Chapter 67 - 64 : Team East Crow Vs One-Horned Troll

(AN : I discovered that I had previously fucked up. Old Jiro is of East Crow while Old Juro is Sato's grandfather. Sorry for the misunderstanding...)

"Dream!!!" Old Jiro roared as the one-horned troll was almost about to complete it's exit.

Dream Tiger was already prepared as he had an arrow drawn on his bow. Taking aim at the one-horned troll's right eye, Dream Tiger released his hold on the arrow.

*Twang* [1]

'Martial technique : Bold Shot.'

In other to avoid unseen circumstances like the last one, Dream Tiger had used a regular arrow attack. Despite being a regular attack, the force behind the arrow was quite impressive since he applied a martial technique to it.

As a treasured player of a tier 2 guild, it was only right for Dream Tiger to have learnt at least 1 martial technique. When you consider that his occupation appreciates martial arts even more, it is highly possible for Dream Tiger to have learnt 3 martial techniques.

The arrow had enough power behind it to possibly fully penetrate and pass through a block of steel with 2 inches thickness (AN: 5.08cm). With such lethality behind it, one could only imagine how much powerful it would be when performed with a skill. Without a doubt, Dream Tiger proved himself worthy of being East Crow's hidden piece with this attack.

"Kylian!" In other to prevent the other one-horned trolls from interrupting, Chesces signaled the only long-range combatant in his team.

"On it." Kylian hastily replied. Pointing his staff at the one-horned troll assigned to their team(the one at the centre), Kylian said in a low voice " [Nature's enticement]."

Suddenly, the one-horned troll in the centre froze and blindly stared ahead in a muddled state. It looked like a baby that was sin awe of bright lights except it was ugly.

Despite the druid class being a support class like the cleric and cursemancer class, it wasn't a simple class. You might even say it's stronger than the other two. Apart from their healing abilities and high Mana sensitivity, druids have a plethora of control and damage dealing skills that grant them better flexibility in battles but as they say, the System is just. If not for their weak natural defense and health, they would have been an OP class. Also at the early stage they don't have a lot of spells accessible to them.

The skill [Nature's enticement] was a control skill that could temporary stop the thinking of any living being or attract them towards the user. Even though it sounded like an MT skill, it had its roots from nature. As the priests of nature, it is only right for druids to possess such an ability that gives them an upper hand against living creatures after all, every living being is nature. (AN : What about robots?).

Using the time the one-horned troll was puzzled, Griffin closed in and swung his sword at it, using [Justice Slash] which was already off its cool-down, effectively dealing damage and gaining it's aggro.

. . . . .

On the other side, the arrow had long arrived when Kylian had distracted the other one-horned troll. As it made it's way towards the target, the one-horned troll saw the arrow approach but because it saw it too late, it couldn't stop the attack so it placed its left hand over the right eye. The arrow ended up partly-embedded in it's left hand even still, the troll didn't release any sound of pain, only staring at the players as it garnered strength and pulled itself completely out of the portal.

"Swift Blade, tank. Dream, spread." As Old Jiro tossed out instructions, the team arranged themselves according to the drill. Swift Blade stood in front while Dream Tiger moved towards his left while Old Jiro moved towards his right. This formation would help them interchange the monster's aggro target role amongst themselves sparing the monster no opportunity to retaliate against anyone of them.

The way it worked was that while, for instance, Swift Blade attacks the troll, it's aggro becomes focused on him and it rushes towards him. During this time, Dream Tiger and Old Jiro would continuously, attack dealing large damage to the troll. Then Dream Tiger would stop while Old Jiro would continue attacking. This would shift the troll's attention towards him and it would begin rushing to him. Of course the precondition is that Swift Blade doesn't attack it.

By constantly changing the role of the false MT, the troll's concentration would be split in three, effectively dividing it's attention and confusing it, giving the players more time to attack and slowly grind it's HP down.

While moving, Old Jiro was chanting a spell with Dream Tiger loading an arrow.

The one-horned troll swung it's axe at Swift Blade who happened to be the closest to it.

"You're fast but I'm faster." Swift Blade chuckled before rolling on the ground as the axe swept above him, till he had gone past the troll.

The one-horned troll quickly reacted, bringing the axe to a halt and turning back to hack at Swift Blade simply because it was annoyed that he had dodged its attack. However neither Dream Tiger nor Old Jiro would let it be.

Dream Tiger shot an arrow towards it right eye again. The troll found this annoying even though it had reacted swiftly and dodged the attack. But by doing so, Old Jiro's [Fire ray] struck its chest. Swift Blade placed the icing on the cake with a slash at it's left leg biceps femoris.[2]

[Critical hit]

"Arggggh" (One-horned Troll 412/500)

"Come on! Let's go. We can do this!" Seeing as their 3 attacks had taken a somewhat sizeable chunk out of the one-horned troll's HP, Old Jiro encouraged his teammates.

"Grawwwww!" The one-horned troll got infuriated by the continuous damage it received without having successfully retaliated once. It's eye glowed with a little tinge of red and though it wasn't a berserk state, the troll's fighting prowess changed a bit.

It picked up its axe and rushed at Swift Blade who landed the critical hit. Old Jiro tried to gain it's aggro by casting spell after spell on it, same with Dream Tiger who used his arrows, but the troll was quite fast and easily reached Swift Blade, who hadn't retreated far enough, with two steps.

When it closed in on him, the one-horned troll lifted it's axe and brought it down on Swift Blade, with a very powerful momentum.

'Shit.' This was Swift Blade's last thought before he used [Parry] against the attack. Even though [Parry] was a defensive move that existed for both the Swordsman class and the Guardian class, the Swordsman version was slightly weaker than the Guardian one. Adding in the fact that Guardian players have a better physique suited to handle attacks and assaults when compared to a Swordsman, the end result for Swift Blade could only be spelled in one way;

D O O M.

AN :

[1] onomatopoeia for the sound of an arrow being fired.

[2] The muscles slightly beneath the hamstring. Behind the knee joint. But what do I know, I ain't a medical student...

So I've been thinking, why the hell does Chesces use a saber instead of a sword even though he's a swordsman?!

Also, I accidentally ended up making Chesces an important character. Well to the real Chesces, it seems that your luck is good.

I think I should kill him off....