The guild members who had belatedly chased after Ian and arrived at the boss room were rendered speechless by the carnage before their eyes.
“Th-this can’t be…”
“A-a total wipeout?”
They may not have liked them, but they too had been players who fought on the front lines.
And yet not a single one had survived.
All that remained was Alexandros’s head, rolling toward them like a ball.
Before the Crimson King, they had all become cold corpses.
The fear of death settled among them like a chill wind.
Priya and the others, witnessing death at the hands of a boss for the first time, trembled in terror, their hands and feet shaking. Kenji and Kaan, too, turned their eyes away from the gruesome scene.
At that sight, Adrian clicked his tongue and called out to Ian.
“Ian, for now, let’s go back and report—”
But he was unable to finish.
“I-Ian!”
Because Ian had suddenly charged toward the boss.
“Haaaah!”
The blood-red pupils turned toward her at the same time Ian’s strike landed on the Minotaur.
However.
[The boss is Invulnerable]
Ian’s sword was blocked by a transparent barrier and failed to reach it.
As her expression twisted, the Minotaur swung its greatsword.
—Swaaak!
Ian’s sword cut through the air and blocked the incoming greatsword.
But unable to withstand the tremendous impact, Ian was pushed all the way back to where Adrian stood.
“Hey, are you out of your mind? Let’s get out of here first!”
“I know! I know, but we can’t just leave those people like this.”
“You really do all sorts of pointless things.”
They were people she had clashed with.
Even if she left them here, no one would blame her.
But the moment she saw such a tragedy before her eyes, Ian’s body had already moved forward.
They had not shared a good relationship, but this time, she at least wanted to recover their bodies.
“I’ll buy time. So please just get the people out. I’m asking you.”
Ian raised her sword again.
“Hoo… Fine. But don’t overdo it.”
“Don’t worry. My level is higher than yours.”
She charged toward the Minotaur once more.
Two swords collided.
Sparks flew.
Adrian gave orders to the people standing there in a daze.
“Kenji, Kaan, Para, Claire! Don’t touch the boss, just recover the bodies!”
At his voice, Priya finally came to her senses and approached Adrian.
“W-we’ll help too.”
“You guys are too slow. You three just support us from the entrance. All right, we’re going in!”
Then five people rushed into the boss room.
While Ian drew the boss’s attention, they began recovering the bodies.
Of course, in the process, there were times when the boss attacked them as well.
“Slash!”
Forcing her body in almost recklessly, Ian persistently knocked away the Minotaur’s greatsword.
And so Adrian’s group steadily recovered the corpses.
“There aren’t many left. Hang in there just a little longer!”
There were only three left now.
—Rrrrrrr…
The door to the boss room began to close.
Priya shouted.
“The door is closing! You have to get out quickly!”
“Already? Everyone, get out for now!”
Adrian roughly hoisted a nearby corpse onto his back and ran toward the door.
At his order, the others hurried outside.
But Ian was still inside the boss room.
“Miss Ian! Come out!”
And nearby, Alexandros’s body still remained unrecovered.
“Haaaah!”
After forcefully knocking away the Minotaur’s sword, Ian immediately tucked Alexandros’s corpse under her arm and ran toward the door.
But as if refusing to let her go, the Minotaur’s greatsword blocked Ian’s path.
At the same time, a massive fist cast a shadow over her head.
In that instant, wind swirled around Ian’s body.
“Haste!”
The acceleration magic, Haste.
Having become a streak of wind, she slipped past the fist, then the sword, and fled.
And then.
—Rrrrrrr…
Toward the narrowing gap in the door.
“Take him!”
She threw Alexandros’s body through.
—Thud!
And just before the door closed completely, she squeezed herself through and barely escaped the boss room.
“Haa, haa…”
Ian panted harshly.
She immediately surrendered herself to the cold floor.
Adrian approached her side.
“You really do commit reckless acts like it’s nothing. What were you going to do if you’d died?”
“But I lived, didn’t I? And we brought everyone out.”
“Sigh. Well, as long as you’re satisfied.”
As he said, a proud smile rested on Ian’s lips.
At the very least, she had been able to honor them at the end.
That fact alone was enough to satisfy Ian.
At that moment, Carmen, who had been looking at the dead, smiled bitterly.
“But how are we going to take all these people with us?”
At those words, everyone looked at Ian.
And after reading the room for a moment, she gave an awkward smile.
“S-should we try to find a cart?”
“How are we supposed to find one here?”
