Gacha Kingdom Building

Given the popularity this floor has, things were bound to get hectic soon enough, it's just a shame that it ended up with us mixed in one...

Even still, we managed to deal with it well enough, since the plan is to leave this floor as soon as possible, we can leave the problem with the elves behind for now.

What's more, the next floor, in complete contrast, is quite unpopular, so we can probably avoid people from Earth at the very least if we go deep enough. In such a situation, I could easily solve something like what happened today without worrying about who was watching.

I had to leave such thoughts behind before entering the door that leads to the boss's room with the girls though since such distractions would only hurt my focus during the fight.

And so, as soon as we entered through the door, we were met with a boss room way different from the ones before.

In front of us, the cold stone floor stretched for about 50 meters, only to lead to a huge wall, about 15 meters tall that hit the ceiling of the room. There were also four holes high in the wall around a big gate.

The door we used to enter the room had closed, and we could only proceed through the gate on that wall.

Miwen: "...Here they come."

A hobgoblin carrying a bow appeared from each hole in the wall, while at the same time, raiders started pouring out of the gate on top of glowstrikers.

The hobgoblins on the holes are quite protected, and it's practically impossible to deal with them unless you have a skilled archer or mage.

Thankfully we had both, so as soon as they peeked through the holes, Ellie managed to get one down and at an incredibly fast pace managed to get the second before they got to fire a single arrow.

The two remaining managed to fire and hide behind their cover though.

The adventurers who managed to reach the fourth floor of this dungeon always comment on how annoying the archers in this battle are, not only do they have cover, but each of them has a special effect on their shots.

I purposefully gave Ellie a priority list for them based on what I know about this boss room, so she took the one who shoots arrows that explode on impact and the one whose arrows can change trajectory.

The only ones left were the archer whose arrows are noted to have high piercing power and the one with high-speed arrows.

While these are certainly problematic effects, in this particular case they aren't really that powerful, so we can treat these monsters as normal archers for the most part.

As if to prove that point, Licia and Claire deflected their shots with pure swordplay.

It ended up being pretty impressive to me that they managed to do that since I for sure would've ended up wasting a bit of mana to defend myself from that.

And while I think it's an unnecessary risk to take since they could've gotten injured, I also understand that they did it to save mana for the floor boss.

In the end, they were confident that they could do it, and it ended up paying off even if a little bit.

While that was happening, the raiders didn't stop charging at us, so our frontliners moved to face them.

Anna took the initiative to start a small quake in their direction, throwing them off-balance, and Mia took the opportunity to pick on some of them.

It wouldn't be good for her to fight them directly since without magic she has the shortest range among us, so she didn't waste too much time and only killed some mounts as swiftly as she could.

In this battle, Mia, Beatrice, and I would stay put for the most part. It wouldn't be good for Beatrice to waste mana here, and given that Mia and I have a shorter range, we are at a disadvantage against the raiders, the most we can do is provide support on the flanks and finish off whoever ends up falling from their mounts.

Ellie had said she'd be capable of taking down all the archers, while Claire, Licia, and Anna, the ones among us who have a little more reach on their weapons have taken it upon themselves to face the wave of raiders.

This way, we ended up making a small stand against them.

When this battle started, there were 20 enemies, but in our first contact, the numbers diminished to about 14.

About 6 pairs of "cavalry" and the two archers that remained.

Fighting without using magic at all was somewhat tiring, but we could regain our breath before proceeding through the gate, as for mana... it would take longer to recover.

The raiders circled back and prepared for another charge, Ellie kept completely focused on the remaining archers and didn't even look in their direction.

As soon as they started coming at us again, both archers peeked from their holes.

They ended up being pretty smart though, as they didn't try to fire and instead did a quick peek before coming back for cover.

This move ended up saving both of them as Ellie's shots ended up passing slightly above their heads when they ducked.

Still, it was enough that they couldn't fire this time around, and with our full focus on the enemies charging, we managed to wipe almost all of them.

Only two raiders remained without their mounts, and Mia made quick work of them.

At the same time, predicting that Ellie wouldn't be able to fire in such quick succession after they dodged her arrows, both archers readied their bows to fire.

That ended up being their last action though, as arrows penetrated their chest, and thanks to Ellie's Gift they ended up stunned.

It would only last a few seconds but... it was more than enough for her to finish the job.

With that, the first part of this fight was over.

Unlike the other times, this boss battle is divided into two parts, and by proceeding through the gate we would finally be able to face the boss.

It's a good thing that the boss doesn't enter this room as it gives us time to regain a bit of energy before proceeding.

