The slime killing was cathartic, in a way.

None of the slimes were particularly threatening on their own, and an area like this wasn’t one of the more effective training spots for her particular level ranges. Requiring the ability to actually kill slimes, a more expensive proposition to begin with, amplified by the early levels not granting easy access to the credits required to buy such a weapon, meant that only a few other people were even in the area as she and Geria ran around, smashing the slimes into shiny chunks.

Half an hour and several levels in, the slimes were finally dropping off slightly in effectiveness of experience gain. Not terribly so; the way that experience scaled, she could have easily tipped over to level 25 in another twenty minutes to get the conversion skill, but she’d already picked up the first inventory expansion and three thousand credits.

It should have been a bit less than half of that, but Geria was being stubborn and, given what that had apparently caused in the past, Deyana had chosen the better part of valor instead.

Not that she wouldn’t be having that argument, eventually, but she wasn’t terribly concerned about having it right that particular second. Three thousand credits was significant to her, but given the way that player fortunes scaled, a pittance to the person she was with.

A level gap of over one hundred tended to do that to a person.

Not that she minded that much.

Smashing another slime, she was about to mention something to the effect of leaving, maybe to find a better farming spot for the short time they had left, when the low throbbing sound of the boss spawning in a non-raid area went off.

Warning! A boss monster has spawned in the zone! Players with more than forty kills on monster type: Slime (Level 15-18) will receive Death Penalty (without incrementing death counter) when leaving the zone while it remains alive! Yours: 168

 

“Well, there went that plan. Any idea where it is?”

“It is a Slime boss. It could be hiding basically anywhere, but I suspect that it will be  under a pile of something.”

There were a few places that could apply to: a large fallen wall, if it was a Princess, Metal, or Martyr; a huge pile of fallen rocks, if it were a Queen, King, or General; and the ruined underground tunnel that ran under the whole area, if it were an Assassin, Prince, or Mage.

It obviously wasn’t a King, Prince, or General, at least. A King would have made a number of smaller, lower level slimes start falling from the sky. A Prince would be aggressive enough that someone or other would have already yelled about it. And, because the slimes weren’t moving to form up in much more deadly manner, it wasn’t looking like a General, either.

Higher levels wouldn’t have ruled that one out, but the Generals before the low fifties were fairly unlikely to use deceptive tactics.

Best to start grouping up, then. A Martyr or Princess given too much time without being found, and an Assassin or Mage given time to work with the players separated, could easily take out most of the about twenty people there.

“Opening my group to raid joins!” Deyana yelled, inviting Geria at the same time as she set the level display to private.

It wasn’t that she was particularly concerned for her own safety– none of the variants were likely able to do anything to the much higher-level player she was partied with. Instead, she was going to try to get the people involved here a taste of the actual coordination that they’d be well-served to learn early on.

Not that she was expecting much. Even though she was sure most of the people in the area could have heard her yell, only four groups, totaling to ten players, had linked up to her own.

Luckily, those same groups were moving to closer proximity, between the three places where she was expecting the spawn to have come from.

When most of them had arrived, she spoke again. “Any eyes on? We’re expecting it in that wall, that pile, or underground.”

The chorus of “no”s wasn’t encouraging, but not unexpected, either.

At least until a yell from the other side of the pile abruptly cut short.

A Martyr, then.

Shit.

They weren’t the most threatening of the boss options, to a well-coordinated team, but that’s not what they had here.

A Martyr would, as it was damaged, grow an invisible aura that drew slimes to any of its enemies in that area. Once damaged to 50% health, they would suddenly explode, dealing a ton of damage to anyone caught in the blast.

Unfortunately, that damage counter didn’t reset, and the Martyr regenerated.

Now that she was listening to it, she heard the two additional pops.

Probably another death, and more damage to the Martyr.

“We’ve got a Martyr. Everyone here is running heat except my party, right?”

They were. It wasn’t a bad decision, per se, but it wasn’t the best way to deal with a Martyr, given its regenerative properties. The best plan, had that been their only option, would have been to kite it, rotating people onto and off of group protection duty until everyone had nearly full mana, then used all of it to burn down the Slime Martyr all at once.

With her there, though, they had different options.

“Let Geria and me handle the boss, then. We have freezing, so we can take it out all at once. You all cover the littles. Remember– sixty percent, then all at once, unless you want to be rubbing phantom slime of yourself on the respawn platform.”

A series of nods convinced her. Some of them were a bit slower than she liked, but she didn’t pay it any mind.

They were off, then, and Deyana noticed a few of them practicing the kill pattern she’d suggested on some of the slimes they passed along the way, bringing a slight smile to her face.

The slime had killed more than the two people she’d been aware of.

At least four places had groups of slime explosions. Twice in a clustered group, twice in a line with shrinking distance.

Because of course.

She could see another player pointing a wand at the slime, parts of its blue exterior hissing off, being replaced almost as fast as the damage was dealt.

From behind the other player, she could see a group of three slimes converging, and almost shouted a warning before stopping herself.

The damage being dealt was obviously ineffective. If she wasn’t trying to run over to the raid party when it was clearly visible, she deserved what came next.

Specifically, one of the slimes knocked into her legs, causing her to trip.

Instantly, she swapped targets, melting the slime down to half health in a second and a half even as the weight of the slime caused her to fall backwards.

Of course, reaching half health caused that slime to explode.

And, because friendly fire was a thing, its explosion caused the same thing to occur with the two slimes that hadn’t yet made contact.

The three explosions instantly killed the girl, and Deyana sighed.

What was it with people trying to solo fights they didn’t understand?

The Martyr retargeted to their group, and Deyana started talking again.

“Don’t attack the boss! We’re going to chain it for a bit, while I pull its temp down. Once it’s frozen, we’ll hit it strong enough to take it down.”

