Chapter 65: Kill Stealing Isn’t Bad Manners, Part II
Translator: – – Editor: – –
Translator: HunterW
Editor: RED
“Out of the way! I’ll block it!”
“Heal! Get ready to heal! DPS, fall back!” Shin Hyuk charged in ahead of his teammates and brought his Rank 6 Giant’s Shield up close to his shoulder in front of the Stone Golem, bracing for the impact. The Stone Golem unleashed its Rockslide on top of Shin Hyuk.
“Gahhh!” Boulders the size of a full-grown adult crashed down upon Shin Hyuk. His grunt of pain could be heard from beneath the boulders.
“Chun Song Yi! Don’t stop healing! We must persevere!” Kang Il Hwan quickly took over command and shouted to Chung Song Yi.
“Got it!”
The Stone Golem’s Rockslide rained down boulders for seven seconds, and Shin Hyuk couldn’t be seen beneath it. Finally, the boulders shifted, and Shin Hyuk got up with his shield still raised.
“I’m alright. Go! Attack now!”
“Continue your attacks! Take up formation one!. Attack once and retreat. Don’t get greedy!” Once Kang Il Hwan noticed that Shin Hyuk was still up, he ordered the other two damage dealers to follow him and attack. Kang Il Hwan was an archer and used his wide view of the battlefield to give out the proper orders. He and Shin Hyuk had made that decision just prior to the raid.
“The healer can’t help you. Look out for your health on your own and don’t be hasty!” Their only healer could only aid Shin Hyuk, who was taking the brunt of the Stone Golem’s attacks. The dealers were strong enough that they wouldn’t die from a hit or two, but it had already been three hours into the battle; they couldn’t afford to take any more hits.
All they could do was to rely on potions and back off until the potion’s cooldown expired before they could use another one.
Kang Il Hwan hadn’t expected Shin Hyuk to fight this hard. He did tell him to at least look the part, but he was doing much better than anticipated. The most important part of being a tank was being able to take a boss’s attack and remain standing. That was the main role of a tanker, but there was more to being the perfect tank.
The perfect tanker could not only block a boss monster’s attacks, but also keep the boss monster’s attention on the tanker, and away from the other party members. This was known as aggro. A tank’s skill in combat was based on the tank’s ability to aggro monsters. The better the aggro, the safer the damage dealers were in battle. If the boss monster wasn’t focused on them, they could unleash more attacks and skills onto the boss. In other words, good aggro shortened the length of a boss raid!
Shin Hyuk’s skill as a tanker was only C-grade. Compared to Song Haein’s B-grade, his skills definitely lagged behind. However, the dazzling skills and aggro retention Shin Hyuk was showing right now were that of a B-grade. Thanks to Shin Hyuk’s enthusiasm in the fight, the entire party saw a ray of hope that they could succeed. The damage dealers decided not to give up, and put more effort into their attacks.
“Damn it! Chun Song Yi, how much more do we have left?” Shin Hyuk asked Chun Song Yi, who had the Detect Skill, after retreating from the Stone Golem’s attacks for a moment.
“Its health is below 10% now.”
Shin Hyuk felt conflicted with what she just told him. They went into this battle, half-expecting to give up halfway through the fight, but sometime in the middle of the battle, they were giving it their all.
Shin Hyuk had led many boss monster raids at the Eulsukdo dungeon. The Seorak dungeon was a low-grade dungeon like the one in Eulsukdo, but this boss was much stronger, so much stronger that it was recommended to have a minimum of eight party members. The Eulsukdo dungeon only needed six. The Eulsukdo dungeon was also in the middle of his guild’s territory, and he had raided it a few times to see what his abilities were like.
He had never failed.
Of course, he always went with a full party of six, and they were all elites of the Yung Gong Guild. He was able to consistently and easily fell the dungeon boss monster.
This Seorak dungeon was very difficult for Shin Hyuk, even with all that experience. His party of eight had fallen to five total members. They had a 70% chance of failing. They didn’t expect to succeed when they first entered the boss room.
They were severely unprepared for the battle. They were thinking about the best way to die during the raid. But this difficult and seemingly impossible boss raid seemed to have awakened something in Shin Hyuk.
Shin Hyuk’s determination was like a weed that bloomed into flower amidst the struggle.
“Out of the way!” When Shin Hyuk noticed that the Stone Golem shifted its focus to a greatsword-wielding warrior, he rushed in. He raised his shield in front of him and charged at the Stone Golem.
“Provoke!” Shin Hyuk cried out as he crashed his shield into to the Stone Golem’s leg. The Golem turned around to face Shin Hyuk; he had successfully aggroed the boss once more!
“I told you not to attack too many times in a row. Its HP is below 10% now. I’ll block all of its attacks, so retreat after attacking once. We’re done for if we lose one more!” The Stone Golem had a very high health regeneration rate. If they lost one more damage dealer, they wouldn’t be able to effectively lower the boss’s health, and would end up losing the battle.
“Yes, sir! I’m sorry!”
The Stone Golem turned its body to bring its fist crashing down once more on Shin Hyuk. Shin Hyuk was a typical tanker with low AGI. He didn’t think about dodging the attack and raised his shield once more to brace himself.
The crash of impact was teeth-rattling!
“Attack again and retreat!”
“Double Power Shot!”
“Mighty Blow!”
