Chapter 85. Running Out of Potions

The group continued to burn through their restorative foods and potions, except Jack, whose HP was two to three times theirs. But he still ate two slices of bread during the interval.

"I only have two more basic healing potions and one bread!" one of the Fighters said with worry.

"Me too…" Another said.

"We have taken out half of the Boss' HP," John encouraged them. "Slow down the pace. Try to avoid damage as much as possible. Your job now is to hold the Boss' attention for as long as possible. The longer you can last, the longer the other teams will have to recuperate with their Natural Body Recovery instead of potions. Thank goodness most of you are Fighters! Leave the damage to us Magicians; we will chip away the Boss' HP."

"My staff's energy is running low!" Bowler remarked.

"Motherf**ker! Why didn't you fill it before coming here?!" John was speechless.

"Well, if you remember, it was not originally the intention of our outing to fight against a Boss at way higher level than us, now was it?" Bowler retorted.

"Still, you were heading out from a safe zone, dude! Don't you know the importance of preparedness?"

While they were arguing, the Boss' club started to glow yellow again.

"Watch out!" Jack warned Team 4, who was then battling with the Boss. But the warning was still too late; they were too close. The Ogre slammed its empowered club into the ground, and another round of spikes crashed around the Boss. Three of the Fighters in Team 4 were impaled, triggering around 200 damage. The last Fighter was spared because an attack had already pushed him out of range.

The Spikes disintegrated, but the three Fighters were paralyzed.

"Get away!" The Man screamed to his men.

"They can't!" Jack yelled, realizing that the men couldn't move. He immediately dashed towards the Ogre even as John called out, "Team 2; support!"

They were all too late. The Ogre swung again. Its club smashed into two of the Fighters giving the Boss its first two kills.

"Damn it!" The Man cursed when he saw his men lose their lives.

When the Ogre was about to make his third kill, Jack crashed onto it with a Power Strike. The Ogre Staggered from the impact and missed its target. Jack stabbed its legs again and again as he circled around the Ogre.  The damage finally began to affect the monster, and it stumbled. The last paralyzed Fighter from Team 4 recovered and immediately retreated. Flame and Trap rejoined the fight and supported Jack in holding the Ogre's attention.

Since Team 4 was down to two people, John reallocated them to Teams 1 and 3.  This kept the Men of Solidarity together, as they seemed to despise cooperating with other classes.

"We will hold the Boss as long as possible; use this time to recover without potions!" Jack told the others.

"Your bravery is commendable," John gave him a thumbs-up.

Jack told Flame and Trap to use hit and run tactics to attack only when they were sure it was safe and retreat to a safe distance. Rangers didn't have Natural Body Recovery skills, so they needed to watch their health. Once their recovery items were gone, they'd be out of the fight. If the Boss used another one of his skills, Jack could still afford to tank the damage, but Flame or Trap might not survive.

Flame used her Throw Weapon skill when she retreated to a safe distance. Trap followed suit; he had forgotten entirely that they had a ranged skill.

Jack was totally focused. He wove around the Boss' attacks. Dodging the Ogre's assaults and attacking only enough to hold the Ogre's attention.

The fight dragged on.

The Boss' HP decreased slowly, but Jack managed to buy the other Fighters enough time to recuperate without potions.

Seeing Jack's effort, one of the Men of Solidarity uttered, "Damn! I lost almost half my life when I got clubbed by that beast. He's been out there alone, like, forever, but his health is still more than half full. Who the heck is this guy?"

The Man nodded; he had to admit that Storm Wind was in a whole different league. Could a two level difference mean that much? It didn't make sense!

The Boss' eyes started to glow. "Get back!" Jack immediately shouted to the others.

Fortunately, Flame and Trap were already far back, so they made it out of range before the Ogre's gust of wind attack. 

The wind launched Jack into the air.  This time, he was more prepared and held his sword in front of his body to meet the club that swung towards him. As he had planned, the impact sent Jack flying out of range, and the collision registered as a reduced damage Parry.

"Our turn!" The Man exclaimed as he led his team forward to intercept the Ogre who was about to follow Jack.

The battle dragged on.

When the Ogre used its skills, the Men of Solidarity lost people. Only Jack's team could survive the skills' onslaught.

Men of Solidarity had lost another two members. The Man's face was dark, seeing his members dropping so quickly.

"I've counted the skills' cooldown times," John told everyone. "The spike thing has a three-minute cooldown, while the air blow thing has a four-minute cooldown. I will give a signal when the cooldown time is about to expire; you guys better pay attention!"

Jack was impressed that the Magician could still make calculations in the heat of a battle. In fact, he had also been trying to count the cooldown times, but John beat him to it. But then again, the guy was just standing there sending range attacks, so it made sense that he had more time to analyze things.

With John's timely warnings, they managed to prevent further casualties.

The battle dragged on and on.

They noticed that if the Ogre's skills didn't hit anyone, it would go into a short state of stupor, allowing them to attack without worry. However, if the skill hit, the Boss would follow up with normal attacks to finish off the wounded player.

John started to give detailed commands to the teams. At first, he tried using his letter positioning system. Jack's team managed to follow the orders, but the Men of Solidarity just got confused. In the end, John was forced to use more straightforward commands like "Team 1 go right, Team 3 go left."

The lack of precision hurt John's eidetic soul.

Everyone was tired, but the fight wasn't over yet.

"I'm running out of mana potions," Bowler advised.

"I'm down to my last…." Pointy Tip added.

Their firepower would reduce even more if the Magicians needed to rely on their natural mana regeneration.

"A little bit more, it has less than 20% HP left. Hang in there, everyone!" John tried to encourage.

Team 3 was fighting when the Boss suddenly roared.

"Shit! I got this status thing called Disoriented," Uttered one of them.

"Me too!" Said another.

"That status effect reduces their movement speed. They will have trouble escaping!" Jack told everyone as he ran to re-engage the Boss.

The Ogre followed up its roar with a frenzied stomping on the ground. Each stomp caused a minor earthquake preventing Team 3 from moving away and also preventing Jack from approaching. Stalactites started falling on the Disoriented Team 3 Fighters. They kept losing their footing, becoming sitting ducks while stalactites continued to fall on their heads. Before long, their health had reached critical states.

When the earthquakes subsided, all four Team 3 fighters were in life-threatening condition.

"Move out!" Jack and The Man yelled at the same time as they dashed to the Boss. Three of the Team 3 Fighters managed to move away. The Ogre stomped the fourth to death.