The Last Experience Point

Chapter 150: Raid Leader Pt. II

The stakes were high, and the time had come. He, Jimmy Green, a guy born thousands of years ago on another planet, was about to have his make-it-or-break-it moment. He knew this. He understood it. And yet, he was prepared to face this trial without fear or reluctance, because this was something he was born to do. And right now, in front of fifty-nine other people, he’d been given an opportunity to prove it: to prove to Donovan, Zephyr, and all of them that he belonged on this raid—that he deserved to be here leading it.

This is my shot, he thought, flooding with determination. This is it!

Jimmy raised his hand, gesturing for all those following behind him to stop. Abruptly, the sound of dozens of marching feet came to a halt. His posture firm, he stared ahead of him, and there it was, looming large in the distance. With eager eyes, he spotted the boss: and God, it was a pretty damn big one, too.

“Yeesh,” Kalana said, cupping her hands over her forehead and gazing at the raid boss from where she stood a bit off to his right.

To his left, Tena nervously pinched his bicep as though grabbing at him reflexively. “Wow, that’s a big boss.”

Having led the raid down the fancy hall while the sound of orchestral music played on the air, they’d quickly reached their destination; the walls, which had been parallel to one another, had begun to curve inwardly until eventually forming something of a door-less archway, which let out into a fishbowl-shaped room that had little in the way of furnishings aside from a ring of tall, metal, and spike-shaped objects that wrapped around the entire room and had a constant deep blue flame shooting out the top of them. The ground beneath their feet also shifted from the polished hardwood flooring and wool carpets to something decidedly closer in nature to concrete. But most strikingly, the tall ceiling above their heads was once more constructed of the same type of glass that Jimmy had seen at the end of F29, which meant that, glancing upwards, he could see ranges of mountains created out of pure ice in what looked like a cold, dead world.

Are we the ones upside-down or is it the mountains that are? Jimmy wondered. If someone threw me two-hundred feet up and sent me smashing through that glass, would I fall right back down into this room, or would I ‘fall’ upwards into those glaciers?

Jimmy didn’t dwell long on the question, because naturally, the only thing that really mattered in here was not the bizarre nature of their position in relation to whatever planet they were on—or in the atmosphere of—but rather the formidable-looking creature that awaited them on the opposite end of what was clearly going to be the boss-encounter room.

Sucking on his tooth, which had a piece of meat stuck beside it, Jimmy studied the sight of this creature. Bar none, it was definitely the largest of any mobs or bosses that Jimmy had ever seen since coming to Galterra. It was clearly big enough to be called a giant. And though Jimmy had fought one or two creatures of such size before, this one clearly had them all beat out.

My passive isn’t called Scourge of Giants for no reason, he thought with a grin.

Despite how intimidating his foe, he was not cowed. He was not afraid. He was ready. He was determined. This was why he was even here, right? Eilea didn’t fling his ass across time, space, and planetary bodies just because he was some regular kid from Brooklyn who spent too much of his free time on his PC. Hell nah. She’d told him so herself on the night they’d met: that he’d been exactly who she’d been looking for. And if her words were the truth, then Jimmy was someone she’d felt was worthy enough that she’d literally saved his life just to ensure that he lived to stand right here in this dungeon floor today as the leader of this raid. Could the same be said of anyone else?

Nope.

Still, though, while Jimmy was unafraid, he couldn’t deny that the boss was a nasty, deadly-looking son of a bitch. Its skin was bright red just like the Death Harbingers, and it also wore a permanent sneer almost as though it was unable to make any other facial expression. Its body, too, was every bit as muscular in relation to its size, and it even donned similar-looking metallic armor on its shoulders, shins, and feet. But unlike the Death Harbingers, this mob had two massive, demonic wings, which protruded from its back and ran approximately from the top of its shoulders down to its waist—as opposed to extending out widely like a dragon’s. Jimmy did not know if those would play a role in how the mob would fight. What would certainly play a role would be the two dual-edged swords sheathed on its back, which in terms of length, were each about as long as a jousting lance.

This is one big dude.

Not only did the boss tower over the raid, but making it even more intimidating was the fact that, right now, it wasn’t even standing upright. It was currently in some form of meditative pose, with its legs folded and its right and left arm extended to opposite sides of its body, its palms facing upwards while its thumb, index, and middle finger were pressed together. Its eyes were closed despite the maniacal sneer on its face, and it remained perfectly still. The creature was so tall that, if it did stand up, Jimmy estimated that even the tallest adventurer present would only be level with its ankles. If five or six people stood on top of one another to form a human ladder, the one highest up probably wouldn’t even reach this monstrous thing’s hips!

I don’t care how big that thing is, he thought, nodding to himself and getting himself pumped up. We got this. We got this!

HP

5,600,000/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

“All things considered,” he heard Zephyr whisper from where he stood a bit behind Jimmy, “this doesn’t look too bad: especially since we’re a sixty-person raid. If we’d come with the minimum-recommended size of 35, I’d probably call this off, or at least I’d be close to sixty-forty about calling it a day.”

Jimmy frowned but said nothing. Though he highly doubted Zephyr intended it, the fact he was acting like such a thing was still his call to make was kind of disrespectful. Him and Donovan had voluntarily vacated their positions as leaders of the raid, and when they had been the leaders, Jimmy hadn’t undermined their own authority—not even a single time. Yet, because he genuinely did not think any disrespect was intended, he decided to let it slide. But it was hard, as Donovan seemed to possess the same sort of attitude.

“Yeah, I agree,” the GSG leader grunted. “Let this play itself out, Zeph. It’s T5, level 55. That’s like, what, level 130? A bit high, but we don’t usually bring this many people along with us to a raid, either.”

Jimmy looked over his shoulder and saw Zephyr and Donovan nod in agreement. This further irked him, but in the interest of keeping everyone together and cohesive, he did not utter a word of his displeasure. Most likely, the two men were just so used to being leaders that it hadn’t really sunk in yet that they were not currently in command: something they’d willingly chosen to give up and had even been their own idea. That was on them.

And good for them, too, Jimmy thought, his confidence rising. They’re both all right, but they still ain’t that great. Gonna show them how it’s done.

Jimmy cleared his throat. Every member of the raid had now fallen silent. He knew all ears were awaiting his commands, and he was ready to lead them. He did not hesitate, either. He would not allow himself to come across as looking nervous or uncertain. Jimmy knew enough about things to know that a leader needed to inspire confidence, and with each word he spoke, he projected his own.

“All right, guys,” he began.

Fully turning his back to the boss, which he was devoutly sure would not attack until someone either entered its aggro range or, if it was passive, slapped it first, he opened his mouth and said, “Raise your hand if ya’ll can conjure a pet that you can control using pet commands. And I don’t care if it’s a combat pet or not. Anything you can fully control.”

Donovan and Zephyr seemed to find the request very odd, as they exchanged confused glances with one another as though completely oblivious as to why Jimmy would ask for such a thing. This forced him to stop a smug grin from spreading on his face. They might’ve done this a whole lot longer, but they didn’t know what he knew. At any rate, he craned his neck to fully observe the raid as six hands went up and a seventh seemed to be wavering; a strangely youthful-looking woman wearing a one-piece, elegant, red, and flower-embroidered dress raised, then lowered, then raised her hand. Jimmy addressed her directly.

“You seem unsure,” he said to her.

She nodded. “I summon level-45 exploding wisps,” she said to him. “I can control where they are sent by picking a target. Is that what you mean?”

Jimmy shook his head. “Not if you’re saying you cast it and then, uh, what happens next is out of your control. Actually, everybody: lower your hand if that’s the case.” This caused not only this woman to drop her hand to her side, but so did another woman who was wearing brown, druidic-like robes whom he recalled summoning bees earlier. Seeking to avoid any additional confusion, Jimmy decided to clarify even further. “Only raise your hand if you can summon a pet with a level and name that you can control and move around even after you’ve brought it out.”

The rest kept their hands raised: five in total. This was good. Jimmy again cleared his throat. “Now lower your hand if you lose your pet forever when it dies or if it has a recast timer.”

Three hands went down. Two left.

“Lower your hand if your pet passively deals damage in any way, shape, or form.”

Another hand went down. Now, there was just one. The only adventurer left was Ishina, the level-29, fifteen-year-old girl who stood next to her father and suddenly began to blush as everyone turned their head her way. Jimmy smiled at her. “Ishina,” he said. “What’ve you got?”

Sounding both confused and shy, she said, “I can make a level-15 Slime Soldier, but like, so…okay, so I don’t really use it all that much, because it has a Moderate-High exertion cost and it’s not that strong anymore. I used to use it all the time when I first learned it but I outgrew the ability.”

“And you can control it?”

“Yeah.”

“By control, I mean you can put it on passive and order it to move to certain locations?”

Ishina flicked her eyes to the right as though carefully considering his question. “You mean like if I pick a place to go, it goes there?”

“Exactly. Even if you’re not sending it to fight anything, can you make it go where you want it to go?”

“Oh,” she said. She looked at Jimmy once again and bowed her head. “Yeah, I can, but only up to a range of 2000. After that, it dies if I get any farther away from it.”

Jimmy tapped his finger against the side of his head as he considered how to proceed. He knew what he wanted to do, but he had to figure out the best way to do it. “How many can you summon?”

“Oh, um, I can only have one out at a time. If I summon another one while the first is out, the first Slime Soldier dies and is replaced.”

Her answer confused Jimmy, but Jimmy realized in an instant it was actually his own fault for how he’d chosen to phrase the question. “No, uh, my bad,” he said. “I didn’t mean how many you can use at once. I meant how many times can you summon one without passing out from E-debt.”

She gave him a questioning look. “You mean like if I summon them back-to-back?”

“Kinda. Assume something like thirty seconds in between each summoning.”

It was obvious from the way Ishina’s words fell off in volume that she was becoming nervous and hesitant due to this line of questioning. “Well…well I guess, like, I could make three of them if I push myself really hard, but…but why?”

Jimmy smiled at her. “You’ll see. Go ahead and summon your first one for now.”

Rather than obey, she did something that Jimmy really didn’t like. She craned her neck so that she looked at something off to the right. Jimmy turned his head to figure out what she was searching for, and he saw it right away. Both Donovan and Zephyr gave her a brief, quick nod, and it was only after they’d done so that she said, “Okay, I’ll summon it.”

Man that pisses me off, Jimmy thought, once more holding his tongue. Totally disrespectful.

Trying not to become upset, Jimmy watched as she called upon the Moderate-High exertion ability. Much like Alixa, she too used a tome as her weapon, but hers was dramatically smaller; whereas Alixa’s was like a gigantic, two-thousand-page encyclopedia the size of a board game, hers was like a brief paperback novel, perhaps a bit larger.

