The Gamer Chapter 1431 – Thorough Grinding Finale – Freezing and Rounding Out (Patreon)

“Hmm, that’s convenient,” John said.

“Elaborate?” Undine requested. The slime girl was sitting on a short pillar of ice. A fascinating and yet so common picture. Common interpretations of slime girls had them dislike freezing temperatures, for obvious reasons. In the Abyss, where most slime girls were water elementals, this was not a worry. After all, ice was within their domain, and so natural occurring temperatures had barely any effect on them. Really, of all the women present, Undine’s resistance to the cold was likely second only to Aclysia’s.

“By my estimation, after we kill the boss, and taking into account Experience of Love, I should be level 580,” he explained. “Nice to end the grind on another Perk.”

“You remain dedicated to Harem Gamer?” Lydia questioned and furrowed her brows. “It remains odd to me the words I am required to use to accurately describe your abilities. Even after all this time.”

“How about you tell your idiot advisors: ‘You have to put business on ice, I’m hanging with my pals’ more often?” Salamander suggested. A moment later, she cackled. “’On ice’ – I am an accidental pun genius.”

“Your accidental puns are of middling quality at best, Salamander.”

“You shut your whore mouth, woman!”

The queen rolled her eyes at the outsized response. “I halt business for the purpose of these little vacations frequently enough. It is to your advantage that time dilation allows me to keep remote tabs on the affairs of the days. My dedication to my country comes first.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Salamander sighed. “Just would like to have you around more, you know? Feels like something’s missing when you aren’t there to be ornery about every fucking thing.” Lydia was silent to that. “Cat got your tongue? Jane isn’t even here.”

“No, it is… merely… what am I saying, there is nothing mere about this…. It is extremely appreciated that you consider my missing so dearly.” Lydia showed the apocalypse elemental a bit of her white teeth through the smile. “You are dear to me as well.”

“Don’t make me any redder,” Salamander waved off. “Can we murder that thing?”

The apocalypse elemental pointed to the boss arena. It was the biggest continuous field of ice yet. Left and right, dozens of knights in simple ice blue armour stood by the battlefield. Meanwhile, a singular knight in a more ornate set of plate skated along the surface, moving at impressive speed and grace. He held a banner in one hand and a war scythe in the other.


‘Interesting to still see the occasional boss that has money in its Loot table,’ John thought. “Say, Lydia, have you changed your opinion on wearing armour? Because this boss may drop one.”

“My statement remains as before: if the armour is suitable to my style of combat, I may consider wearing it. Until then…” she trailed off, pieces of metal rising out of the hidden pockets inside her military trench coat and the rapier in her hand, “…this remains the most effective use.”

John nodded. An armour for the queen of steel needed to not only be a worthwhile protective instrument, it also needed to consist of easily removed segments so she could reshape it as it suited her aggressive and defensive needs. Something it needed to achieve while also re-assembling itself after battle, in case any parts travelled past her zone of control, and being so light it didn’t interfere with her fencing. Aesthetically, it also had to be worthy of a monarch. What that meant, Lydia and John could have discussed for hours. He was a man of grandeur, while she had a pronounced utilitarian outlook.

Lorelei arrived shortly thereafter and gave them her usual predictions. “I foresee leadership – banners planted to motivate his comrades. Some of his comrades will carry new flags. From pole to pole, he shall charge, in a flurry of motions unstoppable. To let him loose means death. To guide the path is to catch him off-guard.”

“Hmm, so banners provide area buffs to the adds and are cornerstones of some kind of combo attack that we have to dodge. We’ll be able to interact with the banners to dictate where he ends up on the battlefield… Alright, let’s see exactly how this works.” He gave his party one more glance. They were still the same 10 as they had been for most of the advancing through the frozen city. Since the battlefield was another skating rink, there probably would be no better combination of participants.

They walked down right to the edge of the arena and waited until the moving boss was close. Then, Aclysia charged straight in.

Immediately, Melas rammed the banner he held into the ground. It unfurled, to reveal a battalion of infantrymen on an ice blue background. “DEFEND YOUR REALM, MEN AND WOMEN OF ASTRIA!” Melas roared and two of the knights rapidly made their way to where the engagement began. The Inheritor swung around the pole of his banner, turning the momentum of his skating into a circular kick that caught Aclysia off-guard. Even with True Block, she was pushed several metres aside, sliding over the ice. “BANNERMEN!” A second pair of adds loosened from the crowd on either side, advancing slower, holding a banner that showed a shield and a skating infantryman respectively.

