Akari gave me a puzzled look, and I realized it was a silly question. Unlike me, who had few connections, Akari’s contacts were probably stacked with frontliners. She could probably assemble twenty-nine fighters in no time.
However, I was wrong about why she was giving me that look.
“Huh? Did you count wrong? We won’t need twenty-nine people. Just twenty-three.”
“You said the max was thirty people, didn’t you? So I was right with twenty-nine.”
“Wait, Yuto, are you not going to join?”
“Come again? Me, fighting that raid boss? No way!”
Akari had apparently been under the impression that I was going to participate in the raid battle. And with my whole party. We’d be useless. If my monsters and I used up an entire party slot, we’d ruin any chances of winning.
Even if I participated alone, I’d only feel bad for leeching off everyone else. When I explained as much to Akari, she vehemently denied this.
“You could never be a leech! We need you there, Yuto! It’ll boost our chances of winning by a mile!”
“Come on, what? There’s no way that’s true.”
“With you and your monsters there, you’ll inspire everyone to do their best! I know I’m more motivated to fight well just to impress your monsters!”
So we’d be like cheerleaders? I had a feeling Akari was only saying these things so I would join without feeling guilty, but since she was going through the trouble of trying to make me feel better about it, then I supposed I could join. That raid boss was terrifying, but it’d be a good experience either way!
“A-All right. I’ll participate.”
“Yay!”
“So, how should we find members? Should we stick to friends?”
“Hmm, let’s see... Do you have any good ideas of who to call?”
“Let me think. Who, of the people I know, are the strongest fighters...”
The first ones who came to mind were Kokuten and his party, and Siegfried, since they were all top frontliners. Then there was Marca, who I’d befriended during one of the prior events, Sakkyun, the flashy Summoner, and Murakage, the ninja wannabe. I felt like all of them would be a reliable asset in this fight.
Alyssa and the other Quick-Eared Cats were also among the top players, but they weren’t purely fighting classes.
Oh, there was also Rikyu, Filma, and Kurumi, and Sawyer the young elf—they were strong players too. Plus, there was also Ashihana, the woodworker who was obsessed with Bear Bear, Fuka the cook, Tagosack the farmer, and Sukegawa the lewd blacksmith. They were all crafters, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t fight.
And if I asked other tamers to join, like Amelia, Ursula, and Eulenspiegel, then we’d be able to fill up the party slots in a heartbeat.
“I think that about covers it.”
“W-Wow, you’re very well-connected!”
“Huh? You think so?”
“I do. You’re honestly amazing.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. My contacts were amazing, not me. Anyway, Akari had some contacts she could call up too, so between the two of us, we should be able to form a pretty decently strong group.
Though now that I thought about it, I really had made a lot of friends in LJO. I hadn’t been sure how things would go when I first started playing this game, but maybe I wasn’t doing so bad after all.
“So what’s our game plan?” I asked.
“I was thinking, maybe we should ask someone who’s experienced in raid boss fights for advice first.”
“Like who?”
“The clan master of the Monster Hunting Division, Kokuten. His clan makes it a point to fight raid bosses that have already been defeated several times over.”
“You know, I do remember him saying that he wanted to play LJO so he could fight giant monsters.”
In this game, raids usually occurred in the form of dungeon bosses or as a requirement to unlock an area. In the case where the raid boss was blocking the way to a new area, the enemy had to be defeated as a raid boss only the first time. To be more precise, after the raid boss was defeated once, parties could decide for themselves if they wanted to challenge the enemy as a raid boss or a regular boss. Though most parties tended to pick the regular boss version.
A regular boss was leagues weaker and much easier to beat. Also, since there wasn’t any evidence to indicate that there were items dropped only by the raid version of the boss, it was much more painless to farm drops from the regular version.
Verification had been done to compare gathering a large group to go all out on a raid boss versus preparing a single party to challenge a regular boss. There had been extensive discussions about various aspects, like drop rates and time efficiency, and they had concluded that farming a regular boss was the better choice.
All that is to say that there were very few players who would do something as rash as go out of their way to challenge a raid boss, outside of those who fought them to film videos or for verification purposes. Kokuten and his clan were among those “very few.” He and his Monster Hunting Division clan, made up of solely working adults, were big fans of fighting giant monsters.
“All right then, should we call Kokuten first?”
“Yes, good idea. Let’s do it now!” Akari insisted enthusiastically.
“O-Okay, sure.”
I searched for Kokuten in my friends list and saw that he was online. Hopefully he picked up my call...
“Hello, Kokuten speaking. How may I help you?”
Wow, he picked up right away. And talk about a professional greeting!
“I actually wanted to ask you for advice about something. Do you have time to talk?”
“Oh? You want advice from me?”
“Yeah. You see, I ran into what I think is an undiscovered raid boss—”
“I beg your pardon?!” Kokuten shouted.
Gah! So loud! I wasn’t expecting him to yell!
“T-Tell me more! What kind of monster is it?! How can I find it?!”
I knew Kokuten loved fighting raid bosses, but I wasn’t expecting his personality to do a complete 180 at the mention of one. I never would have imagined that the normally calm Kokuten could sound this hyped about something.
“Wh-Why don’t we meet up and talk?” I suggested.
“Yes, of course! Where should I meet you? I’ll go anywhere! I’ll come right now!”
“O-Oh, sure. Then how about...”
Ten minutes later, we arrived at Yellow City.
“Silver-Haired!”
“Kokuten! Over here!”
After we met up in front of the teleportation circle, Akari led us to the Adventurers’ Guild to use one of the conference rooms there. They were available for parties to hold meetings. A café that had private rooms also would have been fine to use, but none of us were familiar with any fancy cafés like that. I thought about looking for one, but since Kokuten seemed like he didn’t want to wait much longer to hear about the raid boss, we decided to head to the closest guild with a place for us to talk.
We entered the conference room, and as soon as Kokuten sat down on a chair, he immediately pressed us for details.
“So, you found an undiscovered raid boss?”
His excitement still hadn’t settled down one bit! He was speaking so fast! And that look in his eye is scary!
“Y-Yeah, that’s right,” I said. “I’m not sure if it’s undiscovered or not, but I’m pretty sure the general public doesn’t know about it. Neither of us had ever heard about it. Right, Akari?”
“Right, I had no idea it existed,” Akari affirmed.
There was a possibility that other players had found the raid boss but were concealing the information like we were, but we were almost positive that nothing had been made public.
“Frankly, it seems to be an incredibly strong opponent,” Akari said.
“That’s why we were thinking you could lend us your wisdom.”
Spurred on by Kokuten’s intense, wide-eyed gaze, we got right to business. Even my monsters were politely sitting in their seats without making a sound.
“Aye...”
“Kee-hee...”
“Growl...”
They must have instinctively understood that they’d be scolded if they caused any interruptions. They were as silent as dolls. Actually, dolls and stuffed toys modeled after my monsters didn’t sound like a bad idea. Maybe I could ask Eine to make some?