Chương 114: CDM 2, Chapter 50: Moonshot

This ogre dungeon was not an exact duplicate of my B gate run. It was remarkably similar but far shorter, giving it a length more appropriate to a D-ranked dungeon. That probably saved our lives. By the fifth batch of ogres, we were utterly and completely spent. When the boss room came into sight, a wooden palisade at the top of a winding cliffside trail, we collapsed in the mud. There was no getting out of the rain, and everyone quietly accepted that fact, trying to find what rest we could in the misery.

"What are we in for?" the captain asked.

"A much bigger ogre. He has a long-ass chain with an anchor on the end, and he swings it around. He can hit you from pretty much anywhere."

"What's the plan for beating him?"

"I haven't come up with one."

"What?"

"I've been thinking about it this whole time. I haven't come up with anything." And I had really been trying. No stroke of inspiration had come to me even though I desperately welcomed it. I was still pleased with myself for coming up with the squid-baiting plan, but that wouldn't be enough to get us out of here alive. The boss battle was not near water, and this ogre was substantially larger than the others we faced. We were going to die. No. Stop that. Use your head, Dorion.

I replayed how Dawit's party handled the boss fight. The boss was vulnerable to Bolt, but that didn't help us. We didn't have any mages in the party. The battlefield was wide, flat, and circular. That open terrain benefitted the boss, not us. He swung the chain and anchor with his right hand. His left hand wielded the trident. The reach of the trident was a problem, but the bigger threat was the anchor.

Once the boss got that spinning, he could cover so much ground that dodging, ducking, or avoiding its reach wasn't possible.

"We have to do some version of our hook strategy," the captain said.

"Head-on is an instant failure. If we can slow it down, we'll have a chance to do some damage. But how do we even get close enough to use the hooks?" Think. Think. Think. In my mind's eye, I pictured the boss ogre swinging his chain.

"The boss I fought wrapped the anchor chain around his arm."

"Why does that stick out to you?"

"My dad would have beat me silly if he saw me wrap a rope like that around my arm on the farm. If we stop the anchor, that cuts its mobility down at least a little bit." The captain smiled and pointed to a boulder as tall as I was.

"We don't have squids to drag him out to sea, but we do have gravity." That was our only idea, so we went with it. We backtracked to gather as much rope and as many nets as we could. We wrapped the rock with rope and used ogre harpoons to lever it loose, carefully finding a balance point. For this plan to work, we couldn't waste time wrestling with the stone when the moment came. My dex stat made me the best choice for the next mission.

For 30 minutes, I practiced tossing a net, doing my best to mirror the technique I saw the ogre fishermen using. They used a twisting motion so the net spread as it traveled, but that was more difficult than it looked. At my best, I could nail the toss three out of five attempts. The other two turned the net into a tangled, useless mess. We set up two nets in case my first attempt failed, but it was far better for all of us if I nailed it the first time.

The captain followed me to the gate while the rest of the party took up positions around the boulder, ready to push it over the edge on my call.

"You've got the biggest balls in the CDM," the captain said when we reached the palisade.

"It was an honor watching you work."

"Biggest balls but the fewest brain cells." The captain laughed.

"I don't know about that, but take as much time as you need to get ready."

"I'm ready. If I wait, I'll lose my nerve."

"Godspeed, Carmino." The captain helped me push the gate open and waited in the entrance as I jogged into the open-air boss room with a net in my hand and my bow on my back. At the other end of the expanse, a monstrously sized ogre with pulsing green tattoos stood in the downpour with his trident and his anchor. The chain was wrapped around his arm. Thank God. I stopped ten paces inside and set my stance, bending my knees, hoping he opened with the attack I wanted.

The ogre cracked its neck side to side and tightened its grip on the chain. Were it not for the windup, I wouldn't have had enough time to dodge. In a burst of violent speed, the ogre whipped the anchor into the air with a backward jerk and swung it forward like a sledgehammer. The anchor swooped through the rain and came down on my position with the violence of a meteor, splashing mud and water when it slammed into the ground where I stood only a second before. I threw the net.

The ropey mesh draped over the anchor. Holy shit. I actually nailed the toss.

"On!" I yelled so loud that I felt my vocal cords strain and tear. The captain did his part, jerking the rope to close the net. He turned to make the next call, but the ogre yanking the anchor back cut him off. The net stayed attached, but the force of the pull ripped the captain toward the boss room, slamming him against the edge of the gate, folding him at an unnatural angle. The impact twirled his limp body. He landed face down in the mud. This book is hosted on another platform.

Read the official version and support the author's work. And didn't move. The ogre suddenly set his feet and leaned back, straining against a new weight on the rope. His tattoos glowed brighter and held their light as his veins bulged and muscles tensed. Grunting to stay upright, the ogre threw his trident through the gate. A woman's scream cut through the rain, but the weight on the rope remained. Gripping the chain with his free hand, the ogre began to go hand over hand, pulling the length toward him.

The blood vessels in his eyes burst, and spit sprayed out of his mouth with each short breath he forced through the strain. How high would this thing's strength have to be to not only have remained upright but also to pull the weight of that stone back up the cliffside? I drew my bow and started to loose. I had 67 arrows left, so I let my mind empty and my body move on its own. Loose. Loose. Loose. Every shot I landed triggered my Momentum ability, adding another 1% to my speed.

