Boss; Silver Fiend

Hey, Shun here!

After meeting these Humming Gales, I felt like I got better and better in archery. If only they let me relax a little.

Aside from their low defense, they don't have any other obvious weakness to exploit.

However, I did notice something that might help me during my battle with the boss. There's a high chance it's also some kind of higher version of Humming Gales after all.

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(Shun's POV)

As I fought and fought against the Humming Gales that are inside the cave-like dungeon of sorts, I felt like I improved quickly. Senses that help me get a lot more accuracy got a huge boost.

Also, I was surprised that my accuracy got a slight boost with the help of the [Crafting Knowledge]Sense when I accidentally tried to swap it for [Alchemy] for a few seconds. It's slight but it's a huge help when the enemy is moving at high speeds constantly.

When I investigated the cause, it seems like the extra DEX that I gained from leveling up this Sense helped me. This meant that the effect of DEX stat is to increase accuracy while I think ATK increases my range.

So, it finally dawned on me that an increase in my physical attack does not increase my damage. I need stronger arrows in order to have more damage. I could only dish out a high damage if I have better arrows.

After my battle against the Humming Gales, I finally am all warmed up to face the boss deep inside this cave.

My battles with these little birds helped me learn an important bit of information. After every five seconds or so, the Humming Gales would blow away projectile attacks using their power over the wind.

If I could maybe capitalize on this strategy and maybe use that to my advantage…

While immersed in coming up with a strategy to deal with the boss, I finally arrived at a fairly spacious location inside the cave. At the other end of the cave is a lone Humming Gale-like bird that's around 40cm in height.

It has a very long green feather growing on top of it's head like a mane of sorts. Its body, on the other hand, is silver in color with the tips of its feather being milky white.

Like a hummingbird, it's leisurely flying at a constant height, its wings showing afterimages due to how fast it flaps its wings. Is this bird flapping its wings as fast, or maybe even faster than, a bee?

Even though this boss mob is really small, I'd say that this definitely looks more intimidating than the tall Golem of the west I've seen in screen shots. Even the official boss to beat in this eastern area, the Blade Lizard, feels like its a grade lower than this guy.

"This guy gives off a kingly aura even though he's so tiny…"

Even though we're still 70m away from each other, I aimed my bow at it without any hesitation. You see, my normal range is already around 20m while I could barely clip a target from 70m away if I use [Enchant].

"Here goes… «Long Range Shooting»! «Enchant» — Attack!"

I drew my bow and fired the arrow at the boss mob with the alias of Silver Fiend and a name of Humming Tempest(Variant). As expected, the boss just brushed off my attack with a casual gale using its wings.

It then flew towards me at high speed. However, even though it is like that, I didn't panic.

*fwooosh*

"Whoops! It's even firing compressed air at me while moving at high speeds."

After rolling over to dodge the air bullet-like thing, I poised my bow again and, while my [Enchant] is still active, fired another [Art] at the boss.

"«Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needles»"

*swish* *swish*

Two of my arrows were fired from my bow, both hitting the boss at its head and stomach. It only chipped 10% of its HP that is now visibly regenerating.

After I hit him twice, the boss finally reached me and it swooped down to scratch me with its talons. Of course, I barely dodged the attack because of my awkward positing of kneeling down on the cave's floor due to my earlier shot attempt.

"«Mid Heal»! It really packs a lot of punch in that small body. It took almost 80% of my HP with that single attack."

I've leveled up quite a lot during my journey here. Even if I don't have any defense type of Sense to further fortify my defense, my defense stat still got up by quite a lot during all those level ups you know?

Even the Big Boar who could nearly take me out with a single attack before could only take 20% off my health now.

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My battle has been going on with the Silver Fiend for a while now but the chip damage I'm doing is not enough to decisively clear the HP of this boss. I've hit this boss with «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needle» 48 times by now but its HP is still around 67% due to its regen.

"«Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needle»!"

*shiu* *shiu*

"ScreEech!

The sound of the arrow once again hitting the boss resounded inside the cave as the boss screeched in annoyance.

Whilst I'm thinking of a way to save on the arrow cost, because many of them got wasted just for activating the passive of the boss, I suddenly heard a notification ring beside my ear.

「Special conditions have been met…」

「Hit a fast moving enemy 100 times with «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needle»…」

「You successfully unlocked «Rapid Fire Bow - Shotgun Barrage»」

「Hit a fast moving enemy 100 times with arts…」

「You successfully unlocked «Arrow Tracking - Homing Arrow»」

While avoiding the angered boss, I took a brief amount of my time to look at the [Arts] section of my [Bow] Sense.

