- Arthas -
We fought for three hours without rest before Rose and Kurumi were tired and wanted rest… so I fought alone.
I even used this chance to let my HP fall in the red zone to test out the effect of my new Incomplete Hogyoku Skill, and sure enough, my Spirit Stat increased by 1 as soon as my HP went into the red zone. I obviously didn't let it remain there for long, healing it as soon as possible.
We had noticed the pattern. The more damage the wolves caused to us, the more the Alpha healed.
For this reason, I had to keep interfering once in a while to put it back in the red zone.
Apart from this, there was another reason.
It summoned a different number of reinforcements at different levels of HP bars.
For example, when its health was in the green zone, it summoned only one Black Fang Wolf; in the yellow zone, it summoned two; and when in the red zone, it summoned reinforcements consisting of four T4 Black Fang Wolves between levels 20 and 30 every five minutes.
We kept its HP in the red zone mostly. That meant 48 T4 wolves every hour... not really that big of a deal, especially since we had consumables to restore mana too.
For the next hour, I fought the wolves alone before Rose and Kurumi took over, and we alternated like this till it was almost evening and we had to leave, and I finished off the Black Fang Wolf Alpha with another attack.
Overall, we fought the same wolves for seven hours, hunting over three hundred wolves. While T4 enemies gave me slightly lower experience gains due to my current level, the sheer numbers were still enough to push me through the next level and enough to fill the experience bar for the next level by fifty percent.
Kurumi being the lowest level among us and a T4, even lower than the wolves, gained the most out of the whole thing, a total of five levels, while Rose gained five levels, although she was already close to levelling once.
"Twenty-eight thousand gold coins, wolf pelts, fangs, and claws. No Skill Books though. I guess we took a lot of time to fight this one, so there was no skill book drop despite the first kill bonus." Rose said as she picked up the drops.
"It was worth it though." At least I totally considered it a well-worth boss.
"I wonder when the boss will respawn. We could totally use this place as a farming point." Rose added.
"Possibly. It's just that the number of drops was not good so I guess the summoned wolves had a lower drop rate…" I took a quick look over the drops. "Around five times less. Not to mention the experience gains from them after the first four Black Fang Wolf was only around eighty percent of the original. It was just the numbers and the levels of you two that helped us gain so many levels."
"So we levelled up so much because we were weak?" Kurumi asked, and I noticed her eyes twitching.
"Hmm. That… is not incorrect. First, once you consider the fact that Greenfrost is an area where the average enemy is a T5, this boss was actually one of the weaker ones. Second, T5 people will get lower experience gains when killing T4 enemies, as in my case, I only got one level in the whole thing instead of multiple levels like you all, despite me being the one who did the most damage and having several bonuses to my experience gains. A normal T5 player would have barely levelled up once, probably not even that. Lastly, the drops were far… far lower than normal hunts. It's just not profitable for a team of T5. In fact, it would be a loss if there were more than one or two T5 players too. The only reason two T5 would be sustainable is due to the reduced amount of consumables used in the hunt."
By the time I finished, Kurumi was gawking at me.
"The only reason we could even consider hunting this boss is that we don't have to roam around the forest to find enemies, as they will easily be summoned in front of us. Oh, and maybe because no matter how many summoned Black Fang Wolves we killed, no field boss was summoned. Those things would have appeared at the end of the first hour itself, so I guess that was good. There might be more disadvantages but I am not as good at analysing things as Shiroe so who knows?…" I shrugged at the end.
It wasn't a lie either.
Shiroe could have pulled out a dozen more reasons why not to waste our time to hunt this boss.
That guy's brain just works at a different level. It was not something I could hope to replicate, even with my advantages.
"Never underestimate the Gamemaster. That guy... he won't make such elementary mistakes." In fact, I hadn't seen any bugs in the game yet… except for the unknown bug I had helped fix during the first World Quest.
Fuck, even I didn't know what bug that was.
We collected the drops and headed out to find a place to camp for the night. It seems that despite the reasons I had given, we had spent a bit too much time hunting that wolf, and it was already dark.
Fortunately, there was a decent place nearby, and we set up camp quickly and started a fire to heat the food.
As we sat eating around the fire, Kurumi and Rose were doing small talk.
They had fought together during the hunt most of the time and had decent teamwork overall.
I guess that eased the initial hesitation from both sides. Rose did have a good impression of her to begin with, and it would have stayed that way had she not pulled up that cliche villain drama.
"Still, I have never seen anyone level up like this. I can see why you all were called the best players in the game." Kurumi said as she took a bite of her food.
Rose just gave her a small smile at the comment, so she turned towards me.
"By the way, who was that Shiroe you mentioned?"
"Shiroe is one of the founders of the Guild and our strategist. Veena, Shiroe, and I were the ones who established the Fairy Tail Guild." I replied.
"Oh. Is it this guy on the Guild Member list, Shiroe? Is he a Japanese guy?"
"Hmm."
"By the way, you were pretty good too. Your swordsmanship, while not the best I have seen, is still better than many others." She complimented. "What faction are you a part of? I don't remember a devil like you anywhere."
"I am not a part of any Supernatural Factions. I was a normal student before I entered this game."
"Bullshit!"
I merely gave her a deadpan look.
…
…
…
…
"Umm, Arthas isn't lying. He is really not with any Supernatural faction and was just a normal guy before entering the game." Rose spoke with some hesitation.
"Get out... seriously? And your swordsmanship? Did you have any prior training?"
"Picked up a few months ago, probably after becoming a Squire. I used to use a bow and arrows before that, mostly."
"That's… amazing." Then she turned back towards Rose. "And you? Are you also a normal human?"
"I am a Valkyrie from Norse."
"A valkyrie, the demigods of Asgard. Hmm, I haven't had a chance to fight against them before. That old man Odin runs a very tight routine around there."
"I… I was the bodyguard of Odin." Rose replied.
"The God-King of the Norse?"
"Hmm."
An astonished look came over her face as she looked closer at Rose.
"That's amazing. You must have been pretty strong to get such a position."
And just like that, they talked, with me adding bits and pieces in between sometimes. At least they were getting along better. I will have a talk with Kurumi when I get a chance later.
When it was time to rest, we had to divide the watch time.
Kurumi offered to be the first to keep watch. Neither of us had any problems with that. Next would be me and finally Rose.
With that, I and Rose entered the tent to rest for the night.
I did message Veena that we would be staying out tonight to not make her worry. Who knows what thoughts she would have about Kurumi?