When Maria smashed into the mutated cockatrice with her [Calamity Cleave], a large black explosion ensued as the velocity she slammed into the monster had almost gone past the speed of sound. The large monster was stunned and thrown back, but before it could go far, Maria tied it up with her chains and lifted it into the air before slamming it back into the ground.
“SHREEEE!!!”
The mutated cockatrice screeched in pain and Maria didn't let this opening go to waste. She flew up and slammed into the monster again before she started slashing away at it with her claws manically. She pulled her Calamity over to her and started attacking with it. Once the stun wore off, the cockatrice twisted its body and shook her off before spinning around and sending her flying with its tail.
Maria flipped in the air and landed on her feat before smiling at the monster, "Haha, that's it! Let's have some fun!"
She jumped towards the mutated monster and reengaged. She didn’t use any of her magic spells since its power was weakened while in her Nightmare form, so she relied on her physical attack skills using only her Calamity and chains. Of course, the 25 percent penalty in INT wasn’t anything to Maria’s large stat number compared to others, but she was going to keep her spells in reserve. She still had to worry about the players in the area.
Instead of trying to jump in, they just watched Maria in shock because she was actually holding her ground against the cockatrice boss monster who they assumed was the field boss.
“H-Holy shit! Who is this chick?!”
“Is she trying to steal the boss?”
“Steal the boss? She’s soloing it right now!”
“...Damn.”
One of the players tried inspecting Maria, but their skill was blocked, so they couldn't get any information from her.
“Everything's completely hidden!”
“Damn, just how high is her level?!”
“This is crazy, how is she able to fight that level 165 boss?”
“Let’s just wait first. If she thinks she can solo this boss without us interfering, then she’s completely out of her mind.”
"Guys, is this even a player?! Only an NPC would be able to do this! And think about it, this monster just suddenly spawned in a moment ago out of thin air! This has got to be some kind of NPC event! Maybe if we help her, we'll get some kind of quest?"
"...You could be right, but let's wait. We don't know what'll happen if we recklessly jump in and look...that Black Orc-like thing over there is keeping watch. I don't think that NPC wants us to interfere..."
With the Black Orc acting as a guard and the minds of the players holding them back thinking that this was some sort of game event, they didn't immediately jump in to attack the monster. They wanted to wait and see what was going to happen and where things would develop. If this was some kind of random event that they found, it could lead to a quest and everyone present wanted in on that.
For now, it was safe to say that they weren't going to join the battle and since they weren't, the cockatrice’s stats weren’t multiplied yet so Maria was still able to toss the monster around like a punching bag even when it tried to retaliate. Maria kept a close eye on both the monster and the players in the surrounding so she was actually pulling her punches when attacking the monster. She didn’t want to overdo it since it could cause the players to take action against her instead of the cockatrice when they see that she could actually solo it.
Maria suddenly came up with a plan after seeing that in her Nightmare form, she was actually able to toss the monster around with her strength.
“Let’s move battlefields, shall we? [Haste], [Enfeeble], [Decrepify].”
Maria cast [Haste] on herself and her puppet, the Black Orc, while casting [Enfeeble] and [Decrepify] on the cockatrice. As a reminder, [Enfeeble] was the legacy skill she acquired after defeating the Sin Devil, Envy, and it had the effect of lowering her target’s ATK and M.ATK while [Decrepify] was the skill she obtained from defeating the Sin Devil, Lust, and its effects were lowering her target’s DEF and M.DEF. These 4 stats were tied to the monster's 3 basic attributes of STR, VIT, and INT. Since they were lowered, this made things easier for Maria who wanted to change battlefields.
With the monster’s basic stats weakened, Maria began pulling and smashing it away from the battlefield with her pure strength without having to worry too much about the cockatrice’s attacks. She thought that it was better to just move away from here than to constantly have to worry about the players eventually interfering in her fight. Even if they tried to catch up to her, all she needed to do was lead them on a wild goose chase as she slowly whittled away the monster’s health bar. With her new puppetry skill, she could also just conjure a few obstacles for the players if they came a little too close to her and the monster.
Once the monster was defeated, she just needed to take the dropped items before escaping with her flying speed that was now approaching the speed of sound thanks to her Nightmare form. No one would be able to catch up to her and since her status screen was hidden while in her Nightmare form, she wouldn't have to worry about the consequences for making enemies with the players. It was definitely going to be a hassle fighting like this, but it was better than to constantly have to worry about the other players jumping in and ruining her hunt. Maria still needed the players though since they were her batteries and she needed them to provide her with some of their HP and MP while she battled the mutated boss monster alone.
“Hey, she’s trying to run away with the monster!” One of the players immediately exclaimed and pointed.
The others didn’t need him to say that as they already knew once they saw her flinging the monster high into the air and kicking it further away from their present location.
