From what I’d heard, it was possible to unlock dark- or light-type job classes by acquiring the rare magic skills Dark Magic or Light Magic. Huey, for example, was a Dark Magician. He had been keeping that a secret, but had decided to disclose that to me for this raid fight. Holland’s special move, Shining Saber, gave off a hero of light vibe, and if his companion, Huey, was a dark magician... They were a pair after my own edgy, middle schooler heart.
However, Dark Tamers had a terrible image, so if I was going to go for anything, it would be a Light Tamer. Or maybe a Shining Tamer? A Tamer of Light... That sounded like a title for a book or something.
However, none of my monsters seemed to have any relation to light, except for maybe Sakura and Fau. If anything, most of my monsters were connected to earth and trees. An Earth Tamer? Or a Tree Tamer? Eh. Even if those job classes became available, they would definitely be support roles. Although, those might be just the job class that I would be best suited for.
“You’ll tell me if you find out anything, won’t you, Silver-Haired?”
“Will do.”
“Well, it’s also very possible that those job classes will be easily unlocked when one reaches a fourth-level class change.”
“Oh, hmm.”
Could dark job classes really become available when upgrading to a fourth-level advanced job without fulfilling any special conditions?
“If that happens, then you wouldn’t need information from me,” I pointed out.
“I just want to increase my chances as much as I can.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Neeeigh.”
Even Rais’s horse whinnied a plea. Redbud really was cute. Until now, I had only interacted with horses that had a unique look, like Siegfried’s Silver and my Carro, but a typical horse like Redbud wasn’t bad either. Redbud was soft to the touch, and the way the horse nuzzled against me was also very adorable.
“Redbud is the name of a flower, right? It’s a really classy name.”
“Don’t you think? I was drawn to what redbuds represent in the language of flowers.”
“Neigh.” Redbud nodded cutely.
“Really? So, what do redbuds mean?” I asked.
“Happiness, nobility, and a lifetime of wealth,” Rais replied.
“Cool, I like the sound of that too!”
“Neigh!”
“They also signify distrust and betrayal. Redbuds are also called Judas trees. Hee hee.”
Hold on, what?! He said he liked what redbuds represented, but which meaning?! Which meaning did he like?! Could we really trust this guy? What if he turned against us in the middle of the raid? There was no PK or friendly fire in this game, so it was really unlikely someone would be able to suddenly betray their teammates in the middle of battle. But he was still acting fishy!
“Anyway, that’s not important,” he said dismissively.
“I think it is!”
An hour passed since we had set out, but Rais was such a good conversationalist that the time flew by. Maybe he really was a good guy! He acted a little strangely sometimes, but...surely that was just part of his role-playing. Please let that be it!
We eventually made it to the Beast Hybrid Village, and thankfully, the other groups did too. Some people wanted to tour the village, but that would have to wait for later. We had to go to the Adventurers’ Guild, and accept the raid quest all together. That was how we would form our raid party.
We had already settled on our basic strategy, so the only thing left to do was head to the boss. At least, we had formed as much of a strategy as we could against a boss no one had fought yet. Our only plan, more or less, was that we would split into an advance and rear guard and coordinate as best we could.
Since we wanted to glean some information first, we decided to stick to a pretty typical fighting style at first. The advance guard would tank, the rear guard would attack, and supporters would cast buffs and debuffs. Also, we would refrain from using the traps we prepared until after we had seen a good amount of the boss’s abilities.
The path to the raid boss was super easy. Since we had formed a raid party, we didn’t encounter any monsters in the cave. At the guild, the receptionist told us that the monsters ran away when they sensed a lot of people around, but in actuality this was just a way to give players heading in to challenge the raid boss a little bit of a break.
I was really thankful for it. Kokuten and his party were disappointed at first, but they perked right back up when they remembered it wouldn’t be long before we fought the raid boss.
“Are those the doors that lead into the room?” Kokuten asked.
“Yeah. The boss is just past these doors,” I said.
“Okay then, let’s get in formation. Tanks, to the front.”
“Right!”
“Got it!”
Our tanks were Byden, Kurumi, and Holland. I had the thought that Olto could go with them too, but my party was asked to stay in the back and give support. Not that I was complaining. I did think it would be a little demanding for him to tank alongside top players.
Siegfried, Rais, KTK, and Murakage’s role was to keep circling the room and attacking and supporting when needed. I was looking forward to seeing their moves.
“All right, let’s go!” Kokuten called out.
