[Party]Guardian: Hey
Seeing Guardian greet us like it was no big deal, I was at a temporary loss for words.
Thanks to RibulleMilkTea’s loose lips, I’d guessed they knew each other, but I never imagined he’d get called out here like this—or that he’d just trot over without hesitation.
Holy Guild and our guild had brawled it out more than a few times, and looking at that calm act, it made me wonder if all those memories had just been a hallucination.
[Party]DuckButtHee: Hii
Even sociable Duck hesitated for a while before saying hi. Then they started pelting me with whispers.
[Whisper]DuckButtHee: Omg huge
[Whisper]DuckButtHee: But how does Fall know Guardian?
Good question.
[Party]kk1234: Didn’t think you’d be the one coming
[Party]kk1234: Pick your company better, old man
[Party]Guardian: I didn’t think Fall would be hanging out with someone like K either
Guardian, who’d invited himself over, shot back immediately. I got ready to chug potions.
[Party]kk1234: You wanna die?
[Party]『rainfall』: You two both wanna die?
With 『rainfall』’s short summary, the on-the-brink mood settled down. Yeah, one wrong move and we’d both get chopped up….
[Party]kk1234: You got something against 『rainfall』 too?
[Party]Guardian: “Against”? You’re the one who got properly educated, remember 😊
[Party]Guardian: Fall’s my close little brother 😂
I remembered Holy Guild’s master as relatively normal compared to his guildies, but hearing him talk about having a “close little brother” who was a lunatic…
‘So he’s not right in the head either.’
There’s a saying: like attracts like. Crazy bastards hanging out with crazy bastards is just science. I felt a strong urge to bail from this party of lunatics.
[Party]Guardian: We’re just gonna kill one boss and split anyway, so quit nitpicking and let’s pull?
[Party]Guardian: I’ve killed it once already so I know the patterns
Annoyingly, Guardian had a point too. This was the mad rush window right after an update.
[Party]DuckButtHee: I feel like Rete would start foaming if they knew 😂
[Party]Guardian: Oh, Rete?
[Party]Guardian: It’s not that bad between us 😊
[Party]Guardian: We went to the same school, same club and all
[Party]Guardian: I’m the upperclassman
[Party]DuckButtHee: No way, really
[Party]DuckButtHee: Who’s the senior??
[Party]Guardian: Me
[Party]DuckButtHee: What about you and Fall then?? Relatives?
[Party]Guardian: Not relatives, but I’ve known Fall since he was a baby
[Party]Guardian: I basically raised him 😊
Hold up.
Rete was definitely twenty-five. If Rete and Guardian were upperclassman–underclassman from the same school, then Guardian was at most late twenties. And if Fall was Guardian’s “little brother,” that meant Fall was even younger…
…So around my age, maybe?
I’d thought he was a total old-man boomer, but he was younger than I expected. So what, a high-school kid devoured by his own “concept”?
[Party]『rainfall』: Enough nonsense, let’s go
I wanted to pry more, but 『rainfall』’s attitude was razor-sharp. Fair. It’s not like I’d get anything out of digging up his personal info.
[Party]Guardian: Haha 😊
[Party]Guardian: I rushed over so give me a sec
[Party]『rainfall』: Okay
A brief opening appeared. In that time, Duck started flooding me with whispers again.
[Whisper]DuckButtHee: K, are we seriously allowed to be doing this???
[Whisper]kk1234: Doing what
[Whisper]DuckButtHee: We’re going with the enemy 😺😱
[Whisper]kk1234: So what, it’s just a game
[Whisper]DuckButtHee: You’re weirdly chill about this...
[Whisper]kk1234: I play with 『rainfall』, Guardian’s nothing in comparison
[Whisper]DuckButtHee: Ah 😂 true 😂😂
Duck kept sending rows of 😂 like they were having the time of their life. I blocked their whispers. Immediately, Duck’s crying moved to guild chat.
[Guild]DuckButtHee: 😭 K unblock me pls
[Guild]BlueSky: Why’d you get blocked?
[Guild]DuckButtHee: I teased him about Fall 😭
[Guild]BlueSky: Petty much
[Guild]kk1234: I’m on my way to kill a field boss with Guardian right now
[Guild]Rete: ?
I said it in advance so they wouldn’t get the wrong idea, but it hit Rete’s berserk button and he jumped right back in.
[Guild]Rete: Why the fuck are you playing with that asshole???
[Guild]Rete: Socially maladjusted little shit
[Guild]Rete: What the hell are you doing?
[Guild]Rete: Why are you acting all buddy-buddy with Holy Guild
[Guild]DuckButtHee: I wouldn’t say “buddy-buddy” exactly;;
[Guild]DuckButtHee: Didn’t you say you and Guardian were upperclassman–underclassman
[Guild]Rete: 🙄 that’s part of my horrible past
[Guild]Rete: Why the fuck are you hunting with that fucker then
[Guild]kk1234: Fall brought him
[Guild]Rete: ?
