Ch.357[Episode 357] Raid

The synergy between the four people was quite good.

Due to the [Standard Party] synergy of having one warrior, mage, archer, and priest each, their movement speed and health recovery rate had greatly increased.

These two effects were quite beneficial not only for Sir Dominic who lacked any movement skills, but also for the other party members.

The stat bonuses weren’t bad either.

From the beginning, Sir Dominic with his tanker characteristics received substantial bonuses, and the mercenary, mage, and priest also saw greatly improved survival abilities.

Both synergy and stat bonuses were in good condition before entering the raid that Konga the Goblin King had mentioned.

“Sir Dominic of Feralant.”

“Eric. Eric Frayman.”

“I have abandoned my secular name, but call me Francisco.”

“As you know, I’m Team Mage.”

After Sir Dominic and the three others finished introducing themselves, they immediately selected and entered the raid.

It was a permanent 4-person raid, a small-scale one with some minor monsters and one boss.

Of course, just because it was small didn’t mean the danger level was low.

The difficulty of the raid Sir Dominic’s party had chosen was none other than Hell difficulty.

It was too high a difficulty for a first raid attempt, but Sir Dominic’s party consisted entirely of men who didn’t care about such things.

At the starting point of the raid.

Sir Dominic looked out at the panorama of a collapsed city in the background.

This raid took place in a ruined urban area.

Masked bomb terrorists were running wild throughout the city, and beyond the urban area, something burning continued to shoot into the sky with explosive sounds.

The objective of this raid was to break through the terrorists and destroy their secret weapon.

“It looks quite easy on the surface.”

The giant priest Francisco said, looking at the terrorists blowing up the city.

“The road is quite wide, but this is perfect for my magic range.”

Team Mage suggested casting a spell first.

“If we draw too much aggro, we’ll be in trouble. Let’s pull them one by one and subdue them.”

Mercenary Eric suggested proceeding cautiously.

“I think it would be best to be careful in our first battle.”

Sir Dominic drew his own conclusion after considering his party members’ words.

Currently, Sir Dominic had the highest tier among them, so he took the role of party leader.

“Let’s face one and if it seems manageable, we can consider taking on multiple enemies at once.”

Sir Dominic’s suggestion was enough to convince everyone.

“Eric, pull one with your arrow. I’ll block it at a suitable position.”

“Good. Let’s do that.”

Eric said as he raised his crossbow.

Since it was already loaded, Eric carefully aimed and sniped the head of the nearest terrorist.

The arrow flew fiercely as if it would shatter the terrorist’s head immediately, but as if to prove why the difficulty was Hell, the terrorist remained unharmed even after being hit by the arrow.

However, this arrow wasn’t fired with the purpose of damaging the terrorist.

The arrow was intended to provoke the terrorist and draw them toward Eric, and as intended, the terrorist began approaching Eric’s position.

When the terrorist arrived at a suitable position, Sir Dominic began his attack by swinging his shield at the terrorist.

“Everyone attack!”

At Sir Dominic’s signal, Francisco was the first to attack.

He summoned a hammer filled with holy power from the air and struck the terrorist’s head.

Whether it was because the hammer was made of holy power and had no crowd control effect, or because the terrorist’s resistance was high despite the crowd control effect, the terrorist moved perfectly fine despite the powerful blow.

No, rather, as if angered, the terrorist suddenly began throwing bombs everywhere.

Sir Dominic began deflecting the incoming bombs with his shield.

Sometimes bombs flew to places beyond Sir Dominic’s reach, but at those times, Eric’s arrows would snipe the bombs and drop them to the ground.

Due to the coordination between Sir Dominic and Eric, the terrorist’s bombs couldn’t cross an imaginary line centered on Sir Dominic, and eventually began exploding around the terrorist.

The terrorist became tattered after being caught in the explosions of his own bombs.

In that state, when Team Mage’s spell struck, the terrorist dissolved into light and disappeared.

“Quite manageable.”

Sir Dominic checked his remaining health.

