Chapter 158 - The Last Stand (VII) (1/2)
The sky is becoming darker the farther we move away from the castle. The ground is also swarming with monsters. The other players were looking at the ground and were not sure whether to be terrified or to be excited.
”Careful looking down there, remember that if you fall to the ground, I will not rescue you.”
Hearing my cautionary warning, they retreated from the edge of Leona even though they want to see the situation below. With all the noises coming below, anyone who is curious enough would be tempted to look at the edge.
”I never knew that the person who helped us defeat the boss we are tasked to kill and also helped us defeat Serbal. We never suspected Queen Tanya to be a real queen and is currently the ruler of Sandurk! How come you managed to have her help out in the battle?” Harmless Sparrow asked.
”Oh, I also want to know that! You seemed very close with her even though she was an NPC! I never knew you can do that with NPCs and befriend them like people!” Dolly added.
”You guys didn't care much about the friendship levels whenever you interact on an NPC, aren't you?”
”I notice that feature but I don't usually care about it. So does that mean it has something to do with that feature to have at least this kind of friendship to an NPC?” Harmless Sparrow opened her menu and started to tinker on something.
”That is the one. It is the main reason for the NPCs attitude to you. If it is the negative numbers on them, that means they are hostile and don't want to do anything to you. If it is zero, they are in a neutral state and will interact with you like how you two just met before, and the more it rises, the more the NPC will be familiar with you and will talk casually too.”
”So that is how you did it and you did many quests from her which raised her favorability with you. Damn, I wish I knew that sooner!” Dolly said.
Players always tend to just ignore the favorability meter. They always thought it was just a meter to raise to a certain degree so that they get a quest or get discounts in shops whenever they buy but it is a meter of how your friendship is going in with the NPCs. If you have no friends in real life, then at least you got some friends in the game.
While the Pioneers accepted me as the leader, some don't think of me as one and they are still stealing glances at me with resentment look in their eyes. But who cares about that, this game has plenty of those players and it would be weird if you don't see crybabies and whining players for not being able to get whatever they want.
I look up at the sky and the swirling darkness we have just seen in the distance is now right in front of us. The dragon is also slowly marching towards the capital along with the monsters and demons walking beside the gargantuan beast.
”Sh*t! That is too big! Are we sure that we can take down that dragon with just these numbers?!” one of the tank players said.
”Believe that we can get this done without dying! We have to show the queen that we are strong enough!” a warrior said.
The others just went silent and just continue to stare at the situation below. After all, it is a boss, and treating it like a normal boss in the game is just not applicable as the normal bosses are very clear that they are quite weak. Raid bosses, on the other hand, has a very large amount of chunky health bars and a very chunky amount of defense that even I shouldn't scoff it off.
”Leona, drop a bit lower on the ground, we will be attacking here on out.”
Leona lowered her flight height until it was almost near the dragon's head.
”The warriors who can deal quick high damage will have to go down by either jumping or wait until Leona lands on the ground. The rest will have to just go down once Leona already settled down to the ground.”
”Huh? Why are we going to jump? Isn't that's just asking to dive to the dragon's mouth and die?!” the warrior from earlier retorted.
”Idiot, he means to jump up in the air and do an aerial strike. I have done this once in a battle and I must say that it is a very good damage-dealing attack. It also inflicts AOE damage so if we are in a high elevation like this and the enemy is not suspecting anything from below, dealing damage immediately is a good thing,” the sole berserker in the pioneers said. He is a famous berserker during the past timeline and he has done some significant feats by himself too. He is known in the past timeline as the Wandering Berserker, Bloodaxe.