviously dug the tunnel, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. Being scared of mole people was completely natural, but none appeared.
The tunnel was untouched. Nothing appeared from its depths. His eyes combed over the trees—nothing. His senses were possibly still disoriented from inhaling acid fumes, so he posed the question to his team. “Did you all hear that?”
The party responded all at once.
“Hear what?”
“Heard nothing, ya heard.”
“I can’t hear anything over Scales and Zenya wrestling around.”
“Nevermind,” Jay said, writing himself off. “Must still be off from the fumes.”
“It reminds me of the kid in my fourth-grade class who used to smell glue,” Jenny said. “It’s super not good for you.”
“At least he didn’t eat the glue,” Jay pointed out. “That would’ve been even worse. I think.”
“Yeah, totally didn’t eat it,” Ken agreed unconvincingly.
“So,” Taylor Lynn said, ruining the fun again. “The plan? Grind in the swamp until we happen upon their base?”
“I guess so,” Jay shrugged, unsure of the proper course. There were usually plenty of crocodiles to follow, but they still hadn’t bumped into any. Most days, they had been saturated through the entire forest.
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But then he heard the sound again.
The slight clattering of rocks drew his attention right back to the tunnel. The entrance seemed to have moved slightly. There was loose, disturbed rock that Jay hadn’t noticed previously. He trusted himself and knew the stones were a recent addition compared to his memory of the entrance.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked, noticing his attention drawn to the entrance.
“I think we should go,” Jay said, angling his body and walking backward. He kept the tunnel in his sight but kept it within his view. “I think the tunnel is moving. I swear it is.”
But his warning came too late.
In a shower of rock, the tunnel drew itself up into the air, revealing it to be a massive snake buried in the dirt. The monster’s skin was made of jagged rock, though chunks were flaking off. The creature rose to at least ten stories as it drew to its full height, reaching the size of many prominent buildings in Jay’s hometown.
The party had been in the immense creature’s stomach.
Chary, Level: 50 [World Boss]. Health: 133,000/133,000.
There was no way the party was capable of defeating this creature. There were only six of them, and the enemy held an immense health pool. Despite her mitigation, Jay wasn’t sure Sarah could survive a hit from the gargantuan creature.
“Run to camp!” Jay bellowed. “It shouldn’t follow us that far.”
But in truth, he was scared the creature would do precisely that. There was no way for them to defeat it. But he couldn’t resist himself—he activated Analyze on the beast. Through sheer dumb luck, the ability didn’t fail despite the level gap.
System Message: Analyze successful. Chary is a unique, ancient monster native to Mercura Island. The only such monster to survive the era of Monster Hunters, it is extremely difficult to catch. When injured, Chary will return deep below the ground to recover.
Oscil Lizards spit rocks that were easy to dodge. Chary spit huge boulders in considerable quantities, raining death from above. The creature’s mouth poured forth a cascade of huge rocks. As the party ran, they were forced to strain their eyes to spot the shadows of boulders. They did their best to avoid those spots.
The first wave of boulders crashed into the ground. Nearly everyone could dodge their boulders, but Ken wasn’t far enough away. He was caught by some shrapnel from the explosion, which cut through thirty percent of his health. Jenny helped him up, and they ran together, trying to use the trees as cover.
Chary didn’t care about the trees. The creature was so immense not even the tallest jungle tree required real effort. Ken and Jenny’s efforts to hide behind the trees were fruitless. The group scattered while trying to remain within sight lines of each other. Jenny, Carlos, and Sarah all had buffs that might save a character.
Jay heard a whistling noise coming through the air. The noise sounded to his ears like a giant arrow sailing toward him. When he heard the sound, something in him screamed for him to move. He activated his air dodge in a direction he hoped was away from the noise. His quick reaction saved his life.
The creature’s tail slammed down a dozen feet away, knocking him off his feet with the force of the impact. The blow would have crushed him. Scrambling, he dug through the grass and dirt, hauling himself back to his feet. He needed to keep running.
