“Before you interrupted us,” Kezo testily replied to Luds, “we were discussing our plans for the Great Hunt. Now, if you can move along—"

"Great Hunt?" Luds said, his voice quivering as he struggled not to chuckle. "You guys are joining with this…this lineup?” He pointed at all of us. “And with a new guy to boot. What the hell is this supposed to be?"

That is a good question, Luds. Our lineup was laughable on paper, I'd give him that.

Megan and Nitana were decent but woefully underpowered if the Rotted Cedarlyon was the benchmark. That mini-boss was supposed to be equal to the weakest monster during the Great Hunt, and although we have improved our DPS, I'd say we were still too slow killing it. Only Kezo could be considered a strong player among us. Unfortunately, he couldn't use his full potential because he was part-timing as a tank.

Laughable on paper….

But Luds wasn't aware that I, the Great Herald Stone, was yet to unleash my greatness which was truly great! Only that I had no clue what I was supposed to do.

All in due time. I still had several days to rack my brain.

"With Jensen's party dissolved,” said Wharton, “that's one less competition. More of the tastier monsters for us."

"Too bad about Jensen." Luds sighed as he shook his head. "I was really looking forward to the Great Hunt with you guys again. This should've been payback time for the bosses you stole from us the previous hunt."

"We didn't steal anything from you," Kezo said. "How many times do I have to explain this? The Great Hunt is a free-for-all event. Everyone is free to hunt everything. No monster has anyone's name on it. It doesn’t matter if you attacked—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Still would've been fun to have a rival, you get what I'm saying? But I'm happy that you're still here, Cheeseman. And it's...uh, what's the word? Inspiring! Yes, it's inspiring that you're still going to try the Great Hunt with this...party." Luds snorted as he held back his laughter.

"We're just going to do our own thing, Luds," said Kezo. "Everything doesn't need to be a competition. I'm sure we'll have a good hunt here and there."

"Cool, cool. You can kill Fulgurian Mammoths and other mobs. Just be content with the scraps and—huh, what?"

Nic elbowed Luds. "Let's go. We're bothering their party meeting."

"That reminds me," Luds said as he turned to me. "New guy! Did you know that Nic was giving me an earful every day because she thought I pushed you to change races? But here you are. Not a quitter, aren’t you?" He gave Nic a sidelong glance. "See, told you he can take a joke."

"Hey, we did think he quit, didn't we?" Wharton said. "I remember you were—ow!"

Luds kicked his friend behind him with his hind leg. "You got it wrong, Wharton. I was worried when we didn't see him in the village after—what was it? About a week since we first met? But I know deep in my heart that the new guy wouldn't leave after our harmless prank with the Mirdabons. How are you doing there, new guy?"

"Doing good," I said, smiling at him. "Kezo's taught me many things about Mardukryons." He actually didn't, but I was subtly hinting at Luds that he was useless while Kezo was very helpful. Kezo did give me a ton of items and Artas.

I seemed to have struck a nerve because Luds exclaimed. "Is that so? I can teach you some tips and tricks too! You should join my party instead. A newbie is a light baggage for me to carry and—"

Nic stepped forward. "I'm glad that you're still here, Herald. Glad to see you've found a party." She pushed Luds and Wharton. "Go! I have to check papers for tomorrow's class."

"Hang on," Luds protested. "I wasn't finished talk—"

"We need to complete harvesting and brewing now, or I'll log out and you can do it yourselves." Nic's ultimatum worked. Luds and Wharton walked away from us to whatever they were supposed to attend to.

"See you at the Great Hunt, Cheeseman!" Luds shouted from a distance.

Kezo groaned while shaking his head. "I've been trying to avoid Luds for a while since my old gang quit. We probably should find a different meeting spot. I didn't know they farm a part of the tunnels. "

"What a jerk," Megan angrily huffed, placing her hands on her hips. "Nitana and I also avoid talking to him if possible. He seems really happy if he knows someone is quitting."

"Just don't mind him," drawled Nitana. "You're exerting too much energy for someone you shouldn't think about. I don't think I have ever replied to him. And he probably hasn't noticed it. He just likes listening to himself talk."

"We should focus on preparing for the Great Hunt," I said. So that we can wipe Luds' smug smile off his face, I added in my head. "We shouldn't be distracted during practice time."

"Practice. Right you are!" Kezo apparently regained part of his energy, but I could still tell he was forcing himself to be upbeat. "Off to find the Rotted Cedarlyon we go."

It was as if we were a completely different team when we faced the Rotted Cedarlyon once again. The DPS of Kezo, Megan, and Nitana was on another level this time around. My new debuffs also played an important part in the team effort. Kezo’s life bar was fluctuating less because I weakened the damage dealt by the mini-boss.

