Chapter 52

The Boss Appears

「You’d think so too, right? But I actually only need to kill one monster to stop it.」

It’s a risky move so I didn’t want to do this if possible. But running away would only put us in danger. The best move right now is to attack instead.

「Kill one monster?」

「…A Stampede is nothing more than an aftershock from the Raid Boss’s appearance. If we kill the Raid Boss, the Stampede should stop immediately.」

「Raid Boss…? That’s an S-ranked monster! Even deploying a party of a hundred men, there hasn’t been any case of one being killed before! A powerful Skill isn’t enough to take it down. It’s impossible!」

「I have a plan. There’s no guarantee it’ll work so you should evacuate too.」I said, casting Magical Invisibility to conceal myself as I headed into the Forest of Death.

The spell doesn’t just hide me from monsters, but from humans as well.

I want to explain things properly, but there’s not much time before the Raid Boss appears. The forecast a few days ago was that it’ll show up 4.5 to 5.5 days so there’s about a one-day margin. At the earliest, it’ll appear soon and if I hurry, I should just barely make it.

「Huh? Eld? Where’d you go?」

Mylia lost sight of me and looked around.

「Is he already in the forest?!」

Mylia rushed to the Forest of Death as if to follow me. She shouldn’t be able to see me. She’s got good intuition.

But she stopped right at the entrance to the forest. She noticed that there were countless monsters gathered inside. My whole being concealed with Magical Invisibility, I went straight through to the deeper parts of the forest.

「I lost sight of him… Even Eld wouldn’t charge straight into the forest.」

She gave up as expected and turned back toward the town.

The battle with a Raid Boss is so gruelling that it makes the fights we’ve had so far in the Forest of Death look like simple games. Unfortunately, Mylia wouldn’t last more than ten seconds with her current level. Which is why I wanted her to escape.

「Now then… there’s not much time.」

Right now, I’m level 18. Monsters grew in number due to the effect of the upcoming Stampede and we farmed some exp by defeating them.

But I’m still too weak to fight the Raid Boss head-on alone. In the first place, a Raid Boss is not a monster to be challenged alone. Still, I sprinted deeper into the forest in a straight line.

「It looks like the Raid Boss will appear earlier.」

Not only are there multitudes of monsters, but they’re already facing one direction. Among the signs of a Stampede, this one indicates that it’s happening soon.

There could be less than thirty minutes left before the Raid Boss appears. It’s within expectation. Still, it’s too early.

Suddenly, as I was running, there weren’t any monsters anymore. Until then I’ve been avoiding monsters every ten steps, but now even when surveying the surroundings, not one monster was in sight.

It’s proof that I’m getting closer to the pillar. Monsters disappear around the pillar right before the appearance of the Raid Boss. I’m only a kilometer away now.

「I made it…」

When I arrived at the Sealed Pillar, the signs indicated that the Raid Boss would appear any moment. The pillar itself looked sinister, dark in color with eerie creaking sounds emitting from it. The surrounding temperature has dropped ten degrees from when we came to scout the pillar.

I waited for a few minutes. Then slowly, the pillar was uprooted from the ground. The earth shuddered and cracked. And with a thunderous roar the ground split open, and from it emerged a gigantic creature. A Raid Boss has appeared.

「All right. Time to do this.」

Sages indeed have plenty of powerful Skills. They can take on any role: from carry to tank to scouting. As such, it’s known as an all-purpose job class.

But that alone wouldn’t be enough for the Sage to be called the strongest class and dominate most of BBO, with 80% of the players being one.

The reason why the Sage class is called the strongest lies elsewhere, and I’m about to show that.