“Are you all right, sweetie?” her father asked her as sweat began to drip down her forehead. Though he spoke at a whisper so low that it was only by sheer chance and proximity that Jimmy could hear him, the girl nevertheless acted as though he’d just screamed the words out at the top of his lungs.

“Yah, dad, I’ve done this like a billion times before. Get off my case. Gods! You’re embarrassing me in front of everyone.”

“Ahh! Sorry.”

Her words prompted chuckles from numerous nearby adventurers, who thankfully said nothing to her. Then, all on its own, her book opened up and pages began flipping, slowly at first but then faster and faster. Eventually, a transparent, dark-green, and smoke-like substance began rising out of her book before stretching and extending like a snake leaving a cave. It traveled forward more than a dozen feet ahead of her, all while still attached to the book, and then, finally, it stopped extending and took a nosedive, heading straight down to the concrete flooring. Once there, the smoky, dark-green substance solidified and took shape, starting off as something rounded before becoming further defined in a way that brought it closer towards a square or a cube.

Jimmy watched as, in just a few seconds, it completed its transformation, turning into a gelatinous, cube-shaped blob of green gunk about half the size of a cardboard box that had no other discernable features aside from two black dots that passed for eyes and a smiley face that looked as though it’d been drawn on with a black crayon. Above its flat, square-shaped head were two words: Slime Soldier. And below those words was: “level 15.”

Briefly lifting her right eyebrow, Ishina waved her hand at the creature, which rather than remain still, endlessly bounced up and down despite not having any feet. Each time the slime landed, it made a comical thwapping sound. “Well?” she asked him. “Now what?”

“Okay, this is the fun part,” Jimmy said. He followed his words with a chuckle. “I’m gonna need everybody on the raid but Ishina to line up on the far side of the wall to my left—your right.” He extended his arm in the stated direction. “Ishina, you stay where you are.”

Jimmy waited for his command to be obeyed. Yet several seconds went by, and no one moved. “By that I mean today,” he added, having become annoyed. And was it his imagination or was everyone now once more looking at Donovan and Zephyr?

This time, rather than nod, Donovan barked out, “Well? You heard the kid.” And with that, he turned around and began making his way to the wall. That seemed to be all it took. Everyone followed after him, and now, just shy of sixty people lined the wall single-file save for the few who couldn’t fit due to the—hopefully—decorative, tall, and metal spikes that circled the room and continuously shot six-foot streaks of blue flame above themselves like stovetop burners.

One by one, Jimmy watched as all the other adventurers got into position except for Ishina and one other: her father. Though he’d been asked to go with the rest of the adventurers, he’d nevertheless stayed, and honestly? Jimmy didn’t have a problem with it since that was her dad and she was only 15. She, however, did seem to take issue with his presence.

“Dad?” she hissed at him. “Why’re you still here?”

Rather than answer her, the girl’s father looked at Jimmy. He had a kind, but concerned face. He was of average height with short black hair and skin that was the same olive color as his daughter. He wore studded leather armor and had a bow at his back, which Jimmy noticed as he approached a little closer as if intent on speaking to him from a distance where he could do so quietly and discreetly.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” he said, his words coming out at just a touch above a whisper, “but as her father, I obviously have to ask you: are you planning to put her in any kind of danger?”

“You mean…other than the danger that naturally comes with fighting something like that?” Jimmy pointed at the gigantic, meditating raid boss, where its eyes remained closed yet it continued to sneer madly. Then he shook his head. “No.”

He definitely looked like he had more to say, but Ishina angrily stormed over to him even as he was opening his mouth to say it. With her lips pursed, she tucked her tome under her left arm, and with her right, she reached out and grabbed his elbow, pulling him back. “Dad!” she yelled at him.

“Sweetie, I have to make sure that—”

“No you don’t!” she interrupted, darting her eyes around nervously as if worried people were watching this spectacle—which they obviously were. More quietly but with equal frustration, she said, “I’m freaking fifteen now, dad. That’s basically an adult. And Falgon’s dad lets him solo on Archian Prime. So stop treating me like a child.”

Jimmy made a fist and coughed into it, drawing their attention. While he was sure this was an important discussion for the both of them, he had a raid to lead and now wasn’t the time for this. Thankfully, they both stopped arguing and seemed willing to listen to him. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” he said, speaking to them both. He also spoke loudly enough so that the rest of the raid could hear him as well since this was relevant to all. “What we need from Ishina,” he continued, “is something that’s not only not gonna be dangerous, but it’s gonna make things safer for everybody including herself.”

“With…a level-15 slime?” her father asked incredulously.

“Yup. You’ll see.”

Walking past the slime pet that was still bouncing up and down in place, Jimmy moved a bit farther to the other end of the room in the direction directly opposite the one the adventurers had gone. Then, with a curl of his fingers, he beckoned Ishina to follow. She moved towards him—and so did her dad. He led them both a bit closer to the entrance archway before gesturing at them to stop.

“Okay,” he said. “Ishina, disband from the raid group and get one of your ropes out of Bank and Storage. Leave any other groups you’re in, too.”

“Wh-why?” both she and her father asked at the exact same time.

“Just a precaution, though I seriously doubt you’re gonna need it.”

Her father looked taken aback. “But you said you weren’t putting her in any danger.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, alternating between looking at Jimmy and at the massive T5 raid boss all the way across the boss room. At once, Jimmy could visibly see the defiance she’d directed towards her father drain out of her face, and a nervous, hesitant look took its place. “You said that this isn’t anything dangerous.”

“It’s not,” Jimmy said again, sighing. “Just listen to me, okay? Disband from the raid group.”

“Why?” she asked a second time. “And why do I need the rope if it’s not something really risky?”

“It’s just a damn precaution,” Jimmy insisted. “Also, I guarantee you won’t need it. What, you’re not convinced? Okay, I’ll tell you what, Ishina. I’m actually so sure you won’t need it that if you do end up having to rope out because of what I’m about to ask you to do, then uh, know what? When we kill this boss, you automatically get the inn room—if that happens, I mean. If you end up having to rope out because of this, you just get it, no rolling.”

Her jaw dropped, her father frowned, and the adventurers erupted into shouts of confusion and protest. Jimmy, sensing things getting out of control, tried to calm everyone down, but to his dismay, they couldn’t even hear him because of their own shouting. Question after question lifted off their lips and made their way to his ears, yet it was only after Donovan and Zephyr began pushing some of them around that they became quiet.

“You know what you’re doing, Jimmy?” Donovan asked him once he’d gotten everyone else to be quiet.

“I do.”

“Then it’s fine,” he said. And once again, the matter was settled just like that. And though Jimmy was grateful for his help, he was also really upset and annoyed, because he was the leader right now, not Donovan, so why was Donovan still saying what was or wasn’t “fine?” It wasn’t his call to make!

Gods be damned! Jimmy thought to himself angrily. Then his anger faded immediately when he realized what he’d just done. Did I seriously just think that? he wondered. He was more amazed at himself than anything else. As if a testament to his changing life, he had, for the first time, mentally thought one of their polytheistic expressions of exasperation instead of something more in line with what he was accustomed to. It was something Jimmy would’ve taken another few seconds to contemplate if not for all the eager stares being sent his way from Ishina, her father, Donovan, Zephyr, and even Tena. Basically, everyone.

I can’t mess this up. This is my chance to prove myself!

“Okay,” he said, trying to rein things back in. “Did you leave the raid?”

“Yeah,” she said. He noticed she also now had one of the ropes from Mushkie’s draped over her shoulder. “I left your BG, too.”

“Don’t worry, you’re gonna get put right back in.”

Her tone becoming uncertain, she asked, “So…what do you need me to do?”

Jimmy grinned. This was the part he’d been waiting for. Everybody right now was doubting him. He could see it in their eyes. Donovan and Zephyr were probably very, very worried they’d made a serious mistake in appointing him raid leader. The other adventurers were looking at him with a mixture of optimism and skepticism, which made sense, since they’d been told a half-lie about him having “secret” knowledge. Therefore, it was only natural that they’d regard him with an equal mixture of excitement and doubt. But they were about to lose that doubt. He was going to give everybody a leg up on this boss.

“Here’s what you gotta do,” he said to Ishina. “First—and this is the most important damn thing of all—make absolutely sure your pet is on passive.”

“It is,” she said.

“And just for peace of mind, tell me again that you’re positive that slime doesn’t have anything that does any kind of passive damage. I don’t just mean like abilities. I mean things like damage shields—where an enemy gets hurt by attacking it—or a counter attack or anything. Nothing that can even do a single point of damage.”

“I said no.” Ishina glared at him. “I’m not stupid.”

“Chill. I’m just making sure we’re good.” Jimmy turned around to face the boss, and then he pointed. “Here’s what you’re gonna do, Ishina. You’re gonna send the slime straight forward until it activates the boss. If the boss doesn’t activate, then that means we gotta hit it first, and all of this was just a waste of time. But if it does activate and aggro onto your pet, I want you to send it as fast as you can to the left side of the room by the wall and leave it there until it dies.”

Ishina’s mouth fell open, and a gasp came from the other adventurers. “Are you nuts?” she asked, practically shrieking. “No way! That’s suicide!”

“Jimmy, this is outrageous!” her father shouted at him. “How can you possibly ask my daughter to solo engage the raid boss?

Murmurs of incredulity and suspicion filled the boss room. “Is he serious?” one of the adventurers asked.

“He wants her to pull the boss?” queried another.

“I know Jimmy had access to special training simulations, but there’s no way he’s seriously asking Ishina to—”

“Shut it!” Jimmy shouted, the words coming from a place of extreme frustration. To his shock, the sharpness and heat in it actually caused the raid to fall silent. And now, seizing this moment to speak, he chose to do so while he could still get a few words in. “If she sends her pet over to the boss, and she’s not in any kind of raid group, then what the hell is everybody hollering about?” he asked. Seeing confusion on their faces, he grunted in annoyance. “Ya’ll are a bunch of noobs, for real.” He pointed at the boss, and he explained. “If the pet doesn’t do any damage, and she’s all the way over here by the entrance when it dies, the boss is just gonna de-aggro and sit its ass back down since there’s nothing left on its hate table to go after.”

“Hate table?” the adventurers began all muttering in unison.

“Aggro tables, whatever.”

“Aggro tables?” they now muttered.

“Seriously? None of you know about aggro or hate tables?” Jimmy sighed. “Look, guys. Mobs keep a list of numerical values of everyone they ‘hate,’ and different actions affect the numbers differently. It’s like a hidden stat. Whoever’s the highest on the table is the one who’s got the aggro. Whenever a pet hits a mob, it adds hate points to both the pet and the user who controls it. But if the pet is on passive and gets within a mob’s aggro range, only the pet receives ‘trespass’ hate, and if it dies, the hate tables are clear, and the mob goes back to spawn. How do none of you know this?”

