"What do you mean impossible?" I said. "Is there a game bug that stops people from completing it?"

"No, like it's impossible in your situation to complete it," Nic clarified. "You've seen what the Mirdabons can do, right?" I nodded. She hastily added, "I mean, yeah, you've seen it because...Again, I'm sorry for—"

"There's no other way than to kill Mirdabons?" I interjected. "No other monsters I could kill or other quests I can complete for experience?"

"Without entering the village?" She paused, looking up at the sky to think. Then she shrugged. "Not that I know of."

"But I'll fail the quest if I interact with Kurghal Village."

"Yep, that’s the challenge. The Expeditionary Legion has investigated that quest line before. According to Luds, SpartanDonkey told him that killing Mirdabons is the only option. You see, Luds was a Contractor for the Legion in the past when they were more active around here. SpartanDonkey was the head of the Mardukryon mission. He still is, I guess, but he's the only remaining Legion guy here in the mountains so there's no one else to lead. I can try asking him about it when I see him, but I don't know when that'll be. And he'll probably just tell me the same thing."

"Is it really impossible to kill a Mirdabon? Mehubanarath gave me a sling, Maybe I can try, er...hit and run tactics." I forgot the term for it in computer games. It was at the tip of my tongue.

"You mean kite them?" Nic said.

I nodded. That was it. Kiting. "I can shoot them from a distance, and then just run when they come near."

"Mirdabons are really fast in their enraged mode, but you can outrun them. The problem is you’ll have to stop and turn around to shoot them. They’ll quickly gain on you. And if one of them manages to bite you..."

"It's over for me if that happens," I finished her sentence, recalling the various negative statuses a single Mirdabon bite inflicted.

"What if I repelled them with the ringing of the golden crystals?" That could help with the kiting, but that'd mean I had to do it in the forest. With practice, I might be able to pull it off.

"That mechanic is for new players to navigate the forest safely. Once a Mirdabon is enraged. It won't listen to the crystals anymore."

"Oh, okay...But I may be able to take at least one of them down before the rest gets me, right? I can just keep on doing that until I level up." It'd take time to practice and master kiting the killer balls of fur, but that was a given if I wanted to complete the quest. Kid Herald would spend hours practicing the mechanics of a raid, why couldn't Adult Herald do the same?

Nic's conflicted face told me I misunderstood something. "You see..." she hesitantly said, "Mirdabons don't work that way. To get experience from Mirdabons, you need to eliminate the whole pack." My eyes widened. But she wasn't done with her explanation. "And each time you kill one of the pack, the rest grow stronger, bit by bit, so it gets harder and harder to kill them all."

Special mechanics? Fine, no problemo.

If I couldn't do it solo, then there was no shame in asking for help. People who aided Herald Stone in his time of need were rewarded accordingly by the heavens. By asking for help, I was giving others the opportunity to be blessed.

"Can you help me kill the Mirdabons?" I asked Nic. My friends and I used to do something similar to help others complete difficult quests in Nornyr Online—whack the boss until they were nearly dead and let our beginner friend deal the killing blow. I assumed that was also possible here in Mother Core Online.

"I'm really, really sorry," Nic said, "I can't."

Why not? I demanded in my head. Of course, I didn't say it out loud. I thought I had made sufficient preparations to garner her sympathy. Killing a bunch of Mirdabons should be easy at her level. Should I bring up Luds' prank and guilt-trip her? No, something less drastic first. "I understand if you're busy—"

"No, it's not that. I really do want to help you, but I can't."

"Is your damage too high?" I considered telling Nic to unequip all her gear and lightly poke the Mirdabons, but that could come out as too demanding. And the Mirdabons would still probably die with one hit from her. "Maybe you can protect me with a spell instead."

She shook her head. "I can't help you in any way because it will violate the conditions of the quest. It includes any form of help from players who've entered the village. That means trading, attacking the Mirdabons, buffing you, all sorts of stuff.

“At first, I didn’t believe Luds, but he showed me the quest details since he had completed it. He also told me that's why he thought it was harmless to prank you with it—because you can't complete it anyway. Jeez, that jerk. It's a stupid reason. Really immature and…"

Nic droned on about her gripes with Luds and Wharton, and how much she missed their other friends who switched races, looking for literally greener pastures. I listened to her with only one ear, processing all the information I had gathered. A quest this hard should have an extravagant reward. It might be possible the developers messed up—that did sometimes happen with terribly unbalanced quests.

