7 Mini-Boss Chamber

Alden raged throughout the small battlefield, each strike of his axe chopping one snake in half.

["New-Born Red Snake" defeated! You received 5 experience!]

Notification sounds flooded his ears as he defeated the snakes. Of course, he wasn't the only one. Every single player in his party had no problems with these snakes.

'They're probably the weakest enemies in the game,' Alden mused.

Players would be hard-pressed to find any other monsters that could be defeated this easily.

Still, these New-Born Red Snakes were only weak individually.

"Faceless, there are too many!" TrulyDo shouted.

Alden scanned over the situation, and over 30 snakes were targeting the guardian. Still, as a team of 4, his teammates shouldn't be experiencing any issues.

'I guess they need some tutoring,' Alden contemplated.

Then, he watched them fight for a few more seconds and found the flaws of each player.

"TrulyDo, stop being intimidated! Dodge the attacks you can't block, and always advance forward! You're a tank, not a meat shield! Fight back a little more too!"

"Death Knot, why are you retreating so quickly? Are you scared of level 1 common monsters? Use your stealth skill and slaughter them all!"

"MouseAndCheese, stop worrying about hitting your teammates. Send a fireball at the wall ahead and deal some splash damage!"

"...OurLordOlympus, why are you healing the rogue instead of the guardian?!"

After machine-gunning a series of commands at the team he selected, Alden could only sigh. 'I definitely selected a team of absolute noobs. Do they think this is a computer RPG? Were they born last century?'

Even then, he noticed immediate improvements. Almost instantaneously, TrulyDo comprehended his instructions. Death Knot only chuckled at his own stupidity, and the other two were given sufficiently basic instructions to follow.

Without delay, the 30 snakes were all defeated.

TrulyDo quickly ran up to Alden, and exclaimed, "Thank you for your tutoring, Faceless!"

Seeing a future chief guardian, someone who was definitely on the same level as him, bowing in appreciation to him, definitely pleased Alden.

'But, all I did was tell him to dodge. I don't deserve this show of humility.'

Alden quickly pushed the guardian up by the shoulders, and said, "If you want to reach my level, immediately get rid of that habit. All I did was tell you to dodge, if you care that much, give me the scales those snakes dropped."

"...You're right, I should repay you instead of giving you mere words. Here are the drops!"

TrulyDo believed that some snake scales weren't worth considering, especially since he thought that Alden was a warrior. 'He must be asking for these so that I don't feel indebted to him...'

Seeing the future chief guardian's look of appreciation, Alden knew that there was some sort of misunderstanding, but ignored it and received the scales.

"Well, okay. Let's keep going," Alden commanded as he led them down one of the 3 paths in the serpent nest.

In his previous life, this maze-like dungeon caused many people headaches. However, Alden was one of those people. After nearly a month of constantly grinding this dungeon, it could be said that the entire layout was burned into his head.

They would not face the same issues as everyone else.

The team chatted as they walked, and Alden was happy to hear everyone talking about combat techniques rather than a filler conversation. 'Discussion with other players is one of the quickest ways to improve, this team definitely has potential.'

As they traversed the winding paths of the cave, they slaughtered over 100 snakes. Since the experience was split between the 5-man party, there were no level-ups.

'But, I've gotten over 200 scales! With these, I might be able to craft a set of fire-resistant armor!'

Inherently, the Red Snakes had a great affinity toward the fire attribute. They were still poisonous, but their fire element was much stronger. With their scales, Alden was certain that he could create a set of common armor.

At that time, everyone would know the name "Faceless."

Then, the party slowed to a stop.

"Is that the door to the boss room...?" OurLordOlympus questioned, the arms holding his staff rapidly shaking.

Alden shook his head, "No. The miniboss is beyond that door."

The entire team was shocked.

In front of them was a giant hole, blocked by a layer of coal. Embedded in that coal was a multitude of human skulls.

Then, before anyone could say anything, Alden quickly handed out an item.

"Common heat resistance potions?" Death Knot scratched his head.

These were items Alden crafted himself. The method for concocting them was especially simple, being the exact same as the recovery potion, only that he had to add a sun's tear petal.