“I don’t know anything about any tables,” Reni Sarwin said, “but now that I think about it, you might be right. I think I’ve been in a situation like this before. I remember once, on an Earth raid, we left a disposable pet behind by mistake. It aggroed a whole camp of mobs that respawned while we ourselves were already well out of its initial aggro range. The pet wasn’t on passive, but it did die before it could attack anything. The mobs didn’t come after us afterwards.”

“I’ve seen that once too, I think,” another person said. “I just never paid any notice to it. Now that you mention it, that is kind of a thing that happens, isn’t it? But what’s the purpose here, Jimmy?”

Jimmy pressed his palm into his face and moaned into his hand. “Do you seriously not even know why I’m doing this? No?” Looking around at the various adventures and then at Ishina, he said, “I’m doing this so we can see some of what this thing’s made of before we attack it. Maybe we’ll see a few of its attacks and we can watch out for them.”

Like a room full of lights all turning on at the same time, Jimmy could see understanding begin to reflect back at him from the dozens of adventurers who, until that very moment, seemed to be growing anxious and distrustful. Yet now they seemed to make a collective “ohh!” as they looked first at Jimmy and then at one another as it dawned on them what he was actually trying to do here.

“So that’s why!” Kalana blurted out cheerfully. “Jimmy’s smart!”

“I never even thought of that,” Donovan admitted, speaking only slightly above a whisper.

More words of surprise and thankfully approval resonated from around the boss room. During this time, Tena smiled at him and winked, but she said nothing. Jimmy returned the wink and then spun himself around to address Ishina. “So? Happy now? Let’s get going. We got a raid boss to beat.”

“S-sure,” she said. She still looked nervous, though now, she seemed much less so. Staying right where she was, she said nothing and did not move, yet she had clearly begun mentally commanding her pet, because the perpetually bouncing Slime Soldier began to move forward as it continued to bounce, its feet going thwack, thwack, thwack on the concrete as it hopped its way closer and closer towards the boss.

“Make sure you watch what happens closely!” Jimmy shouted. He was glad to see that they were. Each and every adventurer was quiet and clearly paying close attention as the gelatinous, cube-shaped slime creature made its way over to the boss. Jimmy, too, began to watch it, taking his focus off the other adventurers. This was something that, normally, he would never even consider doing in a game. But since, in this world, raid failure could mean death, he wanted to know a bit about the boss they were fighting before he went up against it.

Now, as the Slime Soldier bounced its way more than halfway across the boss-room floor, it took a great amount of effort for Jimmy to prevent an overconfident, smug, “I told you so” grin from forming on his lips as the boss, at last, finally became activated. It was right around the halfway point, too. And boy was it dramatic as far as bosses went.

Its eyes popped open and began to glow, giving off an intense orange light. From its sneering mouth, it released a dark, wicked, and evil laugh. And then it began to stand up, and just as Jimmy had imagined, he could see that the boss was so tall that the top of his head only reached the boss’s ankles. “So!” it cried out as it made its way to its feet. “Finally, I’ve found myself a group of worthy adversaries! Prepare to die with honor to Imp Lord Tzumazleth!”

It reached behind itself and drew both of its jousting-lance-sized swords; both weapons immediately became awash in glowing, dark-purple energy that surrounded them from the base of their grip to the point of their blade. And as it removed these two swords, Jimmy snapped his fingers at Ishina, who seemed to have become distracted while watching it. “Move it!” he said. “To the left!”

But it was too late. As the Slime Soldier began hopping its way to the left wall, it was clear it would be dead in just another second or two; this, as the boss launched an attack even as it spoke. “For so long, I have waited for a fight!” it shouted.

The raid boss fully extended its arms, pointing the swords to both sides of itself, and then it began spinning around fast—so fast that its body, face, front, and back all became just a blur. Its swords, too, rotated with such speed that both created an illusion similar to that of a helicopter’s propellers, only it was angled downwards and glowed purple, clearly designed to strike something small in comparison to its giant body. And as if the sight of it alone was not enough proof of its absurd momentum, Jimmy could actually feel a small gust of displaced air even from all the way over here near the entrance. His robes fluttered, and so did a few of the pages in Ishina’s book. The boss also began to move while rotating, too, like a spinning top; in this case, it was in the direction of the Slime Soldier.

“But finally!” it said, sounding excited and optimistic. “Finally, I have found a group of—”

The Slime Soldier was hit for 207,396 damage, dying instantly upon contact while sending dark-green gunk splattering all over the place. Then, in an unnatural, jarring way, the boss’s words, tone, volume of speech, and even topic changed instantly upon its death. It was almost as though there was a second boss somewhere that was speaking out of the first one’s mouth, as there was even a brief period lasting less than a second during which the boss carried on its original sentence as a completely separate one emerged from its sneering lips at the exact same time. Jimmy was sure of it. For just the tiniest of moments, there were two voices speaking completely different words. But then the first cut abruptly off.

“And this concludes our battle!” the boss called out. “You fought well, adventurers. But death is the consequence of failure in this dungeon. Ahh-hahaha-hahaha!”

It stopped spinning immediately, sheathed its swords, and marched over to the exact spot it’d only just been seated. It then plopped itself down, its form so massive and heavy it caused a slight vibration beneath Jimmy’s feet. Once there, it closed its eyes, extended its arms, and returned to its meditative pose.

Now, there was a moment of almost total silence. The only sound was the dull hissing and the occasional crackle from the flame-shooting spikes located all around the boss room. Looks of astonishment were sent Jimmy’s way. To break the quiet, he flicked his chin at the boss and said, “See? I told you guys so.”

The adventurers seemed stunned. It was as though they didn’t know what to make of any of this. “Incredible,” Zephyr said. “A whole new tactic to ascertain an unknown dungeon boss’s potential. I’m impressed. I never thought to try that.”

“I can’t believe you even know how to do that,” Miss Britethorn said. “Amazing!”

“Pretty good,” Donovan agreed. Then he let out a harsh laugh. “Ishina screwed it all up for ya, though.”

Ishina, who was still sweating, glared at her father of all people. And her father, after an awkward moment during which a bit of fear ran across his face, turned his head to Donovan and said, “Donovan, you can’t talk that way to—”

“Oh yeah?” he growled at the man.

The man immediately fell silent. Despite being all the way on the opposite end of the room, he took a step backwards. Ishina rolled her eyes and grumbled something about her dad being a coward. Then, with even more sweat falling down her face, her breathing became heavy, and she called upon another of her Slime Soldiers. This one was identical to the one before it, having the same name and level.

“Remember to pull it away from the boss this time,” Jimmy said. “To the left wall.”

“I know,” she said, sounding annoyed.

Jimmy watched as her slime bounced its way over to the boss. And once again, the so-called lord of the imps cried out, “So! Finally, I’ve found myself a group of worthy adversaries! Prepare to die with honor to Imp Lord Tzumazleth!”

Like before, it stood up. It extended its arms, and it repeated the exact same attack that it had with the previous bouncing slime. But on this go around, Ishina’s pet survived simply by having already begun bouncing its way over to the left wall. For a moment, it looked like the spinning, wind-blasting boss would catch up. Certainly, it moved fast enough that it definitely could have overtaken the slime in a matter of moments. But luckily for the slime, it seemed the boss was not targeting it specifically, but rather, the general area around where it had begun its spin.

Rotating itself around in a circular direction not far from its spawn point, Jimmy watched the spinning mob also slide around in a near-perfect circle, hitting nothing. Around and around it spun, and then, after about eight seconds—the duration of the attack, most likely—it ceased spinning and came to a sudden halt. Now, it remained still for an additional second or two, but soon after, it turned its body in the direction of the slime that had only just reached the wall. Jimmy observed carefully, watching to see what it did next.

A loud, buzzing sound that reminded Jimmy of a chainsaw filled the boss room. He quickly realized it was the boss’s wings, which made a much greater noise than the wings of the imps him and Zach had encountered earlier today—or yesterday, rather, since it was after midnight Galterra time. Lifting off the ground slightly, Imp Lord Tzumazleth blasted across the room with intimidating speed. This was important to note, however, because it told Jimmy that, when they engaged this thing, the tanks needed to establish aggro very firmly because it would be able to get on a healer or caster very quickly if it chose to do so.

What else you got, big boy?

The imp lord flew across the room in less than a second. Then it landed in front of the slime, and its wings stopped buzzing. Jimmy studied it carefully. The boss lifted its arms, it angled its gigantic body towards the slime, and with that, it launched an incredibly barbarous seven-hit combination attack. First, it sliced its left sword down on the slime, killing it instantly and sending more goop spraying for 162,589 damage. Then it crashed its right sword down in the exact same way. Despite the pet having already been killed by this point, it continued on, which told Jimmy this was all part of one big attack it “had” to finish.

Using both swords at once, it raised its arms and sliced them both straight down—at nothing. After this, its wings started buzzing, only even more loudly than before. Abruptly, it dashed backwards, sailing across the boss room. Numerous adventurers gasped and pressed themselves into the wall behind them as the boss approached close enough to startle several of them. But just as it seemed it might actually fly over to the adventurers, it stopped itself midair only to fling itself forward again until returning to the dark-green-stained concrete where the slime had died; once there, it flew upwards in the air, spun itself twice, then dropped down and slammed both of its swords on top of it. This time, the swords actually made contact with the floor, sending huge chunks of concrete shooting straight up as it broke through and left a four-inch, dark-green-stained hole. Then it brought its left arm around for another left slash, its right around for a right slash, and finally, it lifted its foot up to its waist and stomped it back down, smashing through even more concrete.

“And this concludes our battle! You fought well, adventurers. But death is the consequence of failure in this dungeon. Ahh-hahaha-hahaha!”

Sneering, it returned to its spawn point, sat down, crossed its legs, and resumed its meditation, closing its eyes once more. As it did so, nervous murmurs erupted among the adventurers.

“That’s one hell of an attack,” a woman said. “Maybe we should let Donovan and Zephyr handle things this time. Jimmy can always lead the next one.”

“You may be right,” Miss Britethorn said. “I don’t doubt his abilities, but being that he’s never actually led a real raid before, maybe this isn’t the best one to make his debut.”

Jimmy again had to suppress his frustration. He knew he’d prove them wrong—all of them. Yet it really got to him the way this sort of “narrative” began to quickly spread from adventurer to adventurer. On the lips of many came similar words: that Jimmy was young, talented, and promising, but that he’d never led a real raid before and shouldn’t be starting out with this one.

“Donovan, what kind of game are you playing here?” Ophelia asked him, sounding annoyed. “Are you trying to sabotage him because you think he’s a future ‘rival’ to you or something?”

