Kobold King Boss Battle (5)
Choco's barrage had reduced every last of the rank-and-file kobolds to ash. All that remained were five elites and four royal guards.
Thankfully, the Kobold King isn't moving.
The boss — the Kobold King itself — wouldn't truly enter the fight until its royal guard had fallen. For the moment, they could afford to ignore it.
What's the mage doing?
Ho-jin charged to meet the oncoming kobolds, his eyes flicking toward where the mage stood. It hunched beside the throne in a heap of tattered rags, glaring this way. No — not this way. Its gaze was fixed on something beyond them. It wasn't watching Ho-jin's party as they closed with the kobolds. It was staring straight at Choco, who had a crossbow leveled from the rear.
Good. It's not interested in us.
Just as he'd hoped, Choco was holding its attention perfectly. The arrows scattered around the mage's feet drew a quiet breath of relief from Ho-jin. They could fight without factoring in magical interference.
"I'll take point!"
Ho-jin tucked his shield arm tight against his body and poured on the speed.
"Hrah—!"
"Guek?!"
Shield Crash
He slammed into the kobolds at a dead run. They'd been charging in a disorganized mob, so shoving the lead one was enough to send the rest tumbling in a heap — the brutal knockback of one of the few offensive skills a tank could learn.
Of course, it wasn't without cost to Ho-jin either. Skill or not, it was essentially a body slam that threw defense out the window. A fifth of his HP vanished in a single chunk, and stun locked his body rigid. It lasted only a moment — but in a fight measured in heartbeats, a stun was as good as a death sentence. One hit to a vital point and it wouldn't matter how much health he had left.
The same, however, was true of the elites. The fallen kobolds shook their heads, trying to push themselves up one by one.
"Guek—?"
One elite made a puzzled sound as something pressed down on its skull. A moment later, a sword tip punched through the back of its neck and jutted out the front. Its consciousness faded.
Yeon shoved the head she'd been standing on aside and drew her blade free. A glance to the side showed Se-jin had dispatched an elite in much the same fashion. Yeon flicked the blood from her sword out of habit and turned to Ho-jin, who was pressing a fist to his forehead as if the world were still spinning.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. My proficiency's still low, so the penalty's pretty rough. Three left, right?"
"No. Two."
Ho-jin's eyes went wide as he surveyed the battlefield. He'd clearly seen Yeon and Se-jin take one each. Two? When had they killed another one? The question had barely formed when a heavy thud sounded nearby. He looked over to find an elite fading to gray, a dagger buried perfectly between its eyes.
"...You learned Throwing too?"
"I was looking for a use for my daggers, so..."
Yeon twisted shyly as she spoke. Ho-jin clicked his tongue inwardly.
Choco and Yeon. How many more times are these two going to catch me off guard?
Just when he thought he could take it in stride — just when he thought he'd gotten used to them — they'd turn around and do something even more incredible. How was anyone supposed to believe these people had been beginners until recently, pulling off stunts like this without batting an eye? Ho-jin shook his head and turned to Yeon and Se-jin.
"Let's finish the rest before the royal guard joins in."
The instant he said it, something sliced through the air beside them with a sharp whistle. Identifying it wasn't hard — sparks were flying off the barrier the mage had raised in the distance.
Arrows kept coming at regular intervals. Choco, now able to draw the string with one hand, was firing without pause to keep the mage suppressed. Because of that, the mage could only watch as the elites died, unable to cast anything at Ho-jin's party. An arrow through the skull was a certainty if it tried.
But that wouldn't last forever. Ho-jin tallied the crossbow bolts he'd brought. Roughly five quivers, ten bolts each. One quiver had already been spent during the earlier hunt, so Choco had about forty shots to work with. They'd used maybe half by now. That made things tight.
As he thought it through, he approached the other two, who had just cleanly finished off the remaining elites.
"Change of plans. We'll leave one of the four royal guards and take out the rest. Then you two go straight for the mage."
"Are you sure? That seems like a lot of pressure on you..."
"It's not the Kobold King. One royal guard I can handle on my own. Let's go!"
He was already sprinting forward, leaving no room for argument. Yeon and Se-jin exchanged a look, then followed with a sense of resignation.
And just as Ho-jin had estimated, Choco had barely fifteen arrows left — not even half. No matter how carefully she rationed them, she wouldn't last until Ho-jin's party finished the entire royal guard.
Which meant they had to resolve this before then. Choco fired mechanically as she asked Tara.
"How do we punch through that barrier?"
"You could break it if you were any good, Successor."
"Don't be like that. Help me think. Me doing well isn't exactly bad for you, is it?"
Tara let out a short, incredulous breath.
"Just existing like this is already bad enough for me, thank you."
"I'm sure Gumiho had her reasons for all of this."
