The Last Experience Point

As anyone with a brain could have easily predicted, a prolonged period of shock and disbelief came upon the raid, which Zach had been expecting. But at least the fallout from it wasn't directed at him for once, which was good, because now that Donovan and Zephyr had both finished speaking, Zach managed to doze off and take a little nap on the carpet as the terrified adventurers, caught in a state of total denial, asked the two men over and over if they were "sure" and if there might not be "some mistake."

Though each question was worded slightly differently each time it was spoken, all the adventurers asked essentially the same thing. One asked whether or not Donovan or Zephyr could possibly have been misinformed, and another asked if it was possible they were confusing the World Eater for another boss entirely. And even among those who accepted the existence of the World Eater, many began inquiring as to whether or not the spawn chance was 100%, as though hoping maybe it might not happen at all for some reason.

"This is happening," Donovan said to them all. "We've got about five years, maybe a bit less now, and then we've gotta be ready to fight."

"And you're just telling us this now?" Kesten said angrily. "Did Alex know about this?"

"Yeah, he knew."

"And you didn't think we should know too!" roared a young man near the back.

"It wasn't my call. Look, there are reasons for keeping this shit secret, but since way too many people know now anyway, it's bound to get out sooner or later, so uh, I guess it's good that you know too."

Zach, listening in on this while in a very light doze, decided to sit back up, yawn, and rub his eyes with the back of his wrist. "Okay," he said, still half asleep. "So, like, are we done talking about this now or what?"

Rather than an answer, he got only anger and accusations of being "insensitive." Zach supposed they didn't like how cavalier he was being about all of this. But to him, this was something he'd known about for a while now, so there was no big shock in what Donovan and Zephyr were saying. The same was true of Jimmy, Rian, Lienne, Olivir, and Kolona. Nevertheless, Zach's lack of emotion seemed to upset the adventurers, who were processing all of this for the very first time.

Drowsy, Zach nearly fell asleep a second time as the adventurers continued to pester Donovan and Zephyr with questions they either couldn't answer or already had. Eventually, though, the topic did begin to die down, and when it did, Donovan concluded it by reminding everyone that there was still time to grow strong before the World Eater appeared in Galterra.

"We're gonna figure this out," Donovan said. Then he shot a fierce look at Tyson. "Also, I don't need to tell you not to run your mouth about this to the political guilds, do I?"

Tyson gave a definitive shake of his head. "I renounce all my ties to them," he said. "So no. I'll tell them nothing."

Donovan gave the man a brief but meaningful nod of approval. And with that, he said, "Okay. If that's everything, I say we start heading back and—"

"It's not everything," Jimmy interrupted. "Because we're not going back. We're pushing forward to the dungeon."

Looking annoyed, Donovan pointed his index finger at where Jimmy was seated on the hallway floor. "Don't start your shit again, Jimmy. We've already been through this. We're going back and then returning in one week when we are better prepared."

"Fine, everybody else can go back, but I'm staying. I'll solo this shit if I have to."

"Nah, kiddo, you won't. You're coming with us even if I have to drag you."

Jimmy twisted his lips a moment. "Okay, how about this, Don? While you and Zephyr were talking about the World Eater, I finally came up with a legit plan. So uh, here's my offer: at least just hear me out, and if you still wanna go back, I'll come with you without raising a fuss."

Donovan made a skeptical-sounding grunt. "Wait, so the only term of this deal is that I have to listen to what you have to say?"

"Yup."

He grunted a second time. "I would've done that anyway. Go on, then. Say what you gotta."

Jimmy smiled confidently, and Zach could hear him shifting on the floor as he stood back up to his feet. Now, he raised his voice as he addressed the entire raid at once.

"The core problem we've got," he began, "is that because of the narrowness of the hallway, fighting an elite becomes way more dangerous than it already is. That's why everybody wants to go back, isn't it? Everyone's worried about the idea of having just a small handful of people fight an elite by themselves. Unless I'm misunderstanding the situation, that is what ya'll are worried about, right?"

"Well, yeah," Zephyr said. "There's just no room, and also, we have no idea what this thing is capable of. It takes what's already a high level of danger and ramps it up to extreme."

