Chapter 13: Chapter 5: 1-4: Party of One part 4
"Er, Ancient-san, are you sure this is a good idea?" Momonga asked hesitantly, wringing the Divine-Class staff in his hands nervously. "I mean, I know you said you beat this Boss by yourself, but your character is pretty extreme, you know."
I shook my head. "It'll be fine, Momonga. You have the entire Guild going in with you."
And indeed they were—all of my exploits had gotten them interested in a piece of the action. When I spread the word about the new Raid Boss that offered a unique passive as a reward, all 40 of my fellow Guild Members hopped on the bandwagon. There wasn't a limit on the Party size for the World Turtle fight, so it made sense for the entire Guild to go in at once.
"You aren't." Momonga pointed out sensibly. "And you're the Raid Boss expert in the Guild."
"I'll be going in a few minutes after you guys, when a new version of the area opens. I'll be doing the same exact Raid as you, and I'm just a Message away."
"It'll be fine, Momonga-san." Tabula called. "Stop worrying. Ancient One-san spent ages briefing us on the Boss's attack pattern, so we should all be perfectly fine."
"But we still don't know what kind of Boss it is!" Momonga protested.
I chuckled darkly. "Oh, believe me, there's a good reason for that. Tradition, you might say. The first time I fought it a shitty Dev just told me where it was and to have fun fighting it."
Ulbert seemed to share Momonga's concern, though he was a lot calmer about it. "Should we be worried?"
"Oh, most definitely. But nothing I can possibly say or do will prepare you for what lies inside that gate."
"Well, the Quest we all took to get here says we're investigating mysterious tremors… so some kind of mole monster, perhaps?" Bukubukuchagama tried.
I shook my head in bemusement. "Just stop stalling and bite the bullet. Is everyone ready?"
A chorus of approval.
"Then go on through. It won't start until you all get in, but I still advise that the Tanks of each group go first." I stretched my wings, tail curling around my waiting Maidens. "Good luck, and don't be surprised if it takes a while. My record for this place so far is a few hours, but you have numbers as an advantage. Keep what I said in mind and you should all be fine."
Momonga spoke up, projecting his voice. "Everyone, let's do this! For the glory of Ainz Ooal Gown!"
"HOO-AH!" With those noble cheers, they all charged through the gate and into the area containing the Raid Boss.
I sat back and watched them disappear, amused at their enthusiasm.
They're all fucked, you know.
The dry message made me chuckle.
"Oh, yes, undoubtedly."
You're a cruel bastard.
"I like to think of it as educating the younger generation."
Heh. I got your message, by the way. You were right about the lag when you get into melee range, so I fixed that. Also, we fixed the Boss to have more variety when it comes to its move pool.
"Wow. And you called me a cruel bastard."
Well, I suppose it takes one to know one.
"Heh."
We fell silent, waiting the few minutes needed for the next reset of the Raid area.
Saw what you did with the Ouroboros Item.
I burst out laughing. "Oh, boy, I wish I was there when you found out."
Yeah, but to be fair, you kind of earned it. I went in and upgraded that one's lag problem too out of courtesy.
"Much obliged."
...So what are you planning on doing with it?
"At the moment it's kind of a pet. I call him Harold."
Harold, huh?
"You like it?"
It sounds quite distinguished, I suppose, but I was sort of expecting you to call him Skullcrusher or Stormageddon or something equally ridiculous. It seems that your naming sense is somewhat decent.
"Truly the most glowing of praise."
The gate to the Raid area flashed once, signaling a new opening. I rose to my feet, flexing my Talons and lashing my tail. "Now that I know what to prepare for, I think I can get my record down to a few hours without burning any Items. Would you care to watch?"
Sure. I could stand to see how my creation does against an experienced Player.
"Well, you'll be in for a treat. I've got a well-made strategy and two NPCs coded to be the most efficient they can be, so I have every advantage."
Good game to you, Miyagi-san. I'll be watching.
I paused mid-step. "Oh, and before I forget… any bets on how many times I can clear the place before the rest of my Guild makes it out?"
Oh, at least twice for sure.
"I'd have to say three times personally. I saw some of them wearing gear meant only for show."
Heh.
"Heheheh."
…We're both going to hell, you know.
"Ah, but at least we'll both know someone once we get there."
It took a total of eight hours for one of the most powerful Guilds in YGGDRASIL to hobble out of the Boss area, looking completely drained. I waved cheerfully, sending a helpful smile emote just to rub it in. "How did it go? Looks like everyone survived."
"All of my hatred." Ulbert ground out, glowering while leaning on his staff. "All of it."
"The words 'giant turtle' might've helped a lot, yes." Tabula agreed.
I sighed, shaking my head. "Tabula, if I said 'giant turtle' or even 'enormous turtle' it would've given you the wrong idea. You would've pictured something the size of a minivan, perhaps. You would not have expected the huge fucking mountain that you went out to face."
"Did you clear the Boss, Ancient-san?" Momonga asked, interrupting Tabula.
I nodded. "Oh yes. Easily. It's quite simple if you can dodge or tank its' attacks while maintaining a steady damage output. I knocked my personal best down to two hours while you were in there."
