Under those circumstances, Luluwo's group had already reached their limit.
There were serious issues with the team's composition. Everything revolved around Luluwo—the strongest member—while everyone else focused entirely on enabling her to deal maximum damage.
As a result, once Luluwo fell into a weakened state, the entire Group immediately collapsed.
This was a major problem. Whether it meant recruiting new members in the future or strengthening the existing ones, it was an issue that demanded serious consideration.
But right now, that wasn't their focus.
Late at night, inside the bell tower.
Relying on her memory, Luluwo sketched out the route from the jar settlement to the warehouse, as well as the warehouse's internal structure. Her drawing skills were admittedly abstract, but as long as she could recognize it herself, that was enough.
"From the settlement to the warehouse, the route is a very obvious one-way path. The roadside is piled with broken wooden crates, and there are numerous werewolves wielding different weapons blocking the way. The combat intensity is extremely high."
"Based on my observations and information from other adventurers, there are no shortcuts here at all… Why am I thinking about shortcuts again?"
"You can only fight your way through honestly, killing everything along the way. Probably."
"The monster in the warehouse—Father Gascoigne—can transform into a beast form similar to an orc. I don't know what conditions trigger it, but once he transforms, his strength increases dramatically."
"Using solid tombstones and Mire magic, he can be trapped—but only while he remains in human form. Once he transforms into a werewolf, he can jump out of the mire."
"Hm… what if we knock him down before he jumps out? For example, using my chains."
"No, that won't work. The people reading my guide most likely won't have strength like mine. They won't be able to knock the priest down."
"In that case, should we try deepening the mire, or hardening it outright? If it's a higher-tier Mire Manipulation, the mud could wrap around the priest like ropes. And if it's supplemented with Steel Hardening…"
"How much would scrolls for those two spells cost? And what's the current market price of the rewards obtained after completing the event? If the cost outweighs the benefit, it's still not feasible."
"Maybe we don't have to fixate on restraining him. If there's a way to lower the difficulty of fighting the beastified priest, that would be ideal."
"Perhaps… we can do something with the tombstones."
Luluwo sat at the table, deep in thought. She accounted for everything she could think of, yet the more she thought, the more flaws she uncovered.
If this were her former self, she probably would've rushed to publish this incomplete information the moment she left the dungeon.
It seemed that everyone who recovered from the Fear state grew in some way.
Maybe she really should gather a bunch of lion-baboons and open a counseling office.
…Just kidding.
"I haven't seen the captain this serious in a long time," Belto said with relief, wiping the corner of his eye. "Alright then. I'll work hard too—I'll organize all the materials tonight!"
Since he was the most literate among them, this task naturally fell to him.
"You sound like a dad," Mira remarked casually as she carried a cup of coffee over to Luluwo.
"Huh?" Belto blinked.
The next day, the Luluwo Group entered the Dungeon as usual.
This time, their objective was clear: to find a simple and reliable way to deal with Father Gascoigne.
A fully recovered Luluwo had no trouble soloing him. After all, the priest was only a C-rank (C−).
But for ordinary adventurers, this was already an insurmountable mountain. Even with the slow leveling provided by bonfires, challenging a C-rank monster remained extremely difficult.
Luluwo had made it clear from the beginning—the target audience of her guide was lower-tier adventurers.
In gaming terms: players with skill issues.
As always, the Warrior Jar was under siege by monsters. After casually rescuing him, the Group didn't linger and headed straight for the warehouse area.
The Warrior Jar stared blankly at their retreating backs, struck by a chilling sense that his future had already been thoroughly seen through.
This time, they still had to carve a bloody path through the monster-blocked road—but the situation felt different.
During the fight, Luluwo glanced at the wooden crates piled along the roadside. Their placement felt… intentional.
She recalled the hidden path concealed beneath tall grass when facing archers on the Grave Plains, and lashed out with her chains, smashing the crates.
Unfortunately, there was nothing behind them—just a wall.
