Kobold King Boss Battle (3)
Lv. 30 Kobold Elite
That was the name of the monster the party had just put down.
"I've never seen a kobold like this before."
"Think this is because of the Sudden Event too?"
"Most likely."
Ho-jin hadn't actually lived through all that many Sudden Events himself, so he couldn't say for certain. Their causes ran the gamut, and the effects they spawned were never the same twice.
"Did you figure something out?"
Se-jin asked, watching Choco stare at the spot where the Elite's corpse had been. Choco flicked her eyes toward her, then shook her head.
"How would Yeo know what even that creature did not? Still, these ones proved rather sturdy."
An Elite was an Elite — of course they would be tougher than ordinary kobolds. Even so, watching them eat several direct hits of Foxfire and keep coming was enough to startle even Choco.
Not that it had saved them. Once the other three piled on, the Elites folded. Already thoroughly roasted by Foxfire, they barely managed to fight back before going down.
Still. It bothers me.
Elite or not, the power of Choco's Foxfire was nothing to sneeze at. With her Spirit Power stat already past one hundred and fifty, anything short of a significantly higher-level monster should have dropped in a single hit.
The fact that they had tanked it more than once left even Choco with only one conclusion.
Are they actually under a magic damage reduction effect?
It wasn't complete immunity, as Ho-jin had said — but they were definitely receiving some kind of Magic Damage Reduction. There was no other way they could have survived that many Foxfire hits.
But Magic Damage Reduction? Not Physical? Magic was powerful, yes, but virtually no players in this level range had even learned a spell yet. Physical Damage Reduction would have been the obvious choice. And yet it was the opposite.
A Magic Damage Reduction buff… as if they had been expecting a mage to show up…
Don't tell me this is aimed at me?
No. That was ridiculous. Choco snorted and shook her head at the thought that had popped up unbidden. Even for her, that was stretching into full-blown paranoia.
Slapping a Magic Damage Reduction buff on an entire force just to counter a mage who might or might not show up? Al Fantasia was a high-freedom game, but that was too much of a stretch.
But if that really was the reason… well. She would just have to show them it hadn't been necessary.
With that thought, Choco turned to Ho-jin.
"Ho-jin. It is time we departed for the boss."
"What? But we still don't have any information on the Elites…"
"There can be no such information to begin with. We were the first to discover them, were we not?"
"Well. That's true."
Ho-jin slung his crossbow over his shoulder — a one-handed carry, now that a few level-ups had bumped his Strength high enough to manage it. Yeon's face flickered with a faintly disappointed look at the sight. Choco tilted her head at her, then turned her gaze back to Ho-jin.
"Even so, Yeo has taken their measure. These creatures are clearly under a Magic Damage Reduction buff."
"Magic Damage Reduction? Why not physical…?"
"It is somewhat embarrassing to say, but it would seem they have taken Yeo into account."
"…You, Choco?"
"Yeo knows full well how strange that sounds, so do not look at Yeo like that."
She would burn him to ash. The threat, delivered in that particular tone, was enough to make Ho-jin — who had been squinting at her with open skepticism — shrug as if he had never doubted her at all.
"Well, if the one actually casting the magic says so, it must be true."
"But if they really do have Magic Damage Reduction, isn't this party composition going to fall short?"
"Fall short?"
Choco looked at Se-jin as if she had just said something incomprehensible.
"Trash mobs are one thing. But if the Elite-tier already has Magic Damage Reduction, the Royal Guard will have it too. The Kobold King might as well. And we don't even know how strong the Kobold Mage is supposed to be. Charging in blindly would be reckless."
"So what you're saying, Cute, is that we should recruit a few more people first?"
"That's the short version, yes."
Ho-jin let out a low hum and put on a face that looked, at a glance, like he was seriously considering it.
Choco knew better. That was not the face of a man who was actually thinking it over.
Sure enough, Ho-jin spoke again in a light, easy voice, as if the moment of deliberation had never happened.
"But do we really need to?"
"What?"
"What do you think, Choco? Do you honestly believe your magic alone isn't enough for the four of us to take on a boss fight?"
He left Se-jin standing there with a blank look on her face and put the question to Choco instead.
"What a peculiar question. How little do you think of Yeo? Should Yeo so desire, laying waste to this entire area would be a trifling matter."
"And you, Yeon?"
"Huh? Me too?"
"You're a member of this party. I asked everyone else — I can't exactly leave you out."
Yeon fidgeted for a moment, then mumbled in a small voice.
"I… I think we'll be fine. Choco, Se-jin, and Ho-jin are all strong, so…"
"There you have it."
"But still…"
"I know what you're getting at, Cute. But."
Ho-jin said it with a smile.
"I want to clear this with this party."
There was no need to go looking for more people. One mage, two damage dealers, and a tank — a perfect composition that already hit the minimum for a boss fight. Why wedge someone else into that? Besides, they had spent hours hunting together, matching each other's rhythms. Drop a stranger into the mix now and the whole thing would start to grind.
And, if he was being honest, going in like this just sounded more fun. Ho-jin kept that part to himself.
"We might fail, sure. They've got a mage of their own, so there will be plenty of variables, and if Choco's magic turns out to be unexpectedly useless we could end up in over our heads."
"Why you little—"
"C-calm down, Choco."
Choco lunged; Yeon caught her. Ho-jin took a discreet step backward and kept talking.