“Follow after her! If she's an NPC, we can't lose her or we might miss something!”
"I don't think an NPC would do this though!"
"If she's a player, then we still have to follow her! We can't let her monopolize the boss monster's drops! We were here first!"
“Ahhh, we should have just acted earlier then!”
Maria looked down at the players before laughing at them, “Hahahaha.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
She then turned her attention back to the boss monster and left behind a sonic boom before slamming into the monster once again with her Calamity.
"KREEEE!!!
The monster howled in pain as Maria lacerated its abdomen regions and ran her ax through its stomach. She was able to lodge her axe's blade into the monster and quickly pushed it farther and farther away from the field below and into the forest nearby. Once she felt that she was far away, Maria used her [Arc Swing] and sent it even higher into the air before wrapping her chain around it and descending to the ground. She pulled the monster down with her and smashed it into the earth, crushing a few trees nearby.
When the players saw her disappear into the forest, they all started cursing and quickly chased after her.
“Dammit!”
“Get back here!”
"That seriously isn't the behavior of an NPC! That's obviously a player!"
"Yeah, no shit sherlock! Shut your mouth and just go after her!"
"Jeez, you don't have to be so mean!"
This game of cat and mouse went on for a long time. Maria continued to lower the mutated cockatrice boss’s HP until its health bar fell below 10 percent. There were many close calls and the parties chasing after her nearly caught up to her a few times. Whenever they got too close, Maria would always send her Black Orc at them. She was thankful that the puppet's AI that had copied her battle style was smart.
It knew how to dodge and stall the players giving her enough time to run away again with the boss monster. Even if she didn't string it along with her attacks, the monster chased after her itself because its aggro was completely focused on her. She also didn’t forget to use her [Fallen’s Cruelty] on the players to replenish her and the Black Orc’s HP and MP. This allowed her to continue fighting the boss even after taking some hits that depleted a lot of her HP.
Once she started attacking the players chasing her, she knew immediately that she had already made enemies with them. Again, she didn’t worry too much about it because her information was hidden and not every player present was part of a large guild or famous adventurer party that would seek retaliation. Of course, there were few players that were, but since they came here without a proper full-guild party, they probably weren't anything to worry.
Maria also didn’t care if she offended those large player organizations. It should be them who were afraid of her because if they offended her, they’d have to deal with the wrath of a solo player that had nothing to lose on Gaia. It’d be a different story if she was on Vanhal but even then, she doubted that the strength of the players would be strong enough to contend with her faction and her army.
The only thing she had to worry about now was her current quest to hunt the mutated boss monsters for the Origin Crystal Fragments. Even if other players were to kill her targets, she didn't have to worry because failing the quest didn't really have any consequences. Also, her objective was to obtain the Origin Crystal Fragments, not to hunt the bosses. The players could hunt them for all she cared since it would save her the trouble of doing it herself. Once the monsters were killed, all she had to do was retrieve the fragments from their hearts.
She doubted that anyone would know that a crystal fragment would be imbedded in the monsters' hearts and go out of their way to take it. At best, the players who hunted the monsters would be confused as to why the monster's corpse didn't disappear after they defeated it. Her quest objective would still be there for her to grab, but even though Maria didn't have to worry about other players killing the mutated boss monsters, she wasn't the type to let go of extra EXP points and rewards.
Maria wanted to hog all of the rewards and EXP dropped by the mutated boss monsters because she was feeling a little greedy. She had every right to be because she needed the EXP. The amount of EXP she needed to level up was absurd, so she wanted to get everything.
The players caught up to Maria once again and they noticed that the boss monster's HP was now in the red zone, so one of them exclaimed, “Shit, she’s actually going to do it! She's actually going to kill that monster!"
“Everyone, start casting spells and skills on the monster! If we can just graze it even a little, the stat amplifying perk will kick in and we can stop her from killing it!”
Maria definitely heard their plan so she swapped her Calamity into its scythe form and sent the cockatrice flying into the air again with an [Arc Swing]. Once it was in the air she slammed into it again and pushed it even farther away with her scythe form's [Calamity Cleave]. Her weapon's skill had 3 charges while in its scythe form, so she used every charge to send the monster farther and farther away from the players. She even used her black chains to fling the monster even farther off and this caused all of the players chasing after her to despair.
“Goddammit! That’s unfair!”
“Kid, you’re making an enemy of the Hunter Guild!”
“Our Paragon Adventurer Party won’t forget this!”
Maria didn’t listen to a single word as she flew away to finish off the monster while laughing uproariously.
"HAHAHAHAHAH!!!"
******
*DING*
You have acquired the quest item [Origin Crystal Fragment] x1 Quest collection progress: 25%
Maria eyed the [Quest] window and eyed her progress before mumbling, “25 percent after getting two fragments...that means there’s 8 in total so 6 more to go.”
