Roar of a King (XIV)

Chapter 333

A few days after retreating, the group's count exceeded barely a hundred, since quite a few people returned, and a few joined anew, entirely unaware of the situation. Throughout, Quinn and the twins were going through the group, slowly piecing together any and all information they could and were given. It was a slow process, and, more importantly, uncertain, as it didn't take a genius to realize that most people were still holding back.

Even in the direst of circumstances, it spoke volumes that a human's first instinct was to lie and deceive. The worst part of it all was that it wasn't even done due to malice but rather a weird sense of self-preservation, as though sharing yourself with another person, however deeply beneath the shallow waters, was akin to damning yourself to death.

Sitting in an isolated tent and nibbling away at the food Lear prepared--one of the few grand unifiers of the group as it appeared most everyone enjoyed it--the group continued to pour over all the details they were able to claw out of people, trying to come up with a working strategy for the battle.

"You've been awfully quiet," Quinn looked at Cain and noted. "What? No clever quips to add?"

"Oh, plenty of those," Cain said. "Just figured they wouldn't be particularly helpful to you right now."

"You? Being considerate? Just how much did I drink last night? Did I accidentally step into an alternative reality?"

"Funny."

"Thanks. I thought so."

"But if you need a clever quip, here's one: all this planning is pointless since nobody admitted to being a tank."

"Yeah, you're--wait a second," Quinn interrupted herself. "What do you mean 'admitted'?"

"Oh, you picked up on it? I guess it wasn't that clever," Cain shrugged with a smile. "I mean exactly that. There are at least three tanks among everyone here."

"What the fuck?! Why are they hiding?!"

"What do you mean why are they hiding?" Cain scoffed. "You think anyone can look at that many-tentacled thing and go 'yup, I wanna get smacked around like a ball by that thing'?"

"It looks worse than it is," Quinn sighed.

"Yeah, but you try convincing someone who saw both us getting repeatedly ass-fucked and needing to switch every couple of minutes at most that it 'looks worse than it hits'."

"So, what now? You wouldn't have mentioned it if you didn't have a plan."

"..."

"You don't have a plan?"

"Nope!" Cain exclaimed with a grin. "I really am stumped. I don't wanna force anyone to tank since the entire plan can go up in flames if they just elect to run away in the middle of fighting. That way, we risk more people dying, and our chances would begin to fall lower and lower. I'm almost tempted to reschedule the raid for another couple of weeks to get to know everyone better and send them out to 'get stronger' while I do a little bit of spy-in on their activities so that we have a better grasp of what they can do. God, I hate not having the Tower just shit me out what the boss can do. Made it so much easier."

"Yeah, it really did," either Nature or Harmony said with a sigh. "But it's not the end of the world. Have you never fought a boss in the Tower that you weren't given a complete breakdown on?"

"Oh, right, I did that too," Cain said. "Still, though."

"Still, indeed."

"Before actually trying to coordinate a band of liars, criminals, and guys who're only sticking around in hopes of dicking someone here," Cain added. "We need a breakdown of the boss' abilities. Not a complete deep-dive, obviously, but general possibilities. Most of its damage is Mind and Physical from what we've seen so far, so we'll have to prep some food that will diffuse some of that Mind damage."

"It has insane reach," Quinn added. "And has no blind spots since it has eyes even in its ass. A consistent, 360-view of everything that's going on will be difficult to exploit."

"Having that many eyes can be a disadvantage too," either Harmony or Nature said. "Just because it can see from every angle doesn't mean it can do so at the same time."

"True," Cain nodded. "Even my powerful brain would melt trying to process too many things at once, let alone that thing's."

"For all we know, that thing could be far smarter than you," Lear said.

"Have I already outlasted my welcome here? After all, why else would you even try and put a beast we need to kill ahead of me?"

"To pull you back down with the rest of us mortals," Quinn replied, swiftly continuing. "All your nonsense notwithstanding, we could try and overwhelm its senses, but shouldn't bank on the cheap tricks to win the battle."

