Chapter 142
Everyone who had spent the past few days in the Inus Prairie, Do-Jin included, came to realize the same thing. Clearing the outskirts was easy. Too easy, almost suspiciously so. It barely felt like LOST anymore. But the moment they stepped deeper in, the difficulty spiked like a vertical wall. The monster density shot up, and every single creature hit harder and moved faster.
He knew the inner area would be harder. It made sense that the closer they got to the impact site, the stronger the monsters became.
Still... This is way tougher than I expected.
In the first World Boss Raid, most of the casualties weren’t because of the difficulty. Ninety percent of the deaths came from players making simple mistakes. This time, though, everyone was playing clean, holding formation, and reacting fast. Despite all that, they couldn’t push forward.
At this rate, it’s gonna end the same way.
From the outside, it looked like players were tearing through boss monsters nonstop. But Do-Jin knew it wasn’t enough. The ones being killed were the weaklings, monsters shoved to the outskirts or born farther from the center, where the power of ruin was thinner. From the monsters’ perspective, these were just expendable pawns. Fodder, meant to stall for time.
That thought sparked a memory. He remembered what the Light had once told him.
“When you achieved the best result in the Tower of Trials, your kind, the Regenians, grew stronger. But as your strength grew, so did the trials you’d have to bear. Ruin never gives up. Whenever we try to alter the path of fate, ruin pushes back harder, forcing the world to return to its destined form.”
So what? Even if it goes up a little, as long as no one screws around, we’ll hold. Do-Jin had thought back then. After having experienced it firsthand, he could feel in his gut that they were doomed.
“Raid leader! The healers are running low on mana!”
The shout yanked him out of his thoughts, and his unease took on a clearer shape.
Already? Their mana’s bottoming out already?
Just yesterday, they could last another hour before even getting close to empty. Was it just bad luck this time? He needed more data before he could make a call. A few more cycles of rest and combat would give him a better sense of the trend. Still, there was another way.
I don’t have to figure this out alone. I can just ask the others.
Do-Jin ordered the raid to fall back to the safe zone. After spending several days fighting side by side, his raid moved with clean, almost military precision. They withdrew from the prairie without a hitch.
Once they were settled, Do-Jin turned to Theresa. “Hey, Theresa, how did that round feel to you?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“In terms of difficulty. Did anything about the monsters feel off to you?”
She tilted her head, thinking for a moment before answering. “They hurt more than usual. The ones we fought this time definitely hit harder.”
Do-Jin nodded and looked over to Lotus, who was resting nearby. “What about you, Lotus? How’d they feel?”
The bald black man tapped the shaft of his spear and let out a low whistle. “Pain’s one thing, but their physical resistance is bullshit. My pike barely scratches them anymore.”
“That’s because you, mister, are running a tank build as a paladin,” Theresa chimed in.
Lotus’s eyes went wide. “Tank build what now? Did your translator break or something? I’m not ‘mister’ anything. I’m twenty-two years old, fresh out of the box, brand new model!”
“What? You’re younger than me? No way!”
“What do you mean ‘no way’? It’s perfectly normal. What’s weird is a middle-schooler-looking East Asian woman calling me old!”
Do-Jin lost interest immediately. He didn’t have time to listen to idiots bicker over age while the world was burning.
“Um...” Tanto’s voice broke through the chatter.
Do-Jin turned his head to see the man adjusting his mask like he was hiding something. Does he have a scar or something?
Tanto was a mystery. No one knew his face, his name, or anything about his real life. Do-Jin couldn’t remember exactly when, but he knew that a few years from now, the guy would quit streaming altogether. Despite ranking near the top, he had vanished completely. No one knew where he was or what he was doing. Maybe that was why Do-Jin couldn’t help but get curious about the face under that mask.
Then again, it’s probably just part of his persona. If it was a scar, he could’ve just erased it with customization anyway.
It wasn’t important. He was only curious because Tanto’s playstyle reminded him of his own from the past. The only difference was that Do-Jin had been forced to play solo, while Tanto chose to. But in the end, they’d both been alone.
“What is it?” Do-Jin asked.
Whatever this was, it clearly wasn’t about his appearance.
“You were talking about the monsters’ difficulty, right?” Tanto said.
“Yeah. Did you notice something too?”
Tanto nodded. “They take more hits to kill now. I have to stab them several times before they finally drop.” He lifted his weapon slightly as he spoke.
For someone who fought up close with daggers, knowing exactly how strong an enemy was, and how much health it had left, was crucial. If his calculations were off, if he misjudged a kill window by even a second, he could end up dead instead. Someone at Tanto’s level didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. His damage sense was precise.
“So the tanks say the monsters hit harder, the DPS say they’re tougher to kill...” Do-Jin summarized. “In other words, they’ve gotten stronger overall.”
“That’s... how it looks to me,” Tanto admitted.
Because of his position at the back, commanding a raid packed with mages, Do-Jin hadn’t felt it himself. When dozens of mages fired in sync, their infamous “death spear” focus fire instantly vaporized targets. Even if monsters had slightly more HP, the difference was too small for him to notice from behind the lines.
