384. Raid (3)

,Cockroach-like bastards!”

As soon as the dark wizard finished speaking, countless magic circles appeared on his arm.

The magic circles began to split into dozens, no, hundreds, as if self-replicating.

The dark wizard, as if satisfied with the overwhelming number of magic circles that made one want to give up, said:

,Even if they are players, they won’t be able to withstand this level of attack.”

,Crazy.”

,Despair. Hehehe.”

With a mocking laugh, hundreds of magic circles emitted light, and hundreds of black flashes began to pour out simultaneously.

But we were already prepared when that many magic circles appeared.

Everyone had cast buffs affecting the entire party and debuffs on the boss.

Kwang!

Kwang! Kwang!

Pinkeu’s giant shield began to block the dark wizard’s attacks.

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

Even with all the damage reduction skills used, the shield began to falter.

,Kkeueueueueungㅡ!”

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

,I can’t hold on!”

I raised my sword at the shield that was starting to crack.

,Arang-ah?”

Soonchu, who was preparing to block with his body in preparation for the shield breaking, spoke.

,You’re going to try?”

Nod.

[ Ryuet-nim! Cast just one shield skill on Arang! ]

,Understood!”

I bent my body slightly. And the moment I confirmed that the shield skill had entered me, I slammed the floor hard with my bent leg and rushed forward. As soon as I escaped the shield, countless flashes were in front of my eyes, and I immediately swung my sword.

Chaeng! Chaeng! Chaeng! Chaeng! Chaeng! Chaeng! Chaeng!

I swung my sword, blocking the approach of the flashes.

The sword and flashes met, flashing incessantly and obstructing my vision, but I continued to parry, reading and memorizing all the attack trajectories of the flashes that appeared momentarily.

Vibrations began to resonate in my body from time to time, but the defense power coming from the Soma job’s bulk and the healer’s shield endured one or two of them.

,ㅡㅡㅡ!!!”

The dark wizard shouted again, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the sound of the flashes.

I didn’t have the luxury to care about such things in the first place.

Right now, I’m not thinking about blocking all these attacks.

It’s to block as many attacks as possible and reduce the damage to the party behind me as much as possible.

The moment I lose focus even for a single second, I die.

The vibrations that I feel little by little will turn into stiffness the moment they become even slightly stronger.

In fact, even now, the intensity of the vibrations is so strong that it takes considerable strength to move my body. But I gritted my teeth and swung my sword.

,Hoo…”

As soon as the attack ended, I slammed my sword into the ground.

,Arang-ah!”

There’s no need to protect the entire party anymore, so healing comes to me, but healing only fills my health and doesn’t replenish the stamina I’ve used, so my panting breath doesn’t return.

It consumes less stamina than blocking if it’s not a perfect parry, but it’s not like it doesn’t consume any.

I don’t even know how many times I’ve parried.

I hadn’t failed a single parry, but my stamina was completely depleted.

Soonchu and Palgiri run past me, who has run out of stamina.

I raised my head and looked at the dark wizard.

I have no idea how to deal with that bastard.

It’s not that our attacks are working. But before that, it’s obvious that our healers’ mana will run out first.

It’s fortunate, or maybe not, that there are no instant-death gimmicks or attacks. Instead, he keeps spraying powerful magic irregularly, regardless of aggro, so the healers’ mana doesn’t last.

,There are no gimmicks or patterns. Then how do we create a timing to gain an advantage?’

Usually, raids give the boss time to deal damage comfortably for a while after dealing with a specific pattern or gimmick.

It gives you time to do a so-called burst. A timing to turn on all buffs, use doping potions, and deal damage in an instant while receiving the synergy of all party members.

But right now, there was no such thing.

The dark wizard was never stunned or stiffened.

As a result, our party’s damage cycle is already a mess.

In LORE, skill cooldowns are basically fixed.

They are divided into 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 120 seconds, and 180 seconds.

Skills with cooldowns are divided in that way for all jobs.

So, usually in raids, the ability to reduce cooldowns is not necessary.

No, it’s actually a minus.

Because every job’s ultimate skill comes every 3 minutes. But even if you use it every 2 minutes and 30 seconds by yourself with cooldown reduction and use one more skill than other users, the total damage is actually lower.

Because you use the party’s buffs without receiving them yourself. In addition, the buffs of that user cannot be received by the same party. So it’s actually a minus.

