Chapter 66 - Hell mode again (2/2)

”If we had better equipment of leveled up to level 7, we could at least consider it as having made our best efforts. It looks like the developers intended even the players with the maximum allowed level to work hard to clear the hell mode,” said Tetsujin.

”Let us try it out,” said Merlin. ”At worst, we will die and lose 5% experience. We gained enough to compensate for that. But winning would give us first clear rewards which would be some of the best equipment in the game.”

His argument had a valid point. At this stage, it would feel awful to just turn back. Everyone in the team were also extremely tempted by the thought of the first clear. The temptation of the rewards finally had them vote to attempt the final boss.

As planned, they all were close to one another as the monsters closed in. Shadow and Tetsujin were responsible for handling the wargs and Blinding and Tang would tank the wolves. The remaining were just going to attack, and they need to focus their attacks on the wolves.

It was a decent plan except that it didn't work as expected. Shadow and Tetsujin were still successful in controlling the wargs. They manged to somehow keep the wargs in control. But the cinder wolves were something entirely different from the wargs.

When Shadow and Tetsujin were busy trying to hold the wargs at bay, the cinder wolves as expected attempted to aid the wargs by attacking Shadow and Tetsujin. Tang and Blinding covered them from the cinder wolves as they attacked the wargs.

Shadow didn't even need any help as long as no other monster attacked him. He alone was able to kill the warg. He managed to reduce the strain on the team significantly by holding back one monster all on his own.

Tetsujin did need Merlin and the rest to support him and deal damage to the other warg. With Little White's heals supporting them and potions they managed to slowly kill the wargs which the summoner as expected replaced with new ones. In this manner, the slowly managed to kill eight wargs and the team was glad that there would be no more wargs summoned after that.

This was when the worgen started howling continuously and a sudden change took place in the wolves' pattern of attacks. All this time they used a few attacks on the wolves occasionally but didn't focus on them. The only tried to repel them when they tried to help the wargs but focused mainly on killing wargs.

They wouldn't be able to do much either. The wolves had high movement speed which only Shadow could keep up with. They couldn't deal significant damage to the wolves. Luckily, the wolves always attacked to save the wargs and this allowed the team to predict and repel them.

Uncharacteristically the two wolves started to attack players instead of trying to save the wargs. Both Blinding and Tang blocked them with their shields as planned, but they simply bounced off their shields and moved towards Quiet Fire and Little White Feet.

With their speed, both Quiet Fire and Little White wouldn't be able to outrun the wolves. They did use their skills to attack the wolves while they ran towards them. Quite fire used Frost Bolt against the wolf, which was a level 3 skill and dealt little damage in general, but was very effective since fire attributed beast tend to avoid frost or water attacks.

The smite and holy attack hardly had any effect on the wolf. The wolves gave up on the rest of the team and they both began to focus on Little White Feet instead. This was something that wasn't expected by anyone in the team.

Even though both Tang and Blinding tried to cover for the priest, one of the wolves managed to attack little white feet and flung it away from the rest of the team. The other one also joined it and within a few seconds they managed to kill Little White Feet.

After Little White Feet, they flanked Quiet Fire. She also was killed soon. Without Quiet Fire and the priest, the remaining understood that they had no chance of finishing the dungeon. They would need to fight even the armored warg and worgen later. They began to retreat to the tunnel to save experience.

Sadly, it looked like neither the two wolves nor the wargs would allow to them to leave safely. They attacked them repeatedly from all sides resulting in two more casualties before they left into the tunnel. Only Shadow, Tetsujin and Tang managed to escape. The soon made their way out of the dungeon and through the portal. The others were already at the Blackrock town waiting for them.

”We have underestimated the Hell mode of the dungeon. The increase in difficulty was a lot more than expected. We should have been a bit more careful, prepare and maybe waited till we reached level 7,” said Quiet Fire bringing up the topic of the dungeon.

It was common practice to discuss their pitfalls after a dungeon run to analyse and determine what they could have done better. But today, it was not a problem of the players work but their levels and equipment.

Merlin felt most guilty as he was the one who suggested and raised their morale against Shadow's advice, but how was he to know that it would be that difficult. He would be the one to usually start discussing their mistakes but this time he felt like it was his fault. He was the one who was most excited about hell mode dungeon. He couldn't get a team for corrupted forest, so he put all his hopes for getting a first clear of hell mode in the cave of wargs dungeon and that almost resulted in a team wipe.

”It wasn't that we underestimated but we didn't have enough information. It wasn't a usual dungeon that the game had for everyone to help level up fast. There was no dungeon at level 5 till I did the quest for special dungeon. It was a special dungeon and we expected it to be like the regular dungeons in difficulty,” said Merlin trying to pull up their spirits. He was the one who led the team mostly. It would be his burden to take responsibility and maintain their spirits.

”We can have other first clears. We just need to cross level 10 and get to the city,” continued Merlin pointing them to the next course of action. They wouldn't have another opportunity to attempt hell mode today. It was best that the continue with their quest of getting to the city. Once, they finish that quest they would have a lot more opportunities.

Under other circ.u.mstance even Shadow would have agreed that it is best to go and attempt the quest. But he always knew that the quest was a very difficult one. When players noticed that it was very hard, the formed groups of large numbers like 50 or so to go through the quest in all villages.

All other quests in villages had low level monsters and didn't provide with much experience. So, the players had to join forces irrespective of guilds to get out from beginner villages. It was a different experience in beginner towns as they always had monsters that were higher leveled and allowed the player to level up before attempting and clearing the quest. But these quest in town weren't easy either. And couple with the large populace and competition in towns, it was more or less the same situation.