"But does that really matter? Challenging the impossible is what an adventure is."
Besides, it was a game. Die and you just woke up in the real world. Saying that out loud would have killed the mood for certain, so Ho-jin kept it to himself.
"…If that's how you put it."
Se-jin conceded the point and stepped back. Ho-jin's voice brightened at once.
"Well, if I'm being honest, more people means a smaller cut of the loot for me, and I don't like that one bit."
"Eh… that's the reason?"
Ho-jin wagged a finger at Yeon.
"Tsk tsk. 'That's the reason,' she says. You travel with Choco, so you probably don't realize — do you have any idea how hard it is to take down a boss at this level? That Black Wolf's Fang of yours is worth thirty thousand gold."
"It's that expensive?"
"Boss rewards are almost always top-tier gear. They're hard to kill, but once you do, the return is guaranteed. And in a four-person party, the odds of those nice rewards landing on me go way up."
There was a reason skilled players built their boss-hunting parties at four. A sure, solid return — that was the whole point of the composition.
Yeon looked at Ho-jin with the slightly disillusioned stare of someone whose image of him had just taken a hit.
Se-jin, on the other hand, let out a quiet laugh.
"That's true. Rewards do matter."
"See? Cute gets it."
"Even you, Se-jin…"
Yeon stared at her as if she had never expected that. Se-jin only smiled.
Yeon looked back and forth between the two of them, then sidled over to Choco — who was wearing a distinctly sour expression — and asked in a small voice,
"Ch-Choco isn't like that, right?"
"Nay. Yeo is of the same mind as those two."
"Eh…"
Of everyone here, Choco was the greediest about rewards to begin with. If she hadn't planned on joining, that would be one thing — but she was already in, and that meant she was going to clear this properly and collect what she was owed.
And this wasn't just any boss. A Sudden Event stacked on top of a level restriction. The payout was going to be jaw-dropping.
"So… I'm the weird one here…?"
"Let us not go that far. More importantly — would it not be better to set out soon?"
Choco dismissed Yeon's muttering and turned to Ho-jin.
"Shouldn't we rest a little and recover our mana first?"
"This much can be restored along the way."
"It won't even take five minutes to get there."
"Even if we rest here, those creatures may come again. Better to move first."
If another wave of Kobold Elites showed up, Yeon and Ho-jin might even level. Experience had been trickling their way the whole time Choco and Pretty Cute were power-leveling, after all.
Ho-jin nodded, apparently convinced, and addressed the three of them.
"The boss battle flag won't trigger until we actually encounter the boss, so even if they come at us, ignore them as much as you can and just run."
Yeon and Se-jin nodded. Ho-jin tightened his grip on his shield and shouted.
"Let's go!"
A kobold draped in rags stared with sunken eyes at the gem set in his staff, watching it flicker.
The Elites he had sent to kill the intruders were all dead. Creatures that would not have been out of place among the Royal Guard, snuffed out so easily — he had expected losses, but not this fast. Not without so much as a hair on the enemy being touched.
So it was true. This one was of the same blood as the fox who had sealed the Witch. The Kobold Mage closed his eyes and let the memory of the first time he had taken up the staff wash over him.
He had not been a mage from the start. He had been an ordinary kobold, no different from the rest of his kind — a mindless thing that roamed in packs and attacked humans.
After a raid on humans had ended in a crushing defeat, he had been the only one to survive. Fleeing, he had crawled into a cave he had not even known existed in the forest, and there he had found a staff lying discarded on the ground. The moment he picked it up, intellect and memory poured into him.
In that memory, a human gripping a staff stood opposed to a woman with three tails. The owner of the staff in the mage's hands had been a being called the Witch. The woman with the features of a beast had called herself a Practitioner.
They had charged each other. After a long battle, the Witch had fallen and been sealed away somewhere. The woman who called herself a Practitioner had left the staff in this cave and gone on her way.
And the kobold who picked it up had, from that moment, become a mage.
The curse bound to the staff had made him a servant of the Witch — but she was sealed, and she would not wake. So the mage had used the magic the staff granted him to strengthen his own kind. The staff the Witch had left behind was tremendously powerful. Magics far too strong for a mere kobold to wield came as easily as breathing.
Even so, he could not rest easy. Deep in the forest, he had begun to sense an aura similar to the one who had called herself a Practitioner, the one he had seen in the staff's memories.
Compared to the Practitioner, it was an infinitely feeble thing — but he could not afford to be careless. Even the Witch, armed with a staff this powerful, had been helpless before that Practitioner. Weak as this aura was, it would still be stronger than these kobolds.
"Kueeek!"
The mage let out a shriek, and light burst from the gem in his staff, sending a pulse of mana rolling outward. It swept across the entire colony, washing through every last kobold.
All kobolds in the colony have been granted Magic Damage Reduction.
Area of Effect: Entire Colony
The Magic Damage Reduction he had previously reserved for the Elites sent to eliminate the intruders now covered every kobold present.
It would not be a perfect defense. But it would be enough to answer what was coming.
That was what the mage thought — and then.
"Kuek? Kueeek?!"
A kobold warrior stared up at a sky that had suddenly gone bright, his face twisted in confusion.
A moment later he was thrashing his arms and legs, his voice cracking with terror.
Dozens of fireballs were pouring down from the heavens, straight toward them.
Foxfire
Dozens of fireballs rain from the sky.