Data.55 – Old Bowman, Goat vs Goat

“Buuoooo—!!”

The black goat had turned into Baphomet, and it could no longer be reasoned with.
It was openly hostile to the white goat, who was supposed to be a friend, and was ready to fight.
That made it easier to attack it without holding back. But I was sure that it would do the same…

First, I had to move away.
We were in a dome-shaped hall.
And so I ran to the wall that would put me at the farthest distance from the Baphomet.
And then I switched my weapon to Spider Shooter.

“Web Arrow!”

The sticky, spider web-like net hit the Baphomet.
Now it would not be able to move freely.
It had wings, and I hadn’t put any points into Speed.
If it came to a chase, then I would be caught for sure.
And so I wanted to keep it in place while I could.

“Buooooo…!”

After exhaling deeply, the Baphomet started to talk in an unknown language.
While I couldn’t understand what he was saying, it was probably some black magic incantation.
As proof of this, the net around it started to lose its stickiness, and then it melted away and fell off of him.

“I guess Web Arrow isn’t enough to stop him… But slowing him down is enough! Garbow! Use Holy Splash!”

“Gar! Gar!”

Holy Splash. The skill I had acquired from beating the Aquarius trial. It was effective against demon-type monsters!
These kinds of special skills were usually not very high-powered, and so they only showed their true worth when used against specific enemy types.
But Holy Splash dealt quite a lot of damage to Baphomet.
Perhaps it was due to Garbow’s high status with attacks.
Either that, or maybe fish were secretly stronger when it came to water-based skills.

In any case, I would leave the attacks to Garbow.
And so I kept my distance and fired arrows to slow it down.

“Buoooo…!”

Once again, Baphomet started to chant in an unknown language.
And then both Garbow and I were surrounded by a deep blue aura.
At the same time, I realized that attacking Baphomet seemed to do next to nothing to his HP gauge.
An attack debuff… Black magic.

And then Baphomet went on the offensive.
This time, he unleashed some orthodox fire magic, ‘Great Fireball.’
While I could erase it with Bow Shower, I decided to use a smarter method.

“Garbow. Ocean Sphere!”

“Gar! Gar!”

A spherical sea appeared around Garbow as he slammed into the Great Fireball.
Of course, it was the fire that was erased.
Without slowing down, Red Meteor was activated for a followup attack.
However, due to the debuff, even this trusty special attack did not do much.
Since I didn’t know how long it would last, I had no choice but to keep attacking.

“Buoo! Buo! Buo!”

Something that looked like dripping, unhardened cement started to rise around Baphomet.

“Buooo–!!”

Baphomet’s cry was the signal, and the stuff began to spread all around the room.
And at quite a speed…!
However, I had been playing for a while, and my reflexes were…not good enough!
I knew that I had to jump in order to avoid it, but my timing was off…
I had always hated jump ropes…

But there was no time to dwell on the past.
As soon as the stuff hit me, it hardened, and my legs were fixed to the ground.
It really did act like cement.

“Buo! O! O!”

Baphomet laughed upon seeing me captured. And then it charged.
As Garbow was floating, it was not caught. However, the effect of Ocean Sphere had expired, and his movements were now sluggish.
And since he had just used Red Meteor, he would have no sure way of stopping Baphomet…!

“Warp Arrow!”

The arrow nearly hit Baphomet as it shot past him and hit the wall.
And so I succeeded in escaping at the last moment.

“Sky Tear!”

I immediately shot at Baphomet’s head.
For a second I wondered if I might accidentally kill Mister Black Goat, but he turned out to be fine.
There were different kinds of weaknesses. Sometimes you just needed to destroy one part and they would die, and sometimes it just meant dealing extra damage.
In Baphomet’s case, the back of his head was the latter.
While I was relieved, dealing damage to him was still difficult.
With this debuff on, even his weak spots didn’t do much…well, maybe not.

“In Fight Arrow! Rapid Fire!”

This time, I wasn’t targeting his head.
I aimed at the wings coming out of his back, and cut them off.
Now Baphomet would not be able to fly…!

And then I targeted his knees.
Previously, when I had battled a gorilla, I had been able to win by shooting its knees.
But fighting so much since then had made me forget those early days.

Now that Baphomet could not move so quickly, Garbow and I focused our attacks on him.

“Please wait!”

“Huh!?”

Just when its HP gauge was nearly empty, the white goat started talking again…!
Now that I thought about it, what was it doing during the fight?
I hadn’t noticed its presence at all while fighting…

“I want to deal the final blow with my white magic! It has a purifying effect, and so it should bring better results than a normal attack! Of course, you can still do it your way if you want…”

Huh. It was quite obvious that this was related to the requirement for the reward…
Anyone could see that.
And since I realized it, I would ask him to deal the final blow.

