Troll Farming

"So… this s what you guys have been doing this whole time?" I ask curiously after following leisurely behind my party to the lane. Everybody who was previously a lower level than me were now all at least level seventy after having spent several days playing around in the raid territory by themselves.

Currently we had just started the raid and appeared in the empty tenth outpost just ahead of the fort's open ground. Then, as if it were rehearsed, Stonewall led the way forward to initiate the fort's attack which unleashed two hundred trolls to start roaring and running forward. I was honestly a little wary when I saw all those dozens of bodies pouring forth.

"Pretty much," Go replies calmly. "Duality and Thirteenth are all at the same mark as us but we're waiting on them to pull ahead. It doesn't help that entering the next outpost grounds triggers both the outpost and the fort to pincer the raid team. Once they figure out a way to muscle through the pincer we'll be back in business and moving forward, but we mostly just sit here and farm the fort until the time limit runs out and resets our progress."

This explained how their levels had gotten so high. They literally sat here for an hour fighting two hundred trolls every three minutes to farm their experience and loots. They had even stockpiled an assortment of troll skills while I was away.

Sitting back with Cweeper and Hermes who were left to the sides after Go hurried off to join the others, I simply sit back and enjoy the show while watching them raise their characters. The rest of the top levelers in the rankings were all nearing or entering the seventies by now, meaning I was the average for the top rankers in levels. I was fine with that, though.

My position as the top reputation ranker was still in place with multiple hundreds of points between second place and myself and my clan was currently in third place for reputation while managing a top fifteen position for overall firepower.

As nice as it would be to have my name at the top of all of the rankings possible, I was not greedy and was more than happy to remain complacent with the reputation rankings while working on my original goal. Playing without dying for as long as possible. Nearly everyone in the top rankings lists had died at some point, only two or three people in my entire party had died since starting the game.

Two hundred trolls turned out to be much easier than I had expected, the first wave sent out by the fort lasted only as long as the usual waves of trolls we had fought together during the first raid attempt. Even without me there rushing back and forth through the trolls to keep them from focusing on any single target or location. In fact, without me there they all just focused on Stonewall after he used a few skills to draw attention and deal damage for maintaining aggro.

Tragedy's Travelers was honestly so good that they did not really even need me, I was less of a secret weapon and more of a bench warmer during this raid attempt. In fact, if the other clans could see us right now they would probably be spitting and fuming with anger. Duality and Thirteenth were both here days before us and all three of us were equals at the moment.

The others did not even look like they were trying that hard! Despite being armed with only basic class skills and their self-taught combat abilities, the warriors on the front lines rarely had to use basic attacks while supported by the heavy ranged and magical attacks of our mages and familiars. A few skills per person was literally all two hundred trolls amounted to!

Then again, what we lacked in player numbers was more than made up for in familiars with varying abilities. Just in humanoid imps we had as many hands as people all wielding bows with either spells or magic arrows for backup. Then came the different mounts, aerial support, and our troll front liners.

There were no less than three times as many familiars as people and there were a dozen of us for crying out loud.

All of these trolls were in the sixties which could count as top of the line mobs for the time being even though none of them had been elites or bosses thus far but they were nothing more than experience points to my friends so far. "Do you guys just chill here and watch?" I ask curiously, looking to my familiars who had essentially been reserve units while I was away.

"Not much to do," Cweeper replies calmly. "When they need to rest their attacks we take turns dealing with a set of trolls."

"One swing and we have three minutes of nothing else to do," Hermes says almost grumpily, flicking his gaze over at the rest of my team who had only just recently finished dispatching two hundred trolls. It was obvious he was not happy with having to fulfill a support role even though it was usually what I had them do. Then again, they were MY familiars.

"Well, the two of you alone are enough to reach the finish line so we may as well use this to train everyone else up to your levels," I reply, opening my menus to see that both of my familiars were currently one level below mine. My level was their cap so they had probably been sitting at level sixty-nine since I logged out.

Did I really think the others could reach the same attack powers as my familiars? Not really, both of them could do almost six hundred damage in a basic attack with a PATK of five-seventy without counting Stat Mirror. I myself only had a PATK of about three-fifty with my new Hauntings and armor.

Despite this, it was pretty clear that my teammates were all diligent in their training and the mastering of what class skills they currently had. They even started taking turns between the mages and front lines, doling out their combined ranged skills in groups to measure the amount of damage they could lay down. By the time the third wave of reinforcements were released, the familiars alone were sent forward to test themselves.

