With a party this efficient, Rowan got something he had never had since returning back.
Someone to clean up after him.
Rowan walked side by side with Derek, which caused some confusion among the others in the party since a range attacker had no business standing on the front line, but his gun was working exactly as intended.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
With every shot fired, the monsters in the way either dropped dead or were incapacitated, and with Matthew finishing the job and Derek aggroing the injured ones, it was a simple clear all the way into the volcano.
Amy and Sarah watched from the back in quiet awe.
"He really lives up to what Cordelia said..." Sarah could barely believe her eyes that a gun could be this effective against monsters in a dungeon, and it looked so effortless too.
Not only the flaming hounds, but there were also ember golems, small variants of golems made from lava rock. But like all golems, Rowan just shot their core and broke them down in a single bullet without breaking a sweat.
"Yeah...." Amy had not healed a single person since the raid started.
This was a fire dungeon, with hazards and danger everywhere, but somehow a single person on the team had made the entire backline completely redundant.
Since the monsters were already weakened by Rowan’s shots, Sarah did not need to waste her limited water supply buffing Derek and Matthew’s weapons.
This was the difference Rowan made, and it was the kind of thing most people would never notice unless they were a true connoisseur of efficiency. Before, Rowan had to finish every monster himself, which took time. Now he calculated the maximum damage each party member could deal and acted accordingly.
His focus was making every shot lighten the load for everyone else as much as possible. Simple in concept, deceptively hard to execute in reality.
But Rowan was, and always had been, a team player.
"Help me get the cores, will you?" Rowan asked Matthew, who was just standing there with an irritated look on his face. "Did you forget your knife, or?" He spoke as he ripped out another mana core and tossed it to Matthew. By custom, the party leader was the one who carried them.
"Huh?! Just shut up and do your job," Matthew snapped back and turned away.
"He does not normally do that," Derek whispered as he helped Rowan collect the remaining cores.
They killed and killed until they reached the bottom of the towering lava mountain. The molten rock now enveloped the entire area, with only platforms of boulders for them to step across, and with Rowan’s sensing, they needed to go just a bit deeper into the cave.
"Damn, I hate this! Sarah, can’t you make it cooler?" Matthew complained. Around them the lava glowed bright on all sides as they descended into the cave.
"I don’t have enough water in the area!" Sarah answered, sweating hard and forcing herself not to drink from her supply.
The ability to conjure water from mana alone belonged to B-rank mages or higher. She could only work with existing moisture in the air or control water that was already present.
"Useless," Matthew muttered under his breath, then looked over at Rowan and laughed. "A newbie like you must be dying in here. Should we head back? It’s getting hot."
"I’m fine." Rowan was sweating, but he did not care about the heat at all. He could not feel thirst, and while he could still feel the temperature, he had been in far worse situations than this before.
"Show off," Matthew scoffed, then turned to Derek at the front and shouted, "Hey! Seen anything yet? The boss should be close by now."
"Yeah! There’s a big entrance down there, must be the boss room." Derek answered back and all of them slowed down as they descended.
The lava seemed to flow slower, like it had nowhere to go. After passing through the entrance it curved outward into a giant ring around them before draining into a pool of lava at the far end of the cave.
"What? Where is the boss?" Matthew questioned. The entire giant room was empty.
Rowan, with his soul sense, knew exactly where the boss was, but he could not spell it out without raising more questions than he wanted to answer.
The boss was strong, its power on par with Matthew’s, and it was currently deep inside the lava pool at the end of the cave.
’Either it is sleeping or setting up an ambush.’ Rowan tried to narrow down what the boss could be, but every creature capable of living submerged in lava was bad news by definition.
"Hey Derek, do the thing," Matthew commanded.
"Rah!" Derek roared and sent out a wave of taunt aura.
It triggered the boss immediately.
The lava pool began to rumble, and then a crimson claw broke the surface. It climbed out of the pool at five meters in size. Unlike the flaming hounds, its scales were not fractured rock but neatly layered plates with no visible weak point, and its glowing eyes locked straight onto Derek.
’A Salamander!’ Rowan’s instincts screamed at the same moment the lava salamander let out its howl.
Sarah knew her job and quickly enchanted Derek and Matthew’s weapons, but Rowan already had a different plan forming.
BANG!
He immediately shot at the Salamander but the bullet failed to pierce its thick scales.
’As expected. Without [Soul Devourer], killing an armored monster is going to be a challenge.’
Rowan sighed.
Matthew laughed as he and Derek rushed forward.
"Ha! Let me show you what a real hunter looks like!" Matthew activated his skill.
His body began to grow, doubling then tripling in size along with his swords.
[Enlarge] the signature skill of Matthew’s C-rank class.
A strong skill without question, but completely wrong for this monster.
"You idiot!!" Rowan shouted, but there was no time.
The Salamander bulged its neck and opened its mouth, spewing out a wave of molten lava.
The lava hit Matthew full in the face, burning hot, and splashed across Derek’s shield. The stream of enchanted water on it dispersed almost instantly from the heat.
"Agh!!!" Matthew screamed in pain as Derek shoved the lava off his shield.
"You cannot face tank a fire type monster!!" Rowan said in exasperation.
Tripling your strength with [Enlarge] was undeniably powerful, but it also tripled your hitbox.