Raid
“Since Yuki has joined us, that makes two of us….”
Daeun spread both hands wide.
“We only need six more from here.”
“Only six more?”
“Come on. Now that Yuki, our biggest asset, is in the party, ‘only six more’ is exactly the right way to put it.”
“I see. That makes sense.”
“….”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Had she always been this shameless?
Then again, if she weren’t shameless, she wouldn’t keep charging at Canaria for a fight every time she got thrashed.
She also wouldn’t have kept streaming thirty-six-hour, no-sleep, no-talking monster-hunts while ignoring her viewers’ complaints.
And then there was—
Whack!
“Eek! Why did you hit me all of a sudden?!”
“Your eyes were rude.”
“Punishing someone on suspicion alone violates the presumption of innocence.”
Daeun had no idea.
In trying to defend herself, she was only making Yuki more certain of her suspicion.
Yuki withdrew the edge of her hand, having delivered justice.
“Is it really necessary to gather a full party? It’s not like there’s an entry limit, and two people should be enough, shouldn’t they?”
“You’re strong, Yuki, that’s true, but this isn’t something you can brute-force.”
“…?”
Yuki tilted her head.
She looked genuinely confused, so Daeun let out a quiet sigh.
“You haven’t done raids before, have you?”
“I haven’t done parties, but I’ve killed plenty of bosses.”
“Not that. I’m asking if you’ve ever done content specifically categorized as a raid.”
“...No.”
“I thought so.”
The term raid, she explained, had first been used in an MMORPG.
At first, it referred to large groups of dozens of people assaulting a special boss or dungeon, but over time, as more games emerged, all kinds of different raid formats had appeared.
Some of them were the sort that made people say, “How is that even a raid?!” while others prompted, “That’s not a raid!”
Regardless of whether people acknowledged them, plenty of things had ended up wearing the name.
“The raid system in Silia Online sticks to the principle that multiple people have to tackle it together. It’s not something you can clear just because you’re strong or high-level.”
Of course, if you were stronger and higher-level, it would be much easier.
If a player with enough power to rival Canaria ever appeared, then maybe they’d be able to solo low-level raids someday.
Some games added systems to prevent that by limiting player level and stats, but Silia Online didn’t have anything like that.
“There’s a pattern where six people have to stand on pressure plates, and the other two have to take a high-damage area attack. If you fail to solve it, the entire map gets hit with damage close to a wipe. Could two people possibly handle that?”
As she’d just said, if you could kill the boss before the pattern started through overwhelming force, or if you had defenses or HP high enough to tank the damage, then it wouldn’t matter.
But at their current level, neither option was possible.
“Don’t you dislike combat content, Daeun?”
“I studied hard.”
When your body was weak, you had to make up for it with your brain.
…Or was it the other way around?
Daeun scratched her head.
In any case, she’d always known bits and pieces of this already, so it wasn’t hard to add new knowledge to what she had.
“With the exception of one, every raid boss was like that. And….”
Even that one ended up that way in the end.
Daeun swallowed the rest and gave a bitter smile.
Yuki watched her with an unreadable expression, then exhaled softly.
“How do you plan to gather the other six?”
“Getting them isn’t the hard part.”
If Daeun and Yuki asked the viewers watching their streams, “Who wants to come raid with us?” people would swarm them like bees.
But there was no way to know how skilled those people were, or whether any of them were the type likely to cause trouble.
That was the flaw of what people called a pub run, or a random party.
You had to gather whoever was available right then and there, so there was no telling what kind of people they’d be.
Still, what can we do? Neither I nor Yuki has a fixed raid group.
If you don’t have teeth, you chew with your gums.
“...Hm?”
That was when a whisper reached Daeun’s ear.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“The atmosphere doesn’t look great.”
“Well, the timing is what it is.”
Daeun agreed with Yuki’s offhand remark as the other girl glanced around.
So she can read the room after all… was a bonus thought.
“It’s probably because of the extermination decree. If someone built a trash dump right outside your house, you’d oppose it with both hands raised, wouldn’t you? Would you be happy about having a bomb nearby? Especially one that’s practically certain to go off.”
“Can’t you just cut it down before it explodes?”
“...Are you serious?”
“I was joking just now.”
“That did not sound like a joke at all—”
“—I was joking.”
“...Let’s just go with that.”
If Yuki had said she was serious, Daeun would have genuinely started wondering whether she was some kind of primitive caveman.
She didn’t exactly trust it, but since Yuki had called it a joke, Daeun decided to go along with that for now.