Even though they were not actually taking part, Cweeper and Hermes both advanced alongside the other imps and scorpions and birds and trolls. They were there mostly to make sure that nothing happened to the other familiars which was almost unnecessary. Between the equipment of our own trolls recently outfitted with spiked wall shields and the ceaseless archery of the other humanoids, dozens of trolls died in the initial moment of physical confrontation.

My familiars only had to step in once during this phase, simply casting out basic Spirit Slash attacks into the dwindling crowd of enemy trolls. Those intangible crescents of cutting energy scythed cleanly through the legs and bodies of the enemy like a razor through paper. There was little hope for the trolls after most of their remaining numbers became crippled.

The imp familiars even cast aside their bows and drew out alchemy swords, rushing into the fight with poisoned blades that could send trolls tumbling about the ground with a single swing. I briefly considered getting to work crafting new weapons for them. However, there were so many of them and they were initially meant for supporting roles so the alchemy swords were better suited to our needs.

Twenty-one minutes came and went in a flash, finally draining everybody's skills and mana to the point where Cweeper and Hermes were finally called upon to fight their own waves of reinforcement trolls. Just like Hermes had said, their roles were little more than a single swing of one sword before they had to wait on the next wave and the other's turn. It was honestly kind of pitiful, for the trolls.

After both of them had taken their turns scything an entire wave of reinforcements, I stopped the others when they were getting ready to get back into their formation without me. Since I had been given a backseat role in this raid while my team showed off what they were capable of, I decided to count myself as one of my familiars. If my familiars were reserve units used to bring down their own waves of enemies, how could I not do the same?!

I, of course, was not my familiars so the others were more than uncertain about whether or not to let me solo a wave. However, I simply used my position as the party and clan leader to inform them that they did not have a choice! It was a little crude and rude to wave around the power they had given to me but I wanted to have some fun as well!

When my person wave of trolls were half of the way across the field from the fort I used Quick Step to shorten the distance before unsheathing Hauntings. Then, just to show the others that I had power similar to my familiars I poured five hundred mana points into my own Mana Slash skill.

My own Mana Slash did not cover one hundred yards like the slash attacks of Cweeper and Hermes but it still spread out further than the trolls.

Two hundred health bars appeared over the heads of the trolls and all of them empties out to at least half of their health while others were dropped to critical levels from taking critical hits. Many trolls were staggered back from the brilliant crescent of blinding light while quite a few others were simply thrown into the air. Sadly, none of them died from just the one attack like they did whenever my familiars struck.

However, the clean up work was easy, all I needed to do was use another Quick Step to close the distance before cycling through all of my ranged slashing skills. Spiritual attacks followed by different elements cut through the still living trolls, sending them sprawling to the ground in parts and pieces even before I moved on to using my combination skills.

Once the basic versions were on cool, I had no choice but to use the intermediate combined versions followed by the 'advanced' Geist versions once the enemy came within reach of my actual sword. I was honestly surprised the trolls never faltered but simply pressed on like lemmings running to the edge of a cliff with no idea the world suddenly fell away from the edge. Then again, their AI drove them to their own deaths since this was a type of event that they were literally made for.

To say that it was an easy fight was not untrue but to say that I went unhindered was an overstatement. Once the trolls closed in it seemed like they received renewed strength and energy, doing everything in their power to surround me and beat or cut me down. I took several attacks before I managed to clear the rest of the trolls but with my new set of near-heavy armor each attack only took between five and ten percent of my health.

Five and ten percent of about thirteen hundred was no less that fifty and one hundred HP, whittling me down to only six hundred health remaining at around forty percent of my health bar. However, by the time I reached that point I was no longer taking any damage. There were simply no more trolls surrounding me, they were all dead and painting the landscape.

My fight had lasted so long that the next wave of trolls was already leaving the fort as I walked back to my position in the rear of the formation with my two main familiars. The others all cheered for me for a few moments to celebrate my solo victory while notifications for title upgrades rolled in, similar to all of my goblin titles. There was no 'Troll Sureya' title like there was for goblins, but then again there were no famous works based around trolls like there was the story 'Goblin Slayer'.

Sadly, none of these titles affected my stats but instead made trolls hate and despise me to the point where my entering the territory of a troll tribe would instantly alert the troll tribes. This honestly was not much of a problem, it would simply make things easier for me in the future as long as I remained strong enough to handle the problems it causes. Even if hundreds of trolls from some random tribe were to gang up on me, it would only bring benefits and not losses with my familiars there.

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