Jay heard the sound of the tail being dragged back toward the creature. He assumed it was readying itself for another catastrophic blow. Jay sprinted through the wilderness, keeping his awareness on the snake as much as possible. Since he was considered in combat, his movement speed outclassed the others by double.
Taking a deep breath, he took a moment to observe the situation. In a second, his eyes took in the positions of the world boss and his party members.
“Sarah, Casey!” Jay screamed, forcing his voice as loud as he could. He ignored the pain of the game, simulating the strain on his vocal cords. Blessedly, his sister knew exactly what he wanted in the face of the impending doom.
The tail’s massive bulk descended straight on Casey, slamming into her with enough force to shake the world. The shimmering curtain of golden energy cast by Sarah stopped the blow, making Casey impervious to any damage. Her health remained at one hundred percent.
Jay’s traps couldn’t change the situation. They were useless against a creature the size of Chary. He had no potions that could stand toe-to-toe with a world boss. Cuddles could maybe lure the monster away, but there was no way the squirrel would survive.
His Synthesization skill was locked down. The ability to fly might have gotten them away from the creature. However, Jay wasn’t certain how high the ability would take him. The vine shell would spit healing shards, which was irrelevant when a single strike could kill. None of it mattered, anyway, since the abilities were unavailable.
For once, Jay didn’t have any tricks.
So, all that was left to do was to run as fast as he could. Despite the absurdity, his mind fell on the gingerbread man and how he must have felt. Run, run as fast as you can.
That’s what Jay did. Glancing over his shoulder didn’t lend much aid to the others. The group was becoming so spread apart he couldn’t see everyone without stopping. The violent shaking of the ground told him that wasn’t the best strategy since Chary was still destroying the forest. Each slam could be a dead character. The alligator town was fortunate enough to be underground, but they might be experiencing falling debris.
Jay was the first to return to camp since he was so fast. He observed the remainder of the party from there.
Carlos suffered a close call when the falling tail clipped the side of him. The hit wasn’t direct but shattered his shield spell nonetheless. The Cardinal player had over a thousand health. His shield blocked several hundred more damage. Despite all that ability to take and mitigate damage, the glancing blow left him with fifty health remaining. Luckily, the attack sent him sailing in the direction of the camp. Sarah picked him up, carrying him the rest of the way on her shoulder.
The world boss wasn’t far behind, its shadows looming over everyone, when the rest of the party entered the campsite borders.
Chary looked down at them ominously. The giant world boss presented as deadly as ever. It never breached the semi-translucent, glowing camp border. When it drew to the edge, the creature slithered around it, heading back through the path of destruction it had caused toward its original tunnel.
Breathlessly, Jay wheezed, “Don’t ever let me complain about game logic again. I love game logic.”
“No kidding… Where was the forest damage that thing caused up til now? That kind of warning would have been nice. Hey, a giant snake is knocking down all the trees.” Ken rattled, exasperated. “Did we wake it up from a century-long slumber or what?”
“Must have,” Taylor Lynn confirmed. “We stole its food: us. It’s probably been subsisting on whatever crocodiles and lizards wandered too close. After all, it does have a small army of elites in its stomach. Or it did.”
Something else occurred to Jay. Returning to the campsite, he hadn’t noticed a single crocodile. Combined with the lack of crocodiles on the way to Chary and its stomach, the absence of encounters was downright disconcerting. The creatures could respawn, so they had no reason to fear the world boss. Night had definitely fallen, eliminating the nocturnal nature as a possible explanation.
Jay focused on his Survival skill, drawing on the power of Kamala’s Jungle Tracker to boost his ability to see. A stampede of webbed tracks was worn through the forest a few dozen feet away from camp. They were only visible with the added boost from the artifact. Luckily, they were unmarred by Chary’s path of destruction.
Unfortunately, the stampede was heading directly toward the nearby alligator town.