“So where are we going?”
At Yuki’s question, Daeun made a face of disbelief.
“I already told you we were going to meet someone who said they’d help, remember?”
“Did you?”
“I knew you’d react like that.”
She looked like she was hearing this for the first time.
Daeun felt like she was starting to understand Yuki.
Ignoring Yuki, who seemed to have a question mark floating over her head, Daeun looked around.
This was definitely the right place where they’d agreed to meet….
“Daeun!”
At the voice calling her nickname, Daeun whipped around.
A familiar-looking man was seated on a café terrace, waving at her.
Daeun dragged the still-dazed Yuki over to him.
“How have you been? Wow, it’s been forever.”
“This is the first time we’ve met in person since the war.”
“Ah… I was really grateful back then. If it hadn’t been for Fine, things wouldn’t have gone nearly so smoothly.”
“...I don’t think that’s true. Even if I hadn’t stepped in, it wouldn’t have made much difference.”
Fine gave a wry smile.
Back then, he had stepped in because he couldn’t stand the way the other side had been picking a fight, but looking back now, he really hadn’t needed to.
No matter how much the small fry had barked, they would’ve been cut cleanly in half with a single swing of the blade.
But Daeun shook her head and rejected his self-deprecation.
“Canaria said she liked the way a bunch of chicks stood up to an imperial knight together. If you hadn’t stepped in, the imperial knight wouldn’t have shown up at all.”
“Oh, so that’s how it works?”
“Of course.”
Hearing it that way, it didn’t sound wrong at all….
“So in Canaria’s eyes, we looked like chicks peeping at each other while we fought.”
At that level of strength, it wasn’t exactly strange that it came off that way.
Still, Fine couldn’t help looking mildly put out.
“Enough with the old stories.”
Yuki, who had clearly been hiding her boredom poorly, cut into the conversation.
“You said you were busy and wanted to help, so say what that means.”
“Can’t I even ask how you’ve been?”
“What’s the point? I see you on stream all the time anyway.”
“No sense of romance at all.”
Tsking under his breath, Fine finally got to the point.
“After the extermination decree was issued, the people in my raid group voted on whether we should challenge the raid or not. The result was exactly half and half.”
“Which side were you on, Fine?”
“I was obviously against it.”
If Fine had been an ordinary player who loved raiding instead of a streamer, the result would have been different.
But he wasn’t an ordinary player, and unlike Yuki, he didn’t have nerves thick enough to ignore public opinion.
“Huh. You voted against it, and you’re still saying you’ll help me?”
“There’s no reason I can’t.”
Fine narrowed his eyes and gestured at Daeun.
Realizing what he meant, Daeun cut the sound going out to the stream and leaned in close to him.
“If I help Daeun under the guise of helping Daeun, I can also win over public opinion. I get to do what I want and still look like I’m doing everyone a favor. Two birds with one stone.”
“...Wow.”
Daeun was impressed.
“You really are a frightening person.”
“Hey now. Let’s just say it’s good for everyone if good things happen. And even if that weren’t the case, I’d be happy to help Daeun.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s good for my stream, obviously. If it goes well, I might even be able to expect some spillover effect.”
“What? So that’s the same thing after all.”
So he wasn’t helping out of pure goodwill after all.
But Daeun wasn’t disappointed.
If it isn’t pure, does that mean it isn’t goodwill?
At a time like this, when she had to cling to whatever scrap she could find, where was she supposed to find the luxury of purity or hypocrisy?
If anything, the fact that he laid his motives bare made him more trustworthy.
Since he had a clear reason—“this helps my stream”—she didn’t have to worry about getting stabbed in the back.
Well, not that there’s absolutely no chance he’s lying.
But if he ever pulled something like that, his stream would blow up like fireworks.
“What about the raid group you lead, Fine?”
“I brought you here to explain that. You said earlier that the vote split right down the middle, remember? Normally, I would’ve decided whether to go ahead or not and led the raid group myself, but this time we decided to change the policy a little.”
Four and four.
It was a painfully awkward number.
Thinking that, Fine folded one finger down on his hand.
“The people who don’t want to participate can rest, and only the people who do want to join will take part.”
Since Fine, who had opposed it, had now switched to support, that left three openings.
The number of fingers he held up matched it exactly.
“So? Want to join as a temporary member of our raid group? It should be easier than trying to find six people from scratch.”
“Even with all this, we’re still a fairly well-known raid group, you know.”
Fine smiled with confidence.