Might as Well

As they rushed at the very surprised-looking goblin camp, Sam took a moment to observe the people he had chosen for his team. Granted, it was not complete, as he was waiting for the right moment to approach the tank he wanted to lead his team when the time came but he could already see that the synergy was there.

Clarissa was standing calmly at the edge of the camp, cooly shooting off heals at Katie as she ran around hacking at the goblins, her sword simply drenching the entire area with an electric yellow light that seemed to be slowing any monster that stepped into it.

Aside from that, the berserker girl was predictably laughing her head off, though Sam was pleased to see that anytime Clarissa threw an order at her, she followed it without any objection... or thought.

“To the left!” yelled Clarissa, shooting off some kind of heal or buff at her metal-covered teammate who instantly turned on a dime, sinking their greatsword into the body of an orc that was rushing at her. The yellow light around the greatsword revved up, and it began to churn around, acting as if it was a chainsaw.

Dan was standing next to Clarissa, taking shots at archer goblins with pinpoint accuracy, though every time one of his shots hit, he let out a rather caveman-like yell. While watching his new team fight, he simply darted around, using his speed-enhancing skills to take out goblins with surgical precision that the others weren’t targeting.

This almost perfect chaos lasted no more than half a minute, but it was enough for them to trim the group by a good quarter. Unfortunately, it gave the boss enough time to gather their not-so-considerable wits, stand up, and roar.

“RAAAAAAAAARGH!”

Instantly, a hazy red light covered all the goblins and orcs. They instantly calmed down and began to converge on the boss, trying to organize some semblance of defense. Given that Sam could have taken the entire camp alone, it didn’t amount to much.

Dan let out a booming laugh, rejoicing at the fact that he didn’t have to be so careful with his shots now that most of the mobs were in the middle of the camp, not near the very flammable local flora. He raised his magical club, which emitted a small pulse of fire and immediately began raining pain and destruction on the still-reeling goblinoids.

Clarissa just stood there and continued firing off heals at Katie, who gleefully smashed into the throng of goblins and orcs followed by her terrifying familiar. The cat-looking thing simply sauntered after its owner and when it came closer to a goblin’s ankle, its head grew several times bigger, the teeth shining with hunger and the eyes radiating eldritch energy, and chomped on the fatefully exposed ankle with impunity. The wounded goblin then fell to the ground and began spasming. When Katie came by the next time, it was more than likely a relief for the monster when she simply smashed its body to smithereens.

Sam just kept dashing around the edge, taking down stragglers and making sure to harass the boss with small shots of Wind Bullets. Yes, he was testing the team, but there was no need to leave everything to chance.

Finally, the time came. There were only a few heavily wounded goblins groaning on the ground while Katie’s familiar was stalking them with a hungry look in its eyes and the boss was standing, bleeding from several wounds holding their giant sword in front of them as a shield while their honor guard, two beefy looking orcs stood there, shaking like a leaf.

Katie was standing in front of the giant monster, hopping from one leg to another, seemingly charging up a skill as the yellow light that kept appearing around her vanished, and the light that seemed to envelop her sword began to pulse faster and faster.

Sam took a few steps back and continued to watch as Clarissa began yelling out orders.

“Dan, fire spear! Katie, take its attention!”

Dan agreed with a grunt, raised his club, holding his other hand next to it, and suddenly white-hot fire surged from it and slowly it began to take shape, forming a crude spear.

‘Looks like the control exercises helped… Pity, it won’t work…’ he thought as he glanced at the orc boss, more specifically at the crude necklace hanging from his girthy neck. A necklace that radiated malevolent energy.

Seeing the giant spear made of fire so hot that the surrounding air was sizzling from the heat it was giving off, as well as the visible mana gathering around Katie, the monster seemed to straighten out then with a quick motion reached up to his neck and snapped off the necklace and crushed it with a quick motion.

Instantly, a deep red miasma surged from it, going to the two orcs guarding the boss, their forehead shining with a crudely drawn rune in the same color, that Sam knew meant life, sacrifice, and transfer.

