As soon as the Ancient Flower fully began its reign, all of those monsters would become fodder for it right after freezing into popsicles.
“A horde of over a thousand monsters, huh?”
Before me was a rather disgusting sight: monsters as far as the eye could see along the dimensional wall, all glued to it, trying to escape. The Ancient Flower would stop at nothing to eat as many of them as it could to strengthen itself. The more it ate, the faster it would grow, and the more power it would accumulate. Kind of like building a snowman.
It wouldn’t do us any favors to let that thing eat all those monsters straightaway.
“We have to do everything we can to prevent it from eating at all, including all the monsters in there.”
In twenty-four hours, that flower was going to become as big as a mountain. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if it got even a little bit stronger.
“Think of it this way... If it eats even one monster, our chances of winning vanish. That’s gotta be how we operate here.”
“All right. But...” Tsukuyomi looked up wistfully at the Ancient Flower, mischievous words spilling from her lips. “It’s such a filthy flower, isn’t it?”
At the edge of her vision was the top of the tree, where a rafflesia flower ten meters in diameter bloomed gracefully.
†
An hour remained before the event would begin.
We’d run around the whole night to prepare, barely making it. Gabriel, Tsukuyomi, Cerberus in his human form, and Alice wielding two huge guns were with me.
We joined Ms. Isabella at the soldier’s garrison for a preattack plan rundown.
“Master Shinobu Iijima, are you absolutely sure you all are the only ones who will take on the enemies?”
I nodded deeply. “Anyone else would just hold us back.”
“But this...‘raid boss,’ was it? Is it really so powerful that even you all find it daunting?”
“It is.”
It was more accurate to say that the whole thing was something we didn’t understand. Most raid bosses in La Vita Online wouldn’t fight back in the first place. Players were just supposed to gang up on them, seeing who could do the most damage each turn.
But how would such a boss turn out if it were a real-life enemy? There was no way for me to know.
“If you say it, then it must be true.”
“I have a favor to ask of you, Ms. Isabella.”
“About what we discussed before? Protecting the city?”
“I’m just checking to make sure. There were about five monster nests near the frozen Ancient Flower.”
“You reported so.”
“The monsters are trapped in the barrier the Flower had set up and have already run to the edge of it.” There wouldn’t be a point to explaining dimensional walls to her, so I figured I’d lie. “The Ancient Flower is sleeping right now, but once it wakes up, it’s going to freeze everything around it, then suck up all the life energy for nutrients. That’s how it’s going to grow even larger at an explosive speed.”
“That’s when the barrier will be lifted, correct? I understand you want to prevent the Flower from eating no matter what, but this plan is quite reckless.”
I’d laid it all out for Ms. Isabella. Once the barrier lifted, the monsters would all rush toward the human settlements. If we didn’t help them, they wouldn’t be able to escape the Ancient Flower’s reach, and they would be eaten. The boss would then grow.
Therefore, in order to prevent the monsters from getting eaten, we’d buff up their abnormal states they’ll be put in by the Ancient Flower, their ice resistance, and their speed to help them run. The monsters would still be dangerous, so they had to be exterminated before any casualties arose in the city.
I had to agree that it was a reckless plan. All I could do was laugh bitterly and suck it up.
Buffs from a summoner didn’t work on humans, but I was shocked to find out that they worked on monsters. I wasn’t sure why that was the case, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was probably a programming mistake.
“Master Shinobu Iijima, all we have to do is exterminate the incoming monsters, right?”
“Yes. You know this city better than anyone. Please, tell me your plan for protecting it.”
“We could focus on protecting the thinner parts of the wall around the city...”
“So you’re going to intercept them,” I finished for her.
“That’s right. Monsters tend to attack people outside of the wall rather than inside it.”
“Then more monsters will gather in places where people congregate. If all of you stayed on the inside, the wall would get broken down, and things would get more difficult. Is that your thought process?”
“That it is. I understand you specialize in sorcery, but you know these special tactics for adventurers. You’ve done your research.”
I’d spent the whole month studying up on it, after all. I’d not only read forbidden tomes in the ancient library, but also books that might come in handy, just in case. What I’d just recited was written in an adventurer’s manual or something like that.
I raised my right hand up to my chest and cast a spell. “Grade 4: Real-Time Mapping.”
A spell that displayed a map of the surrounding areas. A map appeared in my hand.
“You really are amazing. You can use Grade 4 like it’s nothing...” Ms. Isabella’s temples were twitching.
As I’d heard, she was unable to use Grade 4. The adventurers and soldiers around us were cheering. I didn’t have time to engage with them.
