When I once more arrived in front of the boss room, I concentrated on that large door, activating my Detective Analysis in the hopes that I would be able to catch a glimpse of what monsters lay beyond. My guess was that it was some kind of ogre chief, but I couldn’t be sure. Unfortunately, the door blocked my perception, or maybe it was that my ability wasn’t meant to look through doors that were simply closed.
Gritting my teeth, I made sure that all of my buffs were active, and summoned my shadow to do the same, having it open the door. In the off chance that the enemy was waiting on the other side, I wanted to make sure that it was my shadow that took the hit, rather than myself.
To my relief, nothing happened to my shadow, and the two of us were able to slip in without any problems. This was my first time being inside of a boss room, and I had no idea what to expect. The extent of my dungeon knowledge ended as soon as I entered this room, with the exception that there was a ‘repeatable’ chest that would spawn on the boss’s death.
The room was large, more than thirty meters in every direction. Bone torches lined the room, flames burning within the empty sockets of rotten skulls. At the far end of the room was a large throne, though its occupant appeared to be missing. That is, until the door behind me closed. Afterwards, the throne released a red flash, and a giant green figure sat upon it.
The figure stood nearly five meters tall with overgrown muscles, a rotund stomach, a pig-like snout, and two great tusks rising from its mouth. Additionally, ten ogres appeared within the room, all dressed in steel armor and wielding well-forged weapons. They were lined up in groups of five, as if welcoming the intruder.
The boss’s eyes opened, seeming to scan the room. As he did, I activated my Observe skill to read his information.
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Ogre King – Level 50 BOSS Skills: King’s Glory, Ogre Rampart, Berserk Slash, Call to Arms Common Loot: Ogre King Hide, Ogre King Bone, Ogre King Heart |
My eyes widened as I read through the information. I had assumed that this would just be a simple boss, but its strength surpassed the Shade Queen. More importantly, each of the ten ogres were Ogre Knights, level forty-five monsters.
As soon as I saw this information, I knew that a standard strategy wouldn’t work here. If I fought with these monsters normally, I would simply die, even with all of my enhancement skills.
I’ve got two options… I thought to myself, looking between the guards and the boss. Either I try to snipe the boss with an assassination, and hope to kill it in one blow, or I take my time to kill the guards, using repeated assassinations…
There were problems with both of these tactics. First of all, I had no guarantee that my bow was strong enough to instantly kill the boss. If it didn’t, my Stealth would break, and I would be exposed to all of the guards.
On the other hand, if the guards started dying, the others would be sure to notice. One of the boss’s skills looked like it might be a skill to summon reinforcements, so they might arrive faster than I can defeat them. Worse, they might start randomly attacking the area when they realize that there is an assassin nearby.
The next problem was that I was unsure whether or not the knights would disappear when the king died. If they did, that would be fine, and sniping the king would be the perfect answer. If not, they would fly into a rage at the king’s death.
Mentally, I ordered my shadow to sneak around to the side of the throne, its weapons at the ready. I was pinning my hopes on a head shot with my bow. This was a rather large monster, so I was confident in being able to hit such a big target with my current skill. If it did hit the boss’s head, the damage output should be high enough to give a fatal injury.
With that in mind, I took a deep breath, drawing my bow and taking aim. I activated both Power Attack and Assassinate, feeling the skills channel as I pulled the string of the bow back to a full draw. I could only hope that my attack was good enough, because the only decent spot to shoot from was directly in between the two groups of knights.
When I released the arrow, I didn’t even take the time to confirm the kill. As soon as the shot left the bow, I turned and began to move as quickly as I could without breaking Stealth, assuming that it would stay active. Unfortunately for me… I felt it drop as soon as I took the first step.
I cursed under my breath, knowing that the king hadn’t died. Quickly, I unequipped my bow, swapping instead to my sword and shield. The ogres cried out in alarm, seeing an armored knight appearing in their midst, and all drew their weapons. Some held swords, while others were armed with spears.
As for the king, when I turned to look, there was a golden shield of energy enveloping his body. His head was pierced by the arrow and bleeding heavily, and he was clearly disoriented, but hadn’t died. It looked like the shield had mitigated a fatal blow. If my guess was accurate, that was the King’s Glory skill.
I didn’t have any more time to think, having to raise my shield to intercept the first strike from the closest knight. The weight behind its slash threw me back into one of its friends, where I unleashed a Binding Shadow Slash to tie its legs to the ground. I ordered my shadow to quickly kill the boss while I engaged with the horde of knights, kicking off of the one that I had been thrown against.
The second knight came in and thrust at me with a spear. In response, I angled my shield to deflect the force of the thrust while stepping to the side. They were surrounding me, creating a tight formation to prevent me from either escaping or running to the boss again.
One knight got into my blind spot, slashing at my back with a sword while I was doing my best to avoid the attacks of the others. I let out a gasp of pain, feeling the armor on my back split open from the strike. It was still usable, but would certainly need repairs after this.
I cast a healing enchantment on myself as I staggered forward, holding up one hand. The ring on my finger blazed red, and ten serpents of fire emerged, spreading out to wrap around the ogres surrounding me. I had to be thankful that she set it to an area effect, and one that had to be maintained rather than an instant cast.
