Most repeatable quests either require you to hunt a certain number of monsters, or gather a certain number of a specific drop item.

For the former, just hunting normally was enough to clear them—no need to think about it at all. For the latter, we needed RNG to cooperate and drop enough loot for all of us to meet the quota.

On top of those, there were also gathering quests.

Not hard ones, either. You just had to find and collect the required items—mostly herbs, fruits, and other materials scattered randomly across the field. With the quest markers on the map, locating them wasn’t the issue.

The problem was that monsters would always attack while you were gathering.

Logically, the solution was simple: clear out all the monsters in the area first, then gather in peace.

"Alright, I’ve finished collecting the Stupil Grass for everyone!" "Same here! The Lem Grass ones are done!" "I couldn’t get enough Kretium Stones... We still need about 25 more..."

Whenever we finished clearing a wave of monsters, we’d immediately fan out and grab whatever quest items were nearby. To keep things efficient, Ram would simultaneously head out and kite the next batch of monsters toward us while we gathered.

A classic strategy from old online games—one person lures while the rest handles something else in the downtime. Nothing revolutionary, but it worked.

With this rotation, our downtime was basically zero. Maximum efficiency at all times.

And with Ram and Gwen performing perfectly on the combat side, the hunt itself was going just as smoothly. At our current pace, we’d hit the target level with time to spare.

[BrainControl: Watched other players’ hunts yesterday... thought they were good, but seeing this makes them look like kids lol]

[FriedLiver: Don’t compare our goddesses to low-level trash! 👿]

[MoeLover: When I grow up, I want to be WhiteGod!]

[RoboF_ker: At this pace they’ll hit level 25 in no time. @UltimateSunDancer, getting cold feet? 😆😆😆]

[UltimateSunDancer: 😓😓😓]

The chat was getting livelier by the minute, mostly at UltimateSunDancer’s expense as his challenge crumbled faster than expected.

"Master!"

Right as we finished gathering everything in the area, Ram’s voice cut through.

I turned around, flexed my flag, and drove it into the ground with a grin. "Alright, let’s—"

The words died in my throat the moment I saw what was behind her.

Unlike the usual 10 to 20 monsters she’d pull at a time, this was something else entirely.

"Am I seeing double?" I muttered. "There’s like a hundred of them chasing you!"

And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

At the rear of the pack, a Grass Wolf at least five times larger than any of the others was bearing down fast. I didn’t need to check its name tag to know exactly what that was.

"Fuck! A field boss!"

Kiki snarled, putting my thoughts into words.

Even with the girls nearly at level 20 and Miyabi and I sitting at 23, tackling a boss right now was too much. Not to mention the hundred-odd monsters tagging along for the ride.

Facing them head-on meant certain death.

"Sorry, Master. The Field Boss spawned right behind me while I was kiting, and I couldn’t shake it off." Ram apologized as she ran.

I had no intention of blaming her for it, though. I wasn’t that petty. And besides—this wasn’t over yet.

"Everyone!" I raised my voice. "Handle the normal mobs! I’ll hold off the boss until you’re done!"

Even without me, they should be fine. After all, I wasn’t really included in their teamwork. I’m just the guy standing in the middle of it all without moving.

Without waiting for a response, I ran forward to meet Ram as she zigzagged toward us.

I wasn’t throwing myself into the middle of the pack—I headed straight for the tail end, where the field boss was.

"WhiteGod?!"

"Oh no...!"

Kiki and Eri went pale the moment they saw me go head-to-head with a giant wolf the size of a small truck.

I didn’t glance back. My eyes were already locked onto the target, and looking away even for a second wasn’t an option.

As I closed the distance, its name tag finally came into view.

[Field Boss: Grass Wolf Alpha Lv. 30 💀]

A seven-level gap.

My lips curled into a grin.

Fear? Despair? I felt none of that.

Just excitement, welling up from somewhere deep in my chest.

I drew my parry dagger, pointed it forward, and planted the flag into the ground.

"Come to papa!"

"GROWL!"

The Wolf Alpha charged immediately.

It wasn’t alone, either. A dozen or so of the smaller monsters peeled off and followed in its wake, coming straight for me.

I narrowed my eyes, reading them all at once.

