RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 193

“We need some healers to be able to continue in this manner, Mr. Kiriti. Else, we will die in vain,” said one of the archer players. “It is best if you could get one preferably someone who has a multiple player healing skill.”

“No. It is best if you could get a few paladins to individually support multiple groups, else they themselves would be overcome by the beasts in this swamp,” suggested an assassin. Both of these suggestiosn immediately received support from others, but Kiriti found it hard to accommodate either. Healers were most important part of the group that they were brining to the advanced party. They were the lifeline and both Karma who was leading the advanced party and Alma refused to it. It was Karma’s quest so he finally left it to Karma to decide but Karma who spent most of his time in competitions and rarely participated in handling normal players didn’t have any decent solution.

Finally, it was one of the Ronins team member who had ended up providing a way out. Rivel was a swordsman from the Ardent Ronins who was along with Karma in the advanced team. He had experience handling such issues. He had gone along with Karma in the advance team as a part of a five-man team of the Ardent Ronins. He had heard of Karma complaining about Kiriti and provided an advice.

“You won’t be able to force independent players like that. They will start complaining among themselves and soon they group wouldn’t cooperate will your guild members or the Ardent Ronins. Even a few members would not put their best effort. You need to give some more advantages,” said Rivel.

“We are already paying the scouts double the normal for killing a beast. We can’t keep providing advantages, else they would consider us soft persimmon to be squeezed dry,” said Karma dismissively.

“That I agree, but you need to understand that these guys are greedy, especially the ones who have decent skills. You don’t need to provide the money, but you can offer them the option that they could pick up the remains of the beasts that they killed,” suggested Kiriti. “We aren’t able to get a decent harvest from the locations provided by the scouts of the beasts that they killed. Half of them are being lost to other beasts which eat them up. It is best if we let them take these spoils. They would also not be able to take many and leave quite a few behind after some time. It is not much of a loss to either of us.”

Karma thought about it and felt that it might not be a bad idea. He talked it out with Alma and Kiriti who both agreed to it.

“We have discussed, and you can forage the beasts that you have killed because of the situation. We won’t concern ourselves with the loot. If you don’t have enough place you can give the items from your bag that you don’t want to me,” said Kiriti. “Remember I am not offering to carry those for you. I will buy anything that I consider useful to help clear your bag space and note your contribution. That is all.”

The players didn’t care about the other part and cheered that they could keep the materials. These materials were quite valuable. Even if they didn’t know how to use it, they could sell them back to the Raiders or the Ronins. Other guilds and teams would also pay decent amounts for them or they can put them up in auction houses.

This was far better an incentive than offering them more money as they could see more options for themselves and it will also instigate them to risk more. Previously, the players would still have some reservations in giving their best, but the materials that they could obtained by foraging were currently rare in the game and most would try to buy them at higher prices. Though the materials that they could obtain by foraging from the bodies of the beasts were unknown to most, the fact that they could be useful, and they are from the marshlands would be enough for many to buy them.

Balthazar who had seen this decision made by guilds and teams before had already been hoping for this. Though he had never fought in this specific marsh region before in his previous life, he had heard enough to determine which was the best items were of most use to him. So, he could discriminate, and he collected only the best in his bag. He had already filled more than half of his weapon cache with arrows and alternate weapons. So, he didn’t have much issue with crossbow which he kept using frequently to kill the beasts easier. He chose this method as it would be less conspicuous than him attacking directly with his weapon at close range. At close range, he would have to show his high speed and skills which would put all the players to be suspect him to be a troublemaker.

With his attributes and his crossbow, he was already noticed by the others in the group. The ones like Kiriti who are from the Valhalla Raider and the Ardent Ronins were already aware of him and had noticed that he had better technique than most. Some wanted him to join them, but some felt that he might already be in some other guild or team and had discretely come to the group to spy on them. Being a part of the team or guild, they told their views and with such conflicted view they decided to let it be and not take any action before gathering more information as it would just cause more chaos.

There were differing view even among the independent players. Some of them wanted to get into the two groups and they maintained their distance from Shadow. Among the remaining few wanted to befriend him while some were jealous or afraid. At the end only three independent players joined up with him. They were strong players who understood that they would sooner or later be asked to join by guilds or teams. So, they didn’t worry about small trifles at the start of the game.

Two of them were assassins and one was an archer. They were known as Nihulus, Zoras and Baelstrik respectively. They joined up with Balthazar and they didn’t care about the thoughts of the others. They formed a team and started killing them faster. Balthazar allowed them to join him but insisted that they all hit the beasts at the same points and pointed out their weak points to his teammates. He also promised to buy all the materials that they took at the proper price.

They didn’t care much about getting a better price than to kill more beasts and gather more resources. They were already putting efforts on gathering more experience points. They believed that they could still get better resources as they went deeper.

As Kiriti led them deeper, they came across harder beasts at level 17 or higher like the gharial, bipod serpents, horned toads and the like which are more dangerous. Balthazar like this better as he was finally fighting against beasts of his own level, but the other were already afraid on looking at these beasts.

“We can’t fight them with our forces. We need to regroup with the ones in the back,” shouted one of the players which received support from the others immediately. Kiriti didn’t mind it as it was already their plan and he was just trying his best to scout as far as possible before joining the rest.

“That was the plan. Don’t worry. The scouts are going to join the rest of the group and form a same team. The advance party has just made a camp beyond these beasts. We are going to help and support them,” said Kiriti as he went back and was followed by the rest.

“How is it in the front?” asked Alma as they joined the others following at the back. The scouts could see that the other numbers were attracting the beasts to them which were flanking them from the sides, but due to their large numbers, they were able to hold them back. The scouts slowly looked for gaps between the beasts and joined behind the line of guardians, paladins and berserkers who made the outer line of their formation.