Donovan actually seemed to flinch at the accusation as though finding it so absurd that it was painful. “I only ever do what I think will help the young meet their potential. Gods, woman!”

She poked him in the chest. “Even if your motivations are good, I’m skeptical about what you’re doing here.”

The two began to argue, but Jimmy tuned it out. It was nonsense, after all. The sheer fact of the matter was that it wasn’t even possible for Donovan to set Jimmy up for failure, because Jimmy wasn’t going to fail. It simply wasn’t an option. Donovan’s intentions were irrelevant. Sure, Jimmy was more than just a little confused as to why him and Zephyr had suddenly decided to call it quits and hand him the leadership role, but at the end of the day, it didn’t actually matter why: they had given it to him, and that was that.

“Ishina?” he asked, returning his attention to the young girl. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” she gasped in reply, breathing very heavily. Her face and the front of her blouse were covered in sweat. With a snap, she closed her book, having succeeded in summoning yet another Slime Soldier. Then she bent over, panted, and wiped more sweat off her forehead before rubbing it on her jeans. She, like a not-insignificant number of adventurers, had used Alixa or another crafter’s services to turn her equipment into more “normal” clothing. This only seemed to be possible, however, for lighter equipment.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she said after a moment, straightening her back.

“You sure?”

“I’m fine.”

Following those words, her new—and third—Slime Soldier began to bounce its way towards the raid boss, and like the previous two times, everyone quieted up and seemed to focus in on watching things unfold; Jimmy knew the others were just as eager as him to see if they could learn more about their enemy before facing it. And so, as though mesmerized by its very motion, Jimmy watched as the Slime Soldier bounced time and time again until crossing the threshold into aggro radius. And once more, the boss opened its eyes and reacted.

“So!” the boss shouted. “Finally, I’ve found myself a group of worthy adversaries! Prepare to die with honor to Imp Lord Tzumazleth!”

“Remember,” Jimmy whispered. “Make sure you immediately send the slime to the—”

“The left wall. I know, Jimmy, sheesh,” she muttered. “I’m not stupid.”

Having begun with its spinning attack the previous two times, Jimmy naturally wondered if such an attack was a predetermined “opener” or whatever. Yet with a sample size of just two, he knew better than to draw any conclusions. This turned out to be wise, because this time around, the raid boss opted for something else entirely. It turned around to face the slime, which was bouncing its way as fast as it could to the left wall. Jimmy expected the boss to take off and fly towards it with its wings—but this, too, it did not do. Instead, it moved at something of a jog towards the slime.

“For so long, I have waited for a fight!” the boss cried out as it pursued Ishina’s pet.

Though the distance it traveled in comparison to its size was not, on its own, spectacularly fast, the fact that it was so gigantic meant it was able to cross much more space much more quickly. A small tremor shook the boss room each time one of its feet stomped down as it ran over to the slime. With a sword gripped in each of its hands, it then lashed out with what looked to be an ordinary, one-two combination from its left, then right sword. This, obviously, should have put an end to their little experiment.

And yet, through sheer coincidence, the slime happened to bounce away just a split second before the swords swung the air where it’d just been. This totally unexpected “dodge” caused the adventurers to go absolutely wild. Simultaneously, they all erupted into cheers and laughter.

Everyone began to cackle and shout out their feelings of amusement, with some cracking jokes about how they should build a statue in the slime’s honor. They called the slime a hero. Some of them even started to name it. Yet for as intense as their brief bout of levity might have been, it all came crashing down around them an instant later as Ishina made an abrupt, horrified-sounding gasp. And this gasp came just an instant after the slime, once more through sheer coincidence, managed to bounce away from a third downward slice from the boss’s right-handed sword.

The sword narrowly missed the slime, and this attack cracked down onto the concrete, sending numerous pieces of it skittering in multiple directions. One of these pieces, however, was propelled forward and into the slime, striking the gelatinous-like pet for 541 damage. And it was here that the slime abruptly stopped fleeing.

“No!” Ishina called out. “Oh shoot. Oh no! No!”

Jimmy felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest as he watched the slime’s retreat—or lack of one. For some reason, it was now bouncing towards the raid boss. In fact, it was currently midair and about an inch or two away from colliding with it directly. “Ishina!” he called out to her. “What the hell is—”

“I forgot to put it on passive!” she yelled, tears raining down her eyes.

“You didn’t,” Jimmy said in disbelief. “Ishina, tell me you didn’t!”

“I’m so, so sorry! I’m so—”

The slime slammed into the metal-armored shin of Imp Lord Tzumazleth, dealing 9 damage and bouncing right off it. It landed back on the concrete floor, where it bounced once more. Twice more. Then, on the third hop, Tzumazleth struck out a single time with its left sword, cutting the slime directly in half midair and killing it, dealing 177,771 damage in the process of spraying its slimy insides to both the left and rights sides of itself. And then…it turned around to face Ishina.

React! Jimmy shouted inside his own head as he forced himself not to dwell on the fact of what just happened. Doesn’t matter. No hesitation: just reaction. React!

He willed his body to move. He did not have the time to feel upset or afraid or to question whether or not Ishina had really just been so stupid as to fuck something like this up. He was the leader. It was his responsibility. Ishina was a fifteen-year-old girl. He should’ve checked with her each time to make sure her pet was on passive. This was on him not her. There was no time to consider anything else. He only had time to take immediate action.

And so, driven on by an ardent desire to succeed and prove that he was meant to be a leader, he threw himself in front of Ishina protectively. “Rope out!” he shouted at her as he reached for his staff. Time seemed to come to a standstill. There was movement from the right side of the boss room—the wall. He saw adventurers begin to draw their weapons in unison and launch themselves towards the raid boss. His heart hammering away in his chest, Jimmy grabbed his staff, removed it from its sheath, and gripped it with both hands. “I said rope out, goddammit!” Yet even as he did so, he knew she would not be able to move fast enough to escape.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her fumbling with the rope, her fingers shaking as though so nervous she’d lost all coordination. All she needed to do was form a loop at the end, swing it three times, and then throw it upwards. Yet the girl had entered into such a panic that she was struggling to do even that. Her father, however, moved quickly to protect his daughter. He dashed forward to stand beside Jimmy as he too called for her to rope out.

I gotta slow it!

Jimmy raised his staff and cast Crippling Haze right by the raid boss’s feet. Given it was a large area-of-effect spell and the boss itself was enormous, he didn’t have any problem hitting his target. Not that it mattered. Even as a big cloud of crackling smoke covered the boss before quickly dissipating, Jimmy swore aloud as he saw a brief but unmistakable red “X” appear above Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s head. This meant the boss was immune to slows. Jimmy knew this because had his spell merely been resisted—something very, very unlikely to happen due to his passive, Scourge of Giants—it would have appeared as a yellow “!” instead.

Thus, completely uninhibited, Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s wings began to make its loud, chainsaw-like buzzing, and it began rising up one, then two, then several feet above the floor. “But finally!” the boss shouted out. “Finally, I have found a group of adventurers willing to risk everything for the glory of combat!”

The moment the raid boss finished speaking those words, it blasted forward, absolutely burning its way across the boss room so fast that Jimmy could barely follow the motion with his eyes, let alone react to it. He wasn’t like Kalana or even Zach. His skills weren’t based in having great reflexes and pulling off crazy-ass bullshit feats of acrobatics. No, he was more of a methodical, stay-in-the-back kind of fighter. So there wasn’t a whole lot he could do other than gawk in horror as the nightmarish, horned, and ridiculously huge raid boss began diving down at him—or at Ishina, rather.

You’re the raid leader! he shouted to himself. Lead! Don’t just stare at it like a moron. Lead!

Jimmy found his nerve. “Maric!” he shouted out. He saw the large, muscular old man sprinting towards them, his shield already raised. “Taunt it!”

“On it!”

A giant shadow caused the whole area around Jimmy to darken as Tzumazleth descended upon him, both its blades extended in front of itself as if content on skewering or crushing not just Ishina but anyone who just so happened to be near her whether they were on its hate table or not. Jimmy felt his muscles begin to tighten apprehensively as it came nearer and nearer. In a mere instant, it had dropped so low that its body was now the only thing Jimmy could see in front of them.

But then, miraculously, it stopped. It simply stopped. Halting midair, its paused less than ten feet above and in front of where Jimmy stood before Ishina. Now that it was so close, its wings made such a loud buzzing that it actually hurt his ears and made him feel like he was in some kind of factory that worked with heavy machinery. It drowned out all other noise and made it so that, for at least a brief moment, Jimmy could hear nothing else. But then the boss pulled away, turned its body midair, and soared forward and off to Jimmy’s right, landing with a loud crunch onto the concrete. It then whipped its right arm around and attempted to slice Maric in half. Maric, however, grunted and absorbed the blow of it on his shield, though it did cause him to stumble several feet back.

“I’ve got it!” he half-shouted, half-growled.

Lead! Lead now before you look like an idiot and Donovan takes back control!

Jimmy inhaled. “BG1! Engage the raid boss. BG2, move behind it and attack its flank. BG3, BG4: do not cast any magic for now other than debuffs and heals if needed. Find what works on it, and then stack everything you can. BG5, hang back and be ready to charge in case it moves or flies off. BG6, stay put: and Ishina, rejoin the raid!”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, full-on crying. “Jimmy, I’m so, so—”

“It’s fine! Rejoin!” She sniffled, but she obeyed.

It took a moment to ease into things following a totally, wholly unexpected, and chaotic start to the encounter, but what happened, happened, and it was time to concentrate on killing this thing. It was just too damn important for Jimmy to fail. And so, he started off by shuffling around any way that he could to get a decent vantage point where he could clearly see what was going on. It was only really now, during an actual raid, that he was starting to realize just how difficult it was to really see what was happening. If only he could “zoom out” like in a game.

It's not a game, he reminded himself.

From what he could gather, Maric had established firm aggro, but it became clear right away that this was not going to be the kind of raid boss one tank all alone could manage. Jimmy watched as Imp Lord Tzumazleth unleashed its seven-hit combination attack. Maric, groaning, absorbed the left strike, then the right, and then the double. But then, as Tzumazleth blasted off backwards, its wings buzzing, Jimmy could see that, from just those three strikes alone, Maric was already badly positioned to absorb any more strikes.

“Alixa!” he called out. “Channel on him—now! Hurry!”

During everyone’s meal here together, Jimmy had realized he needed to get caught up on what resources he had available to him during the raid. And with that in mind, he’d spoken to some of the more powerful support mages. And this ability was one that he’d known right away would be invaluable. Watching closely, he saw Alixa open up her massive tome, the pages of which began flipping all on their own. Then, from within this book, a blueish-white tendril of electricity snaked its way across the short distance between her and Maric until the electricity “struck” him in his back. Now, a light, blueish-white “bubble” of sorts surrounded his body.