Was my intuition wrong?
She flung a monster aside, and it crashed into another stack of crates, which promptly collapsed.
Luluwo's eyes lit up, thinking she'd found a hidden path—but when she rushed over, she saw a pit trap filled with sharp spikes hidden behind the crates.
Yikes!
If you fell down there, you'd end up riddled with holes—perfect for marinating with spices.
Her understanding of the Sein Dungeon's viciousness deepened once again. It seemed there really were no hidden paths here. She'd simply overthought it.
"Captain, I found a hidden path!" Mira suddenly shouted.
"What?" Luluwo exclaimed in surprise.
After Mira smashed the crates in front of her, a new passage genuinely appeared.
Calling it a "path" wasn't quite accurate—it was more like a sewer, its manhole cover clearly stolen. The sound of trickling water echoed from below.
Without hesitation, Luluwo led everyone inside. Before leaving, she had Ais seal the entrance with magic to prevent monsters from sneaking up behind them.
The monsters along this route were disgusting slugs, whose secretions were highly toxic. One misstep and you'd be poisoned.
But the path led straight to the warehouse. At the end, they could even faintly hear Father Gascoigne's heavy breathing, completely bypassing the risk of fighting monsters outside.
Each route had its advantages and drawbacks—it all came down to personal choice.
Luluwo quietly lifted the manhole cover and found that they had emerged directly behind the priest.
This position could be used for a sneak attack!
And—
She scanned her surroundings. The sewer exit wasn't far from the tombstone formation they had previously used to trap the priest. After a sneak attack, there would even be a chance to retreat.
This spot was perfect.
At that moment, in an adventurer's vision, a red marker had already appeared on the priest's back.
A few seconds later—
"BOOM! BOOM!"
Enraged by the sneak attack, the priest immediately beastified and began chasing the adventurers.
This time, Luluwo wasn't foolish enough to hand him weapons. She was in peak condition and could solo him if necessary.
But for the sake of producing a guide, she deliberately slowed the fight, observing his combat patterns and memorizing his habits as much as possible.
The beastified priest retained his straightforward charging attacks, but no longer used weapons. His fighting style shifted entirely to savage claw swipes—far more feral.
Luluwo noticed that he tended to charge two or three times in succession, so she guided him into crashing straight into a tombstone.
Boom!
The tombstone shattered with a loud crash—but the priest also dropped to one knee, swaying. While he was seeing stars, there was more than enough time for adventurers to wail on him.
"Can guide him into charging tombstones to induce a concussion—write that down."
The experiments continued.
"After beastification, the priest's attacks are fast and brutal. Using a shield to block is not recommended; circling him is far more effective."
"Not sure whether beast-targeted mind control spells work on him. Aim, try it—okay, doesn't work."
"Pour some oil on him. I want to see if he slips."
Gradually, a strategy centered around using tombstones to halt the 'wolf car' took shape, providing solid reference value for fighting the beastified priest.
In practice, this meant luring him into crashing into tombstones to create large openings, then attacking during the stagger. Any reasonably agile adventurer should be able to manage this.
Of course, the priest wasn't stupid. After crashing into tombstones two or three times, he would catch on and stop falling for the trick.
As a result, this method could only be used up to three times. If he still wasn't defeated after that, players would have to rely on terrain advantages and slowly wear him down.
Overall, even with a "skip-class" strategy, it remained nearly impossible for complete beginners to succeed. At the very least, some combat experience was required.
Luluwo and her group had already gone above and beyond. The value of this guide far exceeded their expectations.
The Catacombs was still in its exploration phase, and very few people were producing guides for bosses or elite monsters—especially for a branching elite event like the Warrior Jar.
Yet the rewards from the Warrior Jar event were genuinely generous, making demand for a priest guide extremely high.
With a thunderous crash, the beastified body collapsed. Father Gascoigne ultimately fell to the despicable outlanders.