"Cheap tricks are often the difference between the victory and defeat," Cain said. "An honorable man isn't a man of honor... but the victor of a battle. Ask the ghost haunting you, would he rather have his undying honor, or have had it sullied by a cheap trick to continue breathing. Besides, if we're talking about cheap tricks, isn't it cheap that we're having dozens on our end?"

"... you seem pretty engulfed with the honor," Quinn commented. "Lost someone before because of it?"

"No," he said. "Just tired of the universal stupidity. How many millions and billions have died for their king, their countries, nations, tribes, whatever have you, because it was seen as honorable? Ah, but that's besides the point. Things got pretty serious back there."

"And we can't have that, eh?" either Nature or Harmony said.

"No, most certainly not. Not in my house!"

"..."

"What? I thought it was funny."

"You think farts are still funny."

"I do find humor in the little things," Cain said. "Helps with the day-to-day living."

"Your farts are everything but 'little things'," Quinn took a jab, prompting Cain to smile.

"Nice. You're assimilating."

"Honestly? Almost feels like I'm being dragged into a cult," she shook her head, though smiling as well.

"Yeah, it do be like that sometimes," Cain admitted. "That aside, let's go back to the root of the problem: the big thingy. So, big range, omniview, Mind and Physical attacks, what else?"

"Doesn't seem to take a lot of damage on skill-by-skill basis," Lear said. "Never saw it stagger."

"Not necessarily true," Cain said. "The few times I tried attacking it directly, it elected to deflect or parry the attacks rather than to take them head on. It's clearly made of flesh and blood, which means that beneath its slightly-above-average thickness of the skin, it is very much like us. We can work uniformly, locate the hard-hitters in the raid and assign them to specific groups of distracters--people who will use flashy skills that require little Mana to draw the behemoth's attention.

"The thing is," he continued. "That will only work once since it'll have immediately identified who can hurt it. So, it will have to hurt when we execute it."

"It likely can do many more things still," Quinn added. "Plus, we still haven't figured out a way to block that wide-ranged Mind attack. Sand is one of the few elements that can directly neutralize it, but short of bleeding everyone here for a century on daily basis to gather enough Blood, we will get hit by one of those."

"We'll just send someone to scout out other potential locations for sand," Cain said. "I'm sure there's a fuckin' desert or something here."

"We should also be prepared for multiple phases," Quinn continued. "Likely three at the very least. If shit truly does hit the fan, I have ways of taking a lot of damage without dying within a short window."

"Same," Cain said. "I could probably stall for two-three minutes if the worst comes to pass. But that's not the issue--it's the in-betweens that I worry about. We need at least one more tank for smooth transition between the two us, and I'd also quite like to have the fourth as a 'big fuck-up emergency case situation' where he can come in and take a hit or two. As it stands right now, the fight is too volatile for us to confidently use cooldowns in smooth transitions."

"Maybe you can hold one of your famous speeches to try and inspire the tanks to come out and accept their role, eh?" either Nature or Harmony said, causing Cain to look at the twins somewhat angrily.

"Stupid audience doesn't know how to appreciate a good speech. That ain't on me."

"Of course, of course, why would it be on you? The speech was perfect."

"Alright. I'll identify the three tanks for you two. It will be your job to convince at least two of them to join us. If you can't, you can kiss following me afterwards goodbye."

"... really? You're being that petty?" one of the twins said.

"I'm rarely ever petty--"

"--doubtful."

"--but!! Even I have boundaries!"

"He's just messing around," Quinn sighed. "As he always does. But, do identify the three tanks. I don't mind tossing my body at them if it would mean getting them to tank."

"Good to know," Cain nodded. "But only one of them is a guy."

"My words still stand," Quinn grinned. "Once you get to be my age and experience all the things, you take 'em all in stride."

"Again, good to know. Well, let's go and see about these tanks then, shall we?"

Next chapter