[Guild]kk1234: Guardian says he’s tight with Fall, like an older brother
[Guild]Rete: That fuck♡er doesn’t have a “close little brother” in his life
[Guild]Rete: Ah
Rete went quiet for a while. That reaction did not feel normal.
[Guild]kk1234: You know who he is?
[Guild]Rete: How the fuck would I know
[Guild]kk1234: You said you two were upperclassman–underclassman
[Guild]DuckButtHee: Were you close??
[Guild]Rete: That motherf♡cker, what the fuck is he even—
[Guild]Rete: Fuck
[Guild]shine..: Rete
All shine.. did was say his name, and Rete shut up. I figured he’d been dragged back into dungeon runs again.
[Party]Guardian: I’m back 😊
Right on cue, Guardian came back too, so I decided to ignore guild chat.
On the way over, Guardian—who’d already killed Dark-Blue Beast King once—explained the strategy.
[Party]Guardian: It’s not a monster with complicated patterns
[Party]DuckButtHee: Our guild’s Healivery said they died there though
[Party]Guardian: Ah, they’re the Enchanter, right?
[Party]DuckButtHee: Yeah 😂
[Party]Guardian: Its attack hits are high enough that just brushing against it is death, plus the ground AoE has DoT so light-armor classes have a hard time tanking it
[Party]Guardian: On the other hand the motions are big and the windups and recoveries are long, so the tank can hold aggro and survive
[Party]Guardian: K, your role is important…
[Party]Guardian: Should we grab an off-tank just in case?
Translation: You scared?
[Party]kk1234: Nah
What, you think I can’t tank one lousy field boss? Guardian might be laughing with us for now, but he was still the master of the guild that fought ours every chance they got. I could see him poking at me a mile away.
I did DPS because my damage was good, not because I couldn’t tank.
I swapped my skill bar and redid my gear setup.
[Party]DuckButtHee: There it is!
At Duck’s words, I scanned the field and spotted it: a giant dark-blue gorilla-looking thing wearing a crown, lumbering around. I went in front and approached, and apparently its detection range was high, because it charged us immediately.
THUD!
With a massive shockwave, the Beast King slammed the ground where I’d been standing. Smoke rose up from the spot it hit.
The moment I touched the smoke that was impossible to dodge, my HP dropped. Judging by the numbers ticking down, it was fixed damage. Yeah, if your HP wasn’t high, you’d have a rough time with this.
Of course, for a tank who had HP-boosting passives maxed, it wasn’t a real problem.
The Beast King dragged its club along the ground where it had slammed down, then slowly lifted it. Just like Guardian said, its motions were huge.
WHOOSH!
The Beast King swung the club in a long vertical arc. I dodged with Backstep, and it spun once and swung the club again. Instead of dodging by moving, I raised my shield to block.
CLANG!
Thanks to the momentary invincibility frames, I took no damage. Keeping the skill up, I also reduced the damage from the Beast King’s stomp.
[Party]Guardian: I only explained it once but you’re doing great
[Party]Guardian: Guess the rumors were true, your manners and your skill are inversely proportional 😂
Why is this asshole picking a fight now? He was the type who usually didn’t run his mouth; maybe he’d caught it from 『rainfall』.
[Party]DuckButtHee: He’s our guild’s pride
[Party]DuckButtHee: GodSeong 😂
Duck, whose side are you on…?
Anyway, the Beast King wasn’t that tough. Its damage and defense were high for a field boss, but this was a new map, so its level scaling over ours probably had a lot to do with it.
More importantly, our party was strong. And even though this was our first time playing together, Guardian’s skill usage timing was spot-on. I mean, for a guild that always shows up on the rankings, it’d be weirder if they couldn’t play.
『rainfall』 [Inferno!]
『rainfall』’s weapon was different. That was a rare-drop fire-element staff. And whether he’d slotted an orb into it or something, it glowed with the gold light of reinforcement along with a faint red tint unique to fire-attribute gear.
[Party]kk1234: You’ve got elemental enhancement tuned for every element?
[Party]『rainfall』: Yeah
[Party]DuckButtHee: Holy shit
Archmage’s concept was using four elements: fire, water, light, and dark. If you enhanced an element, that element’s skills got stronger.
There were monsters with no element—so-called neutral mobs—but the higher level you went, the more monsters had attributes.
If you attacked with a counter element, you dealt more damage, so a character like Archmage, who used multiple elements, could theoretically have attribute advantage in every dungeon.
Theoretically.
Elemental enhancement items were stupidly expensive and had disgusting RNG on top of that. Even if you spent hundreds of millions of gold to give something an element, the stats could end up the same as a piece worth a few dozen gold.
And even if you broke through that and rolled a high elemental stat, you still had to reinforce it, so for most people it was way easier on the sanity to pick one main element and just focus on that.
People called Archmage a busted, broken class, but in reality it was a job you couldn’t even play without money. Half-ass Archmages got left out of parties.
From the way he’d been dutifully weapon-swapping earlier, I’d had a hunch, and of course.
What the hell does this guy even do for a living?