While Kaizen was analyzing the rest of the items he received after killing the Stheno Gorgon and Hellround was eating her remains, which were decomposing a little slower than usual, Kaizen heard a familiar voice approaching.
"Well, well! What happened, Summoner?" Gear, the Wind Elementalist, asked with her arms crossed, looking at Kaizen.
Next to her was the brave, crucial, and important Templar named... what was her name? Ah, yes, Khaduth, the tank of the group. Both looked serious.
"What happened here?" Khaduth found it necessary to ask again and stepped forward.
With his eyes fixed on the interface of his inventory, the Psyker explained bluntly:
"I just killed the boss here, the Gorgon, who happened to be the one who did all this stuff you're seeing." He was referring to the sea of destroyed and undestroyed statues around them.
Kaizen was not a man who bragged about his accomplishments very often, not least because he preferred to avoid unnecessary attention so as not to create enmities, but this time he had no way to hide what he had just done, because any lie he tried to tell in this context could be discovered on the spot. So it was better to tell the truth, that he had killed Esteno, than not to tell it at all.
Gear narrowed his eyes and looked at Kaizen suspiciously.
"What you said can't be true. It's impossible for a summoner to defeat a boss alone. I would even believe it if you had the ability to summon a dragon or a giant golem, but you only have a mere dog at your side. This means that you don't have the power to defeat even a simple primal-ranked boss by yourself." She said sternly.
"Urgh! You're hard on words." Kaizen sneered, not even paying much attention to her.
"Speak the truth, there is no reason for you to lie, no one will believe you. What happened here? Where are the rest of the group? They helped you, didn't they?" Gear asked, crossing her arms with a threatening expression.
"If you don't believe me, fine, go find your friends. They're about 30 meters that way." He pointed back with his right hand while continuing to fiddle with the interface with his left.
Gear and Khaduth, irritated by the Summoner's indulgent behavior, walked away from him, tapping their feet and grumbling. They couldn't believe that someone like him would even try to make up a fake story about single-handedly defeating a Gorgon, a creature that took an entire guild of orcs to defeat.
"Frankly, he thinks he's too much and is just a wimp. Even if he were the great Kaizen, he would have trouble dealing with the Gorgon's petrifying gaze alone. Of course, with the help of a talented Maga like Aulenarca, even a Summoner can survive. Gear grumbled.
Khathud shook his head in agreement. "Yes, I also think there must have been some kind of help. Let's see what the others have to say."
They left, leaving Kaizen alone with Hellround. It wasn't long before they met up with the rest of their group, who were in the center of the statue chamber.
Gear saw Mirthor on his knees on the floor, smiling nervously as he listened to Gnorlin's stern lectures. And Aulenarca, the Maga, was healing the leader with an anxious look on her face, as if she were feeling a little sorry for herself.
"You should have told her in the group chat that you found the boss room. Or did you think you and Aulenarca were enough to defeat a Gorgon all by yourself?" Gnorlin shouted.
Knowing he was wrong this time, Mirthor's voice trembled:
"To be honest, I didn't even believe that there were any Gorgons left in this place, because we should have found them instead of the beetles. Of course, I didn't think about the possibility of a single large Gorgon, so when Aulenarca and I entered this boss room disguised as a normal chamber, we didn't warn you. And then, before I could realize it, that thing was already in front of me, paralyzing me as soon as I looked at it.
The monk was still irritated by the leader's explanations, after all he believed that Mirthor always left him behind on purpose to get in his way.
"He means it, Gnorlin." Aulenarca said as she healed Mirthor.
Since she was not a priestess, her healing spells were weaker and slower.
"If you don't believe him, at least believe me. I still had time to protect myself with a spell, just because Mirthor was in front of me, and then I managed to escape. Besides, I'm not proud of hiding all that time after that. I know I should have tried to warn you about what we found, but I was so focused on surviving that I forgot. We made mistakes, and we know that.
