"How many times does that have to happen before you've had enough, LUEL?!"
"Ugh... I'm sorry, Rammie..."
"Mom is mad!.."
"Mom is angry!..."
Right now, Luel is kneeling on the floor, being scolded by his older cousin, while the twin girls—his nieces—run around the living room pretending to be scared of their mother.
It's already been two weeks since the first Boss Raid against the Rank A Ragnarok Beast, Cerberus. In that time, seven more raids have taken place—seven more defeats, with Cerberus emerging victorious each time. But that was expected. After all, the goal of the Boss Raid wasn't to defeat Cerberus, but to study it.
After each loss, Luel would wake up suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. That's why Rammie is scolding him—for repeatedly pushing himself to the point of emotional collapse.
"Mom is scary!..."
"Run away, Fluffy-Hair Uncle!..."
"Quiet, both of you!"
Rammie snapped at her daughters, causing them to stop running and sit beside Luel.
"Sniff!..."
"Sob!..."
As Ram and Mie began to cry after being scolded, Rammie continued with Luel.
"Are you trying to kill yourself, Luel? Is that why you came back here and decided to live alone?"
Of course, that wasn't Luel's intention, and Rammie knew that. But she couldn't understand why he kept making himself suffer. That's why she said what she did.
"If that game is giving you anxiety and panic attacks, then stop playing it already!"
Rammie had a point—and Luel had considered doing just that. He even thought about quitting his agreement with SilverPup, where he served as bait during the Cerberus Boss Raids. But his personality made it difficult for him to quit.
Two years ago, in his past jobs, Luel had tried to meet everyone's expectations. He catered to his clients, provided for his employees, and supported his co-workers—so much so that he ended up doing their jobs too.
Luel is a good person—or rather, a pushover. He does his best to help those around him, only to be taken advantage of. In the end, he was crushed under the weight of everyone's disappointment when he inevitably failed to meet their impossible expectations. He ran away—driving off in his car—only to get into an accident that turned his life upside down.
Luel wanted to quit fighting Cerberus after experiencing what it was like to die—digested alive inside the beast's belly. But his inability to say no, to avoid disappointing SilverPup and the players of the Orion Guild, kept him going.
He endured the pain, anxiety, and panic attacks through eight raids against Cerberus—until the ninth raid, when Cerberus didn't show up. The Boss Raid event was officially over.
"If this happens again, I'm calling Aunt and Uncle. I'm even telling your brothers!"
"Wait... Please don't, Rammie... I don't want to bother them—especially Mom and Dad."
"And you're fine bothering me?"
"... ... ..."
Luel had no answer. He simply sat there in silence, staring down at the floor, depressed by the thought that he was becoming a burden to his cousin.
After the scolding, and a quiet breakfast at Luel's house, Rammie and her twin girls prepared to leave.
"Bye-bye..."
"Bye, Fluffy-Hair Uncle..."
"Remember what I said. Stop making yourself suffer, Luel."
"I know... Thanks, Rammie..."
And just like that, Luel was alone again.
---
The repeated defeats at the hands of Cerberus had felt like torture to Luel. But if there was one silver lining to all his suffering, it was the information he, SilverPup, and the Orion Guild managed to gather about the Rank A Ragnarok Beast.
It had already been known that Cerberus possessed three Attributes: Lightning, Flame, and Ice. But during the Boss Raids, suspicions of a fourth—Dark—were confirmed.
Additionally, Cerberus's resistances and weaknesses were better understood.
Given its Lightning and Flame Attributes, it was no surprise that Cerberus was highly resistant to attacks from the Lightning Beast Saber and the Nine-tailed Beast Fiamma, who share those elements. The Orion Guild calculated that Cerberus had roughly 75% resistance to their Devour Beast Class attacks.
Its Ice Attribute granted it a 50% resistance to the Azure Beast Asherah's attacks, and 25% against those from the White Beast Alpha.
The only Devour Classes Cerberus lacked resistance to were the Vermilion Beast Aurora and the Moonlight Beast Orion. That made them its apparent weaknesses—confirmed when SilverPup's Devour Skill, Orion's Fangs, managed to injure it.
Another critical discovery was that high-ranking Ragnarok Beasts like Cerberus could heal their wounds by absorbing the Link Force of players they had killed. In one raid, Cerberus visibly recovered from injuries by feeding on the fallen.
This confirmed a key strategy flaw: bringing large numbers of underprepared players to a Boss Raid only benefits the enemy.
As for Cerberus's combat behavior, no new patterns were observed. The players simply weren't strong enough to push it to its limits or force it to reveal any hidden abilities.
Still, what they had learned offered hope.
Hope that Luel, SilverPup, and the Orion Guild—made up mostly of Moonlight Beast Orion Class players—might one day defeat and devour the Rank A Ragnarok Beast Cerberus.