“It is the same as last time. Though the advance party managed to defend themselves using the artifact that Karma has, the beasts surrounded them. We will need to slowly kill them in order to join the rest. I hope that the amount of those high-level beasts we saw were all the ones in the surroundings. If more pop up from the flanks, it would be very impossible to handle them even with these numbers,” whispered Kiriti after he got close to Alma. This was something he didn’t want the independent players to know especially the ones he doubted like Shadow and the other three.

“What should we do?” asked Alma tensed.

“Stick to the plan. If it doesn’t work, we will attempt again after the average level of the players increases. It is still a good thing as we have many who increased to level 16 and we got a lot of resources. It isn’t the worst possible outcome for the guild, but Karma would be angry,” said KIriti.

“That is the main problem. All of this was because the guild leader insisted, we help him,” said Alma.

“We go ahead and do it. Even if we lose our lives here it isn’t much of an experience loss and we did recruit these numbers so that they could be used as cannon fodder. Just make the entire group rearrange by our observations of their strengths to a more effective formation. We will try and kill through them,” said Kiriti. They had the independent players and the other fight most of the time during this period to be able to evaluate the players to a certain level. Only then, they would be able to coordinate them more effectively during the main fight as they already have a decent idea of their own guild members.

The monsters ahead were gharials, horned toads and the like which were a mix of ones with good defence and offence. These could also hide in the grass and few even burrowed into the wet ground. Apart from that, they also had a higher level. So, they need small teams which could advance into the beasts and kill them when they spot some jump without much losses. Else, they would take a very long time and the advance party would get into a dangerous situation as their protection couldn’t last forever. This required Kiriti and Alma to create smaller teams without drawbacks and also give them instructions to merge into larger formations when required.

They set down in the place after clearing the smaller monsters and set up tents forming a makeshift temporary camp so that they could prepare and replenish their health and mana before continuing their attacks. The number in each smaller group varied from 5 to 9 and the total number were separated into three battalions each consisting of 20 or more groups. Each battalion was commandeered by Kiriti, Alma each and the last one by two of the Ronins together.

Kiriti wanted to keep a look on Balthazar and had him in a group along with two of his own guild members. The small group was also a part of his own battalion. Balthazar ended up in a group of 7 members. He had two berserkers, a paladin, an elementalist, a warlock and a guardian. A berserker and a paladin were from the raiders. The guardian named Grand Puba was made the leader.

Puba was from the Ardent Ronins. Apart from Kiriti and Alma most of the others were members of the Ardent Ronins and they have all mostly reached level 16 during the trip. The main force of the Valhallla Raiders was in the advanced party and Kiriti had to give the leadership of smaller groups to the players in the Ronins.

The members of the Ardent Ronins had different perspectives when compared to the guild members of Valhalla Raiders like Kiriti. They were also concerned by the fact that Balthazar could cause trouble to their mission or could be a spy, but they knew that their collaboration with the Raiders was just a temporary one and they have entered this town only because of the quest of the player Karma. They would probably not continue and hence they had to have moderate attitude towards other at this stage of the game and they kept a friendly demeanour around the strong ones that they found. That was the best option for an adventurer team if they wanted to have someone join them or have collaboration with them later in the game.

“I am Grand Puba. I will lead the group. Although, no one knows about me or my skills, I will hope that you guys will listen to my instructions. You can give any advice in the situation where you think things can be done better, but I hope that you will finally listen to my orders in the end without any delay,” started Puba while introducing himself. “Mr. Kiriti will shortly be giving us information about the plan of attack.”

“These are few things that I have observed from the scouting mission. So, listen carefully. Till now, there has been a lot of small beasts hiding in the grass and the scouts have managed to give us information about their location enabling us to know about them beforehand and fight without any losses,” said Kiriti in the team chat. “It won’t be the same any longer. We have not much idea of the terrain before. The mobility would also be much worse. We were warned to expect the water to be a foot high on the land from a few metres forward. You have all heard that the marsh has only beasts above level 15. That is right. This is considered the actual start of the Greybark marsh. The area we covered till now is just the surrounding forest.”

“So, are we just starting our mission, now? You are kidding. A few of our friends already died. Aren’t they going to get compensation?” asked one of them surprised by his words. A few other piled on his question immediately.

“The guild of Valhalla Raiders and the Ardent Ronins have discussed and decided to go ahead and provide the ones who have joined and helped us in killing the beasts till this camp. It would have been hard to establish a camp if it weren’t for their efforts,” said Kiriti calming the crowd.

“We need to be much more careful from now. All beasts will be stronger than us and it is best if we defeat them using attacks from a large number of players,” continued Kiriti. “So, we need to form small forward teams to lure them from the water towards us in the beginning to reduce our effort. Be careful, they will also burrow themselves into the ground and pop up suddenly to attack. It requires quick reflexes and regrouping among the forward teams to handle such situations.”

“All right!” started Puba. “We are a part of the forward teams. We need to get the beast to come closer to the rest of the group, so that we could take them down easily. We have two players who always have shields on them. As we are going to try and lure the beasts, the members need protection from any attack of our flank. That where I and paladin will be.”

“As forward team to avoid unnecessary troubles, it is best if we get isolated beasts. So, a member from the scout is in each of the forward team. That is where Mr. fleet-foot comes in,” said Puba pointing to Balthazar. “Some beasts have high physical defence while some have magical defence. So, to get the aggro, we have members who can deal high physical damage like these two berserkers and the elementalist for magical damage. Warlocks as always help to mitigate the situation if multiple beasts attack by using their curses to put them at bay. Any doubts?”