It didn’t take long before the sounds of roaring echoed out into the valley, and tension grew among the adventurers, the weapons in their hands gripped ever so tightly. Just any moment now, and the raging monster would come bursting out the entrance.

They could already feel slight tremors on the ground, and the doors of the dungeon visibly began to tremble just ever so slightly.

If the undead Naga were to appear, it would come barging into view from the right side of the door frame. This meant that the adventurers would have little to no time to react, not to mention that firing their spells recklessly upon sight might hurt the person luring the thing out.

As such, there was to be a leader in charge of timing their attacks. It wasn’t Zhang anymore due to his plummet in popularity after the whole Crimson Menace fiasco. It wasn’t the Crimson Menace herself either, as she was still slightly under suspicion. As such, the task to lead had fallen upon the one and only… Heather.

“Uh… who was she again?” An adventurer in their midst called out.

Well, she wasn’t a bad leader by any means, just not very well known, especially when compared to Zhang and the Crimson Menace. If reputation couldn’t help you, then it would have to be first impressions. The thing is, her party consisted of only three people, which could be interpreted as a lower capacity to lead. Regardless, the responsibility still lay on her shoulders, and she wasn’t about to disappoint.

By the way, her blessing allowed her to selectively harden parts of her body, which allowed her to become very durable. It was a type of metal magic, which was very common for the people born in Dragonsteel, but her ability to use it had reached the next level.

She could harden her nails to become weapons, harden her joints to prevent them from breaking, and was incredibly acrobatic and agile to boot. And that only scratched the surface of what she could do! Unfortunately, she had a weakness, which was coming up empty-handed in the ranged attack department, something that Zhang had her beat. In the upcoming battle, she would have to fight on the front lines.

Ezekiel, who was positioned towards the back, suddenly perked up. He shouted to Heather in a hurry.

“I hear it! It’s coming!”

Heather didn’t miss a beat and quickly ordered everyone to begin charging up their attacks. The adventurers didn’t disobey, despite their doubts, and did what they were told.

“Heh. She’s trying to copy me.”

Ezekiel raised his eye at Zhang, who had just taken a jab at Heather’s leadership ability. He didn’t know what this guy’s ability was, but as ranged attackers, they had been grouped together at the back.

“Uh… you the past leader or something?” Ezekiel eyed the eastern man curiously.

Zhang didn’t say anything in reply to his question, but he was sure he could hear it. There was a slight frown forming on the man’s face.

‘Guess he doesn’t want to talk about it.’

Crash!

“It’s here! Hold your fire!”

Sweat could be seen dotting many faces as they anxiously waited for the order to fire. Almost everyone present had already faced a giant skeleton, and many of them have hears stories of what an alive Naga was capable of. Combined, they didn’t know what to expect.

Over at the entrance, Kayden emerged looking unscathed and beautiful. Yes, he was back to looking like goddess incarnate, but the air of elegance around him wasn’t present any longer.

“Uurk! My… stamina… hasn’t improved!”

“[Right. To improve your stamina, you have to increase your Endurance stat instead.]”

As he haggardly ran outside and tried descending the steps as fast as possible, he heard a loud crash come from behind him. Turning around, he could see the head of the Naga peaking out the gates, its massive, slithering body just barely the right size for it to fit through the entrance.

‘It’s close! Fffffffu—'

With a leap, he quickly skipped over half of the staircase and urgently stepped to the side. For now, his job was complete.

“Fire!”

An ear-splitting explosion that rocked the earth resounded throughout the valley, and the undead Naga was blasted to the heavens beyond. Kayden knew that this one volley wouldn’t be enough, many more would be needed to ensure its defeat. He then took this opportunity to silently slip away.

[Total combined damage: -243!]

“Yikes. Glad they didn’t hit me! Let’s get out of here.”

With a snap of his fingers, he turned invisible and easily snuck out of the battlefield. The sounds of massive explosions over the chants of hymns of adventurers threatened to blow out his ears, but the farther he got, the more soothed his ears. After all that running, he wanted to find a safe place to catch his breath.

He immediately spotted a nice spot some distance away, and eagerly ran ahead to sit himself on a smooth rock. Kayden sat down and quickly collected his thoughts. There has to be some sort of way for him to get the final hit.

“Operation Kill Steal isn’t looking very good at the moment. I don’t have any hyper-offensive skills…”

“[Well… maybe you can just use that other ability of yours…]”

Kayden waved it away.

“Out of the question. It barely works on the undead, anyway.”

“[If you say so... By the way, I do have an idea, but it’s quite dangerous. You’d probably die if you do this wrong, though, so are you in?]”

Kayden was intrigued and motioned for Hel to continue. Giggling, she began to propose her idea.

“[It’s simple, really. Transform into a bird, fly high above the Naga, and then transform into the heaviest animal you know. Let gravity do the work for you!]”

Kayden was speechless.

“D-do you want me to die? Falling to the ground as a bird knocked me out! Now you want me to fall as a… I don’t know… a thousand-pound bear? Besides, I’m not sure if I can transform into one without looking at the real thing.”

“[Hey, there’s no time like the present! If you really can’t transform, I’ll bring you to the realm of consciousness and show you some footage.]”

Kayden had his mouth agape in disbelief. We’re really doing this?

“What happened to our lives being tied together or something? Aren’t you afraid that I’ll die?”

“[Not really no.]”

Seeing the sour look on his face, Hel cleared her throat before continuing,

“[Let me explain. Remember the time you fell down as a bird? Well, it seems that only some damage carried over from the injuries you suffered as a bird. Dying as an animal does not actually kill your body, though of course, some injuries are to be expected.]”

