Raid Event [The Ancient Flower Foretells a Sweet Death].
The first-ever event that featured a raid boss. If I remembered correctly, it was an unknown plant from space that had taken root in the nest of the Frost Orcs. It would grow exponentially once the event began, ending the world within twenty-four hours. Players were supposed to gang up on it and defeat it before it grew that big. Once defeated, portions of the boss called “Ancient Flower Remains” would spawn endlessly until the end of the event period. You were supposed to beat it down until your stamina gave out, and you got rewards based on damage output. It was a pretty basic event. The first form of the Flower would die quickly, and since there were so many rewards, it was also a competition of speed.
At the time, it was rumored on the forums that if not enough active users participated and the twenty-four-hour mark passed, the game itself would be shut down. On that note, I’d heard of a not-so-funny story about that: the reason they’d implemented this event right off the bat was because the devs believed the initial player base wasn’t large enough. If there weren’t enough players to complete this event, then they’d use it as an excuse to end the game service for real. Though that was just a rumor.
“Master Shinobu, didn’t the Crimson Moon Brigade tell us that there were no raid events? Could they have possibly concealed this information from us?”
“I can’t say the possibility isn’t there, but I think this really is the first raid event that’s ever occurred in this world. They’re going in chronological order, as if retelling the whole story from the beginning.”
Gabriel nodded softly. “So, what shall we do?”
“I have no idea what’s going to happen.”
“Truly. I am not sure what the end of this world will entail after twenty-four hours, but it would be best for us to move as quickly as possible.”
“You know where the Frost Orcs’ nest is? We’re going there.”
“As you wish.”
I pulled out the communication orb Ms. Kaori had given me. It had been custom-made for the Crimson Moon Brigade.
“Are you requesting support from the Crimson Moon Brigade?”
“It’s a raid. They’ll probably all come rushing once they hear the situation.”
Truthfully, all of the otherworlders were in danger because of this threat. Ms. Kaori might have even been able to pull support from other regions of the world and not just her guild.
I ran my fingers along the crystal ball and clicked my tongue. “Damn it!”
The orb was operating fine, but there was no response from Ms. Kaori. It didn’t even seem to connect to her at all.
I looked out the window and gazed outside. Don’t tell me...
“This is way worse than I thought.”
Everything outside the boundary of the city territory was wrapped in complete darkness. Ms. Kaori had told me about this, but at endgame, it was possible to leave through an unimplemented area that served as the final destination to an extremely difficult dungeon, past a dimensional wall. For some reason, that wall was now here.
No matter what you did, you wouldn’t be able to break that wall.
“Master Shinobu, could this be...?”
“It can’t.”
All I could do was shake my head at the next message window.
Player Limit: 1
There was also something about new registration entries not being accepted, so I knew full well what was going on.
“You’re asking me to beat this raid event by myself...?” I faced the message box head-on and spat, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me, voice of God!”
We flew to the edge of the darkness, confirmed that the wall couldn’t be broken, and melancholily headed to the center of the overflow.
†
We settled ourselves about five kilometers away from the Ancient Flower to observe it. That’s when we encountered a dimensional wall as we were flying with Flight Magic.
“It seems we cannot pass until the event has begun, Shinobu.” Gabriel had gone off to do her duties, so Tsukuyomi had joined me.
It was probably the same wall as the one at the edge of the city. We couldn’t get any closer, but this one was transparent, so we could at least see with Far-Sight Magic.
“So that’s the Ancient Flower.”
A cliff stood at the edge of a valley above the river, about five hundred meters above the water. The Frost Orcs’ nest at the top was being devoured by a single, giant tree. I’d say it looked about three hundred meters tall and a hundred meters wide, trunk, branches, and leaves included. Quite impressive for a tree that was supposedly still young.
This monster had been modeled after a dryad that sucked life energy from humans. So, the tree should have had a core in the shape of a dryad. I found something like that placed squarely in the center of the tree through Far-Sight Magic. Countless vines and ivy covered it for protection, so it wouldn’t be easy getting to it.
“What shall we do?”
“We’ll need to take care of that first.”
A space was sandwiched between the walls, acting as a barrier. On the other side of it lay a ton of monsters, all repeatedly slamming against it, trying to run for their lives. If I had to guess, there had most likely been other monster nests within that barrier aside from the Frost Orc one. The monsters had witnessed the Frost Orc nest being obliterated by a giant tree with ominous magic, so it was only natural for them to try to flee. Survival instincts were one-hundred-percent functioning.