At the same time, there were shouts of pain and surprise as the backwards-flying imp lord slammed into two tanks and an off-tank that happened to be in the boss’s path, sending them literally careening away. The off-tank crashed into the wall, near the entrance archway, causing a hole to form in it, and the two tanks merely rolled along the ground. All three were moaning but looked okay.

There it goes, Jimmy thought nervously. You’ve got to hold, Maric!

Imp Lord Tzumazleth flung himself back in the direction he’d only just come while slamming both his swords down on top of Maric for the fourth strike of his seven-hit combination. The moment of impact, both swords were deflected, the bubble broke, and the tendril of electricity snapped and disappeared. Still, the hit had been almost entirely absorbed. This left just the last three attacks in its sequence; grunting, Maric suffered its left sword again, then it’s right, but when the final attack came—the stomping down of an armored foot almost as big as Maric himself—the man surprised Jimmy.

He threw his weapon and shield behind himself, and then, despite his heavy armor, he launched himself into a quick roll, hurrying out of the way as the foot stomped down, crushing through more concrete. With that, Maric retrieved his weapon and shield just in time to get up and raise his guard against another two-hit combination. Unfortunately, he only succeeded in blocking the first of these hits.

The boss’s sword bounced off Maric's shield with an echoing thunk, and though Maric succeeded in defending himself, the man seemed to finally reach his limits. His guard slipped then became broken, and as the boss attacked his other side, Maric was at last overwhelmed. With a loud howl of pain, Jimmy watched as the imp lord’s blade, glowing a purple, evil-looking color, cut right through Maric’s armor and sliced the man from his right shoulder all the way down to his right hip.

“Gods!” he roared, blood emptying out of him as he limped several steps back, causing even more to rush out of body. “I need a heal!”

“Heal him!” Jimmy shouted.

One of the healers obeyed, and a pillar-shaped beacon of green light surrounded Maric. His expression turned immediately from one of pain to relief—and then back to pain again as he guarded against two more strikes only to have half his stomach ripped open with the third. This, too, was healed. But then he was cut open again—and then again and again. Despite being fully healed each time, he was beginning to perform worse and become sloppier with every wound.

So this is why Donovan tries to mitigate pain, Jimmy thought, absolutely refusing to admit aloud that the guy might have had a point.

“I need to rotate out!” Maric said, his tone pained and desperate. “I can’t handle much more.”

“Spider,” Jimmy called out. “Swap with him! Maric, use de-taunts. Spider, taunt!”

Although Spider was technically an off-tank, Jimmy knew he was exceptionally strong and could play the role of a main tank if required. And since he was the closest to Maric, he seemed like a logical source to buy Jimmy some time so he could contemplate how to proceed. So far, everything Jimmy had done had been for the sake of recovering from an unexpected encounter start, stabilizing the situation, and trying to get—and keep—everyone in a steady formation.

The problem, which he now saw, was that because all of his attention had been diverted to micro-managing which tank had aggro, almost no progress was being made on the raid itself. This was not a problem he was alone in noticing, either. In the corner of his vision, he could see Donovan and Zephyr evaluating his every move and every word. He knew they would jump in if they felt he wasn’t succeeding. God, he couldn’t let that happen. Meeting Donovan’s eyes, he saw Donovan tap his wrist and then point at the gigantic, towering imp lord. The meaning of the gesture was obvious: hurry up and start killing it.

Don’t need you to ‘guide’ me, Jimmy thought bitterly. I got this shit!

Right now, the entire raid was attacking the boss. Given its size, there was no issue with “room,” and so everyone could attack it as they pleased. Due to its height, the tanks, off-tanks, and melee DPS were almost literally nipping away at its heels: forced to slash, cut, bludgeon, or otherwise pierce its armor-covered shins, ankles, and feet. The mages and archers, on the other hand, were able to use their most-powerful spells and strike wherever they pleased, which in many cases was the head. The problem was that nobody was doing any real goddamn damage.

Fluffles was calling down lightning that struck for between 100 and 110 damage per bolt. Donovan’s axe was crushing its ankles for about 600 per swing, Zephyr’s blade, currently glowing green, was barely doing a thing at around 300 a hit, even as he made an elegant series of slices from his sword with a near-perfect form that saw every attack glide into the next. Not even Kalana, who was unleashing a blazingly fast combination of dagger strikes, was able to land anything that struck for more than 450.

For some adventurers, the output was even worse. Jimmy noted an adventurer not far ahead of him wearing a dark green wool sweater with a matching hood pulled over his head. The adventurer was making grunts of exertion as he thrust a long, diamond-colored spear repeatedly into the lower knee of the T5, level-55 raid boss, hitting for only 32 damage each time. Though it did manage to draw a fair bit of blood, that was only when compared to a normal-sized being. Thus, the pool of red building up around the man’s feet was but a few drops to something so massive

The archers and mages, however, were faring a bit better. Striking out at its unarmored head and torso, the mages were calling down a wide variety of magic, such as big, amethyst-like crystals that fell down from the ceiling and shattered for almost a thousand damage a piece, or in the case of Alixa, a series of crescent-shaped “wind blades” that fired out of her book and made loud snapping sounds as they collided with the imp lord’s crimson-colored face for 650 a hit. There were also two archers shooting flaming arrows that struck the mob between the eyes for 800 if not more.

But all of this combined was just not good enough. Seriously, it wasn’t.

HP

5,517,420/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

Donovan, along with Spider, jumped backwards as the mob tried to stomp Spider into the ground. Then he raised both his hands high enough that his fists, which were gripping his humongous battle-axe, were both above the top of his scalp, and with a mean-sounding grunt, he slammed it down, breaking off a piece of the side of the mob’s shin armor and hitting for 1,322. Then he turned to look at Jimmy. And it was a look that Jimmy understood very well. He opened his mouth to speak. And Jimmy, realizing his position was in jeopardy, decided to beat him to it.

“I know!”

“Do you? You need to multi-task, kiddo. You’re focusing too much on one aspect of the raid. That’s what a raid captain does. Not a raid leader.”

Jimmy nodded. “Fine. Donovan, I’m delegating you to handle rotating aggro among the tanks.”

“All right then. Better fix this problem soon, though. Just so you know, the reason—”

Jimmy flicked his eyes upwards to the top of the imp lord’s head. And thank God, he could see for himself what the issue was before Donovan actually gave voice to it. This was good, because he was not about to be continually one-upped by this dude.

“BG3!” he shouted out. “BG4!” The moment he called out the names of those battlegroups, Donovan closed his mouth and gave him a nod, which Jimmy did not require as he didn’t need Donovan or Zephyr’s goddamn fucking help to be a raid leader! He was getting tired of them acting like they were still in charge and could rip control of the raid back from him at any moment for any reason. This was such disrespect. He didn’t need their goddamn supervision, okay? Why would he? In terms of dungeon knowledge, those two were like cavemen compared to him despite doing this all their life!

I need to just cool it, he told himself. Those two don’t know shit, and they’re trying to make me look like a rookie. I know way more than they do, and I gotta just be confident in that fact.

Yeah. He needed to not let it get under his skin. At any rate, he was more than happy to turn all that frustration and energy into a loud, angry demand as he addressed the members of BG3 and BG4. “Guys! What gives, man?” He pointed his staff above, gesturing at the top of the raid boss’s head, where a bunch of red down arrows should have been. “I told ya’ll to debuff the boss. Now we’re wasting our energy hitting this thing and it ain’t doing shit!”

“We did debuff,” one of the members of BG4 argued. “Everyone did. And then we buffed our own and started shuffling around. They must’ve worn off before we could—”

Donovan and Zephyr both darted their heads Jimmy’s way. Kalana stopped what she was doing, narrowed her eyes, and dashed backwards. Once again, it felt like time had paused, but only for a moment. Something was about to happen: something that both of them saw but Jimmy saw, too. And unless he gave the command to deal with it immediately, they were going to wrest control of the raid away from him. He was sure of it. He had to deal with it right now.

“Everyone get behind a shield now!” he cried out. “Do it right now. Stop what you’re doing and get behind a shield. Go, go, go!” he shouted at them.

Ishina’s father looked around as though confused. “Why, what’s—”

“Go now or you’re dead!” Jimmy interrupted. “Tanks, raise your shields high! Protect whoever’s behind you!”

In a mad scramble, Jimmy watched as every adventurer without a shield other than Donovan and Kalana made a wild rush towards those who had one. Jimmy shouted at them to move even faster. Because he, like Donovan and Zephyr, knew exactly what was about to happen. And to Jimmy’s utter misery, it seemed that Donovan and Zephyr had picked up on it even faster than he had. By several entire, valuable seconds, too.

It's because they got in my head. That’s the only reason. They’re making me play worse by getting me tilted! Jimmy shook his head and chided himself for still acting like this was a video game. It wasn’t. But even still, that was what happened. It had to be. Those two clueless, babysitting idiots couldn’t possibly—under normal circumstances—have picked up on this before him.

Right now, above the imp lord’s head, a series of white, elongated strips of light were rotating around and around, faster and faster. As they did so, they continued to split, creating more white strips and then even more thereafter. Just from the shape and outline of the light, Jimmy knew they were going to transform into some kind of sharp projectile: and that was exactly what they did.

Becoming silvery, metallic, and very, very sharp, there were more than a hundred of these objects now floating up above. Each one looked identical to the other: like someone broke off just the blade part of a shortsword and discarded the rest. And these blades were beginning to turn, tilting downwards.

“Take cover!” Jimmy cried. “If you’re not a tank, get down! If you’re a tank, cover us!”

Even as the imp lord continued to deliver a punishing series of sword slashes to Spider, who seemed mentally capable of taking any amount of pain, a series of hissing noises filled the air: a distinct sound that reminded Jimmy of incoming missiles. Jimmy took cover behind Ophelia Graven, who knelt down and raised her shield above them both. The hissing then grew louder, taking on more of a whine. And this continued unabated for just a few moments. And then came the contact.

CLACK!

CLACK!

CLACK!

A genuine sense of terror spread among the raid as the shield-less adventurers tucked their heads into their chests, placed their hands over their heads, and kept low to the floor, forced to rely on their fellow adventurer to survive. One after the next—and then many all at once—a series of cracks created an almost firecracker-like symphony of noises as these blades came raining down. And though it was probably only about five seconds between the moment the first landed and the moment the last did, it felt way, way longer.

CLACK!

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

Just a moment before the last few had fallen, the sound of a man crying out in pain and anguish reached his ears. Jimmy, risking leaving cover, ran over to him. “Oh, shit! Hey. Hey!”

