(Zack)

Finally! We have reached the second monster I really wish to fight before we leave the arctic forest! Whoo-hoo!

"Okay, guys," I say. "Stay out of the clearing. The moment you set foot into it, it will attack. Trust me when I say that the four of you won't actually be able to handle it alone. Nik and his crew are probably the only team that's able to, and they're much stronger than you. Got it?"

The rest of my team nods, and Max starts making a chair out of the snow, so I turn and approach the clearing. More than thirty feet in height, a plump man wearing black and red with some white trim stands in the center, a giant sack slung over its left shoulder, held by its left hand. Santa Slimes are scattered about, white slimes with red and white Santa hats and fluffy white mustaches.

But it's the boss boy I'm here for.

Santa Boss Level 50 Health: 1,000,000 Mana: 5,000,000

Same as the ones which spawn for the holiday event. In this special zone, Holiday Monsters can spawn, even, though they're localized to a specific area of them. I may have known about this from books in the Dark Temple.

"Ho, ho, ho!" The Santa Boss exclaims. "Lookit what's here! A naughty little boy, are we?"

Wait, is this, like, some preprogrammed comment it makes? Because that's exactly what the last one said when I fought it!

The Santa Boss then holds up its right hand, and coal begins shooting out. My last fight against one, they shot out extremely fast. I had to push the limits of my speed to avoid them. What an idiot I was back then, allowing a piece to strike me. I should have known it would've broken my leg. But I wanted to see how much damage it would do, so that happened.

With this fight, the coal moves just as fast. But I'm much, much faster than I was before, to the point that the coal doesn't actually seem to move that fast to me. It's like playing catch.

Which is exactly what I do. I catch the coal and throw it back at the Santa Boss, adding a bit of flame to it as well, creating miniature Fireballs at the moment of catching. My flaming coal shots then impact the Santa Boss, hitting it in the garb, the hands, the neck, and the face. They take out around 5,000 Health each, which is satisfying.

It's nowhere near what my aura-boosted, Rage-fueled attacks were doing in the last fight, but who the fuck cares? I'm having fun!

After around thirty shots being thrown back at it and plenty more taking out the Santa Slimes, the Santa Boss decides to stop taking its own attacks, as they strike it even when it attempts to move out of the way or swat them aside. The monster reaches into its sack and pulls out one of its exploding presents.

I remember them, because that was the first one the old one used against me. Metallic red wrapping paper with up with gold ribbon. It exploded when it was thrown at me.

My snowball does not set it off early, so I fling a Fireball at the present while it's still in flight to me. My attack sets off the package, causing it to explode in the air, and my second Fireball, launched just in case the first one failed to blow up the package, its the Santa Boss in the arm.

It continues to pull out the presents; the red ones tied with golden ribbons which explode; the green ones wrapped with gold, which release a swarm of twenty-five Santa's Elves; the golden-wrapped ones which explode in a shower of light; and the black-wrapped ones with golden ribbon which explode in a cloud of coal dust.

I'm not sure why they're all tied with golden ribbons, but whatever.

For the elf-generating ones, I destroy those in flight to ensure they fail. For the golden ones, I do the same, mostly because they're annoying, even if I'm able to actually avoid them. As for the black ones, I don't really care about those, as they're easy to avoid and are only a danger if they catch on fire or I actually pass through them, since the former issue would potentially hurt or burn my clothes and the latter would result in me choking on the dust.

The Holiday Boss continues its attacks, occasionally swapping to throwing coal at me, firing them at even faster speeds than before. I continue to evade and throw attacks back, enjoying myself. I could definitely just wipe this thing out if I wanted, but I'm having far too much fun.

So I only attack it by throwing its coal back at it, just because it's fun to use its own weapons against it. The Santa Boss uses the milk to restore its Mana several times because of how much it attacks me without doing any damage at all.

However, because my attacks are doing so much less damage, it takes a long time for it to whip out its cookies, which are what I really wanted it to do. As soon as it does, I fling Fireballs at them, burning them to a crisp.

Immediately, the Santa Boss grows its horns, it face turning crimson.

"YOU NAUGHTY CHILD!" It roars in rage. "YOU WILL SOON BE NOTHING MORE THAN A PANCAKE FOR BREAKFAST!"

It charges at me, just as the old one did, and sadly, I don't turn into a Dragon. I suppose I'm far too powerful now for that to happen to me. There's no actual danger here unless I actually wish to get hurt.

The Santa Boss makes it halfway to me, then I Dash forward, striking at its right kneecap as I pass. With how little it reacted, I'm betting my movement wasn't even visible to it. There's a loud cracking from the bone breaking, and the monster drops to one knee as it lets out another roar.

I jump up and flip down, performing a heel-drop on its right shoulder. As soon as my heel connects, breaking it, I use the impact to launch myself again, this time spinning. It takes only a moment for my heel to connect with the Santa Boss's neck, and the sheer impact of the strike sends it flying towards the side.

