The Streamer Who Fears Neither Fire Nor Water
Even two-star was a bore. I cut down nearly every orc packed into the two-star dungeon, and the exit opened.
"At this rate I'm a ranker any minute now, huh?"
Nothing dropped in the two-star dungeon. I didn't feel much of anything.
"Ninety to a hundred thousand won in cash? Oh. That's not bad. Guess the talk about making money in Haven was actually true."
I stepped out of the dungeon and stretched.
"Uuugh. Put in a full day's work today."
Two dungeons in under an hour, and it still felt like I'd worked the whole day.
"Maybe I'll rest."
A few viewers pounced, sensing their opening. I shook my head.
"You pull four-stars when you hit a wall, right? I still haven't squeezed the high out of where I am. Too early to be feeling any growth."
My specs were plenty. Unless I actually got stuck like this, there was no reason to keep spending money just to force out another hit of sweetness. All I had to do was stick out my tongue, and the honey poured in on its own.
"How about I just get a taste, up through three-star."
Even so, a lot of pessimistic takes rolled in about stepping into a three-star. Not everyone watching was a hardcore player, but GoldenHolyKnight and Lim Sarang had already proved that people who played Haven Online with real passion were in my chat. Maybe three-star really did jump in difficulty.
Same as before, I went looking for a level 1 three-star dungeon nearby.
"There's stuff like that?"
A dungeon's special options came in as many varieties as item options, skill options, and class uniques. Even within the same type, the numbers sat in a range from dungeon to dungeon, and the ones that rolled the maximum weren't popular. There was, of course, a standing bit of player theory that dungeons with numbers that high had a slightly better item drop rate.
For now, I checked the one nearby.
★ Monster HP +200%
★ All Monster Stats +10
★ Boss Monster HP +150%
"So that's base HP plus 200 percent, and boss HP plus 150 percent, for a 450 percent increase?"
Everyone was of one mind. Bad dungeon. The options were secondary. A dungeon that spawned a boss monster simply wasn't easy to clear, and that was the real reason.
They'd played more than I had and knew more than I did, so they were probably right, more or less. I just didn't particularly feel like taking the audience's advice.
I walked straight in.
"Dying's free until level 30 anyway, right? If I'm going, I might as well try a boss. HP at 5.5 times — perfect chance to see what my damage actually looks like."
This dungeon's map was a forest. Thick trees, and enormous bears pacing in the gaps between them.
"Why? Are they strong?"
"Ah."
The idea that a body that big would be an easy target was pure Osan — a total miscalculation. Huge trees stood scattered all through the place and cut off the sightlines, and the assumption that a bear that large had to be slow was nothing but my own prejudice.
"They really are fast as hell..."
They moved with a sharp shwk-shwk, like someone had drawn speed lines on them. The one mercy was that my stats, everything but Strength, sat close to 20, so I could at least see them coming. Flip that around, though, and if a bear got its paws on me even once, I died that day. I didn't have the Strength to resist. Not even a little.
"Hm."
Set that aside, and I wasn't sure there was any real reason to be afraid.
"They're melee monsters anyway."
I could see why they'd be hell for mages who actually had to cast. You had to land a spell on something charging in fast, and hitting a bear that used the trees as a shield wasn't easy. Land one, and forming the next took time, so you got a single chance. Fail to keep your distance and you were bear food. The tension would double.
Me? Not applicable.
Chrrk.
Only now did nine Ice Arrows, rolled by probability, form around me.
Three moon bears in sight. Throw, and even a thirty-three percent chance of hitting just one was enough. I didn't throw right away. I waited. If a moon bear wanted to hit me, it had to come closer.
I kept a loose watch. Then — ssk, ssk — a sound from behind.
The monsters' AI was unnervingly sharp. The two in my view ducked in and out between the trees, stirring up confusion, and in that gap the moon bear at my back came in to attack. If it hadn't made a sound, I might have been taken clean.
Shk, shk, shk— papak!
Three Ice Arrows waiting at my side shot toward the moon bear as it leapt, hanging in the air to pounce. Unlike the times I'd flung them without a target and hoped, this was point-blank, a huge body in a posture that couldn't dodge. There was no way to miss.
The moment all three Ice Arrows punched in, Slow took the moon bear, and it dropped.
Thud!
It writhed, trying to get up, and it was sluggish beyond any comparison to the thing that had been sprinting a second ago. The sight alone proved that Slow, by itself, was a broken status effect. On top of that I summoned a single Fireball and sent it.
Boom!
No way to miss a thing twitching and hauling itself upright. The moon bear the Fireball struck thrashed in pain. I could feel it plainly: the HP really had swollen. Three Ice Arrows and a Fireball on top of them, and it was still alive. Of course, a moment later it folded with a soft whump.
"That is a lot of HP."
By the time I got that far, I had a little room to breathe. Ice shards and embers bursting off the dead moon bear had already buried themselves in the other two.
Graaah—
It was an ambush they never saw coming, and no matter how fast the moon bears were, they couldn't dodge it. Who expects something to come flying out of a friend's corpse?
"So long."
The remaining Ice Arrows flew, sank in, and the bears went down.
"This is actually busted. Slow and Burn."
I didn't even need to form a Fireball. While the Ice Arrows were still on their way in, the ticking Burn had already carved their life down far enough that the rest of the Ice Arrow damage was plenty to drop a moon bear.
Simple skills. The kind any mage would have at least one of. Fireball. Ice Arrow. Lightning Bolt. So familiar that the impact landed even harder.
Ice Arrow was strong too. The skill damage itself was the same as Fireball. Stack the special options, though, and Fireball pulled overwhelmingly more damage, because Burn shaved off twenty percent of a target's max life after only ten seconds. Ice Arrow didn't have that. Instead it laid a guaranteed status effect on the enemy and pinned them under a similar set of restraints.
Thud. Thud.
In the middle of that, footsteps came shaking the forest.
Shoving aside a towering tree, the boss moon bear appeared.
"Whoa. That's big."
I threw Ice Arrows. As long as the mana held, I kept throwing.
Thud. Thud.
Yeah. That was a boss. Even with its movements dulled, unlike the other moon bears, it kept coming forward. Then — a dead stop. The moment it halted arrived.
The freeze lasted one second. Short, but in a fight that short second is enormous.
This time every last bit of remaining mana turned into Fireballs and flew.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-boom!
They slammed home, guaranteed, across that wide expanse of moon bear.
Graaaaaah—
The boss thrashed. It didn't die. Five and a half times the HP.
Just as the chat said, my mana was gone. Even with over 200, a single spell ran about eight, so forty a volley, and five of those emptied the whole thing. I'd already spent mana killing the three. Of course the tank hit bottom.
I turned and ran. Putting distance between us, I watched the users revel in it.
Reading those messages, I drew something from inside my coat.
"Whew. I was hunting without moving and my body was getting stiff, so I got a little exercise in."
Glug, glug.
Mana filled. Fireballs and Ice Arrows came up, half and half.