He was an older-looking man wearing a set of chainmail armor. One of the blades had pierced him directly through the heart, and blood was dripping out of his mouth. He looked as though he wanted to speak, but he couldn’t. And it was only right now, after all this time, that it actually, truly occurred to Jimmy that people really could die from this. People did die from this. And if this man died, he would be the reason for it. There would be no respawning. There would be no “come back next week.” If this man died, Jimmy would be the reason it happened.

I can’t let him die!

Jimmy, acting quickly, yanked the blade right out of the man’s chest. He knew he probably had a minute—or maybe even just seconds—to save this man’s life before it was too late. And healing magic was not going to cut it: not for a wound this serious and deadly. No, that would require something far, far more powerful than what any of the healers on this raid could provide: even the best of them.

Having yanked the blade out of the man’s chest, Jimmy threw it off to the side. Then he called on Bank of Storage. Acting as expediently as he could, he grabbed one of his Red Rejuvenation Stones and his only purple Rejuvenation stone out of storage. He doubted he’d need the yellow. The man hadn’t lost that much blood. The damage was more to his internal organs.

Without wasting another moment, Jimmy slapped the purple down onto his chest. It shattered upon impact and disappeared. Then he did the same with the red. Now, he stared into the man’s eyes, desperately hoping not to see the light of life leaving them. For a few seconds, it seemed as though it might have been too late after all. But then the man coughed. Soon after, he choked. And about five seconds following that, he sat up, grabbed his axe, wiped his bloodied mouth with his opposite hand, grabbed his shield, and returned to his feet.

“Thanks, kid.” With that, he just went straight back into the fight.

“You’re welcome,” Jimmy muttered.

Getting back to his own feet, Jimmy was glad to see that BG3 and BG4 had finally issued a fresh round of debuffs, reducing the boss’s armor, magic resistance, strength, dexterity, and even poison resistance. This was good. Jimmy raised his staff and called down a mine right below where the boss was already stepping. He followed it up by casting his other two area-of-effect poisons, though he cast them high up in the air near the boss’s face to prevent any friendly fire. Now, with all three on the boss, and each ticking away for around 2,500 damage a pop, his Breath of Invigoration bar filled up in no time flat, and he buffed himself.

There we go, he thought, feeling rejuvenated. Not long after that, he decided to give the buff to Kalana, who was going absolutely wild now that she was doing a bit more damage. In fact, everyone was. All at once, the entire raid’s output seemed to multiply tremendously. But the distribution wasn’t equal by any means. Though the adventurers using melee weapons were now able to at least make a dent, it still wasn’t anything significant. But the archers and mages, on the other hand, were absolutely annihilating the imp lord.

Jimmy watched as a tall man in a white cloak wielding a spell sword slashed at the air; each time he slashed, a wave of fire in the shape of the blade would whoosh through the air and slam into the raid boss. The first of these waves hit for 5,207 damage, the second hit for 4,911, and the rest fell somewhere between. Fluffles, too, was now back to dealing rapid-fire damage, more than 1,200 a lightning bolt. Almost—but not quite—every mage was now delivering a real hurting to the boss, whose HP was finally starting to steadily decrease.

HP

4,937,006/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

“Keep it up!” Jimmy shouted out. “Actually, no, wait. Stop! It’s gonna spin! Change formation! Tanks line up, everyone back!”

Imp Lord Tzumazleth extended its arms to both sides of itself and began to spin on them, his purple-glowing blades blurring together. A bit slow, but still on time, every tank and off-tank on the raid—all fifteen—formed a ring with one another and got behind their shields, trapping the boss inside while everyone else stayed behind them. The result was that the boss bounced around the hastily established perimeter like a ping-pong ball, slamming into one tank, blasting in the opposite direction, and then finding itself pinging off another.

This continued for the full eight seconds, and then things returned to “normal,” with Maric feeling ready to once more take point on main tanking. This was good. Jimmy smiled. He was finally succeeding. The mages and archers began once more unleashing hell on the boss, dropping him even lower and lower as the tanks had everything under control. The only thing they needed to watch out for was that damn blade-summoning attack. But having survived it once, they were all prepared for it—at least Jimmy was pretty sure that they were.

“Oh wow!” an adventurer cried out after Jimmy cast Breath of Invigoration on him. “How is this even a real buff?”

“I know, it’s amazing, right?” Kalana asked. With virtually unlimited stamina, the girl was now doing cartwheels, backflips, and any other manner of ridiculous acrobatic stunts in an attempt to hurt the boss a little quicker. It was also terrifying to watch, because for some reason, she seemed to want to climb up to the thing’s face while insisting everybody keep attacking as normal. This was beyond unnerving to watch. Jimmy found himself in utter awe as Kalana dodged incoming arrows and magic from her allies with an almost casual ease while she tore into the back of Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s neck, hitting for an astonishing 8,255 or more each time she pulled one out and plunged the other in.

Slowly but surely, the adventurers became accustomed to the imp lord’s variety of attacks. And though Jimmy had hoped the boss wouldn’t call upon it, the boss did end up using the rain of blades thing twice more in the next few minutes, though unlike the first time, everyone managed to get out unscathed. For now, things were starting to go really smoothly. The support was continually debuffing, ensuring they were constantly able to actually hurt the thing, and the tanks were doing a pretty okay job of holding it together. Though some were faring worse than others.

Thus far, no one had died, but given the boss’s tremendous strength and fast strikes, numerous adventurers had taken incredibly painful-looking hits, and on three occasions, a red stone had needed to be an administered. And on one very scary occasion, Ophelia had mis-timed a block and ended up losing an arm, a leg, and a big piece of her jaw. Jimmy was sure she’d end up dead. She’d been horribly disfigured and gushing so much blood it looked like a murder scene. Yet incredibly, with two yellows, two reds, and a single purple, she was back to her beautiful self within three minutes.

“Nothing compared to that fucking dragon,” she’d muttered, still missing a piece of her chin at this point. It had been regrowing even as she spoke. “Compared to that, this isn’t a damn thing.”

Donovan grunted in agreement. “Fucker changed us all, that’s for sure.”

With things mostly under control, Jimmy began looking around for any inefficiency he could find in an attempt to hopefully speed things up and get this over with. Each second this dragged on was a second where it all had the potential of falling apart, and God, he was so eager to succeed. He wanted so badly to complete his first raid as raid leader: especially a high level one. This would open up so many doors for him in the adventuring world. All he had to do was get through this boss, which was steadily approaching death—just not quite fast enough for Jimmy’s taste.

HP

3,774,577/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

Reapplying his poisons and spreading around his buff whenever possible, Jimmy carefully concentrated on the outgoing magic damage, particularly from BG3 and BG4. Frowning, he was gripped with the same problem as earlier: it was too damn hard to see everything. He had to constantly turn his head around, lean over people, shove people aside, etc. It was so hard to tell what was going on. Eventually, however, he was able to get a good enough look at things to spot a very real and very serious problem. And it was only now that he remembered something he honestly should’ve considered this entire time.

Light magic.

Two of the mages were dramatically underperforming compared to their peers. One, a man in a very flashy golden robe, was extending his staff and firing off bullet-shaped streaks of light that were actually too bright to look directly at; these only hit for around 900 damage, which posed as one piece of evidence that Tzumazleth was light resistant just like the Sneering Imp Warriors and Sneering Imp Troublemakers had been. This was doubly confirmed as he saw another person, the woman in the elegant, red, and flower-embroidered dress, sending out those exploding, level-45 wisps she’d told him about earlier. Each time one would sail across the boss room, fly upwards, and detonate with a blinding flash, the boss would be struck for less than 500 despite it looking like such a devastating attack.

Tzumazleth is light resistant. There’s no doubt about it.

As Jimmy recalled, Zach discovered that at least some of the imps were actually weak to dark. And though that didn’t definitively imply that Imp Lord Tzumazleth would also turn out to be weak to dark, there was certainly a decent possibility, and it was a great place to start.

“BG3, BG4!” he called out. “Stop using light magic if you can avoid it. In fact, this is for the whole raid: if you can use dark, use it!”

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence,” Zephyr said with a chuckle. Jimmy turned his head. The man had just finished delivering the fourth in a chain of attacks with his Artifact-rarity sword, and now, after yet another, quick slash, the base of it had turned a very dark, shadowy black. Jimmy observed as Zephyr, with a shrug, jumped forward and whipped his blade across at the level of his chest, moving from left to right and delivering a powerful, rushing slash that incredibly struck the boss for 6,200 damage despite only hitting its knee. It also caused the same darkness to be found in the base of the weapon to filter upwards and cover the entirety of the blade.

It’s weak to dark all right.

The moment Zephyr landed, he hopped up again while slashing directly upwards; for the first time, his sword was cleanly cutting straight through the armor, leaving a nasty-looking trail of bloodied, exposed skin from its lower ankles and up to the front of its shins. It also did 12,925 damage.

Now, the bladed part of Zephyr’s sword was even darker and more shadowy than the base of the weapon, and as he began to fall back down, he swung his weapon yet again, but this time in the reverse direction, slicing his sword right back downwards. This caused an actual spray of blood to shoot out of boss’s lower leg while dealing an incredible 17,621. This also put his sword in its final stage of its four elemental stages. Zephyr’s entire weapon had become darker than night itself, and it was casting shadows along the concrete flooring. And unless Jimmy was hallucinating, there seemed to be ghostly whispers coming off the blade, too.

God that weapon is sweet.

Delivering one final, dark-infused slash, Zephyr sliced open the boss’s ankle, cutting so deeply and with such force that, along with dealing a simply mind-blowing 105,211 damage, it caused Imp Lord Tzumazleth to briefly fall to one knee, where it remained for several seconds before picking itself back up again. Unfortunately, following Zephyr’s next attack, the grip of the weapon lit up green, which meant it had shifted, probably to wind.

“Who here can use dark?” Jimmy called out, satisfied that he was right about the boss’s weakness.

“I can’t,” one of the mages replied. “Sorry, Jimmy.”

“Me neither,” said another adventurer: an axe-wielding off-tank who was putting out fairly respectable numbers while sparks danced off his weapon. “Sorry, bud. Dark and light are kinda rare. I can only use fire and lightning.”

“Wind only for me,” Alixa said, shrugging.

Hearing denial after denial, Jimmy felt his hopes begin to slump: until a woman’s voice called out to him. “I can make use of dark magic,” she said.

Jimmy turned to look at her. She’d been the woman in the elegant, red, one-piece dress who’d been summoning the level-45 exploding wisps from a plain wooden staff that was rounded on both ends. “I can use dark wisps instead of the light ones,” she said. As if to demonstrate, she waved her staff in the air above her back and forth. Smoke then began to trail from the tip of her staff as a bead of sweat slid down her face. This smoke coalesced, became rounded, and now, a level-45 wisp that was every bit as dark as the ones earlier had been light took off with a dull buzzing in the direction of the raid boss.

