Chapter 185: Beast in Snow
———Karra———
<2: 25 pm>
“We’ve been a bit more liberal with our use of energy, so let’s take a break after the next floor, how does that sound?” I asked before all of us walked down the stairs.
“That’ll work. I have a request, though.” Cry suddenly chimed in. “I haven’t played the main offensive role in a long while. For the next one, if it looks feasible, I’ll fight the boss solo. How does that sound?”
“No objections from me.” I said while looking at the others. Liss looked a little concerned but the rest doesn’t seem to have any problem.
Hmm… Looks like the boss this time around isn’t another golem, at least. It’s a giant grey mammoth with a giant ice crown on the top of its head. And by giant, it's comparable to… Hmm, maybe two cruise ships stacked on top of each other. This floor has a massive amount of space for it to move around in, so its large size wouldn’t be a detriment.
Also, it’s snowing here for some reason. Ain’t that just great.
“It’ll be easy enough. Everyone, stand back.” Cry said as she walked forward. She seems pretty darn confident about fighting this massive beast head-on. Just from sheer size alone it looks like it could tackle a mountain.
*Dash* *Leap*
She quickly ran in to close the distance and jumped up high and aiming for its head, gaining a massive height that seems impossible for humans to do even a year ago.
*Sparkle* *Zap* *Block* *Crash*
Before she could get close the giant ice crown on its head generated some sort of lightning beam that pushed her away and launched her right into the wall on our side.
*Kick* *Launch* *Zap* *Block*
She launched herself back at it by kicking herself off the wall with her shield in the front, and the giant mammoth try to shoot another large beam at her which is able to block much more gracefully this time around, covering her shield in a large amount of energy that creates a larger spectral shield on top of it.
*Smash* *Crash*
She collided right on the mammoth’s head, but didn't seem to hit the crown itself or any possibly vulnerable parts like its eyes. It’s really hard to tell what’s going on due to the sheer size of this monstrosity. Good thing we have the drone cams doing all the observing for us, even the people on the scene get a good look of what is actually happening.
She grabbed onto its head, hanging on its fur as it moved its head around trying to shake her off, and it moved around very violently, and we can feel the panic and the desperation from here, the ground is trembling quite hard.
*Stab* *Slash* *Tumble*
She clings to the monster and stabs it and slash it a few times before her grips loosened and she fell to the ground.
*Evade* *Slash*
After noticing her figure on the ground, the mammoth tried to stomp her flat, but she managed to quickly regain her footing and get out of the way and take a few cheap shots at its foot, causing it to begin bleeding out.
*Dash* *Leap* *Slash*
She then ran towards its face and then jumped out and took a swing at one of its tusks, damaging it quite a lot but didn’t crack it in half.
The monster mammoth shook around again as she began climbing and clinging to its body, trying to shake her off.
*Stab* *Slash* *Stab*
Cry began taking a few more swings and did a bit more damage each time before climbing up its body to do more damage elsewhere.
*Swing* *Block*
She climbed up to the very top of its head again and aimed for the crown. She probably guessed that something so tacky is probably important somehow. Unfortunately, some sort of barrier is preventing her from getting close to it and damaging the crown.
*ZAP*
She got electrocuted for her effort as the defense system retaliated with a quick and swift surge of electricity that caused her to reel in pain and slow down.
*Shake* *Thud* *Swing* *Block*
The mammoth then started shaking its body while she was vulnerable, causing her to lose her footing and slipped off its head. The mammoth then tried to stomp her with its uninjured foot. Getting singed by the electricity she is unable to move around as smoothly as she did the last time, and instead opt to block the stomp with her shield instead of trying to dodge its massive foot, that thing could easily crush a house.
She managed to hold strong as she gathered back her strength and pushed the massive weight put on her away.
“Haaah!” She screamed out as she temporarily overpowered the giant beast and finally get enough strength in her legs to make an escape.
“Is she… really gonna be fine?” Liss asked, looking reasonably worried since aside from a few scratches she hadn’t done any real damage to this giant hulking mammoth.
“She’ll be fine, besides, I’m sure those two can jump in if it got really dicey.” I confidently said while watching her dodging lightning strike that starts raining down on her. It’s getting more aggressive as the fight goes on and focusing heavily on her.
*Evade* *Stomp* *Slash*
She dodged another stomp and get more cheat shots in. I wonder if those are substantial enough or is she just trying to bait it out, perhaps trying to find any secret gimmick or behavior.
*Dash* *Leap* *Slash* *Crack* *Shatter*
Suddenly she ran towards the front again and quickly jumped up and cracked one of its tusks, aiming for the crack she inflicted upon it in her last attempt, causing that one to come off.
*ROAR* *Zap* *Zap* *Zap*
The moment its tusk broke off, it immediately went berserker and started summoning lightning everywhere with seemingly no regard for anything.
*Shine*
“Stay behind me.” Wiina said as she stretched her hand out and created a barrier to block everyone from all the wild spells coming our way.
