Chapter 18: Stage Captured!

AN: Vote this so that I'll be motivated to more chapters XD.

"How many uses do you have for the skill? It should be around 15 to 20 I presume… " Gram asked curiously.

Risa shook her head and smiled, "Um, there is a limit of 10 use per day, I'll save it for the boss later, that's why you'll support while Maple distract and aggro the boss later."

Kaede did a peace sign, "Mmnn~ Just count on me!" Gram wanted to join the epic boss fight later, although he would just melt the boss with his spells but he still asked.

He butted, "Should I attack as well?"

"Mn~n… Kay!" Kaede agreed without any though. Risa though, shocked her head as soon as she heard it. After all, they had been doing dungeons, if he attacked, it would always be a one-hit defeat to the monster. Boss monsters were the same and though, they only did a few,

"Noo! You don't! Backseat only..." Risa denied immediately as she rolled her eyes at Kaede.

She still remembers him being too powerful when dealing with mobs, while he could actually mow down the boss itself, and it felt like he was an anti-tank launcher. But she didn't know he still had many trump skills in his sleeves as every battle they had, monsters weren't even able to approach him. After all, his spells created using [ Spell Creation ] aren't listed on his skill list on default.

"..."

"Why?" Kaede asked.

"Because~ You won't be able to use your large skill if you let him join again… do you want that?" Risa snickered while Kaede's mouth turned upturned as she heard that.

"Ahhh!" Reeling with the fact, Kaede approached Gram while putting up a sorry expression, although she did that so he can pet her which he did with a wry expression.

They move forward, while it seems like the dungeon wasn't that deep compared to any normal dungeons, as they only fought 6 battles consisting of 10 different types of monster. Still, be it monster hordes or crowds of monsters, they weren't able to deal with the trio.

And soon, they were able to reach the boss room. Kaede opened the large door and entered without hesitation.

It was a wide room consisting of similar cave walls but the floor was covered with lush green grass and in the deepest part, a large tree was alone standing tall.

The three entered the room and the door behind them closed with a loud sound.

And as soon as they stepped inside, a sudden grunting sound came from the large tree seemingly as it changed shape and with that, it transformed into a giant deer, it's body as natural ancient wood. It had large trees as horns while lush vivid green leaves as it's skin, there were also bright red apples that grew on the tree horn. It looked ancient and primal but the thing is it was also huge.

The deer shook its massive body made of trees, it stamped on the ground and glared at the party that disturb it's rest.

[ Ancient Tree Deer Lv: 30 ]

"It's coming!"

"Prepare yourself!"

"Okay〜!"

The deer was standing, a green colored magic circle appeared and it started shining signifying the start of an inevitable battle.

When the deer stamps the ground, the magic circle shines brightly and giant vines begin appearing as it pierces the ground, gliding to the soil and attacks the party.

"Yo! Yo! Why me too? [ Multi-Fire Lance ]!" Gram backpedalled with an attack that destroyed the approaching vine with ease, he also quickly used [ Multi-Fire Rune ] on all of them. The two girls already had a good amount of shields so he wasn't worried of them losing.

"Haha! Nice! Too slow!" As if not feeling the vine attack, Risa rushed in front, her dual daggers emitted a red-like hue with the additional violet, it turned crimson all together.

Kaede's large shield received most of the vines head on but she devoured them. Risa, with her impressive dodging skills, near-hits, evaded the barrage of vines with superb finesse.

Although, after a moment, Kaede who was so eager, used her [ New Moon ] without hesitation. She already had many stacks so she used it to boost [ Hydra ] damage.

"[ Hydra ]!"

Kaede, released the full form hydra dragon made with poison. While vines that approached her were devoured, melted and erased, the hydra dragon, three heads pressed towards the massive deer.

But, the poison dragon got blocked by a shining green wall in front of the deer and disappeared without notice.

"Oh!"

"Eh?!"

"Probably, it's that big barrier magic circle! The damage won't get through to the front!"

The deer with a roar once again stretched its vine and attacked. The silver lining was that this attack didn't really damage the party of three.

Kaede and Risa endured like that for a while, but Risa who thought it had no ends suggested.

Risa looked at Kaede and asked, "I'll go inspect around, so can you tank for a while?"

"I got it!… [ Provoke ]! [ Echoing Roar ]!" Kaede used up all her remaining MP, she used it earlier to [ Hydra ] but it got nullified making her wasting the MP added to the skill. Thankfully, there were still vines that kept attacking her so she could refill her temporary MP every now and then.

The majority of the vines headed to Kaede at front. Gram was not unscathed and dealt with the vines while looking at what Risa would do. As in that chance, she was already at the back.

At the back, Risa attacked the deer making the translucent wall appear, diffusing her attack damage. Risa finally noticed something, she saw the gleam of it's horns, it didn't seem that both its horns were covered by the barrier.

"Yes! Damage goes through to its horns Maple! Also, it looks like the wall should be supported by the apples and we need to attack it!" Risa shouted while pointing at the shining apples within the tree leaves.

It's clear on their eyes that when the barrier activated, the apples were shined with red-vitality.

"Then… leave it to me! I will make them blow away altogether!" Kaede equipped her [ New Moon ].

"Un, I'm counting on you!" Risa quickly approached with fast momentum and instantly got the boss' aggro by attacking with a [ Power Attack ] and since Kaede wasn't retaliating it looked at her with its blood red eyes.

Kaede thrusts [ New Moon ] in the air. The poison dragon cloud appeared again, but this time without being blocked by the front wall, devoured all of the tree leaves and melted them upwards, roundabout, she changed the attack pattern to attack in the top.

