Chapter 417: Shortcut

"As expected, a Queen Taratect. I see a bunch of eggs too, but it looks like they haven’t hatched yet. You guys should be more than capable of handling a single Critical Level at this point, so...Aria and I are going to hang back and let you take care of this. Of course, if things take a turn for the worst, we’ll step in," I remarked, as we entered the Boss Room, the entrance closing up behind us."Oh, hell yeah!" Grinned Brid, slamming his fists together as he stepped forward with a gleam in his eyes, before taking his warhammer into hand.

Iqra and the two Attack Mages spread out slightly in the mid line, as Damien cast Enchantments on them and Brid, while the Detector hung back with Aria and I.

The Queen Taratect let out a sharp, threatening screech, before firing out a sticky web net towards Brid.

A barrier wall formed in front of him, intercepting the net, before he raced around it and shot towards the Monster, putting on a sharp burst of speed as he began to close in.

Queen Taratects are smaller than Giant Taratects, with more slender bodies and strong, durable exoskeleton. They’ve got powerful limbs with sharp edges, they can spew corrosive venom from their mouths, and extremely sticky webs from the end of their abdomens.

They can also lay dozens of eggs at one time, from which regular Taratects hatch. So, just like with Queen Ants, Dungeons with Queen Taratects as the Dungeon Boss are an exception in that more than one Monster could be in the Boss Room, the Queen Ant or Taratect, and their offspring.

But while the ant eggs hatch pretty quickly, Taratect eggs take a while to hatch.

And unlike Queen Ants, of which only one is allowed to exist in a given colony, Queen Taratects can coexist without a problem, some Taratect colonies can have five or more Queens, while the ant Monsters always kill their existing Queen when a new one evolves.

I learned that during my time in the Monster world.

Anyway, back to the fight...

As Brid closed in on the Queen Taratect, he lunged forward and swung his warhammer towards it, a crack appearing on its chest as he grazed its exoskeleton with the head of the hammer, the Monster backing away and starting to scurry up the wall.

It quickly leapt off as a barrage of icicles and fire arrows came shooting towards it, landing behind Brid with a sharp screech before firing out a violent spray of corrosive venom towards him as he began to turn around.

Suddenly, a barrier formed behind him, the venom hitting the barrier and bouncing straight back towards the Monster, a screech of pain ringing out as the Queen Taratect got splattered with its own venom, eating through several spots across the exoskeleton over its head.

It seized up in agony and let out another pained screech as a volley of ice and fire projectiles peppered its back, a dark liquid oozing out through several deep cracks across its back.

It began to back away, before coming to an abrupt halt as Iqra put up barriers behind it and to either side of it, trapping the Monster right as Brid leapt towards it with a burst of power and whipped his hammer up with a roar of exertion, the swing of his arms sharply spiking in speed before the head of the hammer collided against the bottom of the Queen Taratect’s head with immense force.

A sharp crunch rang out upon impact, before the force of his strike tore the Monster’s head clean off its body, launching it straight up.

Streaks of dark liquid sprayed across the air as the severed head zipped up, before plummeting down as its body collapsed onto the ground with a crash, a thunk ringing out as the head hit the ground and bounced away.

Not bad...Brid’s not quite at the level where he can solo a Critical Level yet, but he’s definitely getting there.

Then again, he didn’t his power boost, Limit Breaker...if he’d used it, I’d say there’s a good chance that he would have been able to defeat it by himself.

The two Attack Mages did great too, they timed their attacks to back him up perfectly.

Same goes for Iqra’s barriers, she’s picking the ideal options every time, and casting them with precise accuracy and timing, not bad at all.

Looks like the entrance is opening back up again, which confirms that the raid is over. I couldn’t help but feel a bit paranoid with how easy it had been going, since pretty much every time I’ve gone through a seemingly easy raid, something always goes wrong at the end.

But not this time, it really was just an easy raid from start to finish. And that’s been the case with pretty much every raid over the last few months, there haven’t been any reported Hunter deaths in about seven months now, the longest zero-casualty stretch in history since the Monsters first appeared.

"Nicely done, everyone. Let’s head back and go home, we’ll conduct a performance review tomorrow, once you’ve all rested up," I remarked, as Brid stretched his arms up with a satisfied grin on his face.

"Yeah, you all did great, way to go! It’ll be a long walk back, but we can take our time," Added Aria with a smile.

"Hm...hey, Guildmaster, can’t you just make a hole in the wall with your Devour Skill and fly us all down?" Suggested Brid thoughtfully.

"There are no shortcuts in life...is a ridiculous statement, there are always shortcuts. And there’s no logical reason not to take a shortcut when presented with one," Chimed in Damien.

That’s actually not a bad idea. It worked when I had to rush back to the Sanctuary, before I ended up on the Monster world. I kinda forgot I did that, until now.

Aria and I can both fly, so can three of the five Apostles, all except Invidia and Superbia. Well, Invidia can sort of fly with Negative Energy jets from his feet, but his flight with that method isn’t stable enough that I’d trust him to carry someone across a height that would definitely be fatal if he dropped them.

Aria and I can definitely carry at least two of them, so just summoning one or two of the Apostles should be enough.

"Alright, then. Let’s take a shortcut," I replied with a wry smile.