Or is this quest truly hard?

When Nic ended her venting, I ignored all of it and inquired, "How did Luds do it? How did he complete...Oh, I know.” The simple solution was so simple. “He had a party of new Mardukryon players to help him?"

"How did you know?” Instead of being amazed at my genius, Nic's brows furrowed with suspicion. “I don't think the Expeditionary Legion spread that information. And most Mardukryon guides are outdated. They shouldn't include Mehubanarath's quest."

"Just a lucky guess," I quickly said. I hoped it didn't damage my image of being an absolutely clueless noob to be pitied. "I would've immediately thought of that solution if I had friends...uh, no, I didn't—Erm, I usually play solo is what I’m trying to say." And this wasn't even a lie. Who the hell would I invite to play MCO with me? My business partners?

"Luds told me he completed it with six other people," Nic said, skirting around the awkward topic of my supposed loneliness. "Each of them is assigned to one Mirdabon of the pack. The goal is to kill all the Mirdabons at around the same time so they won’t level up and become stronger. But even with a party of seven, Luds mentioned they kept on failing for three hours straight until they found a pack of five Mirdabons—that's super rare to encounter because there's usually half a dozen of them in a group. And then they got lucky with one of the Mirdabons getting stuck behind a tree for several seconds.

Still, only one of them survived, ChillyPotatoes—he already quit playing Mardukryon and became a Wraith Sprite. Actually, it was lucky only ChillyPotatoes lived because he got all the experience and leveled up. He completed the quest, became stronger with the rewards, and helped Luds and the rest. Maybe a party of ten, or a dozen, can comfortably finish the quest."

"I don't know where to find that many people," I said. I could offer my employees a bonus if they made Mardukryon characters to help me with the Big M's quest, but it felt I was cheating Goal #1. I should uphold similar circumstances of when the Goal was originally made. That meant I shouldn't throw money at the game. I could easily become a whale now, that was for sure, but I would be a disappointment to my kid self if I went down that path.

"The reward is a strong Ocadule and gears, but since you don’t have any friends—” She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oops, sorry! I didn’t mean to say that. Uh, I mean you can find stronger Ocadules later on. You’re not missing out."

"Yeah, you’re right…" I said in a defeated tone. But I didn't want to give up on it just yet. An advantage was an advantage. And it might be more useful to me because tank characters were a pain to level.

"I'm going to log off soon," said Nic. She pointed in the direction of Kurghal Village. "How about I accompany you there? You must've died a lot already."

"Five, six times," I absentmindedly mumbled in reply, focused on deliberating what I should do with the Big M's quest.

"Those Mirdabons really give new players a hard time, huh?" She walked ahead, beckoning for me to follow her. "Come, I'll protect you from them. They won't be able to kill you anymore. I'm sure you'll enjoy it in the village."

I didn't follow her. "My deaths aren't all because of Mirdabons," I softly said, more to myself, as a new idea popped into my head. My first death as a Mardukryon was because of... I slowly turned around to face the edge of the cliffs.

I made up a random excuse to log out, telling Nic the food I was cooking might be burning. Before I left, she insisted I promise her I wouldn't quit as a Mardukryon, which I obliged. And then we parted ways. I didn't immediately go back into MCO, deciding to take a break for about fifteen minutes because I wanted to make sure she was no longer there when I tried my plan. If I discovered a new way to complete the Big M's quest, I wouldn't want others to know about it.

"There's nothing," I muttered while trying to search for anything that could help me with Mehubanarath's quest.

I did find information about not touching Mirdabons. They were old forum posts buried by new guides, which was how I missed them. There were also plenty of video compilations of hilarious Mirdabon deaths, but I thought they were only jokes so I skipped them earlier.

I leaned back on my chair, staring at the ceiling. I only have one-half of the solution.

MCO had fall damage, and I was certain Mirdabons would die if I had a way of chucking them off the cliffs. I was going to shoot one of them with the maximum range of the sling, run all the way to the cliffs...and then what? Throw myself into the vast emptiness?

That seemed to be the only option to lead a Mirdabon pack to their deaths.

But I would die as well.

I needed to survive, or at the least die after the Mirdabons, so I could gain their Essence and Gli. How do I do that since I’d be the first off the cliffs? If only I could find a ledge that I could survive landing on.

Time to go back to the icy mountains and find my dream ledge.