'Thankfully I got 25 sun's tears from the foraging achievement...'

Just as his team was about to ask why he handed these out, Alden explained, "The miniboss and boss here are nagas. Normally, a Naga is an extremely poisonous half-human, half-snake monster. But, these two come from the red-snake lineage, which means most of their attacks use the fire element. With these potions we'll take almost no damage from their strongest skills."

The party went wide-eyed. Didn't that make these potions extremely precious?!

Then, MouseAndCheese chimed in, "Leader... I don't think I can accept this gift..."

To MouseAndCheese, a free fortune was more of a curse.

Alden only responded, "I crafted these myself, don't worry about the value."

Before everyone could express their shock at Alden's statement, Alden walked through the entrance to the mini-boss's lair.

Immediately, his nose was greeted with the distinct smell of iron. The source, he assumed, was blood. The temperature in this lair was much higher than the previous cool cave pathways, and if Alden hadn't drunk that heat resistance potion, he would have received a stamina debuff.

It was dark, and in the center, a humanoid creature with the lower body of a snake could be seen curled up, sleeping.

As soon as the rest of Alden's party entered, they took in the somewhat vast room.

Alden quickly issued an order, "Stop daydreaming and get into position!"

TrulyDo ran toward the boss, ready to pull its aggro, while everyone else waited for Alden's command to fight.

But, before they could receive his command, the naga's tail whipped toward TrulyDo!

-50!

Only now, could the party see the mini-boss's information.

[Servanheat: Lv. 5, Vassal, HP: 2000/2000]

"You puny humansss dare to intrude on my ssslumber?!" the naga roared, its snake-life face and red-scaled lower body wildly shaking about as it did.

"Olympus, heal TrulyDo! Truly, hurry and use the Taunt skill!"

TrulyDo let out a roar, and Servanheat, the naga, roared in response.

"A human meat ssshield daresss to challenge me?!"

Then, Olympus quickly sent a heal in Truly's direction.

+25

"Leader, that attack got rid of 1/4 of TrulyDo's health! I can't reheal it all!"

Alden jumped toward the boss and ignored Olympus's words. As long as TrulyDo performed well, his passive regen would make up for the healer's lack of powerful healing skills.

Then, Alden raised his axe and slammed it into the boss's tail.

-30!

Just as he did that, a fireball came his way, from the magician, MouseAndCheese. Alden jumped out of the way, and the fireball exploded on the snake's red scales!

-10.

'Such a high damage despite the inherent resistance towards heat... Mouse must have put every stat into intelligence!' Alden was a little surprised.

The party quickly got to work, dealing damage at such a rate that the aggro wouldn't shift!

-10.

-20.

Baron appeared at naga's side, and threw a flurry of slashes with his dagger!

-1. -1. -1. -1. -1. -3!

However, Alden quickly noticed an issue. 'The naga is dealing more damage to TrulyDo than we are doing to it. Its regen is also 20 hp per five seconds, making one of my attacks useless...'

Soon, their tank would die, and they would party wipe.

Then, Alden saw a chance. As soon as Servanheat lost 50% of its max health, the naga cocked its head back, and a red orb of flames appeared in its mouth!

"TrulyDo, protect Death and Olympus behind your shield!"

They quickly did as told, and Alden waited for the right moment.

The ball of fire became larger, and larger, and even larger! Soon, it was bigger than the naga's entire upper body!

"MouseAndCheese, send your fireball right into its mouth!"

MouseAndCheese was shocked, but did as told, and began casting fireball.

The projectile flew right toward the naga's own giant flaming sphere, and the moment they collided...

"BOOM!"

An explosion rung through the entire mini-boss's lair, and Alden, who was looking closely saw a huge amount of damage appear above the naga's head.

-900!

Immediately, Alden gave out a string of orders, "MouseAndCheese, hide behind Truly, you pulled aggro! Death Knot, don't worry about your health and attack it! Heal Death Knot, Olympus!"

Alden too, threw a slurry of attacks at the naga.

And then, it happened.

["Servanheat" defeated! Level difference of 1 detected, experience multiplied by 1.5! You received 700 experience!]

The naga transformed into particles of light, leaving behind only a few items...

"What?!"

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