Jaejung-hyung explained everything with sincere care, then stumbled into his tiny room and passed out without a sound. He’s been running around the new zone that opens after you cross the ravine bridge.
No doubt he and his team are sipping honey a good day ahead of the groups that are only now starting to kill the Orc Chieftain. When I asked about the new area, he said he didn’t know the whole of it yet and gave me only a quick sketch.
He’d said there were roughly three options: first, move on to the new map to hunt and gather intel. Second, kill the Orc Chieftain in another village to pick up drops and enhancement stones. Third, chase down the Orc Chieftain that moved east to the orc hamlet.
They passed on the hamlet Chieftain because the drops weren’t guaranteed.
Killing another village’s Chieftain would’t pay out duplicate toll fees, so pass. There’s the round-trip travel time, too. On top of that, if they killed a Chieftain in another village, they’d risk needless friction with that village’s raid team. No one wants to stir up a hornet’s nest for nothing.
Too little gain for too much effort.
Early scouting of the new map looked like the best profit, so that’s what they did—and they’re feasting now.
As Jaejung-hyung always says: the best hunting ground is the one where you can kill alone with no one else around.
Anyway, I’m a little jealous. I want to see the new zone.
The hottest topic in Lost Sky right now is the new area—the Lycanthrope domain—but Jaejung-hyung’s team refuses to release any info.
Fair enough. Why hand tailwind to latecomers?
Second place goes to the Orc Chieftain raid and the Refugee Village.
A day behind Jaejung-hyung’s timeline, Orc Villages across multiple servers are flipping into Refugee Villages. Proof shots are going up, and a decent number of guides too.
— We cleared too.
— Proof shots incoming.
— Why is our village still stuck? What are the rankers even doing? Go crack it already.
— You go crack it, cheapskate. Tsk.
— Orc Chieftain Glaive up for auction. 3.5 million won sighted.
— For an unenhanced weapon? That’s insane. Gaming superpower, sure. Can’t play without money.
— Is this for real? Wild. Isn’t it god-tier?
— Nah, just a passing piece of gear.
— Only ten per server—that’s why it’s pricey.
— It’ll be a normal drop next map. You don’t need it. Stop overhyping.
— Says the guy who didn’t get one—nice cope.
— I saw the screenshot. It had stats attached. High damage. No way it becomes “normal.”
— I’m done waiting—heading to the next village. bb.
— Our village is hopeless. I’m out too. bb.
— I’m off to the next village to learn magic. bb.
For the record, that Orc Chieftain Glaive… Jaejung-hyung ended up winning it. Man doesn’t skimp.
And any Orc Village that’s slow to free itself is getting abandoned without mercy.
The forums are ablaze with reports of caravans—lines of players moving to villages where the Chieftain’s down, just to get travel passes for the new zone.
It’s practically a national migration.
***
<Shield Warrior> Everyone’s left to kill the Orc Chieftain with other raid teams. We’re the last runners now.
< Welcome to the world of Lost Sky. >
Brainwaves verified.
Joo Seungho. Male.
Character name Jooho. Level 10.
Loading…
A whisper from Shield Warrior hits the moment I log in.
— Wasn’t everyone scheduled for tomorrow?
Plans changed fast. It’s chaos out here.
— Something happen?
You know the “national migration,” right? Been hot on the boards all day.
— Yeah, I saw it.
That’s the problem. Every top raid team across the servers pushed their timetable up by a full day and started attempts hours ago.
— They won’t be ready. You can just rush it like that?
They don’t have a choice. If they don’t move now, the blowback will be too big to ignore. So it’s all-hands.
— I don’t quite get it. Their success rate has to drop.
You know the toll-fee commission you get if your village kills the Chieftain? That’s the issue. If players migrate en masse to other villages that have already cleared, that commission shrinks. In cash terms, individual payouts worth up to 2.5 million won could get slashed. Plus, those villages will start selling grimoires, staves, even bows. If the next village succeeds and ours doesn’t, we’ll lose most of our player base.
— Ah… I hadn’t factored that in. I don’t really care about the payout, so I wasn’t thinking about it. Success or failure was what mattered to me.
Same—I only learned after logging in. The teams sensitive to rewards are scrambling. They’re going all-out.
— What about the team we were supposed to join?
The others are either mid-attempt or already wiped. For now, we’re the only ones left. I asked them to wait for you. Are you fully prepped?
— Yeah. I shelled out for the Forest Armor Top and Bottoms yesterday. Price was ridiculous.
That’s the capstone of the Forest Set. Drop rate’s low, so it’s expensive—and it’s what qualifies as a proper Forest Set. It’s also a raid requirement.
— After buying potions, I’ve got barely anything left. How’s everyone else?
They’re gathered right here. We just need you.
— Got it. Meeting point’s the ravine entrance, right?
Yes. No one will give you grief for being late—we planned to meet now anyway. Since most other teams got wiped, if anything, expectations ticked up. Not a bad mood. If someone else had cleared just now, that could’ve been an issue.
