Chapter 396 - 396: We Went to Beat the Kobold King and a Nasty Bonus Came With It

We crossed the fallen tree and closed on the kobold pack.

Encounter right away.

Six Kobold Leaders.

Level 55?

My surprise aside, the party still dropped all six fast.

Another encounter.

Nanao punched the lead one down.

Another encounter.

What.

"Simultaneous encounter? Th-that cannot happen."

Akie yelled it.

The accident-type encounter she mentioned before. Six came in from the side of the party.

It was Haruki's turn. She cleared them with Ice Storm.

Relief did not last. Encounters kept coming.

The party kept beating them. Reliable.

Another encounter.

There. Kobold King. Huge. What is this.

Then I was surprised.

"A wyvern. Be careful."

What stepped out beside the Kobold King was a wyvern. Looks like a dragon. The difference is the front legs are wings.

"Both level 75."

Tension ran through the party at my words.

"Multi Spell."

"Unlimited Power."

"Angel Guard."

"Demon's Luck."

"Swap of Hell."

I cast the wide-area spells in a rush.

"Resist Breath."

Akie cast a spell that cuts breath attacks.

White light wrapped the party.

And my body too.

Hm?

My body too?

Why?

"Master."

Haruki's shout surprised me. A Kobold Leader a bit bigger than me was standing right beside me. Sword raised.

The sword came down like slow motion.

Ah. This might be bad.

The sword the Kobold Leader swung down was caught by another sword.

Mizurii.

She stood in front of me and caught the Kobold Leader's sword with hers.

Counter fired, and Mizurii cut the Kobold Leader down.

"Saved me, Mizurii."

The wyvern breathed fire. A breath attack.

The party got wrapped in flame.

Me too.

Resist Breath made the flame scatter just before it touched skin.

"A little hot."

"Master has a hit box now."

Akie's words made me cold.

I am counted as in the fight.

Nanao went to punch the Kobold King.

The shield he held shattered.

"Lime. You can use it."

She nodded and triggered Gorky of Slime.

A huge slime hit the Kobold King. He did not die.

"Capture? HP is probably almost gone."

"Do not need it. Wipe them."

I yelled back at Akie.

Dog people who raped humans. I am not making them allies.

"Ice Storm."

Haruki called an ice storm. It wrapped the kobolds and the wyvern.

The Kobold King fell.

The wyvern swung its tail. A bad-looking tail no matter how you see it. Looks like it has serious poison.

Nanao ducked it. The tail stretched this way.

Mizurii stood in front of me and knocked the wyvern's tail aside with her sword.

Uhyah. Close.

Scary.

Nanao slammed Ultimate Punch into the wyvern. The neck snapped back. It did not fall.

Two hits. Three.

It did not fall. What is this.

"Absolute Zero."

Haruki's spell blew. It froze for an instant, then the surface ice cracked off.

Even so the neck was down. It looked weak.

We finally cut HP.

"Master, try Capture?"

"Yeah."

This should not be a Master-class monster. I followed Akie and tried.

"Ultimate Capture."

The wyvern writhed, turned into light particles, and became a card.

"What is this?"

I held the card and asked Akie.

"If you succeed at Capturing an SR or above monster, it becomes an item card you can put in a fight once."

"That so."

"Yes. I did not think one would show up here, so I did not explain. Sorry."

"No. I could not have guessed either. It carded fine, so it is good."

We went to look at the party the kobolds had overrun.

First the Master, tied and rolled on the ground.

Stabbed all over. Barely breathing.

"Akie. Heal."

I had the ropes undone and Akie do healer work.

The Master should have been healed. He sat blank, slow to react when we called.

I decided to look at the other characters first. I had the hung men taken down.

One looked like a Knight. His insides were empty. Dead. Eaten by kobolds, maybe.

One looked like a Soldier type. Stabbed all over, belly cut open, small intestine dragged out.

I left healing to Akie and went to the women.

Four women, raped by the kobolds, torn up. Kobold Leaders are big, so the vaginas were split and bloody.

The one who looked like a healer had all her teeth pulled.

The one who looked like a fighter had both arms and legs cut off, the cuts tied rough.

A miserable situation.

Good you have a healer on our side who can fix anything.

All six recovered and gathered around the Master, who kept sitting blank.

The girls are cute. I thought something improper, then spoke to the Master again.

"Hey. You okay?"

He moved his neck slow at my voice and met my eyes.

"We beat the Kobold King and the wyvern. You are safe."

"Ah."

The Master muttered, then froze again. Mind broken, maybe.

World has presence far past MANHUNT. He should have felt the pain for real.

I got bullied hard enough that my mind almost died. I have never had my body carved until I was half dead.

"Pull it together."

Nothing for it. I tapped his cheek light.

He startled and looked at me.

Good. Room to be startled means he is coming back.

"Thanks. You saved me."

We waited a while. He finally started talking.

"We struggled with Kobold Leaders and still got here."

Yeah, yeah.

"Then an extra encounter. At the same time."

Yeah. Figures.

"Then the Kobold King came out too."

Hm? What.

"A-a wyvern came out. The unit got knocked out of the fight in a blink."

His body shook while he talked. Remembering, and scared.

"I tried to log out ready for the penalty. I could not. What is going on."

Oh? That so?

I looked at Akie.

"Logout during combat takes an experience penalty. I do not know why he could not."

I looked back at the Master.

"Sorry. You saved me. I am not coming to World again. Later."

He said that, the party turned into light particles, became cards, and went into his pocket.

He bowed his head and vanished.

This is bad.

"We go back."

"Village, or base?"

"Base. I log out right away and report this."

"Understood."

I returned the party to cards and cast Transport.

Logged out at once.

I connected to the site on the PC and rushed a notice of this emergency to the Top Ten.

No replies. Logged in, maybe.

I wrote a warning on the site and stuck it big on the top page.

At night a lot of people log in long. Best if they log out as soon as they can and read the warning.

Past midnight, more people logged out, and the site got noisy. What I ran into was hard to believe at a glance. A report that the clan DD leads hit the same kind of situation made it clear this was not a one-off. It can happen anywhere.

DD-Unit, led by DD, went after the same Kobold King hunt and hit the same kind of situation.

The SR monster that showed was a Clay Golem, he said.

They do not have a cheat party like ours. How they won: DD-Unit had three parties in the hunt at once. All over level 50.

They succeeded at Capturing the Kobold King. They could not adjust the Clay Golem and destroyed it. Me carding the wyvern may have been a miracle accident.

From this, World recommended hunt participation with multiple parties.

No records, so the real number is unknown. Some parties seem to have gotten reversed. Like the Master I met.

Simultaneous encounters, logout locked, things that look like bugs also happened. In normal fights the same thing does not happen. It only happens when you hunt a Master-class monster.

By the time I finished all of that, the date was about to change.