Despite being caught in tremendous explosions, Sir Dominic hadn’t taken much damage.

Of course, it wasn’t for nothing that the difficulty was Hell—Sir Dominic’s health had decreased by about 8%.

This was only because it was Sir Dominic; others would have been in a critical state.

Fortunately, due to one of their synergy effects—increased health recovery rate—Sir Dominic’s damage was soon restored.

“At this rate, I could probably handle about 5-6 of them.”

Sir Dominic said while checking the number of terrorists.

Theoretically, even 12 might be possible, but considering that he had missed a few bombs earlier, five or six would be most appropriate.

About a dozen or so. To count the exact number would require a closer look, but for now, recognizing that there were about a dozen was sufficient.

That meant they could clear this area in about 3 rounds.

“Then can we use area magic now?”

Team Mage suggested at Sir Dominic’s words.

“Since the crossbow takes time to reload, magic would be more suitable for large-scale aggro.”

Sir Dominic nodded at Team’s words.

Simultaneously, Team Mage began chanting a spell, and soon a magic circle appeared in the air.

And through that magic circle, an enormous amount of flames poured down.

The spell successfully provoked exactly six terrorists.

Sir Dominic raised his shield.

And the terrorists’ bombs, allied magic, arrows, and holy hammers all converged on Sir Dominic’s position.

…

“Hmph.”

After quite a long time, Sir Dominic was smiling in a somewhat tattered state.

The raid’s difficulty was quite high, so even the great Sir Dominic had taken considerable damage.

Of course, that didn’t mean he was truly in crisis.

Sir Dominic still had 70% of his health remaining.

“Seems we’ve dealt with all the mobs.”

Eric climbed onto some collapsed building debris to survey the surroundings.

After three battles, all the terrorists in the vicinity seemed to have disappeared.

“That means…”

Francisco looked toward one particular area.

It was the direction where something had been continuously sending fireballs into the sky with explosive sounds from the beginning.

“That place over there must be the final destination.”

Sir Dominic nodded at their words.

“We should prepare first.”

The mage took out the items they had brought one by one.

From basic potions like health and mana potions, to flares that could reveal the exact location of the boss, to grenades that could inflict various status effects even on bosses.

The mage first fired a flare into the sky.

Then exclamation marks appeared on the mini-map drawn on the card.

It meant the boss was right there.

Team Mage looked at the mini-map for a moment, then tilted his head in confusion.

“Strange. For some reason, I see two exclamation marks.”

“Two?”

At Team Mage’s words, Sir Dominic and the party members looked at his mini-map.

There were indeed two exclamation marks there.

That meant there were two boss entities in this place.

“Probably because it’s Hell difficulty.”

Eric made a reasonably logical inference.

“It won’t be easy to figure out their patterns.”

Francisco stroked his beard with a serious expression.

Sir Dominic also fell into deep thought looking at the two exclamation marks.

Currently, Sir Dominic’s party didn’t know the boss’s patterns.

Having to face two entities in such a situation?

It was impossible to know how long it would take.

But they couldn’t give up here.

“We should at least try, shouldn’t we?”

Sir Dominic said to his party members.

“Well, that’s true.”

Eric agreed with Sir Dominic.

“If we were going to give up, we wouldn’t have started in the first place.”

Francisco stroked his beard.

“Wait a moment. I have some food here. If we eat it now, the buffs will last for the next battle, so it would be good to eat now.”

Team began taking out buff foods they had prepared for the raid.

And so Sir Dominic’s party prepared to challenge the boss battle.

Sir Dominic ate his fill, from bread that increased health recovery rate to pudding that increased status ailment resistance, then stood up.

“Now let’s go meet the boss.”

Sir Dominic said as he moved toward where the exclamation marks had appeared.

It wasn’t very far, so Sir Dominic’s party was soon able to meet the bosses.

[Super Heavy Self-Propelled Artillery Tsar]

[“I just want to see the world burn.”]

[Super Heavy Tank Khan]

[“Get closer to the enemy! I want to behead them with my sword!”]

Quite intimidating bosses.