Right. You always have to ask the people who feel the change first, Do-Jin thought as he thanked Tanto.
Ignoring feedback from the ones in the field was the fastest way to walk straight into a disaster, not just in real life, but here too. After gathering what he needed, he sent messages to other guild leaders as well. The replies he got back were all the same.
“Fights feel just a bit harder than before.”
In raids that didn’t have Do-Jin’s kind of firepower, the kind that could melt bosses in a single shot, the difference was night and day.
So the plan to slowly chip away at their territory until we reach the center’s out the window now.
The original plan had been to push the monsters back gradually, close the distance, then finish it cleanly. But no matter how many they killed, the monsters’ domain never shrank. If things kept going this way, the day would come when the monsters could spawn faster than players could kill them. When that happened, everything would explode, quite literally.
They’re buying time, Do-Jin thought. They’re stalling until the World Boss is complete.
After weighing everything, he decided to scrap the safe, methodical plan. There was no point in playing it slow anymore. It was time to gamble.
The plan was to shorten the distance as much as possible first, then send in a small strike team for the final push... but screw that. We’re going in with all two hundred. A full-force spear straight through the middle.
Do-Jin was done holding back. He was about to unleash everything he had in one decisive clash against the Fragment of the Star of Ruin, Laves.
***
Before Do-Jin tried to convince two hundred people to follow him into hell, he contacted the company first to report his plan to strike the impact zone. Normally, he could have just done things his own way, but this time, there was a simple reason for giving them a heads-up.
If I’m going to hand out blessing scrolls to all 200 of them, that’s a shitload of money.
They were already gaining EXP like crazy just by fighting safely. Everyone could see their event contribution ranking was top-tier. So right now, they were probably thinking, If we just keep this up till the event ends, we’ll rake in fat rewards and easy EXP.
And into that cozy illusion, Do-Jin had to drop the line, “Let’s charge straight into the center, where the entire area’s soaked in ruin energy.”
If this were a dungeon, the death penalty would at least be minimal. But World Boss Raids counted as field zones, so death penalties hit full force. Unless someone had been farming PKs nonstop, they didn’t have much to lose in gear value, but the chance of losing something valuable wasn’t zero. And the EXP loss and login restriction penalties were brutal.
If he wanted people to actually agree, he’d have to cover those penalties with blessing scrolls. The problem was, each high-level blessing scroll cost around five million won.
Five million for two hundred people each... that’s a billion.
He could afford it now, sure, but it still made his heart pound just thinking about spending that kind of money in one go. Instead, he’d simply ask the company to count the blessing scrolls as content production expenses.
“So, you’re saying you want to head for the meteor’s crash site... and that’ll cost you about one billion won in blessing scrolls for your raid?”
On the other end of the call, Ju Kang-Hee sounded surprised, but Do-Jin felt even more awkward. It had been a while since they’d spoken, and after the polite “How have you been?” he’d gone straight to “I need one billion won.”
Anyone would feel weird about that. But apparently, he was the only one who did. Kang-Hee sounded genuinely excited by the idea.
This could be another massive hit.
Do-Jin’s popularity had been skyrocketing lately. He was the first to clear the pre-event quest, had taken the lead organizing the World Boss Raid, and was consistently delivering huge results.
Now, while everyone else was playing it safe and farming EXP, he was planning to suddenly dive into the heart of the meteor crater? It was perfect. People were already getting bored of the endless large-scale battles. This would wake them right up, a daring, unpredictable stunt that screamed Do-Jin.
Did he plan this whole thing out from the start? Even the broadcast timing?
Do-Jin, who almost never streamed, had his channel running live right now. That alone would pull in massive attention once the assault began. Honestly, Kang-Hee felt like she should be the one paying Do-Jin extra for pulling something this good off.
—Don’t worry about the cost. Do whatever you want, Do-Jin. Even if it takes more money, we’ll cover it.
Her answer came so easily that it almost threw him off balance. For once, Do-Jin didn’t know what to say.
***
Do-Jin received the full 1 billion won. Just like in an ad tagline, the budget had come through, and with that, he finally gathered the courage to speak to his raid members.
“I know some of you would rather keep things safe and steady,” he began. “And that’s fine. But I can’t help it. I want to go to the crash site.”
The hundreds of players started murmuring among themselves.
“I know we could die there,” he continued, his tone firm, “but I still want to try. That’s the whole reason we formed this raid in the first place. Still, I’m not going to force anyone. Honestly, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. It’s your choice. Anyone who wants to join me will receive a blessing scroll for protection. If you’re in, step to the right.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the players moved. Without hesitation, every single one of them stepped to the right. Do-Jin froze, speechless. He had expected maybe half at best.
Then someone shouted with a grin, “Come on, Do-Jin! Nobody joined you without knowing how reckless you are! We all saw this coming!”
“Yeah, that’s right!” someone else yelled. “If we’re playing with Do-Jin, we might as well make history in LOST! We didn’t come here just to grind EXP and chase loot!”
Just like that, not a single person backed out. Every one of the two hundred raid members chose to join the assault on the center.
