Raid
Fine’s raid guild belonged to the kind that made strategies rather than followed them.
That made sense, really.
By the time Fine threw himself into a raid, it was usually only just out, which meant that not only was there no proper guide yet, there usually wasn’t even a single raid party that had cleared it.
Trying over and over while analyzing each pattern one by one and building the strategy from scratch was far harder than simply following a guide that already existed.
And yet the thrill of carving out a path with his own hands was so intense that it couldn’t even be compared to trailing after someone else’s footsteps.
“But this time, we’re doing things a little differently.”
Fine said as he handed out the materials he had prepared.
“I’ll be honest. Our odds aren’t very high.”
Already, a day had passed out of the short week they had been given.
Instead of the usual raid members who were used to this sort of thing, he had recruited two people with no experience at all.
And with that bizarre, almost offensive restriction still in place—only one party could enter at a time—the total number of attempts was painfully limited.
“So we’re going to copy the strategies of the parties that tried before us.”
It sounded grand, but in truth it wasn’t anything special.
Whenever word got around that a certain party had made it to a certain point, people always checked how they’d beaten it.
Still, there was a reason Fine had said it so bluntly.
“Like you said, we’re not going to do anything stupid and just bash our heads against it. Got it?”
So open the textbook already.
At his flat declaration, Yuki pouted.
* * *
“...let’s go.”
Total wipe.
“Aaaagh! I’m dying! Someone heal me!”
“The healer’s dead!”
“What?! Since when?!”
“The mark wasn’t passed on, so we exploded!”
Total wipe.
“Hey, can you guys actually hold aggro properly?”
“How am I supposed to hold aggro when you keep spamming AoE heals?”
“You can’t die to DoT damage! ...ah.”
Another total wipe.
The ceiling that greeted him every time he opened his eyes, the path leading back to the battlefield—everything had already become familiar.
Fine hauled himself up, shaky and sore, and sorted out his thoughts.
What’s the problem?
The answer came at once.
Everything.
He didn’t even need to pick one thing out.
But if he had to choose the most irritating part, Fine could do so without hesitation.
The magi that gnawed away at their HP the moment they entered the barrier.
Because the magi grew stronger the closer they got to Kana, it caused problems even when they were trying to deal with other patterns.
Damage that should never have killed them became fatal simply because DoT ticks came in at the wrong moment.
And if they tried to brute-force the problem by dumping out constant AoE heals to cover it, they’d never be able to keep up with the healing aggro or the mana cost.
In the end, they had to walk a razor-thin line and heal just enough not to die.
“Uuugh...”
As you could tell from one of Fine’s healers, Lemoni, whose face had gone pale and gaunt, this was absolutely not easy.
Fine gave her shoulder a light pat.
“You’re the healer you chose. Endure it with grit and hatred.”
“...I want to quit being a healer...”
“No.”
“Waaah.”
Still, it wasn’t all bad news.
Daeun and Yuki—the two he had thought would be the biggest hurdles—were doing better than expected.
Yuki didn’t mesh well with other people, but she made up for it with raw personal skill, so she didn’t cause any problems.
Daeun, on the other hand, was visibly trying hard to sync with the others even if her individual skill was a little lacking.
And then there was a strength Fine hadn’t considered at all: thanks to the Dragon Orb, she was less affected by the magi.
“Journy-nim. How much did you say that thing cost again?”
“Huh? What thing?”
“That... magic tool you got from Kana in Valtora.”
“Oh, this? I got it a bit cheap thanks to Kana, but the original price was—”
I should get one too.
Fine asked the price with that thought in mind, then dropped the idea the moment he heard Daeun’s answer.
“How long do you think this party will last?”
He changed the subject.
“I’m betting on three minutes.”
“Oh... a cup of ramen. Then I’ll bet one minute.”
“Aren’t you guys being a little too harsh? We might last longer.”
“Then Fine-nim can be the one to bet on five minutes or more—”
“Two minutes. I’ll go with two.”
“Aw, lame.”
Making bets on how long each party would last whenever another group entered the barrier was a great way to kill time.
For the record, not a single party had managed to last more than five minutes so far, which had made betting on five minutes or longer the realm of long odds and a symbol of courage among them.
Since no one had ever succeeded, it would be more accurate to call it recklessness rather than courage.
Just as the timer passed the two-minute mark, the entrance to the barrier opened.
“Ah... if only they’d held out a little longer. The noodles probably aren’t even cooked yet.”
“Raw ramen isn’t bad either.”
The others brushed off the ground with their backsides and got to their feet.
“Even if the try time is short, waiting is still boring as hell.”
“If Journy-nim, the special streamer from Silia Online’s top invitation company, stepped in, maybe we wouldn’t have to wait to go in?”
“...You’re joking, right?”
Daeun shook her head, unable to hide her disgust.
“I’m not even a Silia-focused streamer, and I don’t have that kind of power. There’s already a whole new controversy category because of what happened last time.”
“Controversy? Oh, the abuse-of-power controversy.”
“...You knew and you were doing it on purpose, weren’t you?”
“Oh, come on, how could I possibly do something like that to Journy-nim, the special streamer from the top invitation company? Still, abuse-of-power controversy, huh. That’s kind of funny.”
“Well... it was an unreasonable request, so I guess it fits.”
“Aren’t you going in?”
Yuki, who had already been standing at the entrance for ages, clicked her tongue and tapped her greatsword impatiently.
Not only her, but sharp looks were flying at them from all around and even from behind.
