Chapter 49 – Our Destination is Close

「A Sealed Pillar.」

「…You know about it?」

「Yeah. I haven't actually seen the real thing, though.」

A Sealed Pillar.

In BBO, a Raid Boss, a monster that's way more powerful than an Area Boss would show up where a Pillar was.

Whenever a Raid Boss would show up, something about the pillar changes. Players would see this and form parties to kill the Raid Boss, or create equipment for countermeasures against the attack. The change varies between pillars… But one thing I can say for sure is: the Raid Boss that appears near the pillar is nothing like the Raging Ape; it can't be killed easily.

「Good. That'll save us some time. The request is to check the pillar's appearance. If its color is anything but blue, then I want you to report back which color it is and the direction it's facing.」

It sounds like the Sealed Pillar in the Forest of Death is the type that changes its colors and at the same time, the direction it's facing. In this type of pillar, the moment the Raid Boss appears, countless monsters will charge straight to where it's facing.

A phenomenon called a『Stampede』.

The guild probably issued the request to watch out for this Stampede.

「Precautions against a Stampede…」

「You know about the Stampede too? Were you a guild executive before becoming an adventurer?」

「No. I just knew as an adventurer.」

「The public shouldn't be aware of any information regarding the Stampede. But whatever. As you have said, the purpose of this request is to find out about the Stampede beforehand so we can come up with a counter-plan. There's seventeen villages that might suffer damage from a Stampede from the Forest of Death, but we only have one large-scale anti-Stampede barrier. We need to scout the pillar first so we'd know where to place the barrier.」

「All right. We accept.」

Fortunately, the location of the pillar is not that difficult to reach. We can get there while simply hunting monsters along the way. And since it's near the cliff, we can check it out without much risk.

In fact, I'd say we hit the jackpot since we can fulfil the request and hunt monsters too. Plus we'll proceed along the cliff so we're bound to kill plenty of monsters and I can level up some more. I have no reason not to accept the request.

「Thank you.」

And so we accepted the request and were once again headed into the Forest of Death.

I wanted to get to at least level 15 while Mylia was still around. Now it looks like I might actually get close after we fulfil this request. Once I get higher than level 15 it should be much easier to go solo hunting. I'm glad we came across this ideal request.

◇

The next day.

We were headed to the Forest of Death to check the Sealed Pillar.

「We're going deeper this time, but you'll fight the same way as yesterday. Can you do it?」

「Of course!」she said, brandishing her spear as she walked behind me.

We're heading farther in today, but we'll still be doing the same thing. It should actually be a lot easier since we won't be baiting monsters that are too far away to preserve mana.

I'll adjust the pace of the battles accordingly so that by the time we arrive at our destination, I'll be level 15. It's not like I have to really force it and get to level 15 today. I just think it's better to be able to fight solo as soon as possible.

◇

Around noon.

We proceeded through our route along the cliff without much problems and arrived near the Sealed Pillar.

「Now then… It's time we stepped away from the cliff. We'll be prone to a pincer attack, so I'll choose a not so conspicuous route.」

「Got it.」

Right now I'm level 14. We took down a few monsters since then so I should be almost level 15.

I might actually get to that level by killing monsters that get in our way to the Sealed Pillar. I used my Magic Search to search for monsters nearby.

「…There's a lot of monsters around here.」

The route to the Sealed Pillar was packed with groups of monsters. Normally, the distance between two groups would be 500 meters and more. But around here, they're barely 200 meters apart.

Monsters growing in number around the area is a sign of a Stampede. I'm guessing the color of the pillar has changed.

Now that I think about it, the pillar might have something to do with why almost all the monsters we've faced were Blood Tigers.

「I can feel their presence. This area seems to be swarming with monsters… I don't have the ability to detect them like you do, but I know this place is dangerous. Can we make it?」

「Yeah. We should manage. I'll think of a route to take, so just wait a bit.」

So I started considering our options. Which path will allow us to reach the Sealed Pillar most efficiently? In this type of situation, the more battles, the longer it takes to get to the destination and the chances of other monsters butting in increases.

「All right, I got us a route. We'll only have to fight once. Just stay within three meters of me.」

We'll be taking a bit of a detour but there should barely be any incidents along the way. We'll take out the monsters that might spot us and we won't have to fight monsters unless it's necessary.

There's actually a much faster route that we can take if I was a hundred percent sure that we won't get spotted by monsters. But the chances of us making blunders is low in this one. I still have plenty of mana so we'll just choose the safer route.