Like pushing a car over 100 mph, I felt the strain of staying in control. My knees shook without Megan to hold me in place like she did at the mine. My back seized up in a flash of pain. My left hand went numb but stayed locked on the frame. The glove on my right hand disintegrated from the friction. The tips of my fingers burned as every pull scraped away more flesh. The ogre slipped but recovered when arrow 61 punched into its thigh. On arrow 64, the ogre's feet shot out from beneath him.

He slapped at the mud, desperate to find a handhold in the slop as he careened toward and then through the palisade gate. I ran after him. When I reached the exit to the boss room, Isaiah and the other settler knelt next to Luke. His left arm was mangled, his platemail bent and cutting deeply into his flesh. But the boss was gone. I stopped to check the captain. His whole left side was torn open. His ribs were in pieces, and half of his intestines sat in the mud outside of his body. The guard appeared next to me.

She had run to check him too. When she saw the state he was in, her legs gave out, dropping her butt into the mud. She insisted on carrying the captain back to the gate herself. Isaiah and the woman were so tired that walking was a struggle, so I put Luke over my back. He was unconscious from the pain, which I felt was fortunate for him, and he had a chance at living. I learned later that his injuries were a result of the ogre's trident.

Seeing the weapon speeding at our only shot at killing the boss, Luke attempted to block it. He succeeded in deflecting the trident off course, but the impact he took was like getting hit by a car. I don't know that any of us truly breathed until we opened the bloodlocked door. The whole painful walk out of the dungeon, I worried we would discover that our exit was still barred because we hadn't killed any of the sea monsters. That wasn't the case. Outside the gate, an even colder rain fell.

We called for help, but rather than wait in the elements, I grabbed the crowbar from my car and popped the plywood off of the old Pizza Hut. We waited inside in the dark for backup. At the hospital, they admitted me for observation "out of an abundance of caution." While I sat in my bed, three different sets of investigators asked me to recount the events inside the dungeon. I was fine talking with the first pair, but when the second pair arrived, I started to feel like I was the one in trouble for something.

The third interview was conducted by two grave-looking men with black hair and started differently–this time focusing on my time out of the country. Then they pivoted right back into the same questions I had already answered twice over. When one asked, "You're certain there was no other way to open the door to exit?" I replied, "I'm done."

"This is simple procedure, Enforcer Carmino. We understand you are tired and that you have been through something harrowing, but-""No more questions."

"Your participation is not optional."

"Then fucking arrest me. I'm not doing this dance again."

"Enforcer Carmino, may I remind you-""Fuck. Off." The door to my room opened.

"Is there a problem?" Enforcer Chapman asked.

"Enforcer Carmino is being uncooperative." She looked past the two investigators.

"Is that true?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Why?"

"Because I've done this twice already." Chapman frowned and turned her attention to the investigators.

"This is the third interview? Why are you following the severity 1 protocol for this?"

"That is not your concern, ma'am."

"My enforcer is in a hospital bed being harassed by his own people. This is absolutely my concern."

"Interfering with our interview is obstruction."

"Get out," she said.

"If you need to arrest me, shut your mouth and do it already." The investigators had a silent conversation with each other and slipped out.

"What does severity 1 protocol mean?" I asked.

"When a government agent is suspected of murder, terrorism, or sabotage."

"Huh?" She nodded.

"Someone way overstepped on that call. Heads will roll, trust me. For now, are you okay?"

"I'm alive." Pulling a chair next to the bed, she sat.

"From everything I've gathered, no one would be alive if it weren't for you."

"I don't think that's true."

"A party with those levels surviving B-ranked encounters is a miracle. Not a small one either."

"We worked together."

"Regardless," Chapman continued, "Good work. If anyone comes back to 'interview' you, call me. I don't care if they're CDM or police or FBI. Wait for me to get here before you answer anything else."

"Am I in trouble?"

"No, but you're in the middle of a mess. We have a CDM veteran in the morgue, two settlers being treated for hypothermia, and a third settler in critical condition. No one is at fault here, but that doesn't mean no one is pointing fingers. Trust me to be your shield, and don't answer or sign anything without running it by me first, got it?"

"Yes, ma'am." She stood.

"I'm going to see about you getting discharged. I have a driver who will take you home."

"Thank you."

"Get some rest." When she was gone, I opened my system profile: Dorion Carmino Class: Archer Level: 11 XP Progress: 2789/102400 Str: 10 Dex: 18 Con: 10 Int: 5 Cha: 3 Abilities: Piercing Shot Dual Nocking Multi-Shot Vengeful Arrow Traits: Ranged Accuracy Improved Reload Sharpen Momentum Swift Hands Bloody Hands Battle Hardened Spells: (none) When I ran the B gate with Dawit, I came out of it with roughly 15, 000 XP. That run just now netted me over 50, 000. Did the help of boosters decrease my XP return that much?

Dawit's team also fought the boss on their own. I hit it with a few arrows, but the mages for certain won the fight. I also wasn't certain that the system would count my ogre tactics as kills, yet I came out of this gate with far more XP instead of less. Whatever. I was alive. Celebrating a new level felt selfish when other crawlers didn't get to go home. I dismissed my profile and closed my eyes to wait to be discharged.