The rewards the monster dropped were extremely abundant thanks to the buff she had, [Gaia’s Blessing]. She checked her inventory and was quite happy with her gains. She was more elated by the fact that her EXP bar had risen by about 20% from killing the monster. If she could defeat the remaining monsters, she'd be able to level up at least once! This was good, but she needed to be quick. The monsters were just roaming around in the wild and the players weren't going to wait for her to find them. It'd be a tragedy if they got to one of the monsters before her and killed it.
The EXP wasn't the only thing she wanted, the item drops were extremely enticing because they were something her puppets could use. The cleaver that Maria's Black Orc was currently holding was something she looted after defeating it. Instead of throwing it away or selling it, she gave it to her puppet because it could actually equip items which was quite surprising.
“Since my puppets can use these items, I won't have to stash them away or sell them. This is great!”
Speaking about her puppet, Maria had gained another one, the Black Cockatrice. Obviously, this puppet was created from the mutated cockatrice that she had just defeated. Creating a puppet became a little more complex now after she obtained her custom skill, [Nightmare]. A system window popped up that prompted her to do a minigame in order to successfully create her puppet. It looked fun at first, but Maria had to be serious when doing it. If she failed the minigame then she would also fail in creating her puppet.
Of course, she could try again, but there was a limit. This limit was determined by the quality of the corpse she was using the skill on. If she went past the limit, the corpse would disintegrate and she'd completely fail in making her puppet. Maria played the minigame 5 times and failed every single time. On the 6th and final try, she barely managed to complete the minigame that resembled a rhythm game and successfully created her Black Cockatrice puppet.
"Gosh, how did things become so hard after I created the skill? I thought skills were supposed to help me make things easier?!"
Maria complained, but what could she do? The game's system made things like this, so she could only comply if she wanted to make more puppets and expand her puppet army. Thankfully enough, the trouble was all worth it because just like her Black Orc puppet, the Black Cockatrice puppet could also equip items! The only thing was that it couldn't equip a weapon because it had no weapon item slot.
This made sense since the cockatrice didn't have arms to hold a weapon. Instead, it had extra armor slots to compensate for its lack of main-arm and second-arm weapon slots. The basic armor slots were for its head, torso, feet and wings while the extra slots were for its beak and tail. Unfortunately, Maria currently didn't have any specialized monster armor that was suitable to equip on it. The puppet was big enough for her ride, so she thought that she might be able to find suitable armor for it in one of Discordia City's mount shops.
Even though she currently didn't have anything she could equip on her Black Cockatrice puppet, she did luckily obtain the full Black Avian set from defeating it which she naturally equipped on her Black Orc puppet.
“KREEE!!!”
Maria stored her Black Orc puppet into her shadow realm storage and hopped onto her Black Cockatrice's back and started moving to her next quest objective. Unlike normal mounts, this puppet didn't have any stamina because it was 'dead'. It was able to keep on moving indefinitely as long as Maria willed it to. This was really convenient because she didn't have to worry about it getting exhausted while traveling long distances.
"Ahh, this is so nice!"
Even though traveling on her puppet was rather slow compared to her flying, Maria didn't mind it so much because she could relax and rest. However, she had to stop because she was reminded of the fact that her current quest was a race against time. She quickly stored her puppet away and took to the skies before shooting forward into the direction of her next quest location. She passed by the forest where she had left the players from before and they all looked up to see her fly off. This could only mean that she had completed her hunt and this made a lot of the players below sigh in defeat.
"Tsk, flying is such a cheat..."
"Yeah? Then why didn't you pick a race that could fly?"
"Stop copying the devs. That was their response when people started complaining."
"It's true though... even if it's unfair, so what? That's just the race advantage that they have. Every other race has something unique to them and besides, everyone's able to get some flying equipment later down the line so their advantage is only temporary!"
Players did complain about the flight issue to the devs saying that it wasn't fair that while some races could fly, others couldn't. The devs simply replied with 'why didn't you select a race that could fly?'. Unitale boasted about its very real similarities with the real world so obviously, a few advantages and disadvantages were bound to show up when picking starting areas and races. However, the devs didn’t care about that.
Life, to begin with, wasn’t fair at all and Unitale mimicked this feature of life to a tee. Each race had its own differences, bad or good, so whether it was now or in the future, the devs weren’t going to correct it. The players would have to choose wisely, play the game using their strengths, and stop complaining about every little thing they found unfair. The game wasn’t only a game, it was like a second life and whether they used this second chance at life to become awesome and seize the chance to make their lives better or remain mediocre and complain about everything wrong with their lives, that was all up to the players.
"Anyway, where do you think that girl went?"
"She seemed to be moving with a purpose...perhaps there are more bosses like these out there?"
"These bosses did seem unique... let's ask around and see if more of them actually popped up somewhere."
"Yeah."