The ogres let out surprised cries as the flaming serpents entangled them, forcing them to struggle to try to pull the serpents off of their bodies. Meanwhile, I looked at my shadow, seeing it climbing up the dazed body of the Ogre King and stabbing both of its swords into the king’s throat. Thankfully, the yellow shield only protected it once, and the force of the strike on its head had still been enough to daze it and prevent it from unleashing any skills.
As I watched the king’s head slump, my eyes turned warily towards the knights, whose struggles had similarly ceased. Their bodies broke apart in blue lights, as if they had been looted, though no items dropped. Were they summoned by Call to Arms as soon as the boss appeared?
I panted for breath, letting out a hiss of pain as I unequipped my breastplate. Removing it from my inventory, I saw a nasty gash along the back, the metal curved inwards. Simply wearing the breastplate would be painful in its current state, and its durability had been reduced to fifty percent. When I recalled all of the defensive enhancements on the armor, and realized the level of attack the monsters must have had to get through that, I felt a chill down my spine.
“Right… loot.” I muttered to myself, walking over to the king’s corpse. Or… I would, if my shadow hadn’t already placed a hand on it to begin the looting process. It seemed that it had been ‘trained’ to do so automatically now.
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Received 3g, 42s Received Contract Scroll Received Trait Scroll |
My body froze as I saw the list of loot. Contracts were incredibly rare items, but I had at least heard of them. It was a way to impose a long term agreement within the system, which would automatically be carried out according to its conditions. If someone violated the contract, they would be subjected to harsh penalties according to how it was written.
But what really grabbed my attention was the final item on the list, the trait scroll. Thinking back, this was my first time actually looting a boss. I had fought the Shade Queen half a dozen times, but its body was always taken away to be disassembled. I knew that talents could drop from bosses, but I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get one.
With shaking hands, I opened my inventory to retrieve the trait scroll, immediately identifying it. There were three glowing stars on the outer body of the scroll, signaling its rarity. Not a particularly strong talent, but still good nonetheless.
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Positive Trait Scroll – 27g |
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Trained Physique (3☆) |
Your body naturally excels when it comes to physical training. Physical enhancement skills are 30% more effective. |
I almost dropped the scroll when I saw the price attached to it. This was the single most expensive item that I had ever held. Though, looking over its effects, I couldn’t imagine myself selling it. The effect of the trait was useful to me, who received almost all of my physical stats through enhancement skills.
I did my best to steady myself, opening the scroll to activate it. The scroll shattered into light, entering my body, and I felt my physical abilities rise. The armor I was carrying became lighter, and the lingering pain from the slash on my back dulled.
With a bright smile, I looked around, soon finding the boss chest. I didn’t particularly have much hope for the chest, as it wouldn’t drop more items than the others in the dungeon. Perhaps the only change was the chance to drop items from the boss, though I didn’t think that would include the boss’s traits.
When I opened the chest, there was a golden key sitting inside, causing me to blink. There wasn’t any equipment or money, or even skill books, just this one key. Picking it up, I activated my Observe skill to appraise it.
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Dungeon Key – Goblinoid Caves |
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The dungeon key belonging to the Goblinoid Caves dungeon. |
This… confused me. I wasn’t sure what the purpose of a dungeon key was, and it did not have a listed market value. Shaking my head, I put the key into my inventory, deciding to leave the dungeon. Besides, my inventory was getting full now, and I needed to offload some stuff in town. There might even be a reward for locating a new dungeon.
As I thought about that, I turned to begin leaving, now only wearing a basic shirt on my chest. I glanced at my friends list, seeing that Diane had come online. With a small smile, I sent her a screenshot of Detective Analysis and Animate Shadow. Those were the only two skills that I thought she might be interested in from what I had recently collected.
Her response was swift, sending me a screenshot of a skill herself, called Detection. For the most part, it did the same thing as Detective Analysis, except that it was a toggle skill without an identification feature. Still, it had enough power to help her find hidden traps. What do you want for the other one?
Seeing her question, I pursed my lips slightly. Where are you? I won’t be able to send the skill via mail.
I knew that she might be interested, but there was no guarantee that I’d be able to get it to her soon. At most, I was hoping to bring the skill to her attention, and also carrying out the promise that I had previously made to let her know if I found any good skills for a rogue.
Decashear. There is a dungeon nearby tailored to ninjas. How fast can you get here?
That… caught me by surprise. Then again, Decashear was where one should go if they were looking for a Martial skill in Athua, and most of the skills Diane would want would be Martial. I’m near Decashear now, I just got done exploring a hidden dungeon.
Diane sent an exclamation mark at that, causing me to stagger for a moment as I climbed out of the cave. Were you the first clear? What were the drops? And did you get a key?
I hesitated at that, not knowing for certain if I was the first clear or not. After all, there was no way to be sure. I thought I was, at the very least. I think so? And, it was a goblinoid dungeon, so most of the drops were low level weapons and money, but the boss was pretty high level. As for the key… yeah? Do you know what it is?
Southern gate of Decashear, as soon as you can get here, and don’t tell anyone else that you have the key, or they might kill you for it. Well… that wasn’t ominous at all.