It might be a giant, heavy beast, but I have over 2,000 Strength.

The impact sends me flying back, so I flip and land in the snow, then launch myself at it again, kicking the brute in the gut. I land in the snow again, then jump up, delivering one final blow to its head, crushing its face in with my right foot.

The monster dies, and as I land, I discover that it fades away as soon as it dies. Since I was unconscious last time, I didn't actually see it. The big sack drops to the ground as the rewards notices appear in my vision, informing me of the Bonus Experience and other rewards I obtained for killing it. I land on the ground, then stretch and look at my team.

"Yo!" I wave. "It's dead!"

As they walk over, I tap on the Santa Sack with my middle finger as I think 'Access'.

Santa's Sack 1 use Open?

"Yes," I answer, and my reward appears.

This time, everything is in multiples of ten. Ten red Christmas Ingots, ten green Christmas Ingots, ten boxes of candy canes, ten hams, ten crates of Neburis White Wine, ten Shadow Ingots, ten Blood Ingots, and thirty platinum.

It's not like it's actually all that important, but I wasn't going to leave a perfectly good thing sitting there to be left to rot for eternity. That would be a waste. Even if not using these are going to be bigger wastes.

Well, actually, I might just head back to Maelnor at our next City and drop off all of the Ingots for Jackson to do with as he pleases. For free. Or give them to Nik. I'm sure the Dark Order could make use of them with the time we have left.

"And, that, folks, is how you kill a Santa Boss without taking any damage!" I declare.

"Boss," Max asks me curiously, my team having arrived over here now. "Are you going to open the presents?"

"Hrm," I think for a few moments, then shrug. "I still have most of the presents from the last one I fought. Like, all but six. And since you get a hundred and seventy-five, that's a fuckton. The whole 'random rewards' thing sort of put me off to doing that, since I don't know if I'd use them or be able to sell them."

"You get presents for killing that?" Gavin asks.

"Yeah," I nod. "Five platinum, ten diamond, fifteen gold, twenty silver, and twenty-five copper. The reward is random based on its tier and the person who opened them. I received Primordial Essence, plus a blanket and pillow last time."

I open up my Inventory and pull out the winterbird down pillow to show them.

"Sadly," I say. "They're pure-white, so I've never really used them, but they're really comfy. They're actually more comfy than the stuff from the Dark Temple, and are rather expensive."

Luca immediately decides that he has to feel it, and ends up rubbing the pillow to his face as soon as he notices how soft and fluffy it is. I laugh as I remember Gold doing the same thing to the blanket when I actually obtained them.

"So you're going to waste the rewards?" Gavin asks, his confusion clear on his face. "Why even go up against it, then?"

"Because I could?" I offer as an answer. "The last time I fought one, I activated some primal instinct of mine, being a Son of Existence able to turn into a Dragon. The boss had nearly killed me, and I ended up taking on a Dragon Form. I might have been hoping that fighting it again might help me figure out how that happened, but sadly, I'm too powerful for that primal instinct to kick in now. At least, against something like this."

I pull the pillow back from Luca, who looks rather disappointed as I send it back into my Inventory.

"Don't worry," I ruffle his hair. "If you want, you can use it at night from now on. And the blanket, too. I'd honestly forgotten about them until we were talking."

"How do you forget you have things in your Inventory?" Gavin asks. "Isn't it in the list?"

"Erm," I say. "Actually, my special Inventory doesn't have a list. It's not a part of the System, so it doesn't come with it. I haven't mentioned that before?"

"Maybe you have?" Gavin seems uncertain. "It's possible I've forgotten. So you aren't going to open the presents?"

"No," I answer. "I mean, I could give some to you guys. The reward is based on the one opening them, not the one who earned them. Max has seen Gold's boots and beanie that came from them. Clothes and such are bound to the opener, meaning their effects only work for them. He also got a box of dragon jerky."

"That be good!" Max exclaims. "Gold let Max try some of it! He had a whole crate of it, and it lasted him a loooong time!"

"But honestly?" I ask. "Most of it will probably be winter-related stuff, which would no longer be relevant once we leave here."

"Wait!" Gavin exclaims. "You said Gold got a beanie from it? Is that where he got that hat he's always wearing? I've been wondering about that."

"Yes," I nod, glad to see Gavin is a bit livelier about something than usual. "He's quite attached to it. As I said, we could open the presents, but most of what we get would be useless to us. Winter-based gear, or just gear in general that may be equal to or less than what we already have, and components for crafting. And since we're traveling away from any smiths and craftsmen, the latter would definitely be useless to us."

"That makes sense, I guess," Gavin says.

"Don't worry," I smile. "We've still got plenty of other things we can use. I got ten hams from the kill, so if you guys want, you're able to make ham for dinner a few times. Anyway! Let's get moving! We went off-path for this, and will need to hustle if we want to ensure we're in the next City by nightfall!"