The Last Experience Point

Its hooves emitting pure flame, the Mare of the Primordial Void charged forward, leaving a trail of fire behind it as it released an angrier neigh than any that'd come before. Immediately, four tanks jumped out of its way—but one was too slow to avoid the boss's charge. The man, who if nothing else at least had his shield raised, thankfully managed to absorb some portion of the attack before he was blasted away.

Zach, acting quickly, hurriedly flung himself to the side as the metal-armor-wearing tank was launched right where he'd been standing. An instant later, the tank crashed down onto the brown dirt, where he began rolling and tumbling along the barren landscape that the market-square had been turned into. He then groaned, alive but clearly injured.

Since acquiring its immunity to fire, the boss had picked up three new fire-based attacks: one was a dashing charge, another was a conjured sword of flame, and the last was the ability to summon rising pillars of flame directly in front of itself, which were short-lived but burned an intense reddish orange, such as the one that it now brought to bear against Ophelia Graven, who backflipped up and over it, then swung her buckler shield to deflect an ordinary stomping attack as the boss charged at her through its own flame.

"We don't have time to be standing around here arguing," Jimmy said over the Comm as healers attended to the downed tank. "We can beat this boss. I'm telling ya'll right now, if we run away, I'm not coming back or helping next time, and you can figure out how to kill this thing by your own damn selves."

"Jimmy, that's incredibly immature," Mr. Oren said. Zach looked behind him where Mr. Oren waited with the other melee DPS. He had a frown on his face. "And I say that as someone who actually agrees with you and does not think a retreat is warranted."

Zach once more looked over to Jimmy, whose frustration was plainly evident on his face. For the past few minutes, during an active boss fight, the adventurers had been arguing over whether or not to retreat, regroup, and attempt this raid another time. Many wanted to pump the brakes on this battle, and though Zach was keeping it to himself for the moment, he honestly agreed with them: especially after the massive explosion that came after the appearance of that ring.

Anyone not inside the ring would've died instantly, Zach thought, disturbed by the existence of such an attack. Even if we had a million points into constitution, we'd still have died instantly according to Jimmy. Even if we would've had a billion! Thɪs chapter is updated by NovᴇlFɪre.ɴet

Zach didn't think they were ready for a raid like this, and just a cursory glance at the surrounding scenery—or lack of any scenery—was enough to reinforce this belief. Prior to the appearance of that "ring of safety" and the explosive attack it preceded, the market square had been badly damaged but at least looked like an area where civilization had once existed. Now, it was just dirt and the smell of ash. There were no lingering pieces of concrete or husks of destroyed buildings: it was all just dirt and empty space. It was as though they had walked into the middle of a wooded area after a forest fire—minus the tree stumps.

Yet as unsettling as that may have been, Zach also understood Jimmy's side of things as well. Jimmy was desperately trying to prove himself, and he was clearly worried he wouldn't get another chance to redeem himself if Donovan and Zephyr forced them all to retreat for the moment—which seemed increasingly likely, as even Fiona Darkmae, the leader of the Children of Order, and the individual who had the most to lose, seemed to be wavering about continuing on with this raid.

"If it comes down to it, retreating and building a new highway that wraps around this area is better than losing two-dozen of my guild members," she said all of a sudden, her words unexpected. "Maybe we really should just back off for now. It sure beats every one of us dying."

"I agree," Kalana added. "This thing is like super dangerous, and there's too much we dunno about it. I don't wanna risk all of us getting killed."

"You're not, because that's not gonna happen," Jimmy insisted. Seemingly to Fiona, he asked, "Do you really wanna destroy your whole economy like that? Like you said, if we don't kill this thing, it's gonna mess up your whole region, right?"

"It won't destroy us: it'll just set us back."

Zach could visibly see Jimmy tense at the way she was responding, and he didn't think it was just because Fiona was now open to the idea of retreat, but also because the way in which she spoke of "building a new highway" implied that returning any time in the next few months or years was unlikely…and to be honest, it probably was. Zach could easily foresee this being one of those things where, if they did retreat, the adventurers would promise to come back, and they'd discuss it and make plans and so on and so forth, but…would it ever actually happen? Probably not. At least not for many, many years.