If it was Fine’s party’s turn to enter and they kept dawdling, everyone waiting in line would be delayed too.
Unless you loved waiting or had a hobby of throwing time into the trash, nobody could possibly like that.
The moment they entered the boss room, magi wrapped around their bodies and their HP began to drop little by little.
In any other raid, the tank would pull the boss and the fight would begin.
In other words, unless you entered the boss’s detection range and attacked first, combat wouldn’t start, which meant there was usually time to remind everyone of the basics before the pull.
“You know the drill, right? Healers, especially keep an eye on your HoT duration and mark management.”
But in Kana’s raid, there was no time for leisurely conversation, because the magi tightened around their throats the moment they entered.
So Fine blasted out only the truly important points in a rapid-fire barrage.
“All right. This time, let’s survive for more than five minutes.”
The brief countdown ended.
And Fine’s party charged all at once at the pink-haired girl sitting there blankly.
Fine briefly had the thought that if anyone saw this scene, they’d probably think it was a cruel sight—eight grown adults bullying one fragile little girl.
Even so, he never stopped swinging his sword.
Didn’t they say that when you looked at the world from afar, it was a comedy, but up close, it was a tragedy?
That girl who looked so delicate was a monster who had shredded countless raid parties.
If he hesitated out of pity, the only thing waiting for him would be death.
Fine steeled himself.
HP: [1] / [1]
He met that familiar phrase head-on.
It was after more than four minutes had already passed since the start of the fight.
* * *
“So this makes six days now.”
The man in the pulled-up robe settled quietly to the ground.
Even if he had landed as silently as possible, there was no way his presence itself could have gone unnoticed, and yet none of the people gathered before the barrier bothered to pay attention to the man who had suddenly appeared among them.
As though it were the most natural thing in the world, the man walked forward and placed his hand on the barrier.
Vwoom!
“Ow.”
“...What was that?”
“Did you hear something just now?”
The barrier shuddered violently in his palm, as though rejecting him.
“Even in that state, you’re still as nasty as ever.”
The barrier cast by the Empire’s Sage had already been blackened all the way up to the highest reaches.
Once it had been devoured this much, regaining control was impossible.
The man quickly withdrew his hand, thinking that if he carelessly provoked it, the monster might sense his mana, smash through the barrier, and burst out.
“I’d hoped that seeing the apostle you cherish so much might help you regain your senses.”
The man’s gaze came to rest on a woman.
She had sharp, slightly upturned eyes, and she was radiating a cloud of melancholy she made no effort to hide.
“Looks like I misjudged that. Was your bond not as deep as I thought, or was the prison you were trapped in simply that sturdy?”
And he had failed to accomplish another purpose as well.
“I didn’t think I’d be unable to deal with a puppet dancing on a thread.”
Still, that was fine.
This too was one of the paths Shin Edel had already accounted for.
For an instant, a flicker of regret crossed the man’s face where it showed faintly between the folds of his robe.
“I came all the way here to say goodbye to you. Even though you were my enemy, you were someone worthy of respect.”
How wonderful it would have been if she’d been born in the Empire instead of Grasis.
The man had regretted that endlessly, and had tried time and again to draw Kana in, but effort alone couldn’t break the fury of a child who had lost her father.
“When dawn comes, this barrier will collapse completely.”
Even if it somehow didn’t, a barrier that had lost control entirely would no longer be able to hold the monster.
And then the Empire’s sharpest blade would meet the monster head-on.
Everything had already been prepared for that.
All that remained was to wait for time to pass.
“Fighting you was quite enjoyable.”
He left behind a somewhat light farewell for such a parting and turned away.
One step, then another.
And then, at some point, the man’s figure vanished without a trace.
“...?”
“What is it? Did something happen?”
“Um... wasn’t someone there just now?”
“Huh? There’s no one here.”
“I see...?”
“You must be tired. Rest for a bit.”
There had definitely been someone there.
Daeun tilted her head, then obediently leaned back against the tree.
Maybe she really had just been so exhausted that she’d seen a hallucination.
...I’m tired.
Ignoring the pale afterimage flickering at the edge of her vision, Daeun gently closed her eyes.
* * *
Fine’s raid party had ultimately failed to bring the target down.
And the seventh sun rose.
The barrier that had stood tall as if it might reach the edge of the sky had become completely black.
UuUUUuu—
Now no longer silver, but pitch-black, the barrier gave off an ominous wail.
At the same time, it shook violently, as though an earthquake had struck.
Then—
The barrier that had been trembling as if it were about to collapse stopped, as if by some miracle.
Did it hold?
“...Phew.”
Just as one of the onlookers let out an absent-minded sigh of relief—
Saaaa—
Like sugar dissolving into water and vanishing.
Like a sandcastle being blown apart by the wind.
The enormous wall slowly began to melt away.
Even as everyone stared in stunned silence at the unreal sight, the wall melted at alarming speed, shrinking until it was little more than a low fence.
And then, at last, it vanished without a trace.
The thick magi trapped inside the barrier surged outward like a storm.
“Kugh!”
“I-can’t... breathe!”
Those nearest the barrier clutched their throats and writhed in agony.
Those who sensed the danger and retreated quickly survived, but those who didn’t fell cold and still to the ground.
Tension stretched taut across the battlefield.
Tap.
The sound of a small footstep fell into the silence.
Someone who looked toward the source of the sound muttered before they could stop themselves.
“...The Demon King.”
Two pink eyes shone softly through the thick magi.