Claire: "So next is the boss itself then?"

Miwen: "Yeah... as I've said, it's a single Glowstriker, a [Lord] at that..."

I had already explained to them all the information I had on this floor's boss room, but it was useful to go over it again since we had time.

Miwen: "The problem is that it's an insanely good tank as most physical attacks don't do much damage... it's best to infuse magic in all attacks to actually hurt it."

Seems like in the past this boss battle caused a lot of trouble for adventurers, with many dying to it.

The first room is basically a trap to waste away the mana of mages trying to use long-range attacks to defeat the archers and area of effect magic to kill the raiders.

Either you come with multiple mages, a mage with a large reserve of mana, or you don't spend any in the first room.

Given that we kinda fill the three strategies at the same time, I expect the actual battle against the boss to be a breeze.

As such, when everyone was ready, we proceeded to the next room.

This one resembled a bit more the ones we were used to, and right in the middle, a single creature awaited us.

Surprisingly, this monster wasn't as big or menacing as the ones that we found in the nest, but we didn't let our guards down and went all out.

Two arrows flew in its direction, but they didn't manage to penetrate his skin and it seems like due to that, Ellie's Gift didn't activate.

The boss created a huge wave that came in our direction at the same time that it hid its body.

We could've frozen the entire thing, but that would be really wasteful, so instead Licia and I made a small ice wall.

As soon as the wave crashed against it the monster came at us from the left side.

Beatrice was ready for it though and a wind blade alongside a fire blade hit its body.

While this diminished its speed, it wasn't enough to stop it, so Anna used her sword to block the incoming glowstriker in its tracks.

Mia took the opportunity to pummel it to the ground by jumping and hitting a punch to its back. It seemed to be pretty effective, so she must have imbued her fists with mana at the very least.

She kept hitting him with a fast flurry of blows and I noticed that ice fragments were coming off from her fists whenever she hit the monster, so it seemed like she was imbuing her hands with ice magic at the precise moment before impact.

The boss started to shake to take her off its back with all his might, but she didn't let go until Claire shouted for her to get out of the way.

Mia like everyone else already knew what was about to happen, so she used all her speed to get as far away from the monster as possible.

Just in case everyone else also did the same...

And as expected a giant fireball was launched at the glowstriker. As soon as it was above the monster, it looked as if the Sun had a grudge against the poor thing as a pillar of flames kept descending for what felt like an eternity.

In reality, though, it was only a few seconds but Claire shocked everyone with how long she kept it going.

Only one of us wasn't surprised by that, the very girl responsible for it to begin with. Instead, her expression showed only a proud smile.

I was expecting to find only charcoal when the flames finally stopped pouring down but to my surprise, the boss was still alive.

It didn't seem like it could put up much of a fight now though...

Claire: "Its reputation as a tank is deserved..."

Mia: "Should've left me to it."

Claire: "I don't have an eternity to waste here you know? I have things to do after we're done here."

I don't think playing games and watching movies warrants such haste, but I guess to each their...

Spending more time here would indeed be a waste though, since I still wanted to explore a bit of the fourth floor today.

To deal with this once and for all I prepared myself to kill the monster by creating an ice pillar on the ground beneath it.

But then, the water that the wave left around us became small spears that headed our way, however, thanks to Beatrice's wind blades, not a single one managed to hit us.

As such, I proceeded with my attack, and to my surprise, Licia had thought the same.

Two pillars then perforated the monster from beneath, each going in a different direction, completely tearing the monster in half.

Licia: "Whoops... I'm sorry, that ended up being a bit wasteful right?"

Miwen: "Nah, that much is fine. It's better to be safe than sorry after all."

I could notice the irritated stares of both Mia and Claire towards Licia and me, but I didn't know if they were jealous of the way I treated her or if they were mad that once again they didn't manage to get the finishing blow.

I didn't give it much though as the door to the next floor appeared and opened before us.

The boss dropped a small silver ring, and by analyzing it I was able to confirm its effects.

It wasn't incredibly good, but it did give a small decrease to the mana cost for all magic attacks.

I thought it might make a good combo with Licia's Gift, but since Beatrice uses a diverse array of elements, I decided it would be more beneficial to her for now.

In the end, I ended up giving it to her, but it's a solid effect, so I might come back here to farm another one sometime in the future.

Though I would risk running into those elves from before... Yeah, I'll probably refrain from coming back to this floor.

Since we weren't doing too bad on either energy or mana, I decided to continue as planned and we headed to the fourth floor for the first time.