Cry then starts to do something to her shield, making it tied tightly to her arm so she has both of her hands free.
*Grab* *Leap* *PIERCE*
She then grabbed the fallen tusk and jumped up. With a downward motion she pierce through its long trunk, impaling it near the base.
*SLASH*
She then moved her shield to her hand and kept herself suspended in the air long enough to perform another attack and swing down on the very vulnerable base of its trunk, cutting its nose off and making it bleed profusely.
The giant mammoth starts reeling in pain and summons even more lightning strikes, almost engulfing everything and making it hard to see what’s happening. In fact, the only way to tell what’s really happening is on the stream since these drones can calibrate their footage to make sure no one is getting epilepsy… No one here has a problem like that here, right? Everyone seems to be fine, so that shouldn’t be the case.
*Leap* *Slash* *Smash* *Crack* *Shatter*
She jumped up to its head again and managed to get past the barrier surrounding the crown, and shatter the giant crown.
The giant monster roared out in pain, but without its trunk it could only whimper through its mouth as the stump trunk kept bleeding out. The lightning storm meanwhile, has stopped. Was that perhaps its heart? Or maybe a large source of its power? It can still move around but it’s way more sluggish and more fitting of something its size.
*Shine*
Cry began gathering a large amount of energy into her shield, glowing bright blue as the center of the shield opened up to show a bright blue core and white interior.
*Leap* *BLAST* *BOOM*
She jumped up into the air and pointed the shield down, expelling a massive wave of energy that quickly overwhelmed the boss monster and evaporated a large chunk of its body.
*Tumble* *Crash*
Its massive body, or rather, what remained of it, fell down to its size and caused the floor to shake slightly. Even with almost a third of its body wiped out, its size and mass is still rather ridiculous.
She landed back down gracefully, slowly swiping off the snow, blood, and fur on her body. The crater left behind by the attack left many layers of the dungeon destroyed, though not quite on the same level as what Terry did.
“That was roughly three minutes of fighting solo, good job.” Edea remarked while Wiina dispelled her barrier. Liss looked on in awe, unable to say anything. Terry meanwhile looks unfazed but clearly satisfied with a job well done.
“It could’ve gone a little better, but no need to cry over spoiled milk.” Cry said as we all walked forward.
*Shine*
Once more, nothing cool really came from the rewards. Now that I think about it, even if there is something cool there, all of us already have powerful equipment outside of Liss who is overeliant on spells anyway, and we haven’t gotten any staff so far, those tend to be pretty rare.
“Fei, store those things and let’s start another break, bring back the cottage.” I said and they nodded in response.
———Lynda———
<2: 33 pm>
“Kinda crazy how it looks like they’re eating better than most viewers despite being in a dungeon.” I can’t help but say after seeing the break session again.
“It’s very weird. Kinda neat, but it’s jarring.” Glery muttered as we watched them eat fried chicken with rice. Those rice are so glossy, are they covered in oil or something? “The chat is complaining about them eating good again. Some are saying they’re gluttons.”
“I mean, the portion isn’t even that big, for one.” I said, not seeing anything wrong with this outside of maybe hindering their fights through stomachache. “Your body really craves food when you use way too much mana anyway, so it's a good idea for them to keep eating.”
“Not everyone seems to know that, unfortunately.” Glery said as her eyes are focusing on the stream chat instead of them eating. I’m also looking away, I really don’t need my appetite coming back so soon already, we should be conservative here and don’t try to eat everything in the house already.
“...So what even happened during the last fight? It just looks like she was trying to wear it down and seeing that it doesn’t work, she just goes for the head.” It just looks like a bit of miscalculation to try something smart.
“It probably is that simple, but I guess it’s also possible that she was trying to anger it and make it expend so much energy that breaking through the barrier covering its crown will be an easy task.” Glery brings up her own conclusion. “Admittedly I can’t really say I’m an expert. I don’t think any of us can.”
“Yeah, those fours on the stream and those monstrous staff members are way more smart than we are about this kind of thing. It’s why those chatters keep spamming questions everywhere.” I said while lazily pointing at the chat.
As for the streamers, they are mostly relaxing and eating right now, they’ll answer the questions a little later, probably. I wonder how many times they are gonna take these kinds of breaks. It’s hilarious jarring. Also, it’s the same house as last time, same interior and everything. So it’s probably something that was made and somehow stored, right? Where though? And how?
“Smores…” Glery muttered as the desserts came in and it’s a large pile of smores. She really needs to control her sweet tooth right now, after that bucket of ice cream we don’t really have a lot of sweet snacks left. Just a sad pile of wrapped candies and two chocolate bars.
Well at least we can just order something from food delivery if we’re desperate, though I would rather we just eat stuff in the fridge before it gets stale or bad.
Anyway, who knows if they’ll answer any interesting questions or not. I’m pretty sure they’re avoiding anything that would reveal too much anyway.