But that was not the quest's goal. The monster had to be killed by the survivors.

<This feels like a game stuck on hell difficulty… Shouldn't the system at least fix the quest rewards if the quest parameters change?>

Aldric spoke first. "Our average level is ninety-five. A five-level gap is not going to matter much, but…"

"But the Alpha," Kara said. "Level 130 is... that's beyond us. We can at best use the summons to act as cannon fodder, but I doubt our attacks will be able to kill the monster, and neither will our mana last enough for the creatures to kill the beast."

"Well." Helga's expression shifted. "At least the pools are free from the defenders. We will just need to cleanse them and then kill the four thousand monsters plus the alpha."

Aldric frowned. "Yeah, you are right. In a sense, we will have fewer troubles than before since the monsters left their territory. The bogs, the standing water, the reeds. That's where they're strongest. In the mire, they can ambush from below, drag prey underwater, and use the terrain against us." Helga's grin returned. "But they're in the open now. On solid ground. They gave up their advantage."

"Agree." Reidar spoke for the first time since the scout's report. "In the Mire, we'd be at a severe disadvantage. Limited visibility. Unstable footing. Water deep enough to drown in. But in the valley? We have space to maneuver."

Kara caught on next. "We can use summons. Flood the battlefield with Level 95 creatures."

"Five summons per raid member gives us... what? 850 creatures now that we lost 30 people? They are four thousand."

"We will have to do with what we have. At least we can re-summon the creatures," Reidar said.

"This is still dangerous."

"But it's winnable. More than winnable," Reidar said. "This is your chance to gain massive C.L.A.S.P. points. Level 100 monsters will give substantial experience to everyone here, although the level gap is not as wide as before."

"We would also need to add the quest's rewards," Helga said. "It's not just a few points we are going to get."

The mood shifted. Fear transformed into something hungrier. This was an opportunity wrapped in a threat. A chance to level up significantly in a single fight.

Reidar watched the transformation, careful not to let his own concerns show. Something was wrong. The sudden level increase across the entire pack was unnatural. And the Alpha's isolation was too weird. The church might have to do something with the entire situation; the problem was what?

"What about the alpha itself?"

At that point, Reidar didn't have much time. Too many days had passed already; he needed to check on Lena and wanted to complete the quest and get out of the valley to go find his parents.

At that point, it became clear he would have to take care of the Alpha. <This is going to decrease the rewards.>

But the quest was designed for something like that to happen. Even if the multipliers decreased, 80% of that depended on the four past quests, and only 20% depended on this quest, meaning that even if Reidar did everything on his own, the effects on the multiplier would still amount to 20% of the total, which meant that even if he directly killed the alpha, the multiplier was not going to decrease that much.

Aldric moved closer to Reidar. "There's something I'm nervous about."

"Say it," Reidar said.

"What if all of this is the Church of Unbinding's doing?"

Of course, Reidar didn't expect less from those bastards.

"I was thinking the same."

"It makes sense," Aldric added. "The timing. The sudden power increase, the assassination attempt. The coordinated movement. All this feels... orchestrated."

Kara's brow came up slightly. "The problem is, what the hell are they doing? How are they going to take advantage of these monsters? How are they going to take advantage of a cleared valley?"

Helga looked between them. "Yeah. The best thing for the church would have been to take advantage of the rampaging monsters from the valley to reap the merits of having killed them, resulting in more people joining them. The raid taking care of the monsters means that we are getting stronger and that there are no monsters to exploit for them."

"It doesn't even explain the situation in general," Reidar said. "For sure, we know that allowing us to complete the quest was not a move that played in their favor. But we also know that whatever they are doing, it's affecting the mire."

"The mire…" Aldric paused. "That's it!"

"What?" Reidar asked.

"We haven't been in the mire yet, and we are too far from your Vorathid Foragers to reach it." He paused. "Whatever the church is doing, it must be happening at the mires, or close to there. That would explain the levels."

"You are not exactly right," Reidar said. "It's not only the Mire that I can't reach from here…"

"Right," Kara said. "The Chittering Tunnels…"

"The chittering tunnels," he nodded. "We hadn't been there since the second day. The mire and the tunnels share a border. You can actually go to the mire from the tunnels and vice versa."

"So?" Helga asked. "So the church is in the chittering tunnels, you fools," Lorian said. Aldric must have been pretty excited, in a bad or good way, for his second personality to appear.

"The Mire-Crawlers likely went to the chittering tunnels to investigate what happened. Based on what the Velia's Monster Compendium says, the Mire-Crawlers were heavily suppressed by the Razorwing Skitterers, as hard as it can be for a frog to be defeated by a cockroach." Lorian paused.

"I bet that as soon as we cleared the tunnels, the Crawlers went there to finish our job, and they were likely affected by whatever the church is doing there."

Reidar remained silent. That was the same conclusion he just reached. The Vorathid Foragers had been scouring the valley for days and didn't found a single trace of the church or of Seraphine's group for all that mattered. No camps. No ritual sites. No signs of organized presence beyond the two assassins.

"In essence," Reidar said, "They are indirectly responsible for the Mire-Crawler's rise in levels, but I think their goal is something else. Something bigger than raising a Level 130 monster they know I can kill easily."

"What could be worse than this?" Kara asked.

Reidar stared toward the Spire's entrance, toward the valley beyond. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it will be big."

Silence fell among the four of them. Around them, the raid continued to prepare, excited by the prospect of the upcoming battle and blind to the deeper threat lurking beneath.

Lorian's hand moved to his spear. "Then we complete the raid," he said. "While you take care of the Mire-Crawler's alpha and check the chittering tunnels."

"Agreed," Helga said.

Kara nodded.

Reidar nodded. There wasn't much he could do at that point. He was the only one strong enough to quickly kill the monster, plus he had to check what was happening in the chittering tunnels. All Reidar had to do was to flood both places; he wouldn't even need to intervene in person.

But of course, he'd handle the Alpha himself—not just send his creatures.

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