Shouted complaints filled the clearing, which I smugly basked in. They were all too exhausted to raise their voices too much, though, so it died down quickly. I spoke, silencing them. "Have you actually checked the Skill you got from it?"
A few of them did so. "Ooh, sweet, a decrease to total Damage taken?" One shouted.
I nodded, internally wondering if the Devs had changed the Skill given so it wouldn't be as broken. "What's it called?"
"[Greater Armor]." Ulbert reported, closing the menu.
Yep. It got changed. Too bad. "Still, you lot got your first taste of a Raid Battle. How did you like it?"
My response was most of the Players teleporting back to the Guild Base. The message was clear—you can have it all to yourself.
"Ah, well." I hummed. "More for me, I suppose."
It might've been my imagination, but I could almost hear a certain Developer cackling in the distance.
The Guild was on edge.
Whispers were beginning to spread, word of a growing army. A large number of Guilds and Players, banding together in order to conquer the unconquerable Tomb. An alliance made to take us down a peg. My Guildmates were a mix of worried and thrilled, discussing which of the Tomb's defenses would best slow the incoming horde.
"I'm still not sure why it's now of all times that this is happening." Ulbert was complaining from a lawn chair overlooking the crystal-clear caldera before my mansion. "I mean, it's during crunch week on most of our jobs, what with tax day coming up soon. It's almost like they've been planning this for ages, most of our members won't be on when they do attack."
I raised an eyebrow. "I mean… maybe this is just a sneaking suspicion… but don't you think that it's because we wrecked Asgard?"
There was a pause.
"Oh, yeah, that happened…" Ulbert trailed off. "Yeah, we really fucked them hard."
I nodded, curling my tail close. My Maidens were standing between my front paws, just as they always were when they weren't in combat. "You gotta admit, though, it was a lot of fun. Pretty much everyone in the Guild got catapulted 50 Levels just by being in the same Party when we took them down. Not to mention all the griefing we did…"
"Yeah… come to think of it, don't we kind of have this coming? I mean, we did steal everything that wasn't nailed down." The Demon scratched the side of his head. "It probably took them this long just to get back enough resources to launch a full-scale attack."
I began to laugh. "Oh, they are going to hate this place. Even the lower Floors are trapped so bad that Momonga had to manually take them down when he invited a few non-member friends. Forget the POP mobs, I think most of them are going to die to the traps me and the boys set up for shits and giggles."
Ulbert nodded. "Yeah, I heard about that. How did you even get people to go along with it, anyway?"
I shrugged. "Well, after all the time we spent griefing Asgard, people got really good at setting traps. We got back to the Guild Base, restored it to normal… and then got bored. So we started this whole troll course designed to piss people off. It's lethal, yes, but more importantly it's really annoying."
Ulbert shuddered. "I… I think I'm going to avoid the lower Floors from now on. I know what you're like when you're playing for fun, I can't imagine what nightmares you'd come up with when you're trying to drive people insane."
I tilted my head in acceptance of the compliment. "Hey. It's a gift. Why do you think so many sadists end up as web designers? If there aren't at least four dead links and an endless loop, it isn't a proper company website."
"…Not touching that one." Ulbert held out his staff, changing the subject. "So, in case I'm online when we get invaded, do you think you could…?"
"Oh, sure." I plucked the staff from his hands, glancing over the Stats. "Eeeeh, this is a bit weak for PvP…" I mumbled. "I could make you a new one if you wanted. I got ahold of a [Branch of the World Tree] recently. I could take a few nights to grind it into a god weapon for you."
"Ancient-san, you are one of the few people I know who willingly volunteers to spend hours on end grinding gear." Ulbert deadpanned.
I snorted. "Oh, please. It's not hard once you get used to it, and even if you don't end up using it I can hold on to it for someone else. Gear made using a [Branch of the World Tree] always has an extremely low Level requirement, so I'm sure I can get a pretty good price on it."
"Fair enough." Ulbert took back the staff, putting it into his Inventory. "Need any help?"
"Nah, just send me your Stats so I can give you a custom build." I uncurled my tail, stretching out my long form with a tremendous yawn. "I'll work on it once I set up a warning system. I don't want all the action to start without me."
Ulbert nodded, rising to his feet. "Well, I think I'll leave you to it, then. Let me know if you need anything else, all right?"
"Not a problem." I waved him off, already distracted by the coming grind. "Go on, keep working on that Lava Floor you have going on."
The Demon waved, disappearing in a flash of light.
Even if he never ascribed to my philosophy of making the NPCs neutral towards humans, Ulbert's contributions to Nazarick were more than impressive when it came to Floor design. The sheer level of imagination behind his defenses was slightly terrifying, really.
I sighed, glancing down at my Maidens. "Well… I suppose this is it."
Fuck the Turtle, this was going to be my first extended test of how well my current setup worked. A long trial run of Noa's effectiveness when placed in combat alongside myself and Archer.
This could go really well… or it could really not.
"Let's go run some dungeons, my pretties." I mumbled, rising to my feet. "We have work to do."
Word count 2000
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