Chapter 82. Strategy Meeting

After passing through the woods, they came to a steep cliff with a large hole at its bottom. That was the entrance to the cave John was taking them into.

Before they entered, John stopped and said to them, "The last time we came, this place was crawling with Goblins. We wiped most of them out. I'm not sure if they respawned, but you guys should have no problem dealing with the creatures even if they did. The Boss is at the end of the cave, which opens up to a large cavern. This cavern is not entirely empty; it has many stalactites and stalagmites in it. I suggest we use the stalagmites to organize our assault against the Boss."

"What organize, we just gang-bang the Boss to a pulp!" The Man said aggressively.

"Did you forget the part about the Boss being level 20?" John asked.

The Man's expression froze. It looked like he really had forgotten.

John took out his weapon - a wand - and used it to draw a rough sketch on the soft dirt in front of the cave. He drew a large circle, and within it, a number of large dots.

"This is the cavern where the Boss is," he referred to the circle. "These are the stalagmites," his wand pointed to the large dots. "We will be coming from here," he indicated one side of the circle.

"You remember all that from your last encounter?" Bowler asked. "I thought you were running for your life after seeing the boss?"

"I only need one glance," John said offhandedly.

When Bowler gave him a cynical look, he added, "I got a photographic memory."

"Photographic, my ass! You said you don't remember the color of the treasure chest."

"I said I couldn't see the color clearly. I didn't say I didn't remember. The chest was dark in my memory," John explained.

"Can we get on with this, please?" The Man expressed his impatience.

John pointed to his drawing again and said, "In our party, we have three range players and a lot of melee. So we will break the melee players into four teams."

"Why four?" Bowler asked.

"Can you let me finish, please? The sun will have set already if you keep interrupting me," John uttered in irritation.

The Man concurred with John and he gave Bowler a death stare.

Bowler shut himself down with a grumble after getting reprimanded with words and glare.

After seeing Bowler behaving himself, John got back to the drawing at his feet.

"The three Magicians in our team will place themselves here, here, and here," he said as he pointed at three of the large dots.

"Now for the four melee teams, you should spread out to each corner of the cave," John pointed to show the positions in his drawing.

"The idea here is consecutive combat with the teams taking turns engaging the Boss. While one team fights, the prior one recuperates, and the other two stand by to take over. The Magicians will bombard the Boss with ranged attacks while the melee teams keep the Boss occupied. In this way, we will grind the Boss' HP until it runs out. I assume every one of you has prepared recuperative potions?"

"What if the Boss attacks the Magicians from a distance?" One of The Man's subordinates asked, immediately earning The Man's glare. The subordinate shrank to the back of the team.

"It won't; the Boss is a melee type," John answered nevertheless.

He then continued, "Now that I have explained our general strategy, please understand that things might go wrong inside. In fact, you should expect things to go wrong. That's why I need you to memorize some things."

"There's still more?" The Man asked with restlessness.

"To beat an opponent much stronger than us, we need to coordinate well. We can't just charge in like normal. Bear with me, please," John said.

The Man sighed and waved for John to continue.

"Now, this is the thing I need you to memorize," John wrote letters next to each of the dots. "I need you to remember the letters I just wrote by each of these stalagmites. They will be your points of reference inside. If you have difficulty remembering, then just take note that the first letter is closest to the entrance, while the later ones are further from the entrance."

"If needed, I will send messages in Party chat telling you to go to a specific stalagmite by its letter. Please pay attention and move when I give instructions. Now we need four melee teams; please divide yourselves. Since there are fourteen of you, two teams will have four members, while the other two have three members. I suggest Storm Wind and The Man lead the three member teams."

Flame and Trap had initially been standing close to Jack, so they chose to form a team with him. The eleven members from Men of Solidarity split up into the other three teams.

Looking at the composition, John said, "the two rangers should be separated. One of you can perhaps swap with the other team?"

Hearing that, The Man disagreed, "I'll follow your strategy, but Men of Solidarity fight with their own. We don't need Rangers or Magicians in our team!"

John stared at The Man as if asking him, are you for real? But then just shrugged and said, "suit yourselves."

He then looked at Jack and said, "I'm going to call yours Team 1," then he looked at The Man, "you are Team 2."

As he turned his head to the other team, The Man uttered, "I want Team 1!"

John stared at him with irritation, then exclaimed, "fine! You are Team 1. Storm Wind, yours is Team 2."

Jack shrugged. John then continued to assign numbers on the remaining two teams.

"Are we done here?" The Man didn't bother to hide his impatience.

"Have you memorized the alphabet designations of the stalagmites?" John asked back.

"Yeah, yeah. A, B, C, near the entrance, others further into the cave," The Man replied.

John shook his head. "Fine! Let's go!" He said with annoyance.

"Wait!" Jack said. He then took out the food items he had prepared and distributed them.

He gave five to The Man for the Men of Solidarity. "Sorry, I didn't have enough ingredients," Jack explained.

They looked at the food and read the description of its effect.

"Good stuff," John complimented.

After they consumed the food, the group then entered the cave and started down into it. Once they left the entrance behind them, the cave was completely dark. John took out a torch and lit it.

"Where did you get that?" Bowler asked.

"I bought it in a shop," John answered. "You should pay more attention to wares in the shops. Many tools that can assist in adventuring are available, not just weapons and armor."

Tip and Trap also took out a torch each. They must have bought them before they left town for their quest.

"You going to fight while holding a torch?" The Man asked.

"Mine is a one-handed weapon," John replied. "Don't worry; the cavern inside is quite bright. So you can fight the Boss even without a torch."

They proceeded further into the cave. Jack thought it was awfully quiet inside the cave. He didn't like it, but thought it was probably because the Goblins that John mentioned hadn't respawned. The cave was quite deep. It was taking them some time to get to their goal. Several times they ran into forks in the road, but John chose which path to go down without hesitation. It seemed that he really did remember the way without fail.

After walking for almost half an hour, they heard many footsteps approaching. The footsteps sounded light, as though made by children.

"Goblins!" John informed everyone. "So, we didn't eradicate all of them. Get ready! they like to use the dark to their advantage. Tip, Trap, spread out! Provide lighting to all sides!"

Jack didn't need the light; he could see the red dot positions on his radar. The Goblins were coming from all sides; they tried to find the group's blind side in the dark.

"They are here!" Jack said as he executed his Swing skill. This one move hit two of the approaching Goblins. Flame followed up by dashing to them and delivering several fast stabs. The others also started to clash with the Goblins. The Men of Solidarity didn't disappoint; they were ferocious and seemed to revel in the fighting. Some of them received damage, but they didn't fall back. It didn't take long for them to rout all the Goblins.

After the fight finished, Jack checked his Container of Souls. He had received another dose of souls. Even though all the monsters he had met until now gave only one soul, from yesterday evening up to now, he had collected 38 souls. The soul count in his Container had now read 48. It was still far from the 1000 souls needed to upgrade his basic class skills.