"[ Wind Cutter ]!"

This time, without being blocked by the wall, the attack reached the deer properly. The red damage effects appeared magically, it seems the wall had been broken now. The most important part is that an existing [ Burning ] damage affected the tree like Risa did more than 50% of her damage because of the fire elemental effect.

"Yosh! It got through! Fire damage is so effective on it!"

"I'm going to attack a huge one again!" Kaede prepared herself, while Gram on the side watched with interest.

The crystals displayed from the large shield shattered and with that sound, and a giant purple magic circle formed from [ New Moon ] at the same time. Became a poison dragon again with it's three heads, as it attacked the giant deer.

The deer's felt like it's body was melting, and the red effect flowed continuously, additionally her [ Hydra ] had been amplified with damage boosting, making it so deadly. The giant deer HP quickly dropped to 10% and changed it's attack pattern.

The existing green magic circle that spawned green vines shined brighter as the giant tree deer healed its wounds.

When the HP bar recovered to 25%, the poison status debuff got nullified, and the magic circle, as if it was done with its work, faded and disappeared. But another green natural magic circle seemed to be materializing again, this time it seemed to be much more complex.

Risa who had returned asked, "Maple! Can you use that again?!" Kaede replied instantly.

"Un! I can, but it would take for a while!"

Gram asked, "Want me?"

"No~!" Risa knew he would oneshot it thanks to the deer's fire weakness, she felt even one [ Fire Manipulation ] spell would remove the only HP the boss monster had.

While consulting for a moment, there was no way the deer would wait for them, and as the deer finalized it's magic circle, new blades of wind attacked and vines one size bigger than before hurled at them with unstoppable momentum.

In addition.

"Uwaaaaaa!!"

The ground suddenly raised and attacked from the ground. Risa had already sensed that and dodged it but Kaede was thrown to the air. Of course there wasn't any damage, Gram was lucky he had a knock-back but he felt his balls squeezing as if remembering a boss monster with one attack that had a similar pattern.

Ultimately with no damage, but when Kaede hit the ground, she received a status debuff [ Stunned ] and couldn't get up for some time. Normally, she wouldn't have a chance to survive, but after that, even receiving the blades of wind, seeing that her HP Bar was not reduced, she probably would endure it until she stands up.

Gram was already used [ Radiant Light Healing ] to Kaede and while his barrier and Kaede herself was getting peppered by wind blades and vines, still didn't seem that it would break his barriers.

"What's with this attack?!"

But, it was sure delayed the activation because she was preoccupied, if she didn't cover, the vines on the ground would again stun her. Gram had effectively taken some aggro so that she won't be frustrated. He shouted to Risa.

"Hey can you defeat it already?!"

"Defeat it!" With Kaede's approval Risa knew she's the one who's going to take the battle onwards.

"Well~ it can't be helped…it's a pain though…" Risa held both daggers tightly, and ran speedily.

"What does she mean by pain?" Gram rolled his eyes, if they just allowed him to attack, then they would quickly kill it, but probably, Risa had already anticipated it, she was the lowest level and he knew that she wanted to follow up to their level. The damage, and the last hit would count the experience they would get, although, the last hit was the most important.

Regardless of what she said, internally, she was very happy as shown in her face,

"I should do it quickly." Completely seeing through the enemy's attack, she zigzagged around, evading most vines and wind blades.

To Risa in her concentrated state, lone attack like this meant nothing. Tracing the narrow paths surely is deadly, but she's concentrated to the point that she could evade them like she's dancing on the air. If she used it for much longer, she might even get a skill with it.

When she approached where the deer was standing with [ Leap II ] she jumped towards the front of the deer, leaped to it's giant back. It seemed to be a safe place on the battlefield that the giant deer didn't think anyone would even approach it like that.

"I know that it's safe here you know?… [ Double Slash ]!" Spinning her body, with both daggers in her hands, she released four consecutive attacks. Quickly stacking her debuff's, STR, and then she used [ Power Attack ].

By holding two weapons, she could release twice the attacks with one. Additionally, because of her DEX, her attack speed made it four times, like she could dish out two attacks per damage. Each one of the attack damage would fall compared with only one, but it had an overwhelming attack speed, multiple attack.

Risa, with her face just like that, runs towards its back. A two consecutive attacks slashed through the nape of its neck from its forehead. In addition, she burned its back with Fire Magic.

As the giant deer got damage, blades of wind suddenly flew towards her who was running around its giant back. Although it was easy to dodge, it only had 5% HP left.

"N? This wasn't really a safe spot huh." Because of the wind blades, she was still able to attack as it fully occupied her to use ranged magical attack. While dodging the flying blades of wind. Finally its HP Bar reached empty with the consecutive magic attacks.

[ Ancient Tree Deer had been defeated! ]

"Nn!...t-that's right! Can I still use… ahh! Sally defeated it!" Kaede was going to ask Gram but she saw the vanishing giant deer for just two minutes of taking all the attacks of the giant deer.

Kaede saw Risa dropping in front with a peace sign on her hand,

With a smug face, " I ended it while you two were a little busy hehe~!"

"Eh!? It was so fast!" Kaede nodded cutely while she got excited. Although she was pre- occupied earlier, she did saw the epic battle happening at the back of the monster. She who liked flashy and cool moves had been infatuate to her best friend already.

"Yeah~ Good job!" Gram smiled. Although, he didn't forget to praise the ash-brown haired girl that made her smile, allowing him to brush her hair without her getting embarrassed.

"Muh~ I did my best too!" Kaede pouted looking at the two, she really wanted to hit it more with her full power skills.

But anyways, they were able to get the rights to move to the second stage.