‘Defence and movement speed buff,’ John thought. There was no need to theorize as the squires that preceded the bannermen were affected immediately. One moved even faster, the other’s armour glistened with intensified shine in the light of the setting sun. They were in the final few days of the grinding session, and since they would emerge at midnight, they would have all their tries in the ample ambient light of the Raid. “Dispatch the adds immediately, I want to see the combo move of the boss!”

The Raid parted into three parties. Aclysia, John, Momo, and Undine held the centre. Nia, Beatrice, and Siena went left. Sylph, Lydia, and Salamander went right. They didn’t have enough tanks to properly cover the areas, so Undine’s healing and dodging would have to suffice. A tactic more feasible in reality than video games, but not quite as feasible as John would have liked.

The Bannermen fell relatively quickly, seemingly unaffected by their own buffs. When they did die, they left behind the banner they carried. It could then be destroyed as well. It took more effort than a piece of wood should have taken to cut through. By John’s order, they destroyed one but not the other.

Aclysia barely held her own against Melas. With Momo’s buffs and shields and her own passive abilities, she was able to take the damage at a non-concerning rate. In a drawn out fight, the boss would eventually drain Momo and Undine’s mana, followed by John’s, and then finally Aclysia’s HP. If it was only the melee engagement, the time they could keep this up was easily an hour.

Obviously, the boss had more tricks up his sleeve. Roaring loudly, he suddenly dashed away. He rapidly gained speed, skating along the edge of the arena, then returned to the banner he had originally placed. Holding onto it, he circled once. The blades of his boots cut a circle into the ground that then flared with elemental magic.

An explosion of ice rippled outwards, frosting everyone in the arena. 20% of everyone’s HP bar was instantly deleted, diminished by individual resistances, and fully prevented for Aclysia. From there, the boss dashed to the other banners that the steadily spawning adds had left behind. When he hit a shield banner, he did a somersault and brought his heel down on the ice, aiming at the closest enemy. A wall of icicles rapidly advanced towards Beatrice. With Chronoshift, she made it to safety.

Next he made it over to the speed boosting banner. Once there, he circled rapidly around it, creating a vortex that pulled everyone else towards it for several seconds, before letting loose a blast of freezing energy that damaged people based on proximity – albeit not as much as the initial shockwave.

After that, he skated towards the third kind of banner on the battlefield – depicting a man in a power stance. Upon reaching it, he stopped and raised it to the sky three times. Each time, an aura of vitality surged around the other adds, restoring their health and causing waves of frost to emit from them.

Perhaps that would have been it, but they had left so many of these three banners over the place that the boss just kept on dashing, repeating these effects, until the combined weight of the buffs and continuously advancing adds choked the party out.

Attempts 2 to 10 were then dedicated to further information gathering. First was to investigate just exactly what the spawning behaviours of the adds were. Two squires advanced every 30 seconds and Bannermen every 45, except at combat start when the boss summoned them nearly simultaneously. There appeared to be no upper limit to how many of either add could be on the field. Any Bannermen alive when Melas did his combo move remained moving and were not eligible for targeting. Both adds always walked towards the nearest enemies and the Bannermen rammed their standards into the ground before perishing.

Attempts 11 to 27 were then dedicated to further studying the combo attack mechanics. There were a couple of rules to it that needed to be figured out and tested. Some of those tests led to immediate wipes, leading to inflated attempt numbers.

First and most important was that the banner placed by the boss at combat start was indestructible. It would always be the first he went for and it always did 20% of Max HP damage when he created the shockwave.

Secondly, the boss always did at least 5 of the combo attacks, no matter how many banners were on the field. In other words, if the legion banner was the only one on the field, there would be 5 pulses of 20% Max HP full battlefield AoEs. That spelled death for most of the party, so that obviously could not be tolerated. Keeping more of the regular banners on the field was better.

Thirdly, the boss always targeted banners in the order they had been placed. This meant he always started with his own, then dashed across the battlefield to reach wherever the first Bannerman had died. If that banner had been destroyed, he went for the next best. If there were more than 5 banners, he continued until he had targeted every banner once.

Fourthly, for every banner of the same kind the boss targeted during the combo move, the effect was increased. The ice wall advanced faster, the vortex was bigger, and there were more healing/damaging pulses in the same timeframe. This made it unattractive, but not impossible, to keep only one kind of banner on the field.

Fifthly (which was an odd word to John), the cooldown of the combo attack was increased by the number of banners he targeted – 12 seconds per target. The cooldown started after the last banner was targeted.