With that, she started the process by tossing the first of what would probably be many frozen orbs, following it up nearly immediately with a second.

They landed on opposite sides of the boss, freezing parts of the ground, but the much thicker, much less willing to eat strange magic orbs boss slime only had parts of its outside frozen.

Even that, however, was quickly pulled into the center of it, the frozen parts being dissolved by the larger enemy as it glided towards them.

One every five seconds, half the time it took her to regenerate the mana of one, was the balance she struck as the group slowly moved back, doing an admirable job of keeping the slimes contained.

Geria visibly stepped in a couple of times, throwing a wall or wave of sand to block or carry away a slime as it was about to explode.

Deyana was genuinely impressed at how quickly she’d adapted to using that, and was already planning on saying something about that soon enough.

For now, though, she had a slowly chilling slime to deal with.

Eight orbs in, and the slime was starting to hold the crystals internally for longer. Ten, and it was nearly frozen.

Just a couple more and it would be solid enough for Geria to smash through the center of it, breaking it up enough that everyone else there could take it apart in pieces before the aura had a chance to expand or the boss had a chance to regenerate it.

Or at least, it would have been, if the last group of four guys hadn’t chosen that moment to tear around the side of the pile, charging towards the boss. Without even asking what was going on, they pointed two wands and two staffs at it, visibly heating the surface.

“No! Fuck, what are you guys doing?”

One of them looked confused. “Killing the boss, what?”

Deyana’s eyes went wide, and her mouth argued with her brain as they undid her work in a matter of seconds before going out of mana themselves.

The boss was moving again, and they no longer had enough room to run around without running into a ton of slimes and having their allies burn mana to keep them contained.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that they’d taken off about a sixth of its health in the process, expanding the range of its aura to contain at least thirty or forty other slimes.

Deyana’s eyes narrowed. There wasn’t much chance of her previous plan working, now, and the people around her had already burned their own mana to get it close.

Not as much as they’d have needed to do it another way, but given everything, it was a lot more likely that they’d be dying here than surviving.

A common feature of bosses, and one she appreciated in most cases, but also currently unacceptable.

Luckily, Geria had more than enough mana to spare. She could reach over, charge the glove that Deyana had been using, and they could get back on track for the freezing plan.

Unluckily, while she knew that the current spending being used was low enough that she wasn’t even losing any, making that clear to the other people would involve revealing her to be one of the top five percent of players, level-wise.

Which would be… unwise.

Those thoughts kept tearing around in her head, no answers presenting themselves, until Geria tapped on her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

“Martyrs take in anything that blocks them.”

The circle in her thoughts broke, and Deyana fell back into the leadership role she’d assumed.

“Need some time. You, idiots, join the raid and get behind everyone. You’re on kiting duty. Everyone else, still mini duty, but catch them from the idiots, instead. We can still two person it.”

Maybe it was something about her voice, but this time they actually listened.

As she and Geria separated from the group, two explosions went off close to it.

While she could have afforded to defend them, Deyana put her hand on the other girl’s arm before she did.

It wouldn’t do to keep the secret in one way and give it away another.

“Can you do a four hundred burn to wall it off, then pull it into eight and rewall?”

“Probably. I’d need to stay just in front.”

“How does above sound?”

Geria blinked twice. “That would work, but I don’t have a midair mobility, so…”

“If you don’t have a problem with it, I don’t.”

“I… I don’t, but…”

“Good, come on!”

Deyana bolted forwards, staying just outside of the three-meter range that would cause the Martyr to retarget to her over the people who had annoyed it with actual damage.

Two slimes came at her and she sidestepped both, one of them getting caught by two of the other players working together, taking it out before it had the time to turn around and come back at her.

Geria was just behind, stepping over the melted bits of slime much more gracefully, then stuck out the staff, dropping a sizeable wall of sand between the boss and its targets.

It didn’t even slow down.

The slime flowed around and through the sand wall, picking it up as it went, and seemed to grow even larger than it was.

Deyana didn’t let that go to waste. “Princess or piggyback?”

Geria turned to her. “What? There’s an obvious choice, right? Pi–”

Deyana swept her up, cutting her off, a cheeky grin coming over her face as she activated the boots. “Obvious choice, should’ve thought of that.”  

The boots were only designed for one person, so while she was able to get up in the air while Geria half-glared, it was a much more involved effort than it could have been.

Geria was lighter than she was, or this might not have been possible at all, and even then it was a significant expenditure of effort to continuously step upwards, using the resistance provided by the magic and the additional physical force to keep them in the air while Geria spun her staff below them.

The burning was already becoming pronounced when the second circle completed, followed by the slime splitting apart. Deyana let herself drift down while Geria threw more sand between the eight smaller slimes, holding them apart.

“That’s four hundred.”

“Alright, they’re normal sized!” Deyana yelled out, towards the group. “Come in and take them out!”

It hadn’t been long enough for her own mana to regenerate much, so she just watched as several of the members who had been taking a break ran in, knocking out six of the spokes without issue.

Deyana did get to throw one more ice ball at one of the remaining two, but by and large the other players handed the actual damage involved in the process, the boss’s regeneration slowed by the split.

Combat Ended! Boss Killed! Pick-up Raid: Loot Automatically Assigned +4875 Experience, +490 Credits Common {Storage: Bleeding Electrical} Acquired!

 

Level Up! HP: 60 (+2) Mana: 125 (+5) Stamina: 30 (+1)

 

Level 25 Reached. Please select your transference skills.[1]: Mana → Health Mana → Stamina Health → Mana Health → Stamina Stamina → Mana Stamina → Health [1]: Selecting fewer skills will improve their efficiency!