Chapter 14: A Lost Flier

"It's because we link our skills and attacks consistently," Michael lied. He had already prepared a simple lie beforehand knowing he would come into a situation like this. He had agreed upon this plan with Runi, so Runi just nodded his head along.

"Oh, so is that how the pros are so much better?" Inferior Blade questioned.

"No clue, but if I were that good then would I need someone else to party with?" asked Michael

"Fair enough," shrugged Inferior. "Let's continue onwards, shall we?"

"Sounds good," The group replied.

As they continued their walk down the dungeon, the group members asked Michael and Runi a few more questions, but mostly just figured them to be a notch better than the rest of them. As they were walking down the path, they ran into slightly bigger rats and some snakes. While they

"Heads up everybody! Boss is ahead of us!"

[Name: Giant Rat

Level: 25

Health 35000/35000]

The other party members brought up the status info, but Michael and Runi just sat there bored. Michael had no reason to check for the stats of a boss that he could beat so easily with his increased level. Runi, on the other hand, couldn't even check the stats of the monster if he wanted to because he was an NPC. He could pull it up using magic, but there would be no point in doing so, though, since he could easily slay a dragon if he wanted to.

"Now that we know what we're up against, let's talk about how we're going to defeat it," Inferior Blade told the group while ordering them to gather up.

The plan was fairly simple. It mostly consisted of two tank members to split the boss's attention and to have the archers and mages bombard the boss from behind. The melee players would attack while the boss is stunned after a large attack, but besides that, they would stay in the back. Most melee players were upset about this plan, but since it had the highest success rate, it was chosen.

"With that over with, let's get started!" Inferior Blade announced as he turned and made his way towards the boss.

Everyone eagerly followed, anticipating the reward that the boss dropped. Michael and Runi weren't that excited, both for similar reasons. This Boss was way too weak. Hell, it didn't even deserve to be a Boss, but just a normal boss.

The party stuck to the plan and everything started off smoothly. Around halfway through, however, the boss's attack pattern changed and it used a large AOE attack, and a lot of the party members couldn't move fast out of the range fast enough. Six of the ten original group members died, so only four remained. Of those four were Inferior, Michael, Runi, and an archer called Summer Flare. Summer Flare didn't have anything overly distinguishing about them, so Michael hadn't noticed him until now.

Even though their party members had just died, now wasn't the time to rest. Shortly after switching up its attack pattern and using a large move, the Boss was stunned for 5 seconds. This is usually the time where the party members should be piling as much damage on the boss, but for some reason, it seemed that Inferior Blade and Summer Flare were the only ones damaging it. Michael and Runi seemed to be just waiting.

Once Michael swung, the Boss's remaining 20000 HP instantly bottomed out, leaving Inferior and Flare very confused.

"What just happened?" asked Inferior once they got back to the group.

"What do you mean?" questioned Michael, trying to act clueless.

"The boss's HP just leveled out instantly, what was that?"

"I have no clue, I wasn't watching its health bar too much as I was trying to attack it more."

"Must be, no way we can deal 20000 damage in one hit this early on. Let's split the Gear!"

Finally moving on, Inferior proceeded to split the gear three ways as part of the initial agreement. Runi received nothing. Michael's portion, however, wasn't much to be desired as it only contained a few B Rank weapons and some C Rank armor. This may be a luxury for many regular players, but for Michael, it may as well be trash. After all of the items were distributed, Michael looked back towards where the loot pile was and noticed one more item sticking out.

[Item: Lost Flier

Grade: Junk

Description: Maybe a Trash Collector would be interested in this?]

'What sort of garbage is this? Might be for a quest though, so I'll check it out.

"Well, here's where we'll split ways, message me again on the forums if you ever want to go on another dungeon hunt," Inferior told Michael.

"Definitely, good luck out there," Michael responded politely.

As Inferior and Flare walked away, Michael and Runi also began to make their way out of the dungeon. Michael told Runi to fly back to the castle as there was something he needed to do, and having Runi here to help him would actually make it harder for him. Runi agreed, but before leaving gave Michael an item resembling a small earpiece.

[Item: Haphaestus's Old Communicator

Grade: ???

Description: An old communicator once used by Hapaestus, but has since been replaced.]

Just from looking at its quality alone, Michael could tell that this far surpassed any item used by a player before he died.

"If you want to communicate with me for any reason, just direct mana into the earpiece and think about what you want to say. Nobody outside except the wearer and the listener can hear what's being discussed. It can also go invisible," Runi explained.

"Awesome! Thanks!" Michael exclaimed

"Anyways, good luck."

And with that being said, Runi took off and headed back for the World of Old. Michael, however, decided to check out what this piece of paper was about and headed for the nearest garbage lot. While passing through the town, he decided to list the C grade and B grade armor pieces on the auction in order to get the real-life money that he can exchange coins for.

Finally making his way to the garbage lot, Michael discovered that Niflheim was able to perfectly recreate all realistic senses as his nose got bombed from the scent of the dump. Covering his nose with a spare rag and running inside, he quickly found a walker and stopped him.

"Excuse me, do you happen to know what this paper is?" Michael asked while showing him the flier.

"Never seen it. Maybe the Boss has."

The worker had a cold attitude and almost entirely ignored Michael. Michael shrugged it off however and headed on inside the building. He went inside and asked someone who seemed to be a guard of some sort.

"Do you happen to know where I can find your boss?" Michael asked.

The guard firmly looked at Michael and questioned, "Boss? Why do you want to see her?"

"I was told by a worker outside that she might know something about this flier."

"Got it. Stand by."

The guard knocked on the door twice before it opened automatically.

Michael walked inside and was greeted by an average-looking woman who seemed to be in her early 30's.

"You were told to come to see me?" The woman asked.