54 (54) A Giant Barricade

Today was the second of the First Month, the day which every Boss deemed the entrance to the real world. The start of a new series to their lives.

The Intermediate Gathering would start at precisely 21.00, but everyone would most likely be there early.

Kraton had been forced awake a few minutes ago and tiredness still clung to him. His mind was in a disarray of hazy blurs and sluggish movements which slowly faded away as reality dawned upon him.

By the time the two had left the Dungeon, Kraton had resumed his normal behaviour; lazy, but responsible.

The journey to Hell's dungeon would only take a few hours with their current physique and skills, but the two Bosses didn't hurry. There was 13 hours until 21.00 and it would be extremely boring to wait around once they arrived.

Instead of going straight there, the two wandered about, treating it as a wilderness tour.

After six hours, and after a few suprise encounters in the wilderness, a humanoid beast and a Lamia were spotted in the forest next to a small village. This village was located midway between Florid Boulevard and Hell's dungeon and was only a poor, common settlement.

At first, the two managed to rest quite near to the town and heard a few interesting pieces of human gossip. At one point Kraton overheard a familiar story;

"Have you heard, the Noble family of Irrigance went bankrupt?!"

"Heh, serves that arrogant Noble right, trying to stop that Lady from forming a party with others."

"I'm suprised the family still has enough power to subdue the media for the time, they poured everything into that asshole. But still, how did their armour break, it was meant to be Gold and Diamond Quality."

"They were probably scammed, even Scammers have some sense of justice with Noble affairs, haha...."

---

When Kraton and Lysine finally got spotted, no human in the town dared to come out and challenge them. Although they wouldn't die, it still wasn't worth it.

The residents of this town were mainly composed of non-players as they wanted a peaceful, 'old-school' way of life. The few players that were in this region were no higher than level 5, they mainly acted as guards or law-enforcers for the rare crimes or internal fights.

These players weren't the type to be serious about levelling up and beating monsters, their goal in the town was to maintain peace and allow it to prosper.

Kraton and Lysine didn't challenge the territory of the town any further, as although it was only a small town - a town was a town and was still considered as human territory.

If they forced their way in, the townsfolk might call for reinforcements, and this would risk them being killed and sent back to the dungeon.

The two sides reached a mutual agreement; if you don't provoke us, then we won't attack you.

After a bit of rest, and a filling meal of wild game, the two Bosses reentered the confines of the wilderness, letting the townspeople sigh in relief and resume their daily lives.

They had only entered the forest for no less than ten seconds when a loud rustling disturbed their thoughts.

Lysine reacted first, her curved blades stretched out and pointed towards the source of the noise; a large berry bush.

She advanced slowly with Kraton covering her back and was about the strike when the bush spoke.

"W-Wait! I'm a boss too. You're going to the gathering right? I went there as well but I was killed and sent back, I was hiding because I thought I would get killed again. Let me join you, a larger group is better, that Boss surely won't be able to take the three of us on!"

Lysine lowered her daggers but remained skeptical as an ugly orc tumbled out of the undergrowth. The orc felt both sets of eyes scanning him, once the two Bosses had found nothing threatening about him and backed away, the orc felt like he could finally breath.

"What do you mean you were killed?"

"Ah, um, yes.. I was killed. Yes, I was killed by my, another Boss. I don't think he is letting any Boss through. If he is one of the only Bosses there, then he would have more attention."

What the orc said made some logical sense. Even if the Organisers and Monster Leaders knew about this, they wouldn't be able to do anything, nor would they even care.

In fact, it could be seen as being smart in a way. By doing this, that Boss would be able to show his battle strength and stamina and could potential impress the others even more.

But this was a problem for our O.C. Bosses. From listening to the Orc's story, the Boss was a Mountain Giant and was extremely powerful.

The orc made it seem - but was probably exaggerating it - that even the three of them together couldn't take on the Giant.

If that was the case, then it would be a problem. Taking a a detour would mean entering new lands without a map. Niether Kraton nor Lysine had researched other routes to the Hell's Dungeon so they might get lost if they tried to go another way.

So they were left with one solution: to go forward and fight if the Giant was still there.

The three monsters made there way directly to the Dungeon. They didn't stop or deviate from the path at all along the way, as if they were killed, they would need as much time as possible to get back and try again.

Since they were already halfway there, the distance could easily be covered within two hours, and in one hour if they went as fast as they could.

With seven hours until the Gathering would start, this gave them four attempts to challenge and overcome the blockade.

...

An hour later, the three approached an open clearing that was unnaturally made. Trees laid collapsed on the litter floor and broken boulders and charred remnants scarred the landscape.

A large figure sat in the centre of the clearing, it was around the same height ass Kraton, but his build was larger and stockier. Its skin seemed to be made of flesh and stones, some grey rocks also protruded at random places of his body.

If a sasquatch - with its brown fur - was adapted to hide in the forests, then this Giant would be the sasquatch for hills and mountains.

The rocky body camouflaged perfectly against the boulders it sat next to, but it still stood out like a sore thumb in the cleared forest.

The artificial clearing barred the way to the only passage to Hell's Dungeon from the South direction. On either side behind it was a steep cliff, making the ravine a passageway towards the Hell's Dungeon.

After passing through the ravine, the whole scenery would change into that of molten rocks and charred obsidian. This signified the region of Hell. The Hell's Dungeon stood ten minutes walk away from the start of the molten boundary.

