The Worst Boss
The community was a sea of constant tides, where countless posts rose and vanished like the flood and ebb.
As the old saying went, no scarlet flower bloomed for ten days; anything in full flower would eventually wither. And as if to prove the point, even the hottest topics that once seized everyone’s attention and set the forums ablaze would fall quiet before long.
The useful posts stayed behind to guide other users, while the ones that had existed only for a fleeting diversion were remembered with a casual, “Oh yeah, that happened.” That was the ecosystem of the community’s ocean, endlessly turning over itself.
And yet…
There was one subject that had stayed red-hot for more than a week without cooling at all.
It was the new boss, the Gravekeeper.
Slash
Hard slash
Fucking hard slash
Stab
Hard stab
Fucking hard stab
Release Sword Qi
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new) Kick
A post analyzing the Gravekeeper’s patterns.
1st — PizzaIsStillHawaiian - 54 seconds
2nd — Atomic - 49 seconds
3rd — NeverAgainWar - 48 seconds
4th — DragonHead, SnakeTail - 47 seconds
4th — Eclipse - 47 seconds
For now, I’ve only picked out the top five raid groups.
At first it looked like DragonHead, SnakeTail was pulling ahead, but maybe they were living up to their name, because they were falling behind now.
If you got really strict about it, there’d probably be a difference between them and Eclipse, but I’m ignoring tenths of a second and just calling it a tie for fourth.
Right now, PizzaIsStillHawaiian is holding a commanding lead all by themselves.
At this rate, it looks like they’ll take the first clear.
Still, Atomic is in second place, so they can’t afford to relax.
A post sharing the status of the raid groups challenging the Gravekeeper.
Are they ignoring taunts, dodging crowd control, and going straight for the healer first? Is this even right?
Its attack power is so absurdly high that even if the party uses a survival skill, they still die in one hit.
Sure, if you pop party invincibility, you can live two seconds longer, but what the hell does that even mean?
They just made the boss wrong.
[Why is the entry restriction this stupid?]
["A party is already challenging this monster." message.jpg]
They split up hunting grounds by channel, so why can only one party enter at a time?
And other raids let multiple parties enter simultaneously.
Posts condemning the many problems with the Gravekeeper and railing at the game company piled up one after another.
Some users even went so far as to write their own inquiries to the company with painstaking devotion, but no reply came back.
Tired of the unanswered questions, the users eventually began voicing whatever came to mind.
There were only endless guesses, and no one could give a clear answer.
Its name, its level, its appearance, its voice. There was far more unknown than known, so there was no way anyone could possibly reach a conclusion.
The fire sparked by one user’s post had still not gone out, even now after quite some time had passed.
It had only become a roaring blaze, fed by the posts of countless other users acting as fuel.
And then, just when that fuel had gone beyond wood and started spilling oil over the flames, a new piece of news arrived—
It was the news that the Gravekeeper had gone out for a stroll.
* * *
“...The Gravekeeper disappeared?”
- Yep
- Yeah
- Ran away from home, lol
“Ran away? What are you talking about?”
- Came out of the boss room, butchered a bunch of people, and vanished
- ???: The best defense is offense
“What…?”
Even after hearing an explanation from her viewers, Joni still couldn’t make sense of it, so in the end she opened the internet.
Finding related information wasn’t hard.
Every community with even the slightest connection to Silia Online was talking about the same thing.
Joni clicked into the post with the highest number of recommendations.
It was that familiar silhouette she had seen a few times before.
With a worn hooded cape pulled up to hide its appearance, the Gravekeeper came down from a steep mountain.
The players climbing the mountain in the opposite direction were too busy chatting among themselves to notice that they were getting close to the Gravekeeper.
By the time one player noticed something was wrong, lifted his head, and spotted the Gravekeeper, it was already too late.
-Instant death
The tank, who collapsed in a heartbeat despite the armor he was wearing, looked absurdly helpless.
Players fell one after another under the Gravekeeper’s ruthlessly efficient ambush.
The video ended with a sword being driven into the chest of the person who had been filming at the end.
“Uh…”
Joni stared blankly at the video, which had stopped with only the words You Died left on the screen.
“Guys, what is this?”
- We don’t know either, lol
- That’s why everyone’s freaking out right now. Is it really okay for the boss to just wander around hunting users?
- So it was the raid, after all
- lolol
- Isn’t this a first in history?
“Hmm. Strictly speaking, I don’t think it’s the first.”
Joni didn’t exactly love raids, but she’d been a gamer for a long time, so she knew quite a few things.
“There have been games where the boss room changed over time, or the boss itself changed depending on the event.”
In some games, to portray a slowly approaching apocalypse, they even created events where a horde of monsters, including the boss monster, attacked the village.
There were cases where you had to satisfy certain triggers before you could face the boss’s true form and clear the stage.
“Usually, though, those things only run for a short time as event content. If they went on too long, players would get annoyed.”
To put it crudely, just long enough to feel the hype.
“Still, it’s weird. If this is Silia Online, I don’t think it’s a bug… Maybe there’s a reason for it?”
“Now, now, no spamming.”
After handing out a five-minute chat ban to the viewers who had seized the opportunity to spam, the chat window settled down a little.
Joni stretched her arms overhead with a satisfied smile.
“Still, it’s strange. The people trying this right now are all top-tier, aren’t they? And those people got flattened without even a chance to react. They haven’t landed a single hit yet, right?”
- They’re going for the world’s first hit, not the first kill
- World First Hit, lol
“The controls must be insane too. Just how good is it with a sword?”
As with any virtual reality game, Silia Online placed an especially heavy emphasis on bodily sense.
Guard, parry, dodge, attack, movement, and more.
Every motion needed for combat felt just like moving your body in real life, and there was far more you could do than in most other games because of its extraordinary freedom.
More often than not, stats and skills could compensate for a lot, but the people who stood at the front of raid content were, in general, the ones who handled their bodies well.
The fact that those people had been unable to land even a single effective hit spoke volumes about the Gravekeeper’s swordsmanship.
“If I practiced, could I use a sword that well too? Like this, and this?”
Hyah, hyah.
Whoosh.
“...”
Joni pouted.
She knew perfectly well her swordsmanship was terrible.
What can I do? It’s not like I’ve ever been trained professionally.
That said, she had no intention of spending time learning it.
Traveling around and exploring the map was much more fun than that.
Joni glared at the chat, which was more interested in teasing her than anything else, then put her sword away.
“When this trip is over, I should go check it out too. I’m really curious.”
- You’re going to try it with that skill level?
“Like I said before, I’m not going to try it. I just want to watch.”
Whatever the case, that would be something for after she finished this trip.
She had already come this far toward her destination, and it would be a shame to turn back now.
Changing plans on a whim had its own charm, sure, but changing them when she was practically at the doorstep felt a little much.
When she arrived, she’d pitch a tent first, then prepare dinner, and then…
Distracted by the thought of a leisurely rest, Joni never noticed the chat window.
- Host, what are you doing!!!
- Runrunrunrunrunrun!!!
“...Huh?”
-Instant death
Thud!
By the time she looked at the chat and came to her senses, the club had already arrived at the back of her head.
With the level gap on top of a critical hit to a vital point while she was utterly defenseless, Joni’s body crumpled in an instant.
You Died
Seeing that familiar line welcome her in the darkened screen, Joni let out a hollow laugh.
It seemed her destination would be changing after all.