✽✽[Arts]✽✽

• «Long Range Shooting»

- Charge up the shot for a longer range. Range increases from 50-100 percent depending on how long the charge time is. Automatically unlocks once the [Bow] Sense reached level 5.

• «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needles»

- Adds a motion assist that allows the user to shoot two arrows at the same time. Applies an additional damage correction in each skill use. Automatically unlocks once the [Bow] Sense reached level 10.

• «Bow Skill - Arrow Stitching»

- When activated, the user can fire an enhanced arrow that applies piercing damage. Adds an extra damage and damage correction to the attack. Automatically unlocks once the [Bow] Sense reached level 15.

• «Bow Skill - Gust of Wind»

- When activated, the user can fire an enhanced arrow that leaves a wind trail. The wind trail will then transform into a gust of wind that deals a small amount of Area of Effect(AOE) damage on the enemy around the 5m radius of the initial wind trail. Automatically unlocks once the [Bow] Sense reached level 20.

• «Rapid Fire Bow - Shotgun Barrage»

- An upgraded version of «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needles». The number of arrows the user could fire simultaneously depends entirely on the user. In exchange for damage and accuracy, this art compensates with the sheer volume of shots the user could make. Mana consumption is relative to how many arrows are fired simultaneously. Can be unlocked by hitting a fast moving enemy 100 times with «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needle».

• «Arrow Tracking - Homing Arrows»

- Allows the user to lock on a target for 10 seconds. Every arrows released during that time is enhanced with a homing function that can certainly hit an enemy. This homing function is can only be applied at 6 arrows at maximum. Can be unlocked by hitting a fast moving enemy 100 times with [Arts].

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The two 'special' skills I unlocked accidentally are almost a match made in heaven. Almost because it doesn't allow me to shoot all of the arrows I could fire simultaneously with 100% accuracy.

In terms of overall DPS, the «Rapid Fire Bow - Shotgun Barrage» trumps «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needle». However, I think that «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needle» got the upper hand when it comes to damage per 2 arrows.

Now that firing many arrows is mentioned, will it be fine if I take an arrow on my quiver with '+10' in it, apply [Alchemy's] Lower Matter Conversion, and then fire it using «Rapid Fire Bow - Shotgun Barrage»? I mean, when I apply Matter Conversion on things, it ends up in my hands.

So, this will save me the time of frantically taking lots of arrows on my quiver then loading it at my arrow. I just wonder how I could work on my accuracy with that many arrows to manage.

"I'll just practice… For now, let's take down this boss and get my rewards…"

With that, I prepared as much as I could for this last sprint, buffing my speed, buffing my defense, activating «Arrow Tracking - Homing Arrows», using Lower Matter Conversion on my arrows, and activating «Rapid Fire Bow - Shotgun Barrage».

"Here, eat this!"

Although I'm feeling slightly awkward, holding so many arrows and prepping for a shot, I still managed to fire it off, with two arrows hitting in the ground and eight arrows going for the boss.

Heh, for my first try, I'll call that a success.

"ScrEeech!"

Because one of my arrows got way ahead of the bunch, it got repelled by the Humming Tempest while the seven arrows managed to hit the boss, chipping away over 16% percent of its health, leaving only 51% of its 67%.

"I'll kill you now before you regain most of your HP. «Rapid Fire Bow - Twin Needles»! —And, «Bow Skill - Arrow Stitching»!"

My first [Arts] managed to take 10% of its HP away while the follow up [Arts] took a huge 20% of its HP. It's probably because this guy have low total HP or something.

With the last 21% of HP remaining on this boss, I don't want to risk encountering some kind of berserk situation so I fired another round of the same [Arts], depleting my entire mana reserves.

"SCrEeeech!"

The Humming Tempest wailed as it turned into digital particles.

「You gained 20x Humming Tempest's Feathers」

「You gained 1x Stone of the Tempest」

「You gained 300,000G」

When I confirmed that it died, I collapsed on where I stand. I ignored the other notifications and sprawled myself on the cave's cold floor.

"That was really intense. I don't think I'll be able to fight seriously for an hour or so. That bird's really fast and hard to hit…"

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※~To be continued~※

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Author's Remarks:

※ I, too, am mentally exhausted thinking of how the fight would pan out. I hope this fight is satisfactory.