It was a pretty common item.

Goblin Shamans were pretty rare and didn’t like to go on random attacks without a lot of guards, so to make sure their presence wouldn’t be missed, they gave the leaders of the attack a necklace. The effect slightly varied from tribe to tribe, but in essence, the necklace did something simple. It took the life energy from the marked monsters, in this case, the honor guards, and then transferred it to the boss, thus empowering the boss greatly.

Sam watched calmly as the dark red mana began streaming into the boss as the two shriveled corpses of the guard orcs fell to the ground, and then simply collapsed into ash. Feeling a little dramatic, he sent a surreptitious gust of wind and dispersed the ash on the ground.

Naturally, the team didn’t stop to watch the transformation. Instantly, Dan let go of the spear, hurling it at the transforming orc. However, while the flame hit the orc, it had no effect.

There was a technical explanation that Sam had read in the library about how the local mana is in chaotic flux that destabilized the incoming mana construct, thus turning it into a harmless mass of mana that is dispersed by the process of magical transformation, but it all boiled down to one thing.

The devs didn’t want players to easily disrupt boss transformations. From his inherited memories, Sam knew that there would be entire teams specializing in disrupting dungeon boss transformations, allowing guilds to skip fight phases, but that was much later.

For now, they had to watch as the originally dirty green skin of the orc began to darken, turning a harsh red color, while their body expanded, gaining even more muscles with the veins almost dangerously pulsating on them.

The fangs in their mouth also grew, with the incisors almost the size of a child’s arm. Their eyes were shining like rubies, and the light they were radiating was filled with madness.

Sam nodded thoughtfully. 'Enlargement, strengthening, and madness… pretty standard. Now, let’s see what they do…’

The orc let out an ear-shattering roar, then threw away its now comically small sword. Instead, the monster raised its hands, claws facing Clarissa, and with spittle flying from its mouth, began rushing at her.

“What?!” she exclaimed and took a step back in surprise.

Katie, however, was fast enough to intercept the monster, holding her greatsword vertically and catching the ravening monster’s claws on it. There was a boom, and Sam could see an indentation on the ground as Katie stood her ground, yet the berserk monster was trying to push her back.

Meanwhile, Dan kept raining fire spells on the monster, but thanks to the transformation, they didn’t affect the monster as much.

Finally, Clarissa regained her wits and threw a murderous glare at Sam.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Sam gave her a nod and then called out. “Dan, aim for eyes! Katie disengage on mark!”

Clarissa gave him a last glare but then refocused on Katie, who was still straining to compete in strength with the enlarged monster.

Sam took a small breath, then activated Shadow Burst, with a hefty boost from Wind Movement while also calling out to Katie.

“Now!”

Instantly, a blast of yellow light pushed the monster back a little, while Katie took the time to jump back and Dan renewed his effort to bathe the enlarged goblin in pure fire. It seemed to be working as the monster’s body was starting to get covered with burning skin and the roars it let out were increasingly desperate. However, the red light that seemed to suffuse the monster’s body flared up and began regenerating the damage the fire did. Though, everybody was relieved to note that after the regeneration the red light dimmed somewhat.

The next second, Sam was in front of the giant goblinoid, staring up at its bulging muscles crisscrossed with pulsing veins, and drew his sword back a little. He channeled a good amount of mana into it, then turned that mana into wind-natured mana, which, in turn was shaped into his own greatsword. Then, just to make sure he could finish the monster, he activated Wind Drill, which caused the created greatsword construct to spin at an impressive speed. It was so fast that it created a small suction force that seemed to attract the closest flames remaining from Dan’s barrage.

Seeing as the monster was lunging for him now that Katie had retreated, he didn’t wait any longer. He simply thrust his sword forward, aiming at center mass.

There was a great whoosh, and the monster stopped its movement.