Their movements, their formation, the order they were approaching, their speeds—I ran through every variable and started simulating it all in my head. Then the first attack came in.

The Field Boss swept its claw straight at me.

A simple, baiting move—designed to force me to dodge toward where the other monsters were clustered. If I took the bait, they’d tear me apart in seconds.

"...But who said I’d follow a script written for me?!"

I planted a hard step forward and swung the parry dagger with perfect timing. The edge caught the tip of the claw, and a sharp ringing sound rang out as the attack was deflected.

PERFECT PARRY!

The boss’s eyes went wide. It clearly hadn’t expected that.

Of course, I wasn’t done moving.

The smaller monsters pressed forward regardless of the boss getting pushed back. With so many of them attacking at once, I had to use the planted flag as a "wall" to keep them from surrounding me—parrying their attacks one after another, and kicking them back whenever I had the opening.

It bought time, but I couldn’t actually kill any of them on my own. Not like this.

"GROOOOWL!!!"

The Field Boss recovered and fired a new attack—a downward bite, straight from above. A direct hit would’ve split me in two and zeroed my HP in one go. But—

"Too slow!"

I kicked off the flag and vaulted clear.

At the same time, the smaller monsters that had been pressing in behind me lunged toward where I’d just been standing—right into the boss’s closing maw.

Five of them died instantly to friendly fire.

With the numbers roughly halved, the pressure on my mind eased considerably.

Still, just managing this much had cold sweat forming on my real body—not the virtual one. My grin widened as I watched the Wolf Alpha falter.

"What’s wrong?" I called out, taunting it. "Cat’s got your tongue?"

"GRRRR!"

Angered by being tricked into killing its own pack, the boss’s body began to change.

A new skill activating, no doubt. A buff that wrapped its entire body in swirling, razor-edged wind blades. Just looking at it made it obvious how lethal contact would be right now.

Touching it was a one-way trip to the respawn point in the middle of the village. I needed to be careful.

Since the flag was now sitting right beside the boss, grabbing it to activate the passive wasn’t an option. I swapped loadouts on the fly—flag back to inventory, longsword into my right hand alongside the parry dagger.

A sword and dagger combo... Gave me PTSD flashbacks of a certain game I used to play. Though in this timeline, that should’ve only been less than a year ago, shouldn’t it?

"GROOOWL!"

While I was lost in thought, the boss charged again.

Its dash was faster than before—and the monsters still scattered in its path simply ceased to exist, turning to red mist without ceremony. In one move, the fight had become a one-on-one.

"Now we’re talking!" My grin widened as the danger spiked further. "Time to teach this mutt not to bite the hand that feeds it!"

It launched the same basic attack as before, but chained into a series.

A claw swipe from the left, then right, then left and right again—each swipe amplified by the wind blades wreathing its body. Parrying this with a short dagger would mean instant death, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

’I’ll have to wait for the buff to run out, then close the distance in one go!’

Every attack demanded full focus, perfect calculation, and precise execution. One small mistake and my HP would bottom out instantly. Like walking a tightrope blindfolded while holding a rowdy neighbor’s cat—one wrong step and it was straight down!

A swipe, a bite, another swipe. A pounce, then a back-kick. The attack patterns kept varying as the fight stretched on. This boss definitely wasn’t working from a limited moveset.

I could see the buff starting to fade, its intensity visibly dimming—but the constant movement to dodge was draining my SP just as fast.

Barely thirty seconds in, and I was already sitting at 25% SP remaining.

I wouldn’t last much longer at this rate.

"...!"

And then, as if the game itself decided to have a laugh at my expense, my foot caught on a rock buried under the grass, rolling under my weight. I lost my balance for just a moment—a fatal moment the boss didn’t miss.

"GRAWL!"

The bite came in fast.

I watched those yellowed teeth close in at the speed of a runaway truck, its maw dropping down to swallow me whole—

SLASH!

—and then I was already a few meters behind it, longsword held level to the ground.

CRITICAL!

293!!!

A large damage notification bloomed above its head.

Slowly, I turned around to look at the monster.

"Want to eat me?"

I rested the sword on my shoulder, grinning.

"You’re not qualified!"