— Yeah, that’s out of my hands. Let’s go.
Before heading out, I gear up and check my stats.
***
Name: Jooho
Level: 10 ▲2
【STR 2】 【AGI 3】 【VIT 3 ▲1】
【INT 0】 【MANA 1】
0 Forest Helmet / DEF 2
0 Forest Armor Top / DEF 4 ◀ NEW
0 Forest Armor Bottoms / DEF 3 ◀ NEW
0 Trine’s Shoes / DEF 2 / Movement Speed +1
0 Forest Arm Guards / DEF 2
0 Forest Leg Guards / DEF 2
0 Forest Longsword / ATK 2–4 (×2)
***
Taking Jaejung-hyung’s advice, I raised VIT over STR.
You need enough HP to survive getting clipped while stiffened by the Orc Chieftain’s roar. The minimum is 3. Forest Set is assumed. Melee DPS need at least 3; ranged DPS won’t be in roar range, so VIT doesn’t matter to them.
Of course, take a heavy hit to the head or get your neck cranked, and you just die. Once you’re stiffened, all you can do is pray.
Please, hit somewhere that hurts less.
At VIT 4, you can survive one hit anywhere, they say—but it is what it is. STR 3 would let me carry more potions in my inventory, but—again—it is what it is.
Live longer, or avoid being one-shot. Pick one.
Following the ravine approach, I arrive to find a crowd of players waiting in their positions.
Shield Warrior, Charming, and PrettyGirl greet me, gear in hand. Their tops and bottoms are all Forest Armor. It’s an unusual, pale green, glossy metal—the best DEF you can get right now. Rare, hence pricey.
We exchange quick greetings, check potions, then Shield Warrior heads to the man who looks like the leader.
Must be his acquaintance. Thanks to character appearance editing, the guy’s a handsome type with blazing crimson long hair—something you’d never see in real life. Call it wildfire hair.
“You’re here. You can head in now.”
“Attack squad, reporting. I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve put Shield Warrior in charge of Party 5—he’ll brief you on the way.”
We shake hands, and forty people—five parties—move out in the assigned formation. With all the hair styles and body types, it’s not hard to tell folks apart.
Looking closely, most of the women are carrying bows or staves. Party ratios show roughly twenty total ranged—archers and mages combined.
Roar mitigation?
The Orc Chieftain’s roar stiffens melee DPS on the spot. To reduce DPS loss, they must have stacked long-range damage. Minimizing the number of people who get stiffened is one approach.
Shield Warrior explains as we walk.
“Our party was four, so four solo sign-ups joined us. I’m Party 5 lead. We’ve got two female archers, one female mage, and one spear DPS assigned.”
Within our party alone, that’s not a bad spread.
Four melee, four ranged.
We do introductions. With IDs above our heads and party HP bars visible, confusion shouldn’t be an issue. The real problem is going in cold without practice, but that’s a given now.
“We haven’t synced before, which is a concern, but I’ve hunted in parties with these folks before and asked for them. They’re solid.”
Since he’s been partying with others whenever our playtimes don’t line up, I trust his eye for teammates.
“The biggest problem is the Chieftain’s roar—most deaths happen there. So we’ll run the melee in two lines. If the front gets stiffened by a roar, the reserve steps in immediately.”
“Pulling people as reserves means less DPS up front.”
“We’re trying to offset that by loading in more ranged.”
“If melee numbers are too low, the Chieftain can break loose to smash the backline. Hard to control.”
“That’s when the reserve melee jumps in. It’s a bit complicated, yeah.”
If we’d had time to practice, this would be great—but this isn’t the time to whine.
“I’ve heard some teams require melee to have VIT 4, some tried with a tiny melee core—balancing is rough. Others yank stiffened melee to the rear while a small reserve charges in. Every team’s strat is different.”
All sound like strats worth at least one try. Which one’s best? The results will tell.
We go over the roar pattern, charge pattern, chained swings, and the glaive pattern—everything I heard from Jaejung-hyung—and how our party will move against each. One by one.
Not bad. Better than I expected, honestly.
The problem is people…
Teams 1 and 2—the core—are all level 12+, with a 13 in there. Teams 3, 4, and 5 are mixed. In the end, it comes down to how many from Teams 1 and 2 make it to the finish.
Surprisingly, “Attack” himself is 12, and the man beside him with short, upward-swept blue hair is 13. Eyes sharp—fierce look. Hard to tell if that’s a slider choice or his base face.
“You and I will pair up,” Shield Warrior says. “If things go sideways, PrettyGirl and Myungchang will rotate in immediately.”
The path to the altar isn’t that rough. Most of these players can handle orcs cleanly.
There’s a faint current of unease, though. What if the previous team already killed it? Then we’re just cat-watching from the roof.
Only at the altar does that unease fade.
“The altar’s open. Let’s go in.”
Which means the previous team wiped.
Our turn now.