Sixthly (an even odder word) and finally, the boss launched himself in a straight line towards the furthest combatant after touching the last banner. It did not matter what was in front or behind that target. If positioned properly, Melas could be made to smash into one of his own ice walls or slam into the rows of waiting reinforcements. If it was the former, he would be stunned for a valuable few seconds. If it was the latter, adds from that side would stop for two cycles.

With all of these rules in mind, they spent a good 20 attempts refining their strategy. What banner was the easiest to deal with, how to treat the adds, where to put the banners, all of that. As they progressed, they learned of just one more difficulty scaling thing: as the boss lost HP, he increased the minimum number of banners targeted to 6 and then 7. It only forced a small adjustment in the strategy, all things considered.

Their plan was as multi-layered as the mechanics required. Have primarily speed/vortex banners on the field, with healing banners second and defensive/ice wall banners third. Have Aclysia handle the boss and everyone else kill the adds. Place the vortex banners in opposite corners of the arena so the boss would run back and forth, pulling them in one direction and then the other. Clump up during the vortexes so Undine had an easier time healing. Nia and Momo would neutralize as much of the damage as they could. Then, Sylph dashed over to one of the lines of reinforcements so the Inheritor would do them the favour of disabling it for a moment. Use everything, including Babel Phrases, to keep add numbers low. There was no need to burst the boss, he did not have an enrage timer. The question was only whether the cold would choke them out before they pumped enough damage into the boss to win.

When it finally happened, on the final day of the grinding session, they almost couldn’t believe it. Aclysia charged straight into the vortex, ignoring the howling winds, and hit the boss with the standard triple combo. That was the final bit they needed after the latest in their series of ever-better attempts.

“Whew, that was great!” John declared.

“That fucking sucked!” Salamander vehemently disagreed.

“I personally found it rather entertaining,” Lydia said, Nia nodding several times behind her.

“No, no, it was the worst! So much whoosh, whoosh, and so little zappy zappy!” Sylph complained. “All thinking no violence makes Sylph an unhappy thunder bun!”

“Yeah!” Salamander stated.

John just let the ‘technical’ and ‘violent’ members of his harem hash it out amongst themselves while he opened the chest of ice that had spawned beneath the banner the boss had left behind. Inside he found a cheque of the advertised sum, two Ice Diamonds, a Banner of Frozen Defence, and three True Ice Mithril Ingots.

“Well, Hailey and the others will have a field day with these,” John stated. It was an overall meh haul, despite him somehow getting more of the Epic category than any other. “I guess you want one of these?”

Lydia nodded and he handed her one of the ingots, and a diamond. She opened her mouth, to complain that she had only asked for one of these things, then just put both away. “It has been a prolonged effort,” she justified to herself.

“Exactly,” the Gamer agreed and stretched. It was time to return to the house and get that final Perk. His level estimation had been on point.

___________________________________________________________________________


Stats distributed, John immediately moved onto the Harem Gamer Perk.


John blinked several times. Then he rubbed his eyes. Then he tilted his head. He double checked the Class Level he was at with Harem Gamer. “That’s a SEVENTH level Perk?!” he asked out loud.

“What is?” Scarlett asked, annoyed by not being put in the know. John shoved the window in her direction. She went over the window while sipping on her whiskey and choked so hard it shot up into her nose. Even Scarlett, alcoholic that she was, could not stand the sensation of high-proof liquor shooting up that particular opening and coughed for a full minute, while everyone else caught up. “Pick it,” she croaked. “Pick it right the fuck now.”

The Equalizer was so far above the competition, John truly could not believe it wasn’t a tenth level Perk. The two repeat choices did not belong anywhere near the same row as it. How could a voice chat or moving the Couch hope to compare to closing the level gap between him and his non-combat haremettes?

Levels were pure Stats, granted, and their actual skills in their crafts would have to catch up. Pure Stats was already so powerful though. Because it stated that it was EXP granted by Experience of Love, the previously chosen Perk made all of that Natural EXP – there was no holding back on the difference. The only factor holding things back was the diminishing return on it. At a 100 level difference, it only took 2 cumshots per level. At 10, that was 20. At 1 it required 200.

John was currently level 580.

Hailey, the lowest level around, was level 40.

And all he had to do to level them was power fuck them for hours and hours on end.

As Scarlett demanded, he slammed the button. “Alright, seems like I’ll have to set aside some days to plough each of you up to speed,” the Gamer declared. “Lorelei, consider your celibacy put on halt. I’ll start with you after we get out of here.” A large grin spread on his face. “We’ll have to test whether it’s just per orgasm or if it counts triple with all the additional bodies.”

Lorelei shuddered wantonly, “My body is yours to use, Master.”