In the end, Ian’s group decided to divide the bodies among themselves and carry them back together.
***
After making simple graves on the outskirts of Winsley and returning to town, Ian’s guild headed to the tavern they always used in order to discuss future measures with Emily.
There, they were able to meet a familiar face.
“Shaura?! You’re alive!”
Shaura, another raid guild leader who had headed to the eastern tower.
He lowered his head and avoided the gazes of Ian’s group.
“I’m sorry. I have nothing to say.”
“It’s all right. As long as you’re alive.”
“…Thank you. But Alexandros…”
At Shaura’s question, this time the others averted their gazes.
Only Adrian, who had been closest to him, let out a deep sigh and spoke.
“A total wipeout. On their side.”
A cold silence flowed between them.
Like a solid sheet of ice, no one could bring themselves to speak rashly.
Not until Emily appeared at just the right time and changed the atmosphere.
“You were all here. Come in quickly. We need to discuss what happens next.”
“Let’s do that.”
To those gathered in the tavern, Emily briefly summarized the damage.
Alexandros and his guild members had been annihilated.
And Shaura’s guild had suffered a total of five casualties.
“Can you tell us what happened inside now?”
“…Very well.”
It was not easy to recall the dead, but Shaura spoke of the boss as plainly as he could.
“The boss we faced was the Azure Minotaur Queen. A Minotaur with blue skin.”
The Queen’s weapon was a staff.
She was a type of boss that pressured players with a variety of high-level magic.
A dizzying feast of flames and ice rained down.
Even so, Shaura’s guild members steadily proceeded with the raid.
They had experienced several boss fights before, so they were able to handle unexpected situations to some extent.
However.
“The situation changed from that point on.”
Berserk mode, in which blue mana covered her entire body.
From then on, the Queen’s patterns began to change rapidly and unpredictably.
On top of that.
“Around that time, the boss suddenly became invulnerable.”
“Which means…”
There was only one condition for becoming invulnerable.
There had to be no one raiding the boss on the opposite side.
In other words, from the moment Ian arrived, Shaura’s guild members had entered an indefinite battle of endurance.
“After that, we had no choice but to hold out until the door opened. And in the process, casualties occurred. It was all my mistake. We should never have started the raid in the first place.”
He clutched at his hair again, tormented.
And Emily rebuked him.
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t the time to blame yourself. We gathered here to decide what comes next.”
At her emotionless, cold demeanor, sharp gazes from the others poured onto her, but Emily paid them no mind and continued.
“An entire guild has been wiped out. Even if we try to hide it as much as possible, people will find out soon enough.”
No matter how lacking this world was in meaningful means of communication, rumors spread quickly.
If people realized that Alexandros’s guild did not appear in the next defense battle, then what had happened today would naturally come to light as well.
“And if people hear about this, those who had only just found their courage may leave the battlefield again.”
Just as the people in the lower zones could hear news from the upper zones, they too could hear news from the lower zones.
That was why Emily had been as happy as if it were her own accomplishment when she learned that far fewer people than before were shutting themselves away in cramped rooms.
Ian’s victory at the Tetumaya Festival had played no small part in that, but the fact that every raid had succeeded without a single failure until now had also played a major role in getting people to come outside.
But what if the players learned that the raid had failed after only reaching Zone 5?
Would people still be able to step onto the battlefield as they did now?
No one could refute Emily’s opinion.
“But there’s no way, is there?”
“No. There is a way. In fact, it’s a method everyone here already knows.”
After mulling over Emily’s words for a moment, Shaura slammed the table and stood up.
“N-no. Absolutely not! You know what we went through, don’t you?”
What existed in his eyes was anxiety, and fear.
He did not want the people here to follow in his footsteps.
But Emily shook her head.
“But we weren’t there.”
“This isn’t a matter you can gloss over like that…”
“No. It is exactly something we can gloss over like that. Objectively speaking, this raid was not conducted at full strength.”
Emily’s gaze turned to Ian, who had been blankly watching the two of them.
Then to Adrian, to his party members, to her own guild members, and finally to Shaura and his guild members.
After looking over everyone alongside her, Shaura had no choice but to nod reluctantly.
“So when are you saying we should subjugate it?”
“I know it’s impossible immediately. You’ll need time to collect yourself as well.”
In his current state, he would not be able to fight properly.
A force like that would only take up space; whether present or absent, it would make no difference.
Emily looked around at everyone once more and declared.
“Immediately after the next defense battle ends. When people start to notice something is suspicious, we will subjugate the boss.”