"Pay attention, at least this time." The blonde healer, Anya started casting earth's protection on the group while Kouske brought over five undead wolves with him.
As soon as he saw more pets entering the fray, the berserker Barret facepalmed in annoyance. "Just what we need. More pets! Great! Just great!"
The fat chubby guy, Madan, who had been gritting his teeth all this time and bearing the insults couldn't hold it in any longer and angrily retorted back.
"Shut up. I am telling you, you idiotic numbskull. That wipe was not my fault. My wolves did not pull the aggro. Why the fuck are you always blaming me?"
"Just because I am a hunter you can't keep fucking blaming me for every single thing that goes wrong! This is BS!"
"BS? Fine, then you tell me what happened?"
"If you stupid mutts did not drag in more goblins we would have finished the fight by now and moved on!"
Seeing the two bicker, Kouske tried to speak up but his soft voice was drowned in the background.
He turned to look at Anya for help but she looked the other way playing casually with her blonde curls as if she couldn't care less what happened here.
Without any other choice, Kouske could only hope that the two would stop fighting. However, even after a few minutes, they still continued pointlessly arguing back and forth.
Seeing that this was not going anywhere, Kouske sighed and opened his system interface. He then made a call.
Instantly, the two who were bickering on the side turned stiff.
"FUCK. Cut the call. Cut the call, damn it."
"Not fighting. Not fighting. Let's start the run again."
"Damn it. Kouske, do you have to be such a tattletale? Always running to big brother for this and that."
"If you had just asked us to stop, we would have stopped. We were only discussing a bit loudly."
Hearing these two shamelessly trying to justify their actions, Kouske closed his system interface and chuckled wryly in silence.
But Anya did not remain silent. "You two brutes. Always fighting stupidly. Let's start." She scoffed, rolling her eyes.
Both Madam and Barret glared at her but they did not argue back. Instead, they even looked at each other and exchanged meaningful glances, also rolling their eyes.
When they had first been introduced to the Russian blonde, they were both trying to woo her because she was very tall and very sexy.
However, as soon as a few days passed, this illusion completely wore off. Her personality was the absolute worst and she was also extremely prideful.
So they no longer bothered to treat her with reverence and instead avoided her like the plague.
She was also unfortunately the favorite of their big brother. So the two did not behave like they usually behaved and cursed each other.
Kouske did not want another fight to break out so he quickly eased the tension and asked Madan to once again aggro the goblin beast pack.
Their small group might be always at odds when they were not fighting but once everything started that was when they coordinated perfectly and understood each other as if they were the best of friends.
So once again Madan took his slingshot out and tickled one of the goblin beasts attracting its aggro, thereby the aggro of the first group.
The first started again and they hacked and slashed at the goblin beasts with vengeance.
And Liam who watched all of this from the sidelines, stood silently, without intervening this time.
The opponent he was up against right now was completely different from all the other people he had faced so far. These people in front of him were not foolish by any means.
If he intervened again, they would surely know that there was someone else present here along with them.
And Liam had no plans of letting that happen.
He continued silently observing them from the darkness of the cave as the group proceeded to once again smoothly clear everything in sight.
He in fact kept on watching everything all the way until they reached the very end of the cave.
And then his moment finally arrived…
As the group reached the end of the passageway, suddenly the number of goblin beasts tripled. This looked like their nest and they all rushed together at the four intruders at the same time.
Not just that but there was also a huge Elite goblin beast seated on a throne-like ice formation. This boss goblin beast was Level 55!
And each of the mob goblin beasts was Level 40!
No one including Liam had expected these kinds of numbers so they instantly unleashed all of their strongest attacks and tried to buy some time to salvage this situation.
But Liam who was able to see everything from a bystander's perspective needed only one second to gauge the situation.
Although these four were experts, there was no way that they were going to survive this onslaught.
This high-level horde would have been difficult to manage even for him, but he had several backup plans for such situations.
This was why he had also temporarily borrowed the golems from his sister.
If not the golems, he would have bombed this whole place with explosives and then taken the flame fragment.
However, from the looks of things, these people lacked such preparations.
This was all the more surprising for Liam because someone who knew enough to gather these four monster players did not prepare adequate supplement items?
Was this just a coincidence or was this as well planned to ensure that they wouldn't end up becoming too powerful for their 'big brother' to handle?
Liam still had no idea which single individual was behind all these four people. He had only heard of the term 'big brother.'
So it might be just a single person, but it could be a corporation or one of the big families. Moreover, they could be from any part of this world.
He might or might not be connected to them.
Considering all these, he definitely needed more information about this newly cropped-up issue, but now was not the time.
As Liam casually observed the carnage around him, he noticed that what he wanted was right there in the cave… near the throne of the huge boss goblin beast.
It was just a few feet away from him, and the only thing that was standing in his way was the group of four humans and the goblin beasts rumbling and tumbling with each other.
Liam quickly made a plan and sprang into action.
These four people clearly did not have the ability to handle this last mob and the boss that came along with the mob.
It was just a matter of seconds before they died and the party wiped once again.
In fact, they would probably need a couple more tries to even clear out the mob fully and fight with the boss one on one.
And that fight was also probably going to take a couple of tries.
Now, Liam was not sure if these people were aware of the quest with the village chief or they simply came here from some other quest crumb.
Taking everything into consideration, if he dived in for the flame fragment right now and escaped the cave along with it, these goblin beasts would be able to buy him the time he needed.
He could then get the hell out of here and also meet with the village chief for submitting the quest without any issues.
These people might not even have the time to notice the disappearance of the flame until after he left the area.
And by the time they notice he would be long gone.
He wouldn't be caught by them and his presence wouldn't be revealed.
Liam doubted that they even noticed the flame in all the chaos that was running amok in the cave. There was a chance that might simply assume that the flame was never here to begin with.
So no matter from which angle he thought about it, it was a win-win situation.
However, he didn't have much time. If the party wiped and came back a second time, then they might notice it.
So now was his only chance. He needed to grab the flame asap and run!
Liam moved and his figure instantly materialized, coming out of stealth. It was impossible for him to stay out of sight with these many attacks flying back and forth.
He was bound to be hit by one or two and there was nothing that could be done about it.
Nevertheless, stealth or not, he was still invisible with all the commotion and uproar. No one paid any attention to him.
So he used this chance to quietly walk over to the flame fragment that was sealed in a chunk of ice and then tossed it into his inventory without a care in the world.
