Chapter 22 – Beat Him Up!

"We've used up all of our medicine; can you sell some to us?" Su Mo asked.

"I don't have much medicine left either, and I have a big battle later. It's difficult for me to say if I'll even be alive tomorrow; if I sell my medicine to you, I'll lose without a doubt!" Beporti looked quite troubled.

She was a straightforward NPC and naturally would not refuse to help. However, she indeed needed this medicine for her battle.

The other four people in the party were not idiots, and they realized that this was a key moment for triggering the hidden quest.

Since Beporti had a big battle, she would not be able to battle if they bought her medicine, and the players would then have a reason to fight her battle for her.

Just as everyone expected, Beporti's opponent became the target of the hidden quest.

Beporti asked the players to kill Tiger King Angus. Angus was a Level 30 Boss and gave a lot of EXP. After handing in the quest, they would be able to obtain another big sum of EXP. It was indeed quite a worthwhile endeavor.

The party came to Whistling Forest, which was where Angus was.

Angus' territory was very big, but finding him was not very difficult. That fellow would randomly loudly roar, and they could hear it even from a distance.

"Who's going to take command?"

There were four parties, 20 people in total. They could not just do their own thing.

"I will," Su Mo spoke before everyone started to discuss, and he was not bashful at all as he took the position of commander.

"Are you sure you can do it?" Six One Miles did not trust Su Mo much.

From how he saw it, no matter if it was Omnipresent Brightness or Falling Maple, either one of them would be more reliable than Su Mo when it came to commanding. The most direct reason was that Su Mo was only Level 25, while the other two were already Level 27.

"I discovered the hidden quest; do you think you understand more about it than me?"

As such, no one had any objections.

However, after the battle began, they immediately changed their mind—Su Mo did not know how to command at all.

"Beat him up, beat him to death!"

Ten thousand swear words sprinted across their hearts as the other 19 people all felt that they were doomed. Their commander was an idiot.

From when Tiger King Angus had appeared until now, it had killed many players, at least 8,000 to 10,000. Back when it was only Level 25, it was already a Boss that struck fear into many people's hearts.

Now that the Tiger King was already Level 30, it had a new cloning skill.

Adding on the fact that it could ignore aggro, there were no longer any parties that came to hunt Tiger King Angus. New World was very big, and there were many other Bosses of the same level to kill.

Tiger King Angus was quite excited because business was starting up for him again.

Players could gain EXP from killing monsters, and monsters could gain EXP from killing players. The system instilled in them a desire to kill players; whenever they saw players, even if they knew that they could not win, they would rush up.

The relationship between players and monsters had always been irreconcilable adversaries.

Su Mo's damage was quite decent, and he was not as weak as everyone expected him to be. Those with experience quickly realized that his arm cannon was not ordinary equipment. If he had a pet focused on damage, perhaps he would be one of the highest damage dealers.

After all, Su Mo was already Level 25 and it was natural for his damage not to be low.

What was surprising was that even though Unidentified Neighbor was Level 24, he was not the weakest here.

He was a Puppeteer, which was quite a rare profession. Mages became Puppeteers after their first profession upgrade, and their profession allowed them to control dead things or for players to fuse with inanimate things to battle.

As for what inanimate things included, this included corpses. As such, most Puppeteers controlled corpses to battle. They would find a few friends to kill a Boss of the same level and conduct a ceremony after the Boss died.

That way, the Puppeteer would obtain a Puppet Card and could take it out when fighting.

The controlled Boss' strength naturally would not be the same as when it was alive. However, with that corpse, the Puppeteer would be able to reach the upper echelons of damage.

If the controlled Boss was a damage type, the Puppeteer would focus on damage. If the controlled Boss was one with high HP and Defense, the Puppeteer could also act as the main tank.

The only pity was that the puppets were limited in terms of battle time and number of times they could be used, so Puppeteers had to continuously create new puppets.

However, that was only true when a Puppeteer's sub-profession was not Machinist. After ranking up from Engineer into Machinist, they could create mechas, which also counted as inanimate objects.

Unidentified Neighbor's mecha was a relatively high-grade one—Berserk Dragon mecha. Its Attack was incredibly powerful and also had much survivability. What was key was that its appearance was incredibly cool, and after it was summoned, everyone drooled at the sight of it.

Perhaps some people would ask, since Puppeteers were so cool, why were they so rare?

Keep dreaming; this was something that required millions of dollars in real life, and maintenance cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. It was something that burned money, and few people could afford to play like that.

Moreover, it was quite difficult for Puppeteers to control mechas exactly as they wanted to. It was difficult to be as nimble as the Ranger Su Mo, who would easily be able to make a Puppeteer kneel.

Of the people present, Six One Miles was the most flashy, while the most low-profile was Falling Maple.

The Level 27 Guardian did not have much presence.

However, whenever the Tiger King's aggro did not go crazy, no matter how many people madly damaged it, its gaze never left Falling Maple.

He was a very reliable meat shield!

"Watch out, it's going to use its clones," Falling Maple could only strain his throat and continuously shout since Su Mo did not give a reminder.

When the clones appeared, the Tiger King would ignore aggro, and five Tiger Kings would appear.

These five Tiger Kings all dealt the same amount of damage, but only one of them was real. Hitting the real Tiger King would cause it to lose HP, while attacking the clones would cause the real one to heal; the more damage dealt to the clones, the more the real one would heal. When reaching this point, many parties wanted to die.

"Don't speak recklessly, I'm the commander," Su Mo said earnestly.

Falling Maple almost coughed up blood onto Tiger King Angus' face. He had a mild personality and was friendly to everyone, but he found it incredibly difficult to be friendly today.

Everyone else numbly used their skills; they did not have much hope in this battle.

Worst came to worst, after they all died, they could call more friends and organize more parties to kill Tiger King Angus.

Soon, Tiger King Angus' HP dropped below 80% and it used its clone skill. At that point, no Guardian could retain aggro, so it was every man for himself; those who had low HP could only run. They would have to wait until others attracted the clones and then drink enough potions or were healed by someone.

"Hit the one on the very left, the one I marked. Listen to my instructions." Su Mo finally acted.

Why was it the one on the very left?

To the others, they all looked exactly the same!