The Wrong Hero

Chapter 45 - Everyone Wants a Piece

"Graaa!"

The first boss monster they came across lay dead. Keel pulled one of his swords from the chest of the Karma Dog.

"Well, that wasn't too difficult..." Dante looked around. A dozen Karma Dog Familiars were slain around them.

Dante wouldn't call it a pitched battle by any stretch of the word. Still, it was more difficult than the monster fights he's had more recently. Even so, his defense was more than enough to hold them back for his party to kill them.

There was a good balance of experience versus stats in his party at the moment. The two vampires had by far the most combat experience in the group, given how they both fought in wars. Fohl had mostly fought in the coliseum, but her stats were still good from the levels already sacrificed. Even though his level was the second lowest here, Keel actually had the highest stats overall at the moment, aside from Dante. Donavan and Nisha weren't that far behind. The large equip bonuses from the Shield of the Beast King didn't hurt either.

"That's because we trained hard and grew a lot stronger!" Keel declared.

"That you did." Dante agreed. He felt Eclair said something similar at Melromarc's wave.

"What's next, Lord Shield?" Nisha asked.

"I'll absorb the monsters and we'll see how long it takes for that orb to spit out another one." Dante approached the first familiar.

"Mister Dante..." Atla placed a hand on his shoulder as he bent down next to the monster.

"Yeah, I know."

One by one, the monsters were taken in by his shield. He'd take the time to break down one of each after the next round. The two shields he got were decent enough, but still didn't look that great.

I guess wave boss shields and custom made shields will be the best. Unless this Karma Dog Shield upgrades crazy well, that is.

Reiko was standing right next to Dante, having been put there by Keel.

"How do you want to handle this?" Donavan whispered.

"Not sure. We don't have much in terms of ranged attacks at the moment, outside of fire magic." Dante noted. While these trees didn't look incredibly flammable, he didn't want to start throwing fire around too much in a forest.

"The bonus your spell provides us should let us reach them quickly with little risk of injury." Donavan told him.

"Hmmm. Yeah, let's go with that."

They made their plan amongst themselves. Dante's spell still had plenty of time on it, and the trees weren't that far away.

"Shooting Star Shield VI!"

With his skill cast, Donavan, Nisha, and Keel ran out. Arrows started being shot from behind the large trees that surrounded the floating orb the boss monster came from. With their speed, the three of them were able to avoid arrows directed at them, while the ones aimed at the rest of the party harmlessly bounced off Dante's barrier.

"Hah!" Donavan slammed his arm into a tree, catching an archer. Another couple of strikes left them on the ground.

Nisha darted around another tree and coiled her whip around the legs of another archer, dragging them toward her. Keel had the same idea, only using his swords to break their bow.

One by one, the enemies fell. After the first round of adventurers, they all kept alert for another attack. While this group had a better general strategy, Dante felt it was rather poorly executed.

"You know, I thought people with membership to the Dark Guild would be stronger." He commented. Though, it wasn't as if everyone in the group needed to be a member. One person was enough to find jobs.