“Hmm… I think we went a bit too far.” Gytha glared at the scattered piles of werebear bodies lying full of blood around the village.
“Don’t worry, their dead are temporary since they’re part of the nest,” Adra assured the girl. “What matters is we survived, and the first stage awaits.”
The three stood before an opened bronze gate. Although unlike one in the wyrm’s lair, the bronze on this gate only covered a couple parts of the gate like its hinges, latch, rails, the sandglass frame, and a sign that said ‘Moeder Beer’. The rest were made out of wood.
“Hm… this gate opened on its own, is it okay for us to just enter, Adra?” Staas asked before making a rash decision.
“The sandglass up there hasn’t started counting yet, so the stage trigger is probably the same as before.” The half-mer answered.
“Alright, then let’s not waste any time!”
Staas led the two to enter the first boss stage of the nest. Just like they predicted, the gate shut it
“Look! The bear came back.” Said Staas right after the fog perished. “Ah… the sandglass not even a quarter filled yet, this boss will go on quite a while if we choose to play survival game.” Adra staring at the sandglass from the tree they’re hiding. “Can we even kill the bear? Her fur is too much of a hassle…” The boy reminded. “You know Staas, I’ve been thinking, now that you also hold the power of water, can you make something like acid or poison?” Adra curiously wondered. “Poison?” Questioned Staas. “That’s right. All this time you possessed the power to make organic matter, which is powered by nature elements. Now all you need is to make them liquid and create a poison… or potion, but the latter is more for your friend than foe.” The half-mer explained. “Hmm…” But before they could go on further with their idea, the mother bear spotted them. However, she grew more careful after how she got dominated by them before. *Groargh!* As she roared, the water around her began to
The journey from the Bronze Gate to the Silver Gate was as bloody as ever. Another village was laid for the three, and those werebears were mercilessly attacking them. Though sadly they’re heavily outmatched and got massacred instead. “The sandglass looks bigger than the last one…” Commented Gytha as they were done with those mobs. The Silver Gate just like the Bronze Gate was made mostly out of wood, except for a couple of metal parts like a latch and rails. On this one, however, there were banners waving on top of it, with the flag and symbol of the Bear clan. Under the sandglass was a silver-plated sign with ‘Berenmesije’ written on it, meaning the Bear Maiden. “Are we gonna fight the daughter now?” Staas asked. “No… I don’t think so.” Adra somehow looked nervous seeing her title. “Hmm…” Not so satisfied with the answer he got, the boy proceeded to open the gate as wide as possible to assess the stage before triggering the start. Inside appeared to be some sort of a grassle
The Maiden was ready, her enemy was right in front, and her claymore already raging with anger. All she needs is just to swing it and unleash her fire on the short nature boy. *Shht!* *Shoot!* *Tack!* Thuck!* Yet before she could do it, arrows rained down on her. None of it missed her body, yet most of it got completely reflected by her armor, and the rest… went burned by her exposed skin. She might not be hurt by them, but it activated some mechanism that shouldn't have been activated with the number of members the party currently had. "What...!?" Being hit by that many arrows in a matter of seconds, made the Maiden think Staas brought an army behind his wall of trees. She then swiftly ran to the left hut and grabbed one of the boxes filled with swords. Each of the swords in her hand went set ablaze and thrown till it spun like a whirlwind full of fire. They cut an archery target during their flight, taking it along with them to the training dummies. Now blessed by the Maiden,
“I never thought I’ll get to witness your ‘immortality’ so soon.” Adra hesitantly said as the three walked out of the second stage. “Ahaha…” Gytha awkwardly chuckled. “Better not talk about it.” The girl glanced her eyes to Staas who quietly led them on the front. “Does it hurt? You know… dying?” Adra whispered as silently as he could. “Depends on which one.” She answered with a weak smile. “Say no more, I get the gist.” As they continue to walk, they realized the path between the silver door and the gold door wasn’t filled with some kind of arena where tons of werebear hunt them to death. Instead, lines of stalls stood tall with all kinds of tools and equipment free for the picking for them to prepare themselves to fight against the final boss. And at the end of the path, they saw the Bear Maiden chilling behind a desk with all kinds of crossbows presented before her, ranging from the most primitive one to the newest and most advanced repeater crossbow. While in her hand laid