Because of that situation, the cooldown reduction stat is never matched except for PVP. It’s much better to just increase the raw stats than to reduce the cooldown.

But now, it seemed like cooldown reduction was necessary.

The moment the raid boss attacks and acts like that, it’s impossible to match skills in the party.

Because he attacks erratically, it’s impossible to do fixed attacks at fixed timings.

No matter how much stronger it is to use skills together, it’s more of a loss to not use skills and leave them unattended for the next 3 minutes if you miss the timing once.

In the end, you have to miss the timing until the end. In other words, if you make a mistake once, you have to do it with the timing that is constantly delayed until the end of this try.

Looking at our party members now, they are trying to deal damage tenaciously so as not to miss it.

But that tenacity is clouding their judgment.

,Is he aiming for it?’

Like the administrator, he recognizes our existence not simply as people, but as players.

That means he also knows our characteristics.

,We just have to fight each other regardless of party synergy.’

The same goes for awakening skills.

It’s too irregular a fight.

You can’t think of it as a raid boss from the past.

Rather, you have to fight while thinking about when I was active as a world boss.

==

-This raid is taking a ridiculously long time from the first boss

-But it can’t be helped lololololololol

-This is new

-The raid boss isn’t a boss lol

-But if it’s that irregular, isn’t the strategy useless?

,You might think the strategy is useless, but that’s not the case.”

Bae Doeppeugae, who couldn’t enter as a starter, was communicating with the viewers while watching Arang’s broadcast.

,It looks irregular, but the magic that the raid boss uses doesn’t keep changing. The magic now is the magic we saw earlier.”

-That’s true, but the way he attacks is different.

-No, how do you make a strategy for this?

-I’m curious how Reina will make a strategy

,No matter how I look at it, this raid seems like you have to have a job with a short pre-delay? It looks ridiculously difficult. On top of that, jobs in the wizard class with incantations are going to have a hard time this time. I wonder if Reina-unni has pulled out a few strands of hair by now.”

-lolololololololol

-Isn’t it because it’s a virtual world that you can’t pull it out?

-The advantage of the virtual world is that you don’t have to worry about hair loss~

,Honestly, it’s right for me to go in.”

-??

-?????????

-Huh?

-lolololololololol

-He’s sulking. He’s sulking.

,No, think about it. Can’t you see that jobs with long pre-delays or jobs with casting are having a hard time right now?”

As Bae Doeppeugae said, Moza the Magician, who has casting, and Mata the Magic Swordsman, who has a long pre-delay, were attacking overwhelmingly less often.

Even if you just look at the meter, it should be higher than the Wanderer, who is originally a synergy dealer.

However, the Magician, who has casting time but uses magic as a concept, and the Magic Swordsman and Sorceress, who have long pre-delays, were competing with the Wanderer in damage.

Rather, the Wanderer was winning by a narrow margin.

The Wanderer is a ranged synergy dealer who uses a bow.

It’s a job with no casting and almost no pre-delay.

The Wanderer, who is dealing damage more freely than anyone else here, was showing high damage.

-Even so, the assassin is a bit… in a situation where gimmicks and patterns don’t come out.

,Hey! Still, until now, uh!? I’ve always been in the first clear run!”

-That’s true. So what’s the average number of deaths?

,Euk… I, I died a lot! Honestly, I died in advance at the beginning, so it doesn’t have a big impact!”

-It’s finally out. The famous “cum first” lololol

-lolololololololol

,And there’s something more important. That boss is no different from us. When fighting a boss with that kind of feeling, it’s right to have an assassin. Because you can show unexpected attacks.”

-I guess so. He doesn’t attack in a fixed way like a raid boss, and he was moving hastily when Arang was parrying just now.

,That’s right! With the Grim Reaper’s movement skill, ta-ack! Uh!? If you turn around and do a sa-ak, the boss will be surprised and say, “Oops!” and make a mistake. And put your nose on Arang’s crownㅡ Ah, you guys don’t know yet~”

-??????

-What?

-Huh? What about the crown?

,This time, Arang analyzed the real-world scent and entered it into the access device, so the virtual-world Arang perfectly reproduced the real-world Arang’s body odor? If you put your nose on Arang’s body and smell it now? It’s the same as the real-world Arang’s smell. It’s awesome.”

-ㅅㅂ?

-Wow, crazy!?

-Heol.

-lolololololol No, you did that too?

-Huh?

,Should I say it’s really like a baby’s scent? Just smelling it relieves stress all over my body!?”