“So that means…”

“[Yes. The plan is very feasible. Think of transforming as gaining a new set of health points. While excess damage might carry over to your human form, as an incredibly bulky bear, I doubt the excess damage would be severe enough to kill you.]”

Kayden picked himself up from the ground and stretched his limbs.

“Fine, I’m convinced. Just as a precaution though, I’m going to ask for some help. I doubt that dropping out of the sky as a bear would make for a very accurate attack. Tying down the Naga before I do that would ensure I won’t pancake immediately upon doing this suicidal attack. In the meantime, I’ll be trusting you with the calculations and timing!”

“[Right.]”

Turning invisible once again, Kayden ran towards his allies.

***

After spending a few minutes chasing after his scattered party members and explaining things to them, Kayden wasted no time and quickly got to scaling the mountain. Though he would never forget the strange looks they gave him when he explained his request. Now, all of them thought he was some kind of suicidal weirdo, and his cheeks couldn’t help but burn up.

Thankfully, they all agreed to his weird request, probably as thanks for all he had done. The strategy was simple. Aisha would temporarily lead the adventurers to lure the Naga to a specific spot for Kayden to target. Now all that was left for him to do was to dive-bomb the undead.

The mountain he was scaling was steep but didn’t serve much of a challenge for a master acrobat like Kayden. Though getting up there did take a toll on his stamina, his breath getting increasingly haggard the closer he got to his destination.

Eventually, he reached a point on the mountain where a somewhat flat surface lent him some well-deserved respite. Looking down from above, the adventurers looked no bigger than a bug from his point of view, bugs that swarmed all over a snake.

He estimated that the spot he was in should be high enough to cause some serious damage. Both to the target, and himself. If it wasn’t high enough, he could simply fly high enough as a bird.

‘Man. That thought is terrifying.’

The more he thought about it, the more he got scared, so he quickly put it out of his mind. Now, he had to send a signal to alert his allies that he was ready. With a finger gun, he shot an illusory red flare into the sky, which should be visible enough for Ezekiel to see.

He had briefly considered replicating the fireworks that Alice had made, but it was just a huge waste of mana to do so. It probably wouldn’t look as cool with this daylight anyway. And speaking of mana…

“Hmm? I wanted the flare to be bright red, but it’s a dark crimson for some reason.”

“[I see that. Looks like the mana poisoning is kicking in. Using mana potions in this kind of environment is like playing with fire, you know? I won’t stop you since it’s not life-threatening, but keep in mind that this isn’t the worst of it.]”

Kayden nodded and didn’t say anything after that. He was trying to gauge how the adventurers were faring against the Naga, and his position up high on a cliff certainly didn’t help. It’s not that he was afraid of heights, but rather, his vision had been rather blurry lately…

‘W-woah…'

He blinked once, and that blurriness didn’t go away. He blinked again, but it remained stubborn and refused to clear up.

He began rubbing his eyes vigorously to no avail before finally giving up and sighing.

“Nevermind… Hel, just tell me when to jump.”

“[Yeah.]”

And so for the next few minutes, Kayden simply sat there, enjoying the mild breeze and the spectacle below. Just as expected, the Naga was slowly but surely moving in his direction. A slew of magical attacks blasted it from a single direction, forcing the Naga to back into a corner, the agreed-upon spot for him to land on.

It blew a jet stream of poisonous, green gas at the adventurers, trying to break their formation. Unfortunately for it, the gas was very easily dispersed with various kinds of wind magic spells. If this had been within the confines of the dungeon, it wouldn’t have been nearly this easy.

Any moment now, he would have to jump, and it honestly felt like a coin flip for whether or not he was going to land accurately.

Suddenly, a moment of clarity hit Kayden.

‘Uh… why am I doing this again?’

Boom!

An earth-shattering sound resounded from the bottom of the cliff, like a massive explosion had taken place. In fact, it probably was an explosion. Kayden could feel the tremors and shockwaves even from up here, and the small seed of worry in his heart began to blossom.

‘What the heck was that?’

And things were about to take a turn for the worse. For him.

“[Okay. Jump.]”

“Huh? What? Now?”

“[Yes! Now! Go!]”

Faced with no other choice, Kayden hurled himself off the cliff with a small running start. The abruptness of the whole thing made him not jump as far as he would have liked, but it was too late to change anything now.

Shutting his eyes, he quickly thought of the same bird he had transformed into before, and when he opened his eyes, he was met with surprise.

‘I did it!’

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any time for him to celebrate.

“[Bear. Now.]”

Kayden let out a deep breath… as a bird. It came out sounding like some kind of weird squawk.

Having fought bears before, even killing one or two, Kayden was familiar with its size, weight, looks, and even what the meat tasted like. Surely, that would be good enough for him to transform.

He shut his eyes once again, and then opened them. This time, he was a fully-grown bear, with fur the same color as his hair. Its teeth and claws were sharp and menacing, but they certainly wouldn’t help here.

Before Kayden could regain his bearings, like an anvil, the speed of his drop increased drastically until he looked like a brown, blurry missile shooting straight toward the ground.

“[Kayden! Don’t shut your eyes! Aim yourself!]”

His new-found beady eyes snapped open, but unfortunately, it was too blurry for him to see much. Everything just spun, so, much. Not only that, with his body performing somersaults and flailing wildly in the air, he was starting to get very sick.

‘Urrrrgghhhh!’

BAM!

…

[Skeletal Naga has been killed! You gain 42,465 EXP! (Kill)]

[You level up! (Gain one stat point)]

[You level up! (Gain one stat point)]