During my years in elementary school, I'd be excited to come home after school to watch TV, and maybe have some snacks made by Mum. In middle school, I preferred to hang out with my friends and dragged my feet going home. It was also around this time I started playing RPGs. And by high school, I'd spend every time free at PC Cafes. Mum had to threaten to ground me if I didn't come home on time.

When my world was turned upside down after what happened to Pops, I had to juggle several part-time jobs. At the end of a tiring workday, I wasn't looking forward to going home for some leisure time. Rather, I was desperate to rest.

As our business started flourishing, I morphed into a workaholic intent on finishing everything that I could fit in a day. Going home to sleep was simply a teleportation mechanism to the next piece of work the following day. More than half the time, I didn't even go home.

At more than thrice my age during my elementary years, I was once again excited to go home, this time to play Mother Core Online. Who would've thought this would happen in my future? Herald Stone, the Farseer, couldn't have made a prediction like this. There were times a few years ago that I thought I'd simply die from overwork and stress, but now, I was like a kid again.

I was back in my rented apartment at the Grand Scaups, lying comfortably on my bed with no pillows below my head and wearing my newly-bought neck brace foam, ready to enter the world of Hierakon once again.

A Hermit Crabore crawled over the boulder to my right and leaped down at me with its massive claws opened wide. I did a little skip to the left. It landed where I had stood half a moment before and ended up scooping earth. The Crabore to my front lunged with a claw. I held up my small circular shield; it connected with the claw. The next swipe, I let through, noting the damage I received—the chance to block didn't proc that time.

I had been testing Head-On Blocking for the past four batches of Hermit Crabores. The damage reduction was very noticeable.

While I couldn't block all attacks, especially if I made a mistake and got surrounded by four or five Crabores, smashing and snipping claws coming from everywhere, my survivability had massively increased. I came to realize that if I had more experience in this playstyle—which was very much alien to me—I could last longer in battle and actually stand my ground against five Hermit Crabores at the same time.

Right now, I was mostly running away each time my [Greater Pyro Shell] popped until I had killed a couple of them.

Facetanking would also add to my damage output and speed up the grind because I could consistently deal retribution damage. A new piece of armor donated by a very kind Hermit Crabore would help in this department.

Bramble Laced Flanchard | Item Level: 6

Rare | Med-Armor | Flanks

37 Armor

16 Constitution Rating

Requires: 20 Might, 25 Vigor

--------------------

+25 Retribution Damage (Physical)

+12 Vigor

"Come right in," I said with glee, "Just come right in, ladies and gentlecrabs!" I managed to find a perfect spot to funnel my enemies so they'd all attack me from the front.

Lodging myself between two large boulders with the mountain wall to my back, the monsters had no choice but to crowd in front of me. At times, they'd clamber over each other in their efforts to reach me with their claws, and that was extremely helpful because it messed with their movements.

Well...they could climb the boulders on my sides—a piece of cake for them with their abundance of legs—then drop right down on me.

And they did do that a couple of times. But after a few more tries, I managed to herd them in such a way that they wouldn't be too spread out when I took my position. I'd run circles around them first to bunch them up before heading to my new favorite spot to farm, second only to the cliffs.

I also had to take care not to retreat too far into this nook. All of them should be able to hit me even if occasionally. Otherwise, they'd try to look for other ways to attack me—and that meant climbing the boulders.

"Got you!" I yelled, raising my shield in time to meet a descending claw. "And you!" I shifted the shield to the right to stop a pincer attack coming from my left.

Crabores at the bottom of the pileup couldn’t bend the claws upwards to attack me. Instead, they tried to punch me with the human, or probably inhuman, hands growing out of their backs.

"That’s creepy as hell,” I yelled as I lowered my shield at an angle to block the punches. “Crustaceans shouldn’t have human hands."

Given I had intentionally trapped myself in a dead end, I couldn’t afford to make a mistake here because I had nowhere to run in case of an emergency.

Constipation level of focus was imperative to pull off as many Head-On Blocks as I could to make [Greater Pyro Shell] last as long as possible. I could only cast it every seven seconds. My shell was pretty beefy with all the six Lesser Skill points I had dumped into it—I had gained another level enjoying this seafood buffet—and my increased tankiness with all my new gear. Nonetheless, I was facing five Hermit Crabores, and if luck wasn't on my side, I'd have a couple of seconds naked with [Greater Pyro Shell] still in cooldown.