We didn't bother clearing the surrounding mobs so the first wave that came had numerous monsters. I managed to safely herd them for Nitana to kill. Without any prior discussion, we wordlessly worked out a more efficient way of clearing them.

I'd circle the perimeter of the boss area, just outside the thick tree line delineating it, as the monsters chased me. Nitana would then continuously send her fairies my way. When they were about to land, I’d pause for the mobs to catch up and get caught in the explosion. This way, the mobs wouldn't group up in high numbers that it'd be overwhelming for me to survive.

And while doing my rounds, I'd cast [Gnawing Rot] and [Withering Brand] on the Rotted Cedarlyon each time I passed by. The Energy consumables Megan gave me yesterday came in quite handy.

In all, there was a tremendous difference compared to our performance yesterday. We killed the mini-boss before it could call the second wave of monsters.

"Woohoo!" Megan cheered. She waved both her wands in the air and showered use with celebratory sparkles. "That was really fast!"

"Good job, guys," Kezo said. I noticed he didn't give us a thumbs up. He also wasn't looking straight at us, more to the side like he was preoccupied with something else. "I think we can have a break while waiting for the mini-boss to respawn."

"We're not going to try other bosses like we did yesterday?" Megan asked. "It's kinda boring if we're just going to hang out at the village."

"Those were weaker than this guy." Kezo jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at a pile of rotted trunks and cracked rubble—the corpse of the Rotted Cedarlyon.

Unlike normal monsters, the dead bodies of a defeated boss or mini-bosses didn't disappear into sparkling light. They remained as a marker where they fell, an indicator for other boss hunting parties that their target had been killed by others. On top of the corpse was the name of the party that killed it—for bragging purposes—and a timer counting down. That way, anyone who wanted to fight for the boss could do it the next time it spawned.

Kezo continued, "The other bosses we hunted yesterday will just be a breeze for us now."

"Then how about we hunt stronger bosses?" I asked.

Megan nodded. "I'm game for that."

Kezo opened his mouth to reply, hesitated for a second, and then scratched his horn.

"What is it?" she inquired.

"To be honest," he answered with an uncertain expression, "I did plan that we'll slowly move up to harder and harder bosses. I'm hoping we could snag an Elite or a boss here and there from the stronger parties during the Great Hunt. But meeting Luds earlier, I'm now thinking we should just stick to Fulgurian Mammoths, Cragodons, Fengharls—the usual event monsters."

"Why?" It was Nitana who said it. Which was surprising. I wanted to ask the same question but she beat me to it.

Kezo shrugged. "So it won't be stressful. For you and Megan, it'll be your last Great Hunt—"

"And also first," Megan said. "We tried before but just flaked on day one."

"I don't want your last event as a Mardukryon to be a stressful one,” he said. “It'd get really heated if we're up against other parties. Maybe we should just stick to the monsters we can surely kill. For Herald and I—and I hope Herald stays around for a long time—"

"I will," I told him. Luds bringing up Kezo's friends that left probably dampened his enthusiasm. This wouldn't do. The Great Hunt was the perfect opportunity to get back at Luds! We shouldn't settle for scraps because that was exactly what he predicted for us.

"Great that you're sticking with Mardukryon," Kezo said with a nod. "And that’s why I don't want a...bad experience...during the Great Hunt to discourage you. There are more Great Hunts to come. It's better to focus on farming Reward Totems for this one by killing the weaker event monsters instead of trying for the stronger ones."

"I don't have much of a say in this since I'm only low level," I spoke. "But I think we should aim for Elites and bosses. Megan and Nitana's last Great Hunt should be fun. We shouldn't be scared of the stronger players."

"That's right," Megan said. "Nitana and I already decided we'll do our best before we change race. It's going to be sad if we're going to aim low...the lowest...for our last Mardurkyon event."

I continued trying to convince Kezo, "If we can't kill any boss monster, then it's no big deal, right? Our party isn't expected to be able to do it anyway. But if we do manage to get one, then it's a huge win for us."

“We can definitely do it,” said Megan.

“Ditto,” agreed Nitana.

"But—" Kezo started to speak.

"And it's going to be lame if we play it safe," Nitana added. “No one wants a boring Great Hunt. I know I don’t.”

“We have nothing to lose by trying,” I said. And everything to gain by winning.

Kezo closed all of his four eyes and inhaled as deeply as he could. Then he opened his eyes and gave us a firm nod. "Follow me."

[Lvl 58 Living Statue: Zoar Elab]

The boss monster was a gigantic statue of a Mardukryon—a remnant of the great city in this area—that was pieced back together by a plant monster with dozens of vines. Both the plant and the statue had several golden crystals attached to them, undoubtedly giving power.

"This is our next sparring partner," Kezo said.