Everyone responded with a resounding, “Yeah!”
We opened the doors and stepped inside. The room was the same as the last time I was here. Stalactites and stalagmites were protruding from the ceiling and ground, and it was so dark that I could barely see. There was some luminous moss growing above us, but the light it gave off was very faint.
“Let’s keep going,” Kokuten, our leader, said.
“You heard him, guys,” Holland, who was acting as a sort of subleader, called out.
As they directed, we moved forward. Once we walked a few dozen meters, I gradually started to make out the silhouette of the creature we were here to fight. The giant, golden beast sat imposingly in the center of the dark room. It looked like it was still asleep—each of the lion’s three heads were snoring.
“I see its health bar.”
“And I’ve got its name. That’s the Cerberus Lion, all right.”
Cerberus, as in the three-headed dog. But instead of a dog, it was a lion.
“Ready?” Kokuten asked.
Everyone nodded without saying a word. All of us already had our weapons at the ready.
The battle would begin once we shortened our distance a little more, set up a trap, or attacked the lion. I was grateful that we were offered the chance to do a preemptive strike, but that meant everyone was really tense before the fight.
“I will make the first strike. Once the battle starts, Sekisho, Huey, and Sawyer will attack first.”
“Roger that, boss!”
“I’m ready whenever.”
“Yes, sir!”
Sekisho, who was weirdly hyped up since he was standing in front of Nyamun-chan, and Huey, holding the staff he’d bought at the auction, began chanting spells. Sawyer took out a green spellbook and opened it. I was surprised to see that he had made a spellbook that specialized in wind magic for this fight. It hadn’t crossed my mind that spellbooks could be used that way to exploit an enemy’s weakness.
“Now, let the battle begin!”
Kokuten picked up a rock at his feet and threw it at the Cerberus Lion. It dealt zero damage, but the lion still recognized it as an attack.
“Grrr... ROOOOAAAR!”
The Cerberus Lion’s six eyes opened simultaneously and the beast unleashed a roar that resounded all through the cave room as if it were yelling, “Come at me!” At the same time, a large, red marker appeared above the lion’s head.
The raid boss battle had begun.
Sekisho and Huey finished their incantations at exactly the moment that a red marker appeared over the boss’s head. The Cerberus Lion braced itself as it watched the small tornados launched by their spells drawing closer on both sides, but it made no move to evade. Was it going to try to block them?
The entire raid party watched in breathless anticipation as the left and right heads of the lion opened their mouths and sent out a rush of flames. When the long tongues of the flames collided with the tornadoes, there was an explosion.
After the blast had passed, I managed to open my eyes and saw that the tornadoes were gone, the lion’s flames having nullified the magic. The lion’s left and right heads must have been positioned primarily to intercept any attacks coming from its flanks.
Sawyer sent a wind bullet flying directly forward, which successfully made impact and took out some HP. It didn’t deal a lot of damage, but it confirmed that wind was effective against the lion.
“Just as we suspected, this will be no walk in the park! Support, start buffing!” Kokuten ordered.
“Roger, meow! Listen to my song, meow!”
“Aye-aye!”
Nyamun began playing a song that boosted speed and critical attack rate. Fau’s song boosted defense, and Sawyer and Fuka applied buffs using items.
“C’mon! Take this!”
“Roooaaar!”
“Come at me!”
Byden and Kurumi both used provocation skills to pull the boss’s aggro towards them. Even though only one of them could be targeted by the boss at one time, their skills would still continue to accumulate aggro even when not targeted. So even if one of the tanks fell, the boss’s target would shift to the other tank, who would have the next highest aggro. For now, Byden was the first one to be targeted. The Cerberus Lion sauntered forward, then swung one of its massive paws.
Claaang! A loud metallic sound rang out as the lion’s claws struck against Byden’s broad shield. With an impact like that, I thought Byden would be sent flying to his doom. But I should have expected more from the main tank of a top clan of monster-hunting experts. Byden blocked the boss’s attack without falling back a single step. No one else besides me looked surprised, so they must have known Byden was capable of stopping an attack like that. There must have been some serious bloodshed going on at the very front lines.
“Holland! Siegfried!”
“Right! Let’s go!”
“You got it!”
Aiming for the brief moment in which the boss was stunned after attacking, the players in the vanguard made their move, with Holland going for a frontal assault. He leaped up and aimed right for the boss’s head. I thought we were going to start off cautiously and look for the boss’s weak points...? Is that what Holland considers cautious? Top players were terrifying.