Jimmy felt a degree of satisfaction as he saw the wisp collide with the right side of Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s face, detonating with a pure black explosion for 44,210 damage. But that wasn’t all. The area of impact continued to burn with black flames for around five seconds after the explosion, and each second, it seemed to deal another 8,200 damage to the boss.

“Will that do?”

“Yep. Sure will! Thank you, uh…” Jimmy read the name above her head, visible only because of the fact they were in a raid together. “Thank you, Emala.”

“You’re welcome!”

“Keep it up,” he said, smiling politely. She seemed like a sweet, but somewhat eerie woman: one that was incredibly powerful and clearly had magical abilities that were almost certainly “unique.” Jimmy was surprised he had never heard her name come up in conversation before, as she struck him as someone who was unusually powerful for a mage: enough so that, by now, someone ought to have caught wind of just how freakishly strong she was.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t even primarily a user of magic, was she? She’d been buffing earlier, hadn’t she? And debuffing. And healing. And unless he was mistaken, she’d even briefly gone in for melee attacks on the boss at one point. She was really gifted. Someone to keep an eye on for future raids. For now, though, he decided to cast Breath of Invigoration on her, as she looked like she was becoming a bit exhausted.

“Hey, Jimmy, I can also use dark,” a male voice said, the sound of it coming from somewhere behind and to his left.

Jimmy turned around to see Ishina’s father removing his arrowless quiver from his back. His muttered something under his breath, and then his left hand began to darken until it became covered in a sort of shadowy haze, which lasted only until he tapped his palm three times against the quiver. Afterwards, it returned to its normal color, and he once more strapped the quiver to his back. Now, whenever he reached behind, made a pinching gesture, and pulled an arrow into existence from out of nothingness, the arrow seemed to be giving off some of that same, shadowy aura. And boy did it hurt the raid boss. Firing one straight between Tzumazleth’s eyes, he contributed a very-much appreciated 18,225 damage.

Okay, now we’re in business. Yeah boy!

Things were going very good now: very, very good. As Jimmy ordered BG3 and BG4 to apply a fresh set of debuffs, and as he himself reapplied his poisons and offered Breath of Invigoration to whoever he felt was struggling the most, he was starting to feel extremely positive about the way things were going. Too good, actually. No, wait, seriously. Too good. Way too damn good. He frowned as he saw the boss’s HP draining in a way that was just too fast. And yes, that was a problem.

HP

2,605,001/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

Jimmy spun back around, and sure enough, the source of the massive increase in damage was none other than Emala, who aided by Breath of Invigoration, had begun launching an endless volley of level-45 dark wisps at the raid boss. This, on the surface, seemed like it should be a good thing. But it wasn’t. God, it really wasn’t. And thus, amid all the triumph he had only just been feeling, a fresh wave of panic crashed into him, but he nevertheless kept himself from drowning beneath it.

“Emala, slow the hell down!” he shouted at her. “You too, Ishina’s dad!”

“My name’s Frenk.”

“I know, I can see that. But look, dude, you and Emala need to slow down now. You’re gonna pull aggro off the tanks if you don’t chill. I know I said I wanted you both to do more damage, but not this much this fast.”

“Understood. Sorry,” Frenk said. His daughter had gone completely quiet and still looked terribly embarrassed.

Jimmy turned back around—only to see more of the wisps flying at an even faster rate. Now, with a growl, he spun himself one-eighty and glared at the woman. “What did I just say, Emala?”

Emala’s face had become flush with what Jimmy took to be worry. “I…I can’t control it,” she said.

“Stop sending those out!” He pointed at the gigantic ring of wisps that were surrounding her like some kind of army. There were dozens of them.

Emala visibly gulped. “You don’t understand,” she said, as one of the wisps broke apart and buzzed their way over to the raid boss. “Once I summon them, they go to their target after a random delay, and they do this no matter what. I can’t control them anymore.”

A sinking feeling erupted in Jimmy’s stomach. A sense of wrongness too great to ignore. “Rope out!”

“I can’t,” she said. She glanced downwards, and Jimmy saw that there was a rope by her feet. “For some reason it’s not working!”

Because she’s technically still attacking. It probably doesn’t work if you’re still actively launching an attack!

Jimmy swore. How could he possibly know this would be a consequence of him giving her the buff? He tried to keep himself calm. Nervously, he glanced over his shoulder. The rate things were going, there was no way the tanks were going to be able to taunt aggro off her. “Is there anything you can do?” Jimmy asked her. “To stop or slow down.”

She shook her head. Then her face turned a very sickly, pale shade. “Am…am I going to die, Jimmy?”

“Absolutely not.”

She trembled as two more of the wisps broke free of the ring around her and slammed into the boss for extraordinary damage. Jimmy tried to think. In the past, no matter how serious a situation or how deep of shit he stepped in, he always found a way out of it. It just had to come to him. So he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and as he did, more wisps continued to rapid fire off the stockpile of them she’d summoned. And it was only after another five had erupted into black flames, which left a lingering, powerful DOT, that Jimmy, to his own horror, realized he couldn’t think of anything. Nothing at all.

“Maric!” he called out.

“Yeah?”

“Taunt harder. You’re gonna lose aggro!”

“Huh? Why?”

He pointed at Emala. “Because she’s doing a third of all the damage that’s being put into the boss right now.”

Donovan and Zephyr snapped their heads in Jimmy’s direction, and they did so in such a way that told Jimmy they were genuinely surprised. Up until now, they’d been acting as though they were “secretly” in control despite Jimmy refusing to let that be the case. But now, they gave up the charade.

“How the hell is she doing that?” Donovan shouted out.

“My buff,” Jimmy told him. “Oh, wait, I never told you about Breath of Invigoration.”

Briefly, he described it, and a look of both amazement and immediate frustration came over Donovan—and Zephyr, too. They began exchanging concerned glances, and then Donovan, without even asking for Jimmy’s input, said, “Emala, rope out.”

“Like I told Jimmy, I can’t.” Another wisp shot forward, hitting the raid boss for 21,600 damage. “Don, please, I don’t wanna die. I didn’t mean to screw up. I swear.”

“It’s all right. Here’s what we’re gonna—”

“I am the raid leader,” Jimmy insisted, speaking over him. “You said so yourself. Here’s what we’re actually gonna do. We’re gonna assign you two tanks, and—”

“It’s on me!” she shrieked, even as Jimmy was speaking.

Out of nowhere, literally between one hit and the next, the gigantic raid boss stopped attacking Maric, pulled back a bit, and then turned its body towards Emala. And now, for the first time during this raid, Jimmy felt true fear. Because if there was one thing an entire lifetime of gaming had taught him, it was how terrible a nightmare it was whenever a caster got aggro during a raid or even just a normal encounter fighting mobs.

For every ten people who played ranged DPS, eight of them would begin running around in circles like a headless chicken instead of standing still and waiting for a tank to peel. Or better yet, running to a tank. They all did the headless chicken run thing. And that was in a game. If people in a video game were too scared to control their impulses not to push buttons on a keyboard, how much worse would it be in real life? It could spiral into a raid wipe very, very easily as the healers struggled to keep up, then ended up inadvertently pulling aggro onto themselves, as well.

Oh no, he thought. Please, God, tell me this one bitch’s wisp spell ain’t about to fuck over the entire raid.

Its wings buzzing loudly and in a way that mimicked a chainsaw, Imp Lord Tzumazleth lifted up into the air and then soared across the room in her direction. “Do not run,” Jimmy said to her. “Emala, please, listen to me. Do not—”

“Help me!” she shrieked, taking off at a sprint in the wrong goddamn direction—completely opposite to where the tanks were residing.

“Don’t run!” Jimmy cried, chasing after her. God, what he wouldn’t give to be able to use an ability like Phase Rescue right now—assuming he was recalling the name of Zach’s ability correctly. “Emala, stop!”

The boss flew over his head, and then it slammed itself down in front of her. Jimmy didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to get to her in time. The boss raised its swords. This was it. He was going to be responsible for this girl’s death. He’d given her the buff that she’d used to pull the aggro. He’d basically caused this. His desire to be a raid leader…the only thing he was going to lead was to this girl’s brutal, violent death.

“Please!” she screamed. “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna—”

The boss slammed its swords down, and then it was done. Or at least it should have been. It really, really should have been. Yet against all odds, Emala, at least for the time being, continued to live and breathe. And it was all because Kalana existed.

On the heels of a bright orange flame that ripped across the world even faster than the boss and even burned itself through the boss for 8,211 damage, Kalana appeared from out of this flame. She then spun her body around, yelled out a battle cry at a volume louder than what Jimmy thought her capable of producing, and she swung her two comparatively tiny daggers at the two incoming swords, which were so large when contrasted with her own weapons that it was almost comical.

Yet incredibly, as Kalana shouted out with the exertion and effort of her dual parrying strikes, her two daggers knocked away the two blades and temporarily put the raid boss off balance. She then seized on this moment to sheathe her daggers, pick up Emala, throw the girl over her shoulders, and take off like a rocket; this, as more wisps continued to shoot out from a cluster of them that maintained a constant position above Emala, where they would then explode against the out-of-control raid boss. Worse, the mad dash to keep Emala away was starting to have unintended consequences. Jimmy screamed for them to stop as the boss, in its pursuit of Emala, knocked over and badly injured several out-of-place adventurers as it ran, rather than flew after her.

“Looks like ya need some help,” Donovan said to him. “You did good for your first time. Zeph and I got it from here.”

“Nah, man!” he shouted at them, furious more so at Donovan than Zephyr. “Don’t fucking ask me to call it quits. All right? It’s starting to look like ya’ll want me to fail.”

Donovan glared at him, and it was intimidating to say the least, but Jimmy was now too charged up to care. “What I wanted was for you to experience a challenge so you could see shit’s not as easy as you think it is, kiddo.”

Jimmy looked over his shoulder and witnessed the raid turn to chaos as ten adventurers were trampled; he hoped to God they didn’t die. He rubbed his head in frustration. Everything was going to hell. And so quickly, too. “Well, you got what you wanted.”

“No, you fuckin’ idiot!” Donovan growled at him. He even struck Jimmy, hard, across the back, and it almost took Jimmy off his feet. “You met every damn challenge Zeph and I expected you to stumble on. This ain’t one of them.”

“It’s true,” Zephyr said. “We wanted you to learn some humility, Jimmy, but you were better than we thought you’d be. Much better. We fully expected to step in at some point, but as of just a few minutes ago, we realized you really were about to lead this raid to success. But this is not something you could’ve predicted, and neither could we—so we need to take control of this situation. You’re just not ready to handle a raid crisis like this yet.”