Everyone has to know that if we retreat, we're probably not coming back any time soon.

This boss was not an existential threat. That was just the fact of the matter. This was something that they hadn't known at first, but once discovered, the absolute need to kill it had evaporated. Sure, the political guilds would throw a fit about a boss existing in society where ordinary people could see it, and it would invite questions and cause some unrest, but like all things in life, Zach expected it would only be a matter of months—if not days—until it eventually just started to feel normal and ordinary.

"What about all that shit you were saying before?" Jimmy asked, an urgency now in his voice. "That uh…what was it called again? Yeah, 'aggro terrorism.'"

Zach recalled learning that term in the diner along with Jimmy and the others. It referred to instances where ordinary level-1 people would intentionally aggro a boss during times of emergency in order to wreak havoc on their neighbors and society. He supposed they were sort of like people who intentionally started wildfires only via a different mechanism.

"Unlikely to be a problem with this one, kiddo," Donovan said. "The boss's level of aggression is pretty limited. You've gotta stick pretty close to avoid de-aggroing, and a level-1 ain't gonna be able to kite it very far without taking an unintentional hit. Especially since they can't slow it. I doubt they'd get more than a block's worth of distance away before it melted 'em."

Zach wondered if he should say something, but he decided against it, as he didn't want be seen taking sides in this matter. Still, while he may have agreed that a retreat was the right move to make, he did feel that Jimmy was absolutely correct about one thing: standing around and talking about it was a big mistake. They needed to either fight it or run from it, but having a debate about what to do while it was attacking the tiring, fatigued tanks was the worst possible way of handling things.

"Look, just let things play out a little longer, okay?" Jimmy asked. Though his words were spoken with an air of confidence, he failed to disguise the note of pleading that seeped into them. "I'm telling all of you right now: we got this. It ain't as bad as it looks."

An uneasy grunt from Donovan came over the Comm. "I'm not so sure about that, kiddo, but you might as well keep on leading while Zeph and I think about it."

The fact that Jimmy sighed with relief and thanked Donovan was evidence that, despite Jimmy calling the shots, Donovan and Zephyr were still truly the ones in charge here, and Zach knew they could put an end to this with just a single, quickly uttered command. But, at any rate, it looked like Jimmy was in the clear to keep things going—at least for the moment—and he didn't look like he wanted to waste any more time in that regard, either.

Jimmy clapped his hands together. "Group 2S," he commanded, "hit everybody up with those ice buffs. Let's get it done quick! And 1S, give us another round of fire. We wasted too much time, and I don't wanna worry about them expiring later on. Don't worry, though, 1S: this should be the last time you gotta buff."

Zach could visibly see Lienne's face swell with misery as it seemed to dawn on her that she'd have to cast her fire debuff on a significant subset of the raid all over again. As the lowest-level—and the least-experienced—member of her group, she had succumbed to the exertion debt and had passed out during the first round of buffs. Thankfully, Jimmy seemed to recall this as well, and a moment later, the sound of a strange groan came from the Mare of the Primordial Void along with a popping sound, and Zach turned his head to see several damage numbers rising above the boss just as the remnants of a greenish cloud faded away near its face.

Jimmy poisoned it.

A few seconds later, Jimmy moved closer to Lienne and cast Breath of Rejuvenation on her. "There," he said to her, "that'll keep you going, yeah?"

"Thank you," she said, bowing her head.

"Fuckin' buff is a miracle," Donovan grunted over the Comm in a way that suggested he hadn't even meant to voice the words aloud. "Can't believe the kid can do that shit."

Now, with constantly replenishing stamina, Lienne joined the rest of her group and began casting—but not before Zach felt a chill surrounding him, one that was actually welcome amid the punishing heat. Glancing upwards, he then noticed that a single, sparkling, snowflake-shaped object was dancing above his head while raining gold-colored glitter down on top of him, all while making fluttering, buzzing sounds.