Luluwo collected the jar-enhancement materials, handed them over to the Warrior Jar in exchange for Warrior Jar Fragments, and tossed the final Flowerfield magic scroll into the jar settlement.
What she didn't expect was that, despite not interacting with either the big jars or small jars this time, she still received a Friendly Jar from the Warrior Jar just before leaving.
As all the jars came out to see them off, Luluwo awkwardly turned her head away and muttered a classic tsundere line:
"I-it's not like I wanted to get along with you or anything."
The gloom in her heart vanished completely. Smiling happily, she hung the Friendly Jar in the most prominent spot on her chest—only taking it off after entering the Death Knight's boss room and initiating the fight.
The Death Knight fell. The tomb passage opened.
This path had once inflicted nightmare-like torment upon them—just standing here made their legs feel weak.
This time, however, they held their torches high, remaining constantly alert for crawlers lurking in the darkness.
And yet—
"We're… out?" Mira said in disbelief.
They passed through safely—without even seeing the shadow of a monster.
So as long as you held a torch the entire time, you'd be fine.
In that instant, they felt incredibly stupid for not listening to advice earlier.
The tunnel sloped upward. As Luluwo surveyed her surroundings, a strange sense of familiarity welled up within her.
Ahead lay a wide open area, its edges lined with steep cliffs—one misstep and you'd be shattered to pieces.
Wait… isn't this—
Before Luluwo could finish processing the thought, the aura of death descended upon the clearing. A black curtain blotted out the sky, and within that darkness, a grotesque, twisted figure slowly emerged.
A gaunt, skeletal body.
An infant-like head.
Wings fused from countless corpses.
The Death Rite Bird made its grand entrance!
The members of the Group froze.
How did killing the Death Knight lead directly to the final boss?!
Isn't this shortcut a bit too much of a shortcut?!
Since they had only killed the Death Knight, they were now facing a Death Rite Bird weakened by one-third.
In fact, two challenge options appeared.
Two stone steles stood ahead, engraved with:
[Challenge the Death Rite Bird Embraced by Death]
[Challenge the Death Rite Bird Entangled by Death]
In simple terms:
[Fight the Bell-Calling Boat, Death Knight, and Demi-Human Swordmaster consecutively, then challenge a Death Rite Bird weakened three times]
[Challenge a Death Rite Bird that fuses the power of all three elite monsters]
If any elite monster had already been defeated during exploration, it would be skipped in the first gauntlet, and the Death Rite Bird in the second option would also be weakened accordingly.
"Fight it?"
"We're already here."
The Group charged in!
The Group rushed forward!
The Group was instantly wiped out by erupting ghostflame!
Only Luluwo escaped!
A curse lodged itself in Luluwo's throat, refusing to come out. One of her arms had been scorched by ghostflame, turning an eerie color and completely losing sensation.
They had fought the Death Rite Bird once before—a version weakened twice—and that battle had still taken a long time.
Surely there couldn't be much difference between being weakened once or twice, right?
That underestimation led to them being instantly rushed down and annihilated by ghostflame.
Luluwo struggled on, but not for long. She was sent flying by a staff strike from above, bones snapping throughout her body.
She was dying—but not dead yet.
At that moment, her eyes suddenly locked onto something ahead.
The Death Rite Bird had used a flying charge and dashed to the edge of the clearing—half its body was hanging over the cliff!
Luluwo's breathing grew ragged.
If—if it could fall…
Unfortunately, the Death Rite Bird flapped its wings. Though it barely managed to stay aloft, it still dragged itself away from the cliff.
Trying to make a bird fall to its death really was a bit abstract.
"So it really doesn't work…"
Disappointed, Luluwo breathed her last.
Her figure reappeared near the bonfire, where her fallen companions were already waiting.
"Captain, what do we do next?" Belto asked.
Luluwo pondered silently, recalling the Death Rite Bird's long-distance dive attacks—and that bottomless cliff.
Let