For a long moment, nobody moved, but then the sickly red light rapidly began to waft off from the orc, then accelerating until leaving the body smaller than it was originally. After shrinking the orc looked emaciated and, as if somebody hung an ugly green tarp on a bag of bones, with a giant circular hole in its middle. Then, as the last red light left its dreadfully empty eyes, it simply turned to ash, starting from the edges of the hole in its chest.

Feeling a little cheeky, as he sheathed his sword, Sam sent another gust of wind artfully swirling the dust in place before dispersing it.

With that done, he turned back to his team. On the edge of his senses, he felt Lucky returning after a successful hunt. ‘Good, nothing escaped…’

Walking up to his team, he was greeted by varying reactions.

Katie was crouching on the ground, petting her familiar and praising it for its effort.

“Who is a good murder machine? Who is a good murder machine?”

The little shadow spirit simply lapped up the attention while rubbing his slightly enlarged head into Katie’s hand.

Dan was staring at him with a frown, but also seemed a little ashamed.

“Sorry, boss! I couldn’t really affect it…” he finally said, hanging his head low.

Sam walked up to him and slapped his back. “Don’t worry. We will work on your speed and power after this! Maybe get you a regen-affecting spell…”

“Hell yeah!” came the enthusiastic answer. Dan then bounded forward, putting away his club, and began the arduous task of sifting through the mass of goblin bodies, looking for anything worthwhile.

Lastly, he turned towards Clarissa, who was glaring at him.

“What the hell was that?” she hissed, her hand trying to squeeze the life out of her staff. “You didn’t even participate in the fight! Also, did you know about the transformation?”

“Yeah, I read it on the forums,” he answered calmly. He understood her anger, but he needed to know if they were capable of fighting even if something unexpected happens. “I wanted to see how you guys react…”

Clarissa took a few fortifying breaths and then asked one simple question. “Why?”

“If an event is happening, I needed to know that my team can handle the unexpected.”

The healer took a moment to consider this, then sighed.

“I don’t like it. But you paid me, and I don’t break contracts. However! After the current contract is finished, we are re-negotiating! Understood?” she finished her small speech with her index finger pointing at Sam’s face.

“Understood,” he answered with a nod. “Thanks for not yelling. Much…”

Clarissa just snorted, and without a word, joined the others to search the corpses.

After they sorted out the loot, which was rather small, consisting of a few rusted weapons only good for melting down a handful of reagents taken by Clarissa for her alchemy crafting class, a few small bags of currencies, no doubt stolen from travelers, and one lone skill book. It was a skill book for berserkers, called the Adrenalin Rush, granting extra speed and strength when the individual’s health was low. It naturally went to Katie.

Following that, they cleared up the scene, then Sam and Clarissa used their cleaning spells to clean up the team, and they headed off, following the trail left behind by the vanguard of the goblins.

Seeing that they weren’t exactly deep in the forest, it didn’t take a long time for them to hear the sound of battle.

Increasing their speed, they burst through the foliage to the sight of a small caravan, consisting of half a dozen wagons with horses pulling them, surrounded by a small army of goblins, while the guards and the few players tried to get rid of them.

Sam ignored everybody as he sought out the person he was looking for.

After a second of searching, he found her, kneeling on the roof of one of the wagons, surrounded by hovering drones and using her staff to take potshots at goblins that were left vulnerable by the other players or guards.

He glanced at his teammates, who returned the look and nodded.

Without saying a word, the people fighting the goblins were enveloped in the gentle light of Clarissa’s healing, while fire began to rain on the goblins’ heads, causing them to panic. Katie simply raised her sword and began to carve a bloody path through the monster army.

Sam used the moment to fire off several Wind Flurries, thinning the attackers, then using his Wind Jump skill in concert with Wind Movement, took several almost flying leaps, landing right next to the person he was looking for.

She instantly whirled around, a translucent blue shield appearing between them, and the staff was threateningly thrust into his face, its end glowing with an ominous light.

He simply spoke up with a mischievous smile on his face.

“Fancy meeting you here!”