“Alright. You can do it, Mister White Goat.”

“Yes. Just give me a little time!”

“Huh?”

A magic circle appeared around the white goat’s feet.
There were 12 numbers around the circle, just like a clock. And then the ‘1’ started to glow.
Surely…he wasn’t asking us to fend off the enemy until they were all glowing…?

“Thank you!”

W-wait a minute. Baphomet only had a millimeter of HP left.
That meant I couldn’t attack him to slow him down…
And while his HP wouldn’t recover, he was able to regrow certain parts of his body.
New wings sprouted out, and his knees were healing.

Furthermore, after the HP loss, a red aura had appeared around him, and he was visibly angry.
And this anger was clearly directed towards me.
Had it been directed at Garbow, I could give the order to stop attacking, and then just focus on healing him…
In-in any case, I’ll try glaring back at Baphomet.
Maybe he would recoil…

–Beep! You have acquired the skill ‘Intimidating Eyes.’

◆ Acquisition Reason
‘Shooting Glare’
Continued to glare at a hostile enemy without attacking them.

◆ Intimidating Eyes
Intimidate enemies when your eyes meet, temporarily stopping their movement.
The effect is weaker if you’re far away.

S-so it really did give me a skill…
I guess I should test it out…!

“Intimidating Eyes!”

I glared at Baphomet.

“B-Buoo…”

It was clearly afraid.
Now, just stay there and don’t move… I thought, but the effect didn’t last forever.
You had to look away and wait a while before activating it again.

But while I could only stop someone for a few seconds, it was still a powerful skill.
And the requirement was quite easy, and would be something that people with other jobs could acquire as well. And yet I hadn’t seen anyone else use it.
And it wasn’t something difficult to use, like a bow…

In any case, I focused on using this new skill, Intimidating Eyes, while using Web Arrow and Warp Arrow. And with Garbow covering me, we were able to buy enough time.

“Now I’m finished! White magic, Saint Goat!”

The white goat unleashed a powerful shining light.
My vision turned white for a second, and when I could see again, the Baphomet had returned to a black goat.

“Meehhh!”
“Meeehh!”

The two goats jumped around happily.
I tried not to think about how it had suddenly stopped talking. We had made it through…this dungeon.

‘Congratulations-nyon! You’ve conquered the Capricorn trial-nyon! And you even fulfilled the requirements for the reward-nyon! As I’m sure you already know, the requirement was having Mister White Goat use his magic to defeat Baphomet! And so your reward is… ‘Mister White Goat’s Letter Paper’-nyon!’

Charin handed me some paper that had the two goats depicted on it.
As NSO didn’t have an actual mail system, it was likely a crafting material.
…Ah, just like the Sacred Mountain Water, it had a ‘Use’ option.
And it could be used on me. Without hesitation, I selected ‘Use.’

—Beep! You have acquired the skill ‘Letter Arrow.’

◆ Letter Arrow
This skill has two effects.
① Enter a text or voice message into the arrow before shooting.
Players will be able to see the message through inspecting the arrow.
② Unleashes an arrow that analyzes information on monsters.
Finds out and records information such as ‘attributes’ and ‘skills’ after hitting an enemy.

①’s effect was simple to understand. It was a letter fixed to an arrow.
It would probably be useful for sending messages to the advance guard if I was in a party.
Because if I wanted to make use of my range, I would definitely find myself moving away from the others.

②’s effect was an ‘investigate’ type skill.
It would display information about monsters.
Since I was starting to acquire more skills with special attributes, it was perfect.
Being able to know an enemy’s skills beforehand was also great.
Even if I didn’t know what effect their skill had, the name alone would be a hint.

‘And here is the Capricorn medal-nyon!’

The Capricorn medal looked a lot like the Aquarius medal.
There were jewels on the front side that were in the shape of the actual constellation, and on the back, there was a realistic depiction of a goat.
Yes, it looked so cool that you’d want to collect them…
Still, there were 10 left. So the road ahead was long.

I had cleared two trials today, and it would be evening soon.
And so I wanted to return to town and logout.
Both trials were very interesting, but I also felt quite tired…

I hadn’t even decided which labyrinth I would take on next.
I suppose it would be natural to go to the closest one, which was the Sagittarius Labyrinth…
Of course, Sagittarius meant…archery. And because that was my field of expertise, it also made me a little tense.

People recognized me now. And so they would expect me to do well with that trial…
In a way, it was the most intimidating one. So, what should I do…
Well, I will decide on that tomorrow!

Next Chapter

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