“Heart Strike!” Once the Stone Golem attacked Shin Hyuk, the three damage dealers shot off their most powerful skills. When the Stone Golem turned to face them, Shin Hyuk raised his shield and intercepted the Golem again.
“Shield Bash! Provoke!” He raised his shield above his head and slammed it down on the Golem’s foot. He used his Provoke skill to make the Stone Golem focus on him once more.
————–
-They’re doing pretty well, aren’t they?- The party’s teamwork was top notch. The three damage dealers attacked the Stone Golem at the exact moment Shin Hyuk held the Golem’s aggro. Shin Hyuk didn’t let himself be stopped by the Stone Golem’s attacks, either. Every time he was pushed back or fell, he got right back up and charged back in. It was simple, but a widely used technique, if the tank was good enough.
“Heal, Flourishing Cure Incense!” The healer, Chun Song Yi, was healing Shin Hyuk every time he got damaged. She also used an AoE healing spell so that the damage dealers could restore at least a little bit of their health.
“What percent is it at?” Shin Hyuk, asked as he retreated once more.
“It’s a 3% now. If we keep this up, we can finish it within 5-10 minutes. We five can defeat an eight-man boss raid!”
“Let me know when it’s at 1%. We’re going to change history today!”
“Yes!” Chun Song Yi shouted in a shaky voice, as if what Shin Hyuk said got her all worked up. However, to me, it sounded as if she was inviting me to burst in.
I slowly crept into the boss room. I had covered my face with a shirt and I made my armor visible. Now what? My clothes smelled a little off from being stuck in the suitcase for four years straight. The shirt I randomly pulled out had a large duck printed on it. I ripped holes in the duck’s eyes so that I could see through it and tightly tied the shirt around my head.
“Is that all I need to do? Ah. Open Stats Menu!…”
I gained two levels traveling through the Seorak dungeon. It was only 40 Stat points in all, but I wanted this to be perfect and put them all into my STR.
“My first target is the healer. I’ll stealthily take her out, and then take out the archer. If I can take both of them out at once, it would be perfect.” I tightened my hold on my trusty greatsword’s grip.
“I’m ready.” At the same time, I heard the healer speak out. “The Stone Golem’s health is at 2% now!”
I moved as soon as she spoke.
The healer kept herself at a far distance from the fight and stood the closest to the door to the safe room. She was in the perfect position to be my first target.
I barely walked five steps and I was right behind her. Not a single one of them noticed me approach. I walked right up to her and stabbed her in the back with my greatsword.
Because of her weak physical DEF, the blade easily went through and came out her front.
“Haah!” Air escaped from the healer’s mouth like air escaping a balloon. I wasn’t here to revel in the sound and quickly covered her mouth with my hand. I wrapped my elbow around her neck.
“Urgh…guh…” The healer gasped to try to breathe, but could only look at me with confused and indignant eyes. She could only see my eyes through the eyeholes I made.
“You’re from the Yung Gong Guild, right? Nice to meet ya.” The healer struggled to get away from me, but with the blade still impaling her through her back and my chokehold on her, it was all in vain. Soon, she lost all strength in her body and collapsed. She couldn’t last long with her low VIT.
The archer was my next target. I approached carefully, as this was the guy who had taken command of the party in Shin Hyuk’s stead. The archer was so completely focused on the battle and the Stone Golem in front of him that he didn’t notice me behind him. I came up right behind him and quickly thrust my sword at him to stab him in the back. The blade managed to sink in but thanks to his high AGI, he rolled forward the moment he felt the blade enter him. He actually managed to avoid the brunt of the attack with his quick reaction, but the damage was already done.
I walked towards him.
“Gah! Who the hell are you?” Shin Hyuk and the other two damage dealers finally turned to look at me when they heard the archer’s scream. They just stood there, staring at me, confused as to what was going on.
“Duck…Duck?” Dumbfounded, the archer looked up at me and asked, half to me and half to himself.
Rather than reply, I charged at the archer to take him out first. The archer hadn’t gotten back up from rolling yet, and I tackled him with my shoulder and shoved him to the ground. I hit him in the face with the pommel of my sword.
“Motherf…! What the fuck…get off!” The archer swore and brought his hands up to try to cover his face, but I was too strong for him to block any of my attacks.
“Gek!” With one final blow, the archer’s head split open and the archer died, his body disappearing in a cloud of smoke. Shin Hyuk and the other two remained frozen on the spot. They just stared at me, eyes wide open.
I turned to Shin Hyuk and spoke to him.
“Hey. You’re going to get hit if you just stand there.”
“Oh, crap!” The Stone Golem swung kicked at Shin Hyuk and struck his side. Unable to properly defend against the attack, he flew across the room.
“Ohh…you should be more careful. I told you that you were going to get hit,” I said to Shin Hyuk in a low voice, as he was gasping in pain.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“What the !ell are you doing here?” The two damage dealers finally snapped out of their shock when Shin Hyuk was flung to the side, and shouted at me together.
“Me?” I pointed to myself.
“I’m…well…hmm…Duck Duck? Yeah, that’s right. I’m the Stone Golem’s friend, Duck Duck. You messed with my friend. For that, I’ll kill you all!” In that instant, I recalled what the archer called me and decided to introduce myself as the Stone Golem’s pal, Duck Duck!
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