After killing the first boss, the party took this time to recuperate their stamina. Setting up a temporary camp, they had people stand guard while the main tanker rested for a moment.
Shiro took this time to go around killing the wandering monsters while Yin and Lisandra followed her.
“Did you find out anything?” Shiro asked as she had tasked them with finding anything that could potentially lead them to the intelligent monster.
“No. There was nothing, not even a footprint.” Lisandra shook her head.
“Hmm… that’s rather troublesome. I suppose that’s to be expected since the monster is extremely fast.” Shiro frowned.
“Shall we warn them?” Yin asked.
“No not yet. If they cause a commotion, it’ll make the monster wary of our movements. Right now, we’re using the excuse of hunting to leave the camp so the monster wouldn’t find anything strange about this. But if we tell the entire party, the monster will hear them talking about its existence and that’s something we can’t have. Otherwise, we won’t be able to take it off guard with our attacks, lowering our chance of killing it.” Shiro shook her head.
“Anyways, let’s go back to the camp. We’ve killed all the monsters around for now so it’s time for the next boss.”
Once they returned to the camp, they started to make their way to where the second boss was.
From their information, the boss was a giant tree that would spawn tiny copies of itself and one had to destroy the copies before focusing on the tree.
Normally, trying to find a specific tree in a forest would be hard but, due to the size and the arena, it was easily spotted. Even from a long distance away, they could see the towering tree that stood above the forest.
“Seriously, even though we knew it’s height, this is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? How does a tree even get this big? Wouldn’t the nutrients it requires drain the forest entirely?” One of the party members raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t question it. We launch magical fires with a wave of our fingers and even destroy cliffs. Why is a massive f*ck off tree confusing you?” One of the tankers laughed.
“Well I suppose. But aren’t you curious as well?”
“Hmm… A little.”
“Monsters are formed from mana. They don’t need any nutrients to speak of when they form. The tree could have been ‘spawned’ like this.” One of the mages answered.
Shiro nodded to this explanation as well since only mana was needed when a monster first forms. Of course, some other mediums are desired, an example being a corpse for snow girls, but they weren’t mandatory. It only increases the chance of a specific monster being born.
For example, in a place filled with lava, fire based monsters are more likely to spawn due to the environment. But that didn’t mean an ice type monster couldn’t be born. Only that when they are born, they’ll die rather quickly due to the environment and the hostile monsters around it.
Upon arriving at the arena, the boss instantly reacted and summoned his minions. Soon, the arena was filled with what seemed to be a turtle made from wood.
[World Eater Treant Sapling – LVL 60 BOSS]
HP: 60,000,000/60,000,000
MP:67,500,000/70,000,000
[World Eater Guards – LVL 55 ELITE]
HP: 5,000,000/5,000,000
MP: 3,000,000/3,000,000
“Formation 1, healers heal those who are low and supports buff Miss Nytri’s group of three.” Isaac commanded while dashing towards the closest group of guards.
Shiro wasn’t too far behind him either as she felt her strength increase.
‘Since I’m being buffed, it should be ok to show more of my power or else it’ll be weird.’ She thought to herself.
Flicking Ataraxia into the sky, she summoned out the other copies and had them scatter throughout the arena.
“Try not to make contact with the monster kay?” Shiro called out nonchalantly as the party instantly pulled back.
Knowing her destructive power from the tests, despite her holding back, they knew that they’ll be injured heavily if they didn’t listen.
*BOOM!!!!
Two Tier 3 magic circles appeared in the sky as Shiro grinned. Using a mixture of her Lightning and Metal attunement, she summoned down pillars of lightning onto her swords.
Tier 3 Lightning Magic – Lightning Web
*TZZZ!!!!!
Lightning travelled through all of the monsters as scorch marks could be seen all over their bodies.
“Their defence should now be weakened and their reactions will be dull.” Shiro informed as she retrieved her swords.
Bending her knees slightly, she grabbed two of her swords and dashed forwards. Twisting her body, she slashed all of the monsters that she ran past.
“Kill them all!” Isaac shouted out as worship could be seen in his eyes.
Yin jumped into the air and pushed her palms forward. Creating a tier 3 magic circle, she made two more and threw them towards the monsters.
“Expand!”
Clutching her hands into a first, she expanded the magic circles and activated them.
*BOOM!
Several wh.i.p.s made from Dark Star energy erupted from the circles and lashed out at all the monsters within its range.
As for Lisandra, she followed behind Shiro and killed monsters with her sword skills.
While the party fought the minions, the boss would either stab towards them with tree trunks or use leaves to block their vision. But with the existence of talented tankers and archers, they didn’t need to worry too much about these things.
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Watching the party coordinate with each other, the monster narrowed its eyes dangerously.
‘Hmm… that commander with the silver aura seems to be the most dangerous out of them. The girl named Alura and the tanker seems to be problematic too…’ He thought while analysing their fighting style.
However, while he could tell that those three were dangerous, he was more concerned about Shiro’s group.
‘While her display so far is not bad even after receiving the buff, she shouldn’t be giving me a sense of death. Some sword sage shouldn’t be a danger to me since they can’t harm what they can’t hit. The fire mage in her group is just a kid and the other girl can only use a sword as well. Logically, these three should pose no threat to me… Hm… and why does the name Nytri ring a bell…’ He frowned in concern.
As an assassin in his past life, he knew that he should trust his instincts. But he simply couldn’t tell why he should be wary of the three girls.
Now that he had the monster title that doubles his stats, he was a monstrous entity amongst the mid levels of C class despite only being at the early levels. That was the benefits that were brought by the monster title, a privilege he couldn’t experience in his old life.
“Tch, if I had this when I fought that b*stard, he wouldn’t even be able to hit me.” He clicked his tongue at the thought of why he died. Shaking his head of the thoughts, he flickered to another spot around the area. Staying in one place was never good.
Meanwhile, Shiro narrowed her eyes slightly when she felt the source of the gaze disappear.
‘So he’s changed spots again.’ She thought to herself. From what she had felt a moment before his disappearance, he had cultivated quite a large amount of killing intent. While it couldn’t compare to hers, it was definitely larger than average.
The more she felt his gaze, the more serious Shiro’s facial expression became. That was because she could feel suspicion and wariness in his gaze whenever he looked at her.
‘Despite having held back on my power output, he’s still suspicious. This might mean that his instincts are sensitive. A seasoned adventurer.’
Furrowing her brows, she cut down another monster as she wondered if she should restrain herself more. But that was quickly forgotten since it would only be more suspicious if she didn’t use any skills.
‘I’ll see what happens for now. But since it’s an intelligent and seasoned monster, we’ll probably only get one chance since he’ll be on guard after seeing the return stones. Depending on the situation, he’ll probably attack on the fourth boss since no one had cleared that yet. It’ll be risky to fight him at that moment without being able to access my full power.’
She couldn’t stay behind after they left using the return stones either since that’ll mean that she had to fight against the boss and the monster at the same time. That would simply be too dangerous even for her.
‘Seems like I’ll have to try to distract the party or make it so that the monster can’t interfere with the boss fight.’ She narrowed her eyes.