"Address her as Lady Gumiho. Show some respect. A mere Two-Tailed Fox like you has no business speaking of her so casually."
She'd bawled her eyes out over being betrayed, and yet here she was, still clinging to that same reverence. Choco couldn't begin to guess what Gumiho was to her, to command that kind of loyalty even now.
Choco let out a long sigh.
"Just come up with something. This is supposed to be your specialty, isn't it?"
The old Choco would have simply smashed through it with raw power. She'd had the strength for it, and the technique. Even now, if she'd only had enough spiritual energy, she would have poured in more force than the barrier could possibly withstand and shattered it outright — instead of pecking away at it with arrows like this, stingy and small.
"You really are a nuisance from start to finish— wait."
"What? Did you notice something?"
"I should be the one asking you that. You're looking right at it and you don't feel a thing?"
Choco tilted her head, then muttered as something clicked into place.
"Now that you mention it... something about that thing's been bugging me since I first laid eyes on it."
"'Bugging you.' How wonderfully carefree. That staff the kobold is holding has another successor's energy coming off it."
"Another successor?"
"Let me see... it's a Sealing Array. Whether from the passage of time or because that kobold broke the seal itself, I can't say — but the spiritual energy that should have been suppressing the staff's power is reinforcing it instead."
"How does a Sealing Array end up granting a strengthening effect?"
"How should I know?"
Choco could practically see her shrugging, invisible or not, and the gesture was somehow infuriating.
"So there's no way to break it?"
"Who said there wasn't? If it's magic reinforced by spiritual energy, I can shatter it from this side — given enough time."
"Wait, seriously?"
"Would I joke about something like this? I may not look it, but I'm quite confident in spiritual combat."
The prim, self-satisfied tone sparked a sudden question.
"Hold on. You use spiritual energy yourself — so why would you be confident in a fight against it?"
"Why...? You already know, don't you?"
Know what, exactly?
Tara's knowing, insinuating voice sent a cold sweat down Choco's back. Come to think of it, from the moment they'd first met, Tara had been telling her to keep a close watch on her Fox Bead. If they hadn't encountered each other under the Fox God's oracle — if they'd crossed paths under any other circumstances...
Just imagining it sent a chill down her spine.
Maybe I should be a little nicer to her until I get stronger.
She was already being plenty nice, but still. Tara wasn't about to stab her in the back at this point — but it never hurt to be careful.
"Grab any arrow and hold it."
At Tara's instruction, Choco counted what she had left. Five arrows. Just five. She loaded one as naturally as breathing, loosed it, then picked up another. Breaking the barrier was critical, but she couldn't afford to stop suppressing the mage. Ho-jin's party was in the thick of it with the royal guard now — if she let up, they could be in real danger.
"Hurry it up, please."
"I'm already working as fast as I can. You don't need to rush me."
Choco listened to Tara's grumbling as she jammed the crossbow's muzzle into the dirt and drew the string with one hand. Even as she did, she could feel spiritual energy flowing from her Fox Bead into the arrow in her left hand.
She finished loading and was about to take aim at the kobold mage again when Tara spoke.
"A word of advice beforehand — I recommend you don't use any spiritual energy while I'm inscribing the Array of Spirit Breaking."
"Recommend I don't? What are you talking about?"
"The Array of Spirit Breaking has the property of dispersing spiritual energy. What do you think happens if you try to use spiritual energy in the middle of that?"
"Ah."
The realization landed a beat late. Tara added, almost as an afterthought:
"The same goes for when you actually fire the inscribed arrow, by the way. From the look of it, you've been using the principles of Five Elements Daoism to lock the trajectory with wind. Do that with this arrow and you'll put a bolt through the back of your companions' heads."
She was right. Until now, no matter how directly Ho-jin's party stood in the line of fire, the arrows had always curved toward the kobold mage. Fire an arrow inscribed with the Array of Spirit Breaking the same way, and the spiritually locked trajectory would shatter — sending the bolt in a dead-straight line.
Even if it hit someone, as Tara seemed to assume, it wouldn't kill or seriously injure them. But the opening that created might be enough for the kobold mage to finish an offensive spell — and that would put Ho-jin's party in mortal danger.
Wait. Then I don't have time to sit here waiting around.
She needed a new firing position before the Array of Spirit Breaking was finished. Choco burst from the undergrowth and ran, circling wide along the outer edge, hunting for an angle that would keep her companions out of the line of fire.
The mage, however, was not about to sit still and watch. Judging, perhaps, that she was no longer an immediate threat, it dropped its barrier.
"Blast—!"
The cry of dismay left her lips as she swung the crossbow toward the mage. But there was no hitting a target at a dead sprint. The hastily loosed bolt hissed past, grazing the tattered rags draped over the mage's head.
The mage did not let that mistake slip by.