Gear and Khathud, who overheard the entire conversation as they approached the group, were a little confused as to what they were talking about.
"What are you talking about?" Gear asked with an ambiguous smile. "You managed to defeat the boss. Why are you arguing like this?"
Gnorlin looked at them. "What the hell are you talking about?"
The Wind Elementalist frowned at the way he was talking to her, and it surprised him.
"I mean, what are you talking about, Gear? Aren't you the ones who defeated the Gorgon?" He asked, breaking into a cold sweat.
"Of course not, it was you. We didn't even see her, we were too far away in that long corridor system, and by the time we arrived, the congratulatory message was already in the air."
At this point Aulenarca finished healing Mirthor, she took a deep breath from the stress and said:
"Guys, it's obvious it wasn't any of us. If it was, we would all have received a notification when the boss fight started, not to mention all the XP would have been shared equally, as well as the items. Someone else defeated them."
Everyone was silent for a few seconds as they realized that the only person not in the group was the Summoner. From the moment they realized this fact, each member of the quintet put the facts together in their own way, and they came to the exact same conclusion at the same time.
"So that Klaus guy really did kill Boss all by himself." Gear said out loud, still incredulous.
Everyone around her nodded, as nonconformist as she was, even Gnorlin, who, even though he had seen Kaizen up close incinerate a bunch of giant bugs like they were nothing, couldn't believe that someone could defeat a Gorgon all by himself.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Mirthor started to laugh as he stood up, and everyone in the group looked at him strangely.
"What's so funny?" Gear asked.
He looked at them with a gleeful smile and said:
"Isn't it obvious? We are so proud of our recent successes in quests and dungeon raids that we forget how weak we really are. None of us is even close to level 100, which means we're not even close to the level of an evolved weakling, but that doesn't mean there aren't other players who are already beyond that.
Everyone looked at him in surprise, but still knew that what he said made a lot of sense.
In fact, they hadn't played Rise Online since its release, and two or three of them had already died a few times and lost a few levels, especially when they were just beginners, so they didn't have very high levels compared to the veterans of this game. Also, now that the requirements for becoming an advanced player had been released after the European Guild Convention, most of the players in Rise Online were more focused than ever on leveling up.
"So, guys, what do you think about going up to Klaus and asking him if he wants to join our group? If he's alone in a place like this, I bet he's not in a guild yet." Mirthor asked as he sheathed his sword.
"Someone with his strength is definitely already in a guild." Aulenarca said.
"But what if he isn't?" Gnorlin perked up at the thought. He was the only one who had talked to Kaizen enough, and now he knew that the Summoner was not only a quiet guy, but also very powerful.
"That's the idea, man!" said Mirthor. "You see, guys, if we have this man in our group, we will be unbeatable. We could put Gnorlin up front to use his full potential, and we'd still be safe because Aulenarca and Gear would be protected in the back because Klaus will be there."
At that moment, Gnorlin looked at Mirthor with arched eyebrows and thought:
"So, in the end, all Mirthor cared about all this time was Aulenarca and Gear's safety? How serious is that? Hehe!' He laughed inwardly as he blushed because he finally understood that Mirthor trusted him a lot.
"All right, you might be right. We have my wind skills and Aulenarca's support skills, but our formation really lacks more power. If we have someone of a higher level, we can even face more dangerous regions than we have recently. I support inviting Kaizen into the group." Gear said seriously, and everyone nodded in agreement.
However, when they reached the part of the chamber that had been destroyed by the intense battle between Kaizen and the Stheno Gorgon, the quintet of players were somewhat surprised to find that Kaizen was no longer there. They looked around in confusion, and it didn't take them long to realize what had happened.
"He's gone."
"I had a feeling this would happen."
"Let's look around town for him, guys. What do you think?"
"The nickname Klaus is too generic to be his real name. Surely he lied about it. It will be impossible to find him."
"Shit..."
...
Edited by: DrHitsuji
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