The combined group hesitantly approached the last platform, where one large slime monster stood. Unlike the previous boss, which had looked normal, while needing to be defeated ten times, once by each group member, this one was massive.
Not even the Hill Giants could measure up in size, and its strength was on the low to middle side of the Commander Rank.
For the mid Ascended Rank Orcs, this was not going to be an easy fight.
“Everyone, be careful not to get killed with one hit, and let’s go find out what this boss can do.” Karl joked as he led the team forward.
The team spread out to encircle the boss, which was just standing still, apparently watching Karl.
But if it wasn’t going to attack, they were.
The rest of the team launched their attacks, and the boss sprung into action, whipping out tentacles toward them and firing water bolts.
This was what Karl expected of a slime monster. None of that silly mimic nonsense, but an amorphous blob, violently attacking everything in sight.
Thor brought the barriers back up over the Orcs, but not at full strength because the Orcs fought better when they were taking damage. This way, when they took a direct hit, the barrier would break, and he would bring it back up, but they wouldn’t take so much damage that it was difficult for Tessa and Lotus to keep them healed.
The beasts were following Karl’s direction to stay out of sight and let the Orcs think he was just some sort of warrior mage, so that news of his unique abilities didn’t spread through the tribe.
He had given away too much already by letting the team eliminate the bandits, and there was a chance that the monster nation would put the puzzle pieces together and realize who he was before he could get out of the country.
Having Thor out to pull the cart was a calculated risk, but Cerro were fairly common creatures, and pulling a wagon didn’t show off his powers, only his unique coloration. One merchant with a tame Cerro wouldn’t be the strangest thing that they were likely to see along this trip.
Karl smashed his maul into the core of the beast, which set all the tentacles flailing as the body quivered and [Chain Lightning] burned a large chunk out of it.
The Orcs cheered in victory at the spectacle, and the boss slime monster contracted, reforming in a much smaller body.
“Cut chunks off. I don’t think that it will reform.” Karl instructed.
Of course, that was easier said than done. The tentacles were rubbery, and it was hard to get a good hit in on them when they just bounced away. But Ophelia had moved forward to attack the body while the beast was distracted, and Dana’s blade style was having decent luck removing tentacles, which were lying around the boss but not being pulled back in.
Each removed tentacle was making the boss smaller, and Lotus was slowly wrapping the core in Thorned Vines, which restrained its movement and tore deep grooves in the surface when it tried to move.
“How long is this thing going to take to die?” The Orcish woman complained as she hacked off yet another tentacle.
“As long as you want it to. If you’re done with it, I will kill it.” Karl replied.
“You say that like it’s so easy,” one of the other Orcs laughed.
Five stacks of [Disintegration] on the maul made the head vibrate with power, and Karl could have sworn that he heard the amorphous blob of a boss sigh in resignation even before he started to move.
That feeling was confirmed as it contracted and flattened itself to the floor as he began the swing.
Karl was almost certain that the boss defeated message came before he had hit the slime, but the stacks of [Disintegration] were gone, so he must have made contact at some point.
While he was lost in thought, the Orcs were staring at him in shock.
“What in the name of the Laughing God was that?” The rejected suitor shouted.
“It’s called [Disintegration]. Pretty nifty, isn’t it?” Dana replied on Karl’s behalf.
The female Orc smirked at the man she rejected. “All that big talk from you, and he could defeat the boss in one casual swing. You have a new bar to reach.”
“Oh, come on! How is that fair? Nobody but the Chieftain could kill that thing in one hit!”
She gave him a vicious smirk. “Then you’ll just have to become Chieftain, won’t you?”
The young man gave Karl an angry glare before his shoulders slumped. At this rate, he would never get the girl of his dreams, the bar kept going up.
Karl let his buffs expire as the fight ended, and the Orcs all pointed to him.
“I knew you got big! You’ve been hiding your power level!” One of them gasped.
At Royal Rank, [Brutality] increased his size by fifty percent, so he was bigger than any of the Orcs present. But they hadn’t noticed until now, when their brains tried to adjust their mental impression of his power level as it related to size.
Karl winked at them. “Well, I couldn’t just stay small with so many impressive Orc warriors around, could I?”
The fact that everyone else had shrunk as well seemed to escape them, as they were all looking at Karl. But the boss chest had appeared, and that brought them out of their reverie.
[Level 0 members detected. Compensating.] Appeared in the air above the crate.
“What’s that mean, human?”
“It means that you’ve never been exposed to the system, and now you have. It’s going to give you an extra reward for doing this with just your own power. We won’t get that bonus because we got it once before.” Karl explained.
The Orcs cheered and slapped each other on the back in celebration as the Dungeon calculated their reward.
Their eyes went vacant as they entered the system interface for the first time, and seconds later, they were all back with smiles on their face.
“I am officially a Warrior!” One of the men cheered.
“Me too!”
“And me!”
Dana facepalmed as she realized that they likely all chose warrior without even looking at the other options that were presented to them.
Then the lone female in the group blinked once and her outfit changed to a more primal fur and leather set, with black metal plates.
“Silly warriors. You didn’t even look at the rest of the menu, did you?” She asked.
They all shook their heads while staring at her.
“There is a random option for a chance to make you a better warrior.” She declared.
The ladies in Karl’s group all looked at each other, trying hard to hide their horror, while Karl openly laughed.
“That random option is dangerous. It can change anything about you, including your species. The last person I saw use it was turned into an Elven child.
There are other classes, though. You could have picked Shaman, or Berserker instead and not risked turning into something other than an Orc.” He explained.
The woman’s eyes went large as she realized how close she had come to disaster.
Karl nodded as he saw that she understood. “What did it give you?”
“I am a Death Knight” She announced proudly.
Karl didn’t know what that could do, but it should be a magic using warrior of some sort, with unique skills.
“Alright, I will give you a bit of advice, from one champion to another. Focusing on the words ‘Status, Inventory and Skill Tree’ will allow you to access system functions.
You might have a skill available, as you’re all Ascended Rank already.
Don’t forget those words, as you’ll need them in the future as you gain power.”
They all muttered the words and got distracted for a few minutes, then the female Orc’s armour turned to a full black suit of plate mail with a new Greatsword.
“Death Knights get unholy equipment. This is pretty cool. I even got special attack skills.” She explained.
“Good, good. If you’ve got a few skills from your class, and new gear that you can just summon back when it gets damaged, you should become a great champion of the tribe. Even if the others become warriors, few will be able to compete with the powers of a Death Knight.”
The other Orcs were too busy celebrating their new powers to even notice her outfit changed.
So, Ophelia used a claw to flip open the reward crate.
[All loot has been auto-assigned to eligible members.]
The chest disappeared, and Karl smiled at the Orcs.
“Check your inventory, there should be a reward there. You can show your friends or keep it a secret, the dungeon gave it just to you. There is likely money as well, but I don’t know how your tribe deals with that.”
The Orcs laughed. “What do Orcs need coins for? Orcs share food, but the only other items we are allowed we must earn ourselves with our own effort, or make with our own hands.”
Lotus gave them a curious look. “So, you don’t trade for anything but food?”
The Orcs nodded. “Getting strong by buying goods that the other species make is cheating. That’s not real strength. But these dungeon rewards, we earned that ourselves. Even if the hidden powers warrior helped.
We get it now, why you didn’t just fight everything from the start. You wanted us to earn a reward, so we had more to go home with. You are a wise man, Warrior Karl.”
Behind Karl, four sets of eyes rolled at the same time. He wasn’t being brilliant, he was giving them time to practice their skills because the dungeon was the best place to gain power.