“Urgh…” Staas quickly straightened up his back after how it got dislocated from the impact. Then he looked to the front and found the Master just staring at him with a mocking smile. The boy’s face quickly turned bitter. It was his first experience feeling the pain that intense and he definitely didn’t appreciate the disrespect from the guy who made him go through that. He lift his right hand and a black portal opened itself before his [Inventory Ring]. A winterstone spear stepped out of it, and Staas immediately grabbed it. With all his strength he then gritted his feet and aimed his body towards the final boss. *Shhtt!* Staas launched himself and spun his spear as he flew to heat up its momentum. He gave the man a couple of thrusts and slashes along with his charge. Yet even with how fast Staas' movement was, the Master manage to calmly dodge and block every single one of his attempts. “Hehe… no hard feeling kiddo.” With his bare feet, the man threw a couple of kicks to launch
“Oh! I can hear them…” Staas then proceeded to sniff the air. “Ugh!” His face got instantly retracted. “Smelled like a drunken dwarf…”The mist was thick, but it didn’t contain any poison or drug like the one used by the Lamia. Staas could still hear all kinds of noise going around the stage.But…“That’s… too many!” Even though he could hear footsteps, he couldn’t tell which one is whose. The number of water splashing sounds from creatures walking was so numerous, it was actually distracting to hear them.“Gytha! Adra! Where are you!” The boy called out to his friends to at least know where he should not hit.*T-t-tuack!*Out of nowhere, crossbow bolts started barraging him as his voice spread throughout the room. Fortunately at least, he could still recognize their noise and grew a circle of ash trees to shield him from them.“Nevermind! Don’t answer!” He sounded a bit panicked as he shouted that.This time however, not a single bolt came flying at him. The werebears know it was fut
“DIE!” Bathed in power, the Master swung his claws forward at where the boy stood with his mace and shield. His strike was so powerful the earth got cleaved in five lines. Some of the mangroves even got sliced out of existence as he was already blinded by rage. “Argh! He’s killing the hamadryads!” Staas managed to dodge that deadly attack, but he got so mad seeing those tree spirits perished by the attack. “Calm down, Staas. Everything on this nest will be restored once this stage finishes!” Adra shouted from above to make sure the boy won’t do anything reckless. “Grrr…” Staas growled as he tried to suppress his emotion. “People really should stop killing innocent nymphs.” The boy followed. “Unless?” The boss persisted in his wrath with his claws scratching every side imaginable. Staas tried his best to move all the mangroves so they didn’t get hit by that giant werebear. And he did a pretty decent job with it since the Master only attacks once at a time. On the other hand, the s
“Welcome back, Your Grace.” As the three opened the Sagittarius Party’s house door, they were greeted by Chesy who calmly bowed at them while wearing only an apron to cover her front self. “Hm? Chesy...? What in Goddess’ name are you wearing!?” Adra was shocked by her attire, especially since he knew that she didn’t pick it up herself. “Miss Mara asked me to wear it for my cooking training with her.” The centauride answered. “That witch…” The half-mer acted as if he was angry, but he clearly enjoying the view. “Cooking? Does that mean you already finished adding her intelligence, Ceri?” Staas curiously said to the elf. “Yup! All done and good.” Ceri's face formed smugly as she went busy sipping her tea on the sofa facing the door in front of the fireplace. “Here, you can see it for yourself.” She then handed Chesy’s [Specification] back to Staas. The boy walked toward her to grab it, and swiftly head back to his party to look at it alongside them. —Chesy— [Lvl: 1] [Strength: