Bzzz!
[You have entered the dungeon: Pork Labyrinth!]
[You have run into a Hidden Boss: Slumbering Bandit!]
"Wow..., a hidden boss straight off the bat, we're lucky!" One of the characters in Noah's current party, the Cleric yelled as soon as they got the notification. From her voice, she was female.
Warstar's game algorithm made it possible for players to edit the appearance of their in-game character, but the voice setting remained fixed, reflecting the real voice of the player controlling the character.
Due to this, voice recognition was reliable in Warstar.
"Are you sure it's lucky or unlucky?" Another of the characters, one of the 2 Blademasters said in a masculine voice. "A hidden boss is not easy to kill".
"But we can, right, Nightingale?" The Cleric asked.
But then, the other Blademaster coughed violently, subtly gesturing at the new player that just joined them. 'Do you want to expose me, woman?!' He thought exasperatedly.
"Ah!" The Cleric exclaimed, chuckling slightly. "My bad, but we can right, boss?"
The Blademaster straightened. "Of course, I think we can".
'Maybe they're experts'. Noah thought as he observed them from the side.
From this little exchange, he could already tell that this was a close-knit group, they were probably all friends from outside the game.
"Hey, I'm Deadly Musician".
Noah looked at the player I.D hovering above the Blademaster, confirming his gaming name. "Hey, I'm Lord Doom". He answered.
"Ah, right". The stunned Blademaster could only say this.
'Such a tyrannical name'. He thought. 'This guy must be really arrogant'.
"I will be the party leader". Deadly Musician, the Blademaster who was called Nightingale and boss said and the others didn't object, including Noah.
But before the dungeon started, Noah had a question. "How will we share the drops from inside the dungeon?"
"Ah, that," Deadly Musician hesitated for only a moment before answering. "If we get drops from the dungeon bosses, if it is an equipment, the player whose class is compatible with the equipment gets it".
"And if there are 2 players of the same class vying for it, it'll be decided by a coin toss. Is that ok with you?"
Noah nodded, that was ok.
And so, the dungeon raid started.
Pork Labyrinth is a small dungeon in a shallow forest with regular monsters, Pigs. Apparently, they were infected by some virus, turning them into rabid and human-eating monsters.
There are 3 stages to completing the dungeon with corresponding 3 game bosses. The 3 bosses of Pork Labyrinth are the Pork Master, the Pork King, and the Pork Emperor, all evolved Pigs.
Due to the class composition of this raid party, Noah's Lord Doom, the Elementalist (Death Note) and the other Blademaster (Silky Strings) were the main DPS of this party.
The party leader, Deadly Musician was the tank, his Blademaster wielded a tower shield and a long sword.
Noah guessed that both were C-ranked equipment. 'This guy must be really skilled or is a big money spender to have C-ranked equipment already'.
And of course, the Cleric was the only girl in the raid party (Healing Melody).
As soon as the raid started, the party showcased their skill, thoroughly enjoying themselves as they killed the monsters for fun.
Noah did not do too much, just content with fulfilling his role to perfection.
They were indeed skilled, well, in terms of their hand speed.
Noah could tell after a short time that all 4 of them had good hand speed and coordination, but they were definitely newbies to the game, perhaps the 11th server launch was their first time playing Warstar.
He could tell because despite their hand speed, they were playing very profligately with little focus on efficiency, just spamming the coolest skill in their arsenal to quickly kill off the monsters.
It was not necessarily a bad thing though, so he kept quiet.
"Lord Doom, you're good". Deadly Musician, the party leader complimented. "Since we started, you've not made a single mistake yet, I'm impressed".
"Yeah, I do have some skill". Noah agreed.
"And you're humble too".
'Humble?' Noah didn't have anything to say to that.
"Just stick with us buddy, we've seen the skill of other players and we're pretty good. If you keep it up like this, you can join our raid party and we'll help you level up fast".
"Ok boss, I'll be relying on you". Noah laughed.
At that moment, the Cleric (Healing Melody) secretly messaged the party leader.
{Boss, have you noticed that this guy is unnaturally calm? It feels as if he's not giving his best, besides, he didn't react to hearing your name at all.}
{Focus on the game!!! Do you want our raid party to be wiped out a second time? Besides, this time there's even a hidden boss so we need to be at alert.}
{Who cares? We got wiped out because of that bum anyways, but this guy is good so I say we'll clear the dungeon this time.}
{About him not knowing me, let's keep it that way. Besides, not everyone knows about Nightingale.}
{Rubbish! I bet he's just feigning ignorance, maybe he thought it was another Nightingale, an imposter maybe.}
{Can you please focus on the game?}
{Too easy boss, too easy.}
It really did feel easy.
With the 3 DPS players doing such a good job at dealing damage with the tank, Deadly Musician also doing a good job to bundle the monsters together, they bulldozed their way through the dungeon until they got to the first checkpoint.
[You have entered the slumbering place of the Pork Master!]
The Pork Master was a gigantic Pig 3 times bigger than the regular monsters.
As soon as the players entered its domain, the giant monster rose up, glaring at the players with blood-red eyes.
"Newbie, calm down". The party leader spoke to Noah. "It just looks menacing, it's not really that dangerous, we killed it during our first raid".
"Just let me collect aggro, I'll focus on containing it while you focus on dealing as much damage as you can".
"Yes boss".
Noah sent a thumbs up in the party group chat to show that he understood.
And when the boss charged towards them, attacking the nearest player with its head, this Blademaster showed his skill as he used a low level Blademaster skill, Parry to counter the attack, negating the damage and opening the boss up for a counterattack.
In reality, Noah imagined his effective hand speed abruptly rising as the Blademaster quickly activated another skill.
{Frost Strike=}
Frost strike is a Blademaster skill that enchants the sword with ice, slowing enemies with each hit and increasing critical hit chance.
After activating frost strike, Deadly Musician quickly chained a few attacks with his sword before completing it with a Whirlwind Slash, a spinning attack with his sword that threw the boss off-balance.
Thud!
Collapsing to the ground, blood flew as the boss' HP dropped.
Before the Pig could rise up, Deadly Musician circled it, dealing damage after damage as the aggro quickly became fully established on him.
And just as the angry Pig was about to narrow its full focus on him which would prove dangerous, he screamed. "Now!"
Immediately, the DPS classes started attacking, Noah being part of them.
Killing the Pork Master was far harder than all the monsters they've been fighting since but with Deadly Musician doing such a good job, they were able to finish the monster off with minimal damage to any of them.
This was also because the Cleric was doing her job diligently.
After that relatively straightforward boss kill, the party became emboldened as they went to the 2nd phase of the dungeon, sweeping through its monsters.
A few more minutes later, they encountered the second boss, the Pork King.
Unlike the gigantic Pork Master, the Pork King was much smaller, but this guy was an evolved humanoid Pig who wielded a heavy club as a weapon.
"Meddling humans!" Growling, the Pig attacked.
The attack variations of the Pork King were more than those of the Pork Master's, giving the group some trouble as the Cleric had to save Deadly Musician's life 2 different times but, in the end, they also killed the boss.
Congratulating themselves, they entered the 3rd phase of the dungeon. More experienced now, they quickly dispatched all the monsters and met the final boss.
[You have encountered the wandering Pork Emperor!]
The Pork Emperor was a boss made from a combination of the Pork Master and Pork King; it was a gigantic humanoid Pig with ferocious might.
It was as big as the Pork Master while also holding a heavy club to attack like the Pork King.
While the excited group got ready to attack, Deadly Musician already rushing up to meet it and establish the aggro, Noah paid attention to his surroundings, thinking of something else. 'Where is the hidden boss?'
At that moment, he felt sudden movement.
"Stop!" Noah said loudly. "The hidden boss is here!"
...
[NOTE: DPS stands for damage per second. It is a term to describe characters in video games who specialize in dealing a large amount of damage to enemies.]