“On that note, would this road here be the best one to take for a straight path there?”
“I believe so. If you use that one, even if you get attacked by monsters in the forest, the Area of Effect Magic from our magic team will be the most effective.”
“What do you expect the casualties to be?”
“We’ve already evacuated the civilians, so they probably won’t be too bad.”
I relaxed a little hearing that and bowed my head to her. “To tell you the truth, we might not be able to do everything we have to, so you’ll be a big help.”
“No problem. I am still called the Great Sage of the four protective blades of the Lilic Empire. Defense is my specialty.”
“I’m counting on you, Ms. Isabella,” I said from the bottom of my heart. I then placed my hand on Alice’s head. “You too, Alice.”
She looked taken aback. “Me?”
“You’re plenty strong enough to take on the monsters here by now. I’ll leave them to you.”
She fidgeted, confused for a moment, then puffed out her chest while blushing.
“Y-Yes sir! I’ll do my best, Master Shinobu!”
†
Five minutes before the event would begin.
As expected, the wall partitioning us from the Ancient Flower was lifted, just like in the game. It was exactly the same as one’s interface changing to the battle screen a few minutes before a raid event commenced. And if it really was the same as the game, then once it started, all the players on standby would then gang up on the boss at full force.
But the only one there was me. I got chills down my spine just thinking about it.
“This is my second time seeing it, but it’s even more formidable up close.”
I’d looked at it from a few kilometers away last time, but now I was about fifty meters from the tree. At this range, I couldn’t see the whole thing, even if I tilted my head up.
Everything in my sight, from edge to edge, was the Ancient Flower.
I rose up with Flight Magic and flew toward the woman-shaped tree person “dryad,” the core of the tree.
“This is the same as the game too.”
On the upper right of her, I could see her thin blue HP bar, which was probably about a meter long. I’d come out of this the winner if I managed to whittle that down.
Floating in front of the dryad’s eyes was a polite alert from the game stating that we’d begin in forty-five seconds.
“Master Shinobu, as we arranged...”
“That’s right, Gabriel. We’re going to lead the first explosion into that.”
“As you wish.”
Thirty seconds left.
“Cerberus, protect everyone with your skill.”
“As you wish, Master.”
Twenty seconds.
“Tsukuyomi...”
“I know, Shinobu. Focus. It’s about to begin.”
Three.
Two.
READY...
Right as the words switched to English, Gabriel and I blasted Grade 5 magic together.
We were doing a typical gameplay trick. Every core player knew to take advantage of a bug that made long-range attacks possible for about a two-second window before the event officially started. This advance attack wouldn’t be aimed at the dryad, but below it.
The ground!
Because the boss sat atop a steep cliff five hundred meters up, our first task was to make it fall. With how massive it was, plunging to the ground should have caused it a good amount of damage.
We could have hit it with Grade 5 attacks at any point, but attacking with the intent of using gravity to pull it down could only be done this one time. Why? Because once the event began, it would grow limbs and start to move.
“Grade 5: Dimension Slicer Excalibur!”
My magic attack split the space around us, perforating the ground.
This alone, however, wouldn’t be enough to impact it when it landed.
“Grade 5: Holy Nuclear!”
Flames from Gabriel’s own Grade 5 erupted out to cover mine. Her magic inclination was toward Recovery Magic, so the firepower of her attack magic was known for not being as strong.
In this case, however, we’d already wedged the ground open. An explosion occurred deep in the pit I’d created, altering the texture of the ground. The roar of the quakes reverberated into the air. The cliff rumbled and broke down into a valley, taking the Ancient Flower with it. Perhaps because of how large it was, it seemed to be sliding down slowly, though in reality it was going at an incredible speed.
Vwoom!
The bass tone of the shakes resounded down to my lungs. The tree rotated 180 degrees as it fell, slamming into the earth headfirst. Its leaves flew into the air and mixed with dust, and its huge branches broke off and flew across the ground.
Checking the dryad’s HP bar with Far-Sight Magic, I let out a hoarse laugh.
“Didn’t go down even one percent.”
Gabriel’s tongue click echoed around the area.
And so, we watched arms and legs sprout from the tree of the Ancient Flower, expanding it to about three hundred meters on all sides. With a rafflesia at its head, it became a giant monster with limbs. I honestly didn’t think something so ugly could have such an unbefitting name as “flower.”
Despite everything, we hadn’t thought that would be enough to defeat this beast. Our initial attack wasn’t even complete yet.
“Grade 5: Toy Box of Rotting Death.”