Jimmy exploded with anger. “I am! The two of ya’ll don’t realize I was brought here by a literal God to do this.”

“Don’t mean shit,” Donovan said, spitting out a wad of saliva. “If you don’t step aside, you’re gonna learn the lesson Zeph and I wanted you to learn, but it ain’t gonna be the way we wanted you to learn it, kiddo.”

“You’re wrong. I’ve got this.”

Donovan and Zephyr exchanged glances. “If it looks like he’s going to get a single one of us killed, we’re taking back leadership,” Zephyr said.

“Obviously.”

Jimmy ignored their bullshit. He was the raid leader, and he was going to fix this. Yet to his horror, he noticed that at least twenty members of the raid—a full third—were currently desperately calling upon their recently purchased red stones to either mend their own broken bones or the bones of those nearby. The boss’s wild dashing around had somehow done more damage than any of its actual, deliberate attacks. “Did anyone die?” he shouted as he ran past the bunch of them. “Please tell me!”

“I think we’re all okay,” Reni Sarwin moaned. “You did good. Get Don back in charge now.”

Jimmy hissed angrily. “I’ve got everything under control.”

Reni sat up, looked at him, and then plopped himself right back down. “We’re all dead.”

I’ll show them, Jimmy thought frantically. I know I can do this. I’m not gonna humiliate myself in front of everybody!

To Kalana, Jimmy shouted, “Kal, you need to stop running!”

Without looking back as she led the boss on this wild chase, she said, “I can’t! Emala will die!”

“Yeah, but…but we gotta figure something else—”

Jimmy dove forward and hugged his knees into his chest as Imp Lord Tzumazleth stormed by. He came so close to being trampled to death that it didn’t seem real. To both sides of him were small craters in the concrete, mere inches from where he was standing. He’d literally slipped through the gap in the thing’s two legs. Quickly, he scrambled back up to his feet. Then he saw another explosion of black flame as the imp lord was hit yet again.

Maybe I can work with this, he thought, as a return of his confidence and enthusiasm began to pick up. I can! I can actually work with this!

“Kal! Change of plans. Don’t stop!”

“Wasn’t gonna!”

“Tell Emala to keep summoning wisps.”

“Ask him if he’s crazy,” he barely heard Emala say while she continued to ride on Kalana’s back.

“Jimmy! Emala wants to know if you’re—”

“I heard! And nah, I’m not. I know how we can beat this thing now!”

“How?”

Jimmy had to really raise his voice to be heard as they were now on direct opposite sides of the large, fishbowl-shaped room. “You’re just gonna kite it while we blast it away from behind!”

“Great idea!” Kalana shouted back to him. “But first we need to—uh oh. Jimmy! Above you!”

“Above me?”

Jimmy looked up. And then he recoiled in horror as he saw dozens upon dozens of the blades floating stationary near the ceiling in the middle of the boss-encounter room. They were nowhere near the boss itself, yet they nevertheless had been summoned. Jimmy had no idea that was possible. He thought the boss summoned them over its own head—which was how it’d happened the past few times. But now, with the boss running around, it somehow left its own attack behind, which meant Jimmy wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see it.

Oh fuck. Fuck this is so bad. I really don’t know what to do this time.

“Get behind the tanks!” Jimmy called out. “Everybody, hide behind tanks! We all about to get hit with that rain of blades attack!”

“Again?” a bunch of them cried out as they glanced upwards.

Adventurers, many with broken or fractured bones, all picked themselves up and either walked, limped, or ran towards whatever tank or off-tank they could reach. Yet it wasn’t clear they’d make it in time as the blades began shooting straight down as though attached to a propulsion system. Hissing sounds formed in the air, and the adventurers, some with shattered legs, nevertheless dove to cover near the tanks. Jimmy looked around, terrified that some would die—that even one would die. But thank God. Thank the dear Lord in heaven—everyone made it to cover.

Wait. Not everyone.

Why am I still standing out in the open?

Something flicked by Jimmy’s vision. Something moving fast and making a loud hiss. Then something else crossed his vision to his side. “Move!” Donovan shouted, shoving him. With a pain so great it made Jimmy wonder if he’d just broken his ribs, Donovan bulldozed him out of the way of a falling blade that would have gone straight through the top of his head, likely killing him instantly with no chance to use a healing stone. Yet even as his body was thrown off to the side, he still did not escape unscathed. And now, for the very first time since not only coming to Galterra, but in Jimmy’s entire damn life, he discovered what “pain” was.

Having narrowly avoided decapitation, the blade, which moved too fast for Jimmy to track with his eyes, began to spin as it fell its last bit of distance. This spinning gave it a slicing force. And slice was exactly what it did. From the top of his left breast all the way down to his hip, Jimmy was opened up like a man on an operating table. He could see it as it happened. He could feel it as it happened, too. He witnessed his robe slice clean off his body, suffering a full armor break, and then the skin cut off in tandem.

What…?

Jimmy’s mouth opened. His lips quivered. He trembled. He glanced downward. He could now see into his own ribcage. He could see the bone. He could see the blood flooding out of him. And it hurt. It hurt so much he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even react. But more than anything else, he now truly, without even a shadow of a doubt, knew that everything that was happening to him was and had been real.

The pain was so intense on such a level that even the slightest lingering doubt was chased right out of him. The pain activated something inside of him that he didn’t even know was there at all. Just yesterday, when an assassin had come to claim his life, he had stood up to the man bravely. Because there was this tiny part of him: this tiny, but very significant part that did not believe any of this was or could be real.

But the pain? It made it real. He took a hit so bad that it made it real. He screamed out in agony. This wasn’t a simulation. No computer program could hurt this bad. He was really here, in real life, in this dungeon, and he was dying. His biological processes kicked the ever-loving shit out of his brain, and it took control over him. In this moment, he feared death. He was afraid. Nothing in his entire life had ever hurt him this badly. With his hand trembling as fiercely as someone suffering from hypothermia, he touched his bloodied, torn, and ripped flesh. Then he fell onto his side, shaking fiercely.

I’m dying. Momma, please help me.

It hurt. The burning. The squeezing. It was a deep, fiery, unbearable sensation as blood drained out of him. He’d failed. He’d been too confident. He tried so hard, but that woman was wrong about him. He was no leader. He didn’t belong here. Why did he ever think he could do this?

Momma, please, it hurts.

He was delusional. He was a joke. He wanted his mother. He felt cold. So cold. The pain started to lessen a little bit the more he bled.

But he didn’t cry. That just wasn’t his way. No, instead he merely hated himself. Donovan and Zephyr were right. Even as he bled out onto the concrete, he could see the raid falling into shambles. Or it almost did. Maybe that would’ve been better in a sick sort of way. With him having been downed, the two guild-leaders regained control. With powerful, booming voices, they began barking out commands. Donovan shouted that if Kalana didn’t stop running immediately, he’d “cut Zach’s balls off.” This seemed to work. Donovan managed to wrangle a bunch of tanks to form a protective wall in front of Emala, and slowly, control was regained. Expertly, too. They knew what they were doing.

I’m a fucking fraud, Jimmy thought. He watched enviously as Donovan and Zephyr performed so well as raid leaders that they almost made it seem boring and uneventful. Was that how easy this raid would have been all along if they’d been leading from the start? Had this raid only been challenging because Jimmy had been the one leading it? It sure seemed that way.

I’ve been lying to myself. I’m nothing!

What a shame that the last thing he’d do before he closed his eyes forever was open them properly for the first time. Donovan and Zephyr managed to get things back under control in a way that actually seemed trivial.

Why couldn’t I do that? How did this happen? Goddammit! Why couldn’t that be me?

“Zephyr, handle shit here.”

“I got it. Take care of Jimmy.”

“Jimmy?” Kalana and Tena asked. Then both turned their heads in his direction, and both yelled more loudly than even he had after being struck, storming their way over to him along with Donovan. Jimmy could only see Donovan’s plate-covered feet as they ran across the concrete towards him. He already had a red stone in his hand. “You’re all right, kiddo,” he said.

If I somehow live through this, no one is gonna ever trust me again after this. I blew it.

Resentment and anger boiled over, and Jimmy, with the last bit of his strength, actually tried to swat the red stone out of Donovan’s hand. This seemed to make the man laugh. It was almost as though he approved of Jimmy doing that. Painfully, Donovan pressed the red stone down onto Jimmy’s torn apart skin. And now the pain increased tenfold as his body began to heal itself. At least before, the blood loss had made him numb. Now, the burning, stinging, and aching were back. He screamed. How could he not? It was like being cut open in reverse. It burned. It sizzled.

“Jimmy, baby,” Tena said. “What happened?”

“Talk to us,” Kalana added.

“No thanks.”

He looked away from them. He called upon Bank of Storage even as he was healing. It didn’t work. It had an hour cooldown and he’d used it just before. But wait. On the ground next to Ishina was the rope she’d dropped at the start of the raid. He crawled along the concrete over to it, and he grabbed it. Then they tried to grab him, but it was Donovan of all people who pushed them away. “Let him go.”

As bad as that just hurt, the agonizing pain was somehow still not even a fraction as crippling as the humiliation. He didn’t want the girls pitying him. That made it a billion times worse. He couldn’t stand being here a second longer. He’d disgraced himself. Luckily, Ishina didn’t seem to mind if he borrowed her rope. She said nothing to him. He didn’t care either way. He was going to use it no matter what. He wanted out. Because fuck all this.

He was done.

He was done with this.

No more dungeons. No more raids. He was quitting. He was done. Donovan got what he wanted after all. He was calling it quits. He didn’t want to see or speak to anyone. Maybe ever again. He just suffered a humiliation so terrible he doubted anyone in this world could understand it. All that confidence. All that bluster. Only to be proven wrong in such a pathetic way.

“Done with all this shit,” he muttered weakly, barely able to remain standing. Even as the boss was being finished off, he roped out. “I’m done.”

“Jimmy, you can’t—”

“Get back to the raid, Kalana,” Donovan growled at her. “I’ll deal with him later.”

*****

He’d made too much noise. Now, Zach steeled himself as he heard what sounded like hundreds of marching boots, and he spotted dozens of flashlights approaching the boardwalk. It was okay, though. He was prepared for this happening. Right now, he needed his heart to be cold, so it was. He needed his senses to be sharp, and so they were, too. What drove him was knowing that, despite the horrors he’d inflicted so far tonight, he truly was doing what was right.

He didn’t want to do this. He hated it. He hated it so much. But it was right. Because if not him, then who?

As shouting voices, marching boots, and more flashlights approached, Zach activated Shadow Merge. His hands, feet, and even his equipment all faded out of existence. He was like a ghost. For thirty seconds, he was completely invisible to the eyes of anyone who wasn’t an Elf or a Gnome. He needed to move fast.