Whenever that happened, I'd cast [Healing Touch] and eat some of the plants I had harvested from the Golden Forest. I only had to keep it up until the naked Hermit Crabores died—there were usually one or two per batch—and I could more comfortably facetank the rest.

"You dropped nothing good," I said after the last Hermit Crabore died and I could leave the nook between the boulders. It was a repetitive slog, especially with my pitiful damage, but this was par for the course for a tank. And I wasn't new to repetitive tasks. Grinding in games, grinding in life, same-same. "Okay, time for the next—what?"

A new set of five Hermit Crabores waited for me.

Wait…not five. Six.

And one of them wasn’t like the others.

The [Lvl 13 (Elite) Hermit Crabore] had bigger claws than its normal brethren. It also had more hands than the others, allowing it to pile more stuff on its back—this meant extra work to knock off its make-shift armor.

Did that also equate to more rewards? Hopefully.

“I didn’t realize I had killed enough Crabores to spawn an Elite one."

I had come across the topic of Elite Mobs in my research before. They would spawn if a number of their normal versions were killed. The logic was that it meant a certain area had many players farming there and might be oversaturated. The Elites would provide a good opportunity for a large number of players at a location to band together to kill it and get extra loot. It would also, in a way, free up the normal monsters for the weaker players to farm while the stronger ones targeted the juicy Elites.

I was the only one farming here. Could hardly call it oversaturation. But perhaps because there were only five Hermit Crabores available, which I repeatedly wiped, that counted as too much farming.

"Don't mind if I do," I said as I flung a stone at the Elite Hermit Crabore. I had no idea how this guy compared to the Craggy Crabore—probably a bit stronger—but I had also gotten tankier. And my main problem with the Craggy variety was the healing. If this scavenger of a shellfish didn't have healing, I was sure I could bring it down. It was only a matter of time.

After I hit it, the Elite Hermit Crabore immediately launched itself in the air with its powerful legs, arcing towards me.

I continued forward. It landed behind me. The soil beneath my hooves trembled. My shell exploded—it’s an AoE attack!

Some quick healing and regeneration filled my health bar. [Greater Pyro Shell] had already cooled down before I started the fight so I was able to immediately recast it. I raised a brow at the ailment inflicted by that ground slam, slowing down my movement speed. I'm not going anywhere anyway.

I turned around and pelted it with rocks; I knew these guys had a hard time turning.

Once it had faced me, it smashed a claw downwards like chopping firewood. I blocked it with my shield. My shell didn't pop. Head-On Blocking for the win! My puny retribution damage nibbled its health bar. A few more hits and it finally exploded. By that time, I had a fresh new shell ready. Hey, this guy might be weaker than the Craggy Crabore.

It was a long fight because of all the crap it had on its back soaking up damage. But after it died, I found out that not all of the things it carried were junk. In the midst of wood, rocks, and broken armor, there was an Ocadule Shard.

Lvl. 1 Rusting Ground: Inflict a curse on a small area (limited to one), causing any enemies entering it to lose 5 armor for each second, up to a maximum of 35. This corrupted state lasts for 5 seconds after leaving the area.

Cost: 25 Energy

Duration: 15 Seconds

Cooldown: 5 Seconds

A Common Shard I could put into the free slot on my [Worn Duelist Peytral].

[Rusting Ground] was an AoE debuff skill that was helpful for physical DPS characters to reduce the defenses of enemies. Fortunately, retribution damage was also considered physical damage, affected by armor and other defense modifiers. That meant this skill was also helpful to me in a way. I had to check if [Greater Pyro Shell] was also considered physical damage.

I gazed at the Hermit Crabores, mulling over whether it was time to return to their Craggy relative.

I was confident I wouldn't easily die to that healing bastard. At this point, I might even be able to take on its charge attack—most likely not given just one of its claw slam moves could almost kill me before. But I could certainly facetank it longer, and in turn, deal more retribution damage.

But will it be enough to outstrip its heal?

The answer was probably no.

In times like these, a lonely tank with barely any damage had only one solution to killing an annoying quest monster like the Craggy Crabore—overleveling.