411 - Tactical Roland Drop 1
TL/Editor: raei
Status: 5/Week Mon-fri
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
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A tall palisade and a deep moat stood before them.
The goblins' fortification work and the orcs standing guard were strangely triggering PTSD in Korean men only. Those armored ones looked like orc hunters, didn't they?
Anyway, while chuckling at the viewers trembling and comparing the moat-digging to drainage work, they noticed something about the monster encampment on the 55th floor. Despite the centaur cavalry gathering and what appeared to be orc snipers rather than javelineers in the watchtowers...
They roughly concluded that this wasn't the mid-boss.
To be precise, it might be part of the mid-boss, but not the whole thing.
"It's wide, but there aren't as many troops as I expected. Besides the orcs watching from the towers, I don't see any special monsters," Grace observed."Could this be a captured safe zone?" Katie wondered.
The place was indeed teeming with monsters. Hundreds of goblins scurried about managing the camp, and Han Se-ah's camera revealed at least a hundred orcs inside. Including the centaur cavalry, there were easily thousands of troops stationed there.
For an unlucky adventurer, it would be an overwhelming, hopeless force. But from another perspective, it was just a thousand or so monsters.
Still, for the 55th floor's mid-boss, only a thousand goblins and orcs?
Looking at the Harpy Empire just below, their army that fought the knights was in the thousands. If the Harpy Empire had thousands of minions before the boss, could a mere thousand regular monsters really be the mid-boss here?
"You might be right. It seems smaller than I thought. Of course, a thousand soldiers are threatening, but... if you ask me if they're scarier than the ogre, I'd say no."
"True, that makes sense. The Demon King's specially prepared monster should be stronger than an ogre," Han Se-ah agreed.
While Han Se-ah and the viewers were thinking this way, our party started having similar thoughts. After all, they were all 5★ mana users.
Even with sturdy armor on the goblins and orc hunters firing arrows from afar, these were still mid-tier monsters at best.
Though their numbers were impressive, Han Se-ah could probably take out about 40% of them with a single, full-power lightning strike. Even if mages tried to conserve mana, there was no need to hold back here.
In short, their confidence in handling this easily made them doubt it was truly the mid-boss. Indeed, if most were goblins, it seemed more fitting for the 45th floor than the 50th.
"If they're this weak, should we engage?" Han Se-ah suggested.
"I don't see any other monsters nearby. At most, there might be some centaur scouts coming from the other side," Grace replied.
Even with thousands of troops, most were goblins. It was natural to feel they were manageable, no matter how well-armored.
So, as they crawled through the tall grass, the idea of attacking began to surface. Even if the moat was deep, Han Se-ah's Earth Control could make a path with minimal mana loss, and the palisade was just logs after all.
They could probably smash through it if no reinforcements arrived during the fight... but what worried them wasn't the monsters' strength, but Han Se-ah's quest line.
"Ah, should we charge in or not? What if this messes up the quest again? Do we need to bring the Magic Tower to investigate or gather other mercenaries? They're just goblins, so maybe we can smash them all and have this place examined afterward."
-It's ridiculous that winning too easily is the problem lololol
-Since most are goblins, the teacher could probably handle it alone just by holding up his shield
-For real, it might take time, but Roland could probably take them all out just by rolling around in there
-But why do named monsters roam alone while mobs and mid-bosses are in armies?
-No matter how many numbers you put between curses, the mod brothers have learned 1234567890 and will cut it all out, so speak in roundabout ways
Han Se-ah had already tasted the sweetness of a smoothly progressing quest. She couldn't help but worry about messing it up again by being reckless.
But who was she? A veteran streamer who had been scraping together viewers as an elite cyber clown even before VR games appeared in the world.
A woman with a strong competitive spirit, who loved drawing attention and diving headfirst into games.
Such a woman couldn't possibly turn away from an easy target right before her eyes. And the viewers wouldn't let her, either.
[Han Se ah The First Pathmaker donated 10,000 won!]
If you destroy all that without messing up the quest, I'll donate 50,000
[Teacher Roland's Impressive Greatsword donated 50,000 won!]
Scared?
[Sexy Plate Lover donated $15!]
If you run away, your #1 status will be questioned. Charge in!
[NunTaku Sama donated 10,000 won!]
When weak enemies gather, you should hunt them for exp and gold. It's common sense
Anyway, having discovered a suspicious monster encampment on the 55th floor, how could they retreat to bring Magic Tower mages? This was real-time virtual reality - if they retreated now, it would take nearly two weeks to go back, explain to the old mages, gather people, and return.
"Ta-da! We've discovered the world's first 55th floor monster encampment, but we'll tackle it in two weeks~"
That's basically saying, "I'm going to halfass my stream because I'm coasting through life, so viewers can suck it if they're upset, haha!"
"Roland, shall we go for it?"
For Han Se-ah, with her moth-to-flame tendencies, retreat was never an option.
---
Raei Translations
---
Amidst the viewers' flood of donations, Han Se-ah quietly spoke to me.
Perhaps caught up in the mood set by our companions lowering their voices cutely, she also whispered. We looked a bit silly, crawling around the grass with our heads together, but since we were all attractive people, it made for a nice scene.
If it were ugly people crawling around, it would be comedy, but with these faces, it became a sweet romance unfolding in the meadow.
Somehow, we managed to roll our bodies together without being spotted. From lying side by side observing the palisade, we formed a circle with our heads together like human flower petals. Han Se-ah began to speak with a serious expression.
"There might be captured people in there."
Throwing caution to the wind and ready to jump up shouting "Roland! Charge!" her logic was about the missing people.
Forget about some noble family's knights, we'd just learned that the kind ladies who fed us cheaply had disappeared. For our party, filled with a sense of heroic duty, the possibility of people being held captive was the perfect justification.
In truth, the genius mage Han Se-ah had long since wrapped us around her finger. If she'd just said she sensed something strange and rushed in, we'd have followed anyway. But it was amusing to watch her try to logically clear the viewers' mission, so I let her continue.
She was already convinced, but her eyes were rolling as she tried to persuade us further. I couldn't stop this show.
"Well, judging by the centaurs gathering, these monsters seem to be under some kind of command. If people were kidnapped as part of their plan, they might be held in a place like this. Of course, they could be dead or gone, but... I want to check."
"Hanna... you're something else."
Though she stumbled a bit in her eagerness to construct this reasoning, Han Se-ah's words were textbook hero material.
Naturally, our party, who would nod along even to Han Se-ah's nonsense, was moved. Grace chuckled at her pure heroic demeanor, Katie felt inspired by the chivalrous mage, and the devout Irene nodded with teary eyes.
Me?
Well, knowing why Han Se-ah said those things, I just nodded silently while trying to manage my expression.
So, after this conversation that moved three people but not two, just as we decided to fight-
Fwhoooosh--
Ting--!
"Kuhup, ack, hnngg..."
Along with a sensation like someone tapping my behind, Han Se-ah suddenly coughed and buried her face in the grass.
Wondering what was going on, I glanced at the chat filled with laughter from East and West alike: "kkk," "lol," "www," etc. And on Han Se-ah's stream, there was a clear image of an orc sentry who had casually fired an arrow at the rustling grass.
It seems he shot out of curiosity at the rustling, and that long, thick arrow characteristic of orc hunters flew through the air... and precisely struck my backside. Being the tank with the toughest body, I had positioned myself facing away from the monsters.
"What's wrong, Hanna?" Katie asked.
"I think we've been spotted. The arrow they shot to check hit some armor and bounced off."
"Not armor, but right between... Mmmph!"
...This little shit, why was she filming my ass instead of Grace and Irene?