Jimmy nodded at him. "Well, it turns out we had a solution here the entire time. We just didn't think about it. Actually, I'm mad at myself for not coming up with this right away, especially since it's so obvious."

"What solution?" Zach asked, becoming somewhat curious.

Jimmy laughed and spun around. Then he pointed his staff down the hall and at one individual in particular. "Eldora is here with us," he said. "That changes everything. We can just make him fight the elite while we observe it."

There were murmurs of surprise and even some of agreement as Jimmy's idea, which was both obvious yet somehow elusive, began to resonate with the other adventurers. Zach, who happened to be in front of Eldora and facing away from him, twisted his body and craned his neck to look behind himself at the Elvish man.

It never stops amazing me how much he's changed since we were neighbors.

Clad in glistening, golden, and metallic armor, and adorned with an ornate, red-and-white cape, the man was almost unrecognizable from the construction worker who'd lived in the room just across the hall from the one Zach had shared with his dad.

Now, Eldora, who almost seemed surprised by the numerous heads that were turning to face him, pointed a finger at himself and asked, "Me?"

"Yeah," Jimmy confirmed.

"It does make a lot of sense, I have to admit," Zephyr said. "Eldora is the strongest here among us. Even that elite mob is probably not too huge a threat to him, especially not if he teams up with his niece."

"True," Zach agreed, nodding. "Two Elves should be more than capable of learning everything we need to know about that floating book-thing without getting seriously hurt."

More and more adventurers began chiming in with agreement, and it was at this point that Eldora stood up and said, "I would be more than willing to help if you think I can. I have no idea how I'll fare against something like this, but I'm by no means afraid to try." He lowered his head somewhat and made a soft, yet playful-sounding chuckle. "But I really don't think I'll be able to solo it, though. It's got a lot of HP."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Jimmy said to him. "You don't need to solo it. We just need you to find out what it's got in store for us and what the deal with it is. If it turns out that it's too tough? We can always just leave and de-aggro. The reason you're perfect for this is 'cause there's almost no chance that mob is gonna be able to kill or injure you so fast that you can't escape down the hall if you need to."

Eldora rubbed his chin as though thinking it over. Donovan was making the same gesture, too. "Kiddo's got a point," he said. "That's really not a bad idea if you're up for it, Eldy. From what I can remember, you took on three of Ziragoth's adds by yourself back when we were putting the dragon to sleep, and those were level-90."

"I remember that," Zephyr said, agreeing with Donovan. But then he held up a finger. "Not to be a contrarian, though, but since this mob is elite, it can't be truly considered level-55. And unlike the formula we've picked up for bosses, we have no idea what 'elite' translates to in terms of power."

Following this point, Zephyr and Donovan entered into a discussion on the matter, one that was soon joined in by Maric, Kesten, Alixa, and a great many others. But Zach didn't pay attention to any of it, because in all honesty, the discussion was useless. It was clear by this point that they were going to go with Jimmy's idea. It was just obvious. Therefore, the entire discourse taking place right now was almost more like a formality than a debate over what to do next.

"…and if the two of them get into trouble, we can always just have everyone run back down the hall so he can de-aggro without issue."

"Exactly," Zephyr said, replying to Donovan.

Jimmy, who had said nothing in a few minutes, was tapping his feet faster and faster on the carpeted flooring, creating a steadily increasing rhythm of thud-thud-thud as his impatience began to manifest itself in physical ways. Eventually, he moved over to Zach and began whispering in his ear.

"I can't wait until I'm the raid leader again. I hate Donovan and Zephyr raids, man. All they do is talk about shit for an hour and then run away, right?"

Zach chose not to respond. He merely made an ambiguous shrugging gesture and hoped Jimmy would stop putting him on the spot. Thankfully, as the conversation wound down, Jimmy's attention became fully set upon Eldora, who drew one of the three bluish-silver swords he was carrying: the one on his back. And with that, he smiled warmly at Kolona, who was now beside him.

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"Finally, I get to fight with you, King Vayra."

"Please don't call me that," he replied. "I'm no king. I'm an adventurer."

"Oops, sorry."

"It's okay. And yes, I'm so glad to finally adventure with you, Kolona." Right there, in the middle of the hallway, he seemed to become a bit choked up. "It just blows me away every time I see you how much you've grown into a young, beautiful woman. You look so much like my daughter, too."

"Kalana's way prettier," she said. "And I'm a vampire now." She pinched her cheek. "I'm much paler than I used to be."

"You look as beautiful as my sister—your mother—did before she was taken from us and executed."

"Mom," Kolona whispered. "I barely remember her." A sad look crossed her features, and for just a moment, she seemed to be distracted by memories of her past. But then, abruptly, she smiled and said, "Anyways, Kalana's way prettier."

At this, Zach coughed out an involuntary laugh, which caused Olivir to look at him with an expression that contained both a frown as well as a raised eyebrow; it was as though he wasn't sure whether to be upset or confused, likely because he didn't understand Zach's intentions, which he was now forced to clarify.

"I'm not laughing because I agree with what she said," Zach explained. "I'm only laughing because I realize that, if Kalana were here with us right now, she'd get into a yelling match with Kolona over that, and they'd go back and forth about why the other one was prettier."

"Ah," Olivir said. Then he too laughed heartily. "Actually, you're right about that. They would."

It's been ten days since I've seen her, Zach thought to himself. I miss her so badly.

Still seated, Zach lazily scooched to the side to let Eldora and Kolona pass, and then, along with the rest of the raid, he watched as the two approached the elite mob, which was still just floating around the hallway, its pages occasionally turning back and forth. Eldora, with his sword raised, said, "I'll attack it first."

Kolona gave him a thumbs-up. "Mhm." Then she drew her daggers. "Let's get it."

And with that, Zach leaned closer and felt excitement replace his fatigue as he and the others watched Eldora strut right up to the elite, level-55 mob, lift his sword high above him, and unleash an attack directly at it—or at least that was what he attempted to do.

But he missed.

With a speed that was both strange and perhaps even automatic, the mob floated about five feet backwards down the hallway and away from Eldora's sword. "Wow, it's fast," he said as he jumped forward and made a second, follow-up slash. This one was wider: so much so that it covered a width that nearly spanned the right wall to the left one.

But this also missed.

"What the…"

"Let me try, uncle."

Kolona ran forward and hopped up and over Eldora's head before landing in front of him. As soon as she touched down on the hallway carpet, she burst forward and jabbed both her daggers forward and at the mob. Zach was amazed by her speed—she moved blindingly fast. And yet, inexplicably, the tome floated up, over, and behind Kolona, whose daggers completely failed to so much as scratch the tome's cover or tear one of its pages.

"How's it so fast?" she asked with a gasp.

The tome, now sandwiched between Kolona and Eldora, made a series of impossibly perfect zigzagging motions as the two of them attacked in unison. Somehow, it managed to float below Eldora's sword while simultaneously snapping shut to avoid a wide, double-thrust of Kolona's daggers. Then it opened itself up again, and pages began flipping rapidly as a blue bolt of lightning dropped down from the ceiling above and landed right on top of Kolona. Thankfully, there was an orange flash of light that surrounded Kolona's body like a barrier, and the lightning was deflected.

Her passive, Zach thought, recalling that she had something called Shield of the Agile Goddess, a Legendary Unique passive which made it so that as long as she had a higher speed or dexterity stat than whatever struck her, she was guaranteed to deflect five hits before she could be harmed.

"Are you okay, Kolona?" Eldora asked.

"I'm fine. But I can't seem to hit the thing."

Jimmy, gently pushing someone to the side so that he could stand frontmost with Donovan and Zephyr, called out, "Stop trying to hit it with melee. That's not gonna work."

"Why not?" Eldora called back to him.

Jimmy sighed as though the question itself frustrated him. "Can't you see? This thing obviously has too high evasion."

"Too high…evasion?" Zephyr asked. Zach was also confused, too.

Jimmy rubbed his face. "You know what I mean. It's gonna auto-evade anything you try to hit it with. Some mobs do that shit. At least…in the simulations they do."

Now that Zach had a better idea of what Jimmy was trying to say, it reminded him of the giant worm that he and Kalana had fought on the beach on her island. That, too, had evaded literally everything they threw at it, no matter how clever or fast. At the time, it had seemed like hitting it had been impossible no matter the speed they'd attacked. Ultimately, however, they'd been able to overcome this with the use of crowd control.

Maybe that's what we need here, he thought. Some CC.

He opened his mouth to suggest such, but Jimmy was already beating him to it. "Guys, get back a second, please. I'm gonna try slowing it."

"Oh, good idea!" Kolona chirped. As Eldora began to dash backwards, Kolona leapt above and over the tome and landed down on the carpet an instant later. Then she spun her body around and also began to move backwards as a dark, purple-colored ball of energy flew out of the book's pages, became enlarged, and blasted off in her direction—only to be repelled as a second orange flash of light deflected it, causing it to crash into the wall on the left, where it dissipated without doing any damage to the surrounding structure.

"That's two," Olivir said to her in warning. "Be careful!"

"I know, honey."

Jimmy, stepping forward, began waving his staff around. Now, from about twenty feet away, which was the distance between Jimmy, the tome, and the two Elves, who had returned to the rest of the raid, a giant puff of crackling smoke popped into existence, covering the tome completely. It faded soon after, and following this, the book began floating significantly more slowly towards them, likely having aggroed onto Jimmy now.

"I'll get that off you, son," Eldora said to him as he once more dashed down the hallway and ripped his blade across the book. This time, he connected, but to the shock of just about everyone, the blade didn't even manage to tear a single one of its pages. The sword merely made a loud thwack and dealt a pathetic 955 damage.

"Wh-what?" he shouted.

"It must be real resistant to melee," Jimmy said. "Eldora, get clear of it. We need to light it up with magic. Hey, Emala! You're the strongest mage we got: use your light wisps!"

Despite this being Donovan and Zephyr's raid, the woman actually obeyed Jimmy, and neither of the two said a word in protest as she jumped to her feet, scrambled around—and in some cases over—the other adventurers, and began launching the detonating white wisps at the tome, sending out three in total, the first of which struck and exploded for 39,115 damage while also sending pieces of paper and leather in the air that slowly floated down onto the carpet.

I guess that's the equivalent of making this thing bleed, Zach thought with a chuckle.

"It's weak to magic!" Jimmy said with a victorious, celebratory laugh. "Anybody who's got direct-target, non-projectile magic start attacking it. Oh! But don't stand up. That way everybody can keep line of sight!"

"Oh, shit, good idea," Donovan said, sounding amazed.

Olivir, however, disobeyed and got right up to his feet. He then walked confidently over to Emala and extended his palm. "She's actually the second-strongest mage here," he said. "And I say that without arrogance but simply because it's a fact."

No one, Jimmy included, protested as Olivir decided to occupy the second spot next to Emala. Given the lack of space, only two mages could possibly launch attacks at the tome at a time. Everyone else had to either hold their fire or use magic that did not have to "travel" to its destination.

With Emala by his side unleashing another few wisps, Olivir fired black orbs out of his palm, and these struck the mob for almost 60,000 damage each while creating a black, maw-like dome around the elite tome mob following each impact.

"I help too!" Fluffles said with a happy meow as he hopped from Spider's head to Donovan's head then dropped back down to the carpet, where he lingered next to Emala. Once there, he caused a chain of fast, frenzied lightning bolts to zap the book over and over, each doing between five and eight thousand damage; at the same time, Lienne called upon her pillar of flame, which began as a circle on the carpeted floor and ended as an inferno that did repeated damage to the tome.

It was here that they all came to learn that fire was especially effective against the mob, as the tome not only took 43,800 initial damage, but it was taking right around the same amount every few seconds again and again, as it was too slow to float outside of the pillar of flame that Lienne had summoned.

"More fire!" Jimmy called out.

A second and third attack very similar to Lienne's went off at the same time, each creating its own circle around the mob. But one, however, made use of green flames, and the other gave off a fire that was more reddish than Lienne's naturally colored flames; the result was a tri-colored inferno that made it impossible to keep the mob in view. Fortunately, Emala had already dispatched another four wisps, and so now, in addition to all the flames, there were regular explosive flashes of white light, making it painful to even continue to watch. And that was in addition to Fluffles' constant barrage of lightning and the black dome-shaped explosions from the dark-type magic Olivir was shooting at the book.

With so much light and color in such a confined space, seeing the mob's HP was impossible. Hell, even just seeing the mob was impossible. Therefore, it was only as Alixa began shouting out, "It's dead, it's dead," that the magical assault on the tome came to an end. "My XP bar went up," she said. "Trust me, it's dead."

Zach checked his own XP bar and confirmed for himself that, yes, the elite mob had indeed died, as he had what he believed to be a gain of +3,250xp from where he'd left off.

On the one hand, that was a tiny amount of experience points to gain from killing something, especially with how much Zach now needed to gain to get to his next level. But, on the other hand, given that he was in a raid with over seventy people, it was safe to say that, had he killed one of these things solo—assuming he even could—he would gain a breathtaking amount of XP.

At any rate, with the mob dead, the way forward was now open, and they could continue to see what lay beyond—but not before Zach greedily found out what that glowing purple light on the carpet was. It seemed they'd gotten an Epic Rare drop. Zach eyed Donovan as he walked forward, bent down, and picked up something fairly large that soon revealed itself to be a tome that looked quite a bit like the one they'd just killed.

"It's a spellcasting tome," he said. "Great stats, too."

Right away, all eyes fell upon the young, 15-year-old teenage adventurer, Ishina, and the red-haired, glasses-wearing nerd, Alixa, whose sword-shaped earrings gave off a grey glow as she locked eyes with her younger counterpart. The two began to stare one another down, and it was obvious as to why: they were the only two adventurers on the raid who used a spell tome, and it was plainly the case that they both wanted it.

"I should get it," Ishina said. "You should let me have it."

"But I want it too," Alixa argued.

"Yeah, well, you already have so much. And you're an old woman. Why not let a kid have something for a change?"

"I'm a what?" Alixa snapped. "I'm only twenty-two years old! A lot of people still consider that a kid!"

"You're an old woman, and I want it."

"Girls!" Donovan snapped. "This is why we roll for things. Stop fighting over loot! I hate when adventurers do that. Nothing puts me off more than seeing that shit."

"Yeah," Zach agreed. "Neither of them should get it now. It should go to me to teach them a lesson." He laughed loudly—then closed his mouth and apologized as Ishina, Alixa, and even Donovan all began giving him an angry, dark look.

"The two of you can roll for it whenever we do loot and depending on how far we push. But you should both know by now that we don't talk about who gets what while a raid is still going on."

"Yeah, yeah," Ishina grumbled. Then, more loudly, she snapped at her archer father. "Stop telling me to apologize, Dad! I didn't say anything wrong." The sound of a man's voice mumbling something sternly to his daughter could be heard even from where Zach was standing, and it caused him—and numerous others—to chuckle. "I did not. No I didn't! Okay, fine."

With misery on her face, Ishina approached Alixa. "I'm sorry I called you old," she said, though it looked like it hurt her to say so.

"I accept your apology. I'm not old."

"Whatever," Ishina grumbled. "By the way, my dad's only making me apologize because he thinks you're hot and wants to bang you."

"Wh-what?" her father shouted out. "I never…I would never…I have no idea what she's…"

"Yeah you do. I heard you snickering with your friends about it in Angelica's."

"Ishina! Please stop making up these outrageous—"

"It's not a lie," she said to Alixa. "My dad said you have an amazing ass. He's gross and thirty-five."

Alixa blushed, Kesten, her ex-boyfriend, snarled, and Ishina walked away laughing. Donovan, not seeming to be in the mood for any of this, began swearing at just about everyone as they proceeded onward into the dark, misty, and once endless hallway that now seemed to actually have an end. But going forward, everyone kept their guard up, as from this point forward, there was no longer any guarantee of safety. It also seemed to get darker and darker much more quickly.

How much farther would it go on for?