As soon as the three Bosses saw the Giant, they froze in their steps. The bloody aura that the Giant emanated was so thick that it was tangible.

At the same time, the Mountain Giant sensed their arrival and turned towards them. A huge battleaxe lay in its hand, the edges were darker - tainted by the blood it had consumed.

As the Giant got up, gross, grinding sounds screeched out from its muscles. Lysine's ears twitched and her eyebrows furrowed into a frown.

Before the Bosses engaged, Lysine took some time to scan their surroundings and unsheath her daggers.

Kraton pulled out his club, with a stuggle, from beneath a hairy cloak. After his Awakening, Kraton had moulted quite a fair bit of his long fur. Instead of burning them, he had spent time to weave, sew and cement the fur into a cloak.

Since he still had some fur, the cloak blended in pretty well with his natural fur, after all it was made of his own hair. It was like a professional wig; you couldn't tell that it was fake.

"Too bad, weaklings. You're not gonna see the Great Monster Leader today." The Giant boomed with a snicker.

Kraton snarled in disgust at the mockery, he raised his metal club and readied a charge.

"Is this how you beat other? You depend on a lapdog?" Lysine laughed and plunged her dagger into the orc next to her.

"Eh?" All three male Bosses were taken by suprise at her attack. Kraton stumbled but managed to catch his balance as he watched the orc disappear in a stream of white light heading North.

"Why.. you!" The Giant fumed, the human skin on his face flushed red in anger as he watched the last particle of light disperse. "How dare you kill my brother! do you know who I am!!"

"I swear.. If I don't kill the two of you today, then I am not a monster!"

The Giant dived at Lysine, his whole body swung sideways as the axe camme striking across.

Lysine long anticipated the attack and easily dodged aside. A smirk taunted the enraged Giant, causing him to lose control.

Dive after dive, slash after slash, the Giant failed to hit either Kraton or Lysine. The Giant came flying axe first towards Kraton, but like a game of baseball, Kraton swung his almighty club and.. and missed.

The Giant carried on flying, right past Kraton and into a bush. The bush quivered and shuddered as a yelp of pain came out.

In the breadth of a second, the bush tore apart and revealed a strange scene. The Giant had fallen over, but was lying ontop of two or three other monsters. The size and aura of each made it clear that they were Bosses as well.

For a moment, the four bush Bosses stared at one another, the Giant found the three others to be familiar but before he could speak, the Werewolf monster bit down hard, cracking the Giant's rocky skin.

Kraton and Lysine let the other three Bosses deal with the Mountain Giant and fled into the ravine before another misunderstanding occured.

When they were were out of sight, the two slowed down to a leisurely walk.

"How did you know?" Kraton asked, he was referring to both events: the orc, and the bush monsters.

During the initial enragement of the Giant, Lysine had whispered to Kraton the plan to draw him over to the bush.

Originally, she thought that the bush monsters were on the same side as the Giant, so she wanted to make sure her back wasn't onto them. Kraton's missed attack was pure on mistake, but it turned out for the better.

"Ever since that Orc joined us, I could tell that he was lying."

Kraton nodded his head, he could also tell that there was something wrong... but that was only because Lysine didn't say anything. During the whole journey beforehand, she kept exclaiming the beauties of nature. But after they met the Orc, Lysine had kept silent, Kraton didn't miss the skeptical glances at the Orc either.

Once they met the Giant, Lysine's doubts became confirmed. With her passive skill Acute Senses, she could hear the Orc's heart rate; It never sped up or slowed down in fear or anger.

Therefore she felt like the Orc had never been killed by the Giant, instead it was more likely that they were on the same side and had done this many times.

Furthermore, the Orc had the scent of the Giant on him. At first, she thought it was his own scent, but that became impossible after she caught the Giant's scent. This also meant that the Orc hadn't died recently, otherwise the scent would have vanished with his death.

The bush monsters were also located with Lysine's Acute Senses. Upon reaching the area, she could hear the silent breaths and heartbeats in the bush, but she had mistaken them for ambushers instead of previous victims.

If the three of the bush Bosses couldn't defeat the Giant, then it wouldn't matter to Kraton or Lysine anymore as they had already passed through.

Even if the Giant won by himself somehow, there would be no point in chasing after the two as they were restricted to fight inside the Hell's Dungeon. Only the organisers and the esteemed guest were allowed to kill.

The two of them arrived at the Dungeon with six hours to spare and greeted the white-flamed Demon by the entrance.

After wandering around the region close to the dungeon like tourists, the two spotted the three bush Bosses.

It was apparent that they had beaten the Mountain Giant, but the fight was not easy. All three of them were covered in cuts and bruises, their garments and tools looked worn out and bent out of shape. The three didn't spot Kraton or Lysine, but headed straight into the Dungeon entrance to rest and heal up.

...

When the time reached 20.00, Kraton spotted two friendly faces approaching.

A silvery six-fingered elf and a winged, twin-tailed lion-bear chimera proceeded to join them.

Their refreshed appearance made it evident that they had no trouble getting here, a sign that the Giant never came back to the clearing.

"Look at you! You've grown a lot in a month! How's the project?" Psychi called out to Kraton as he approached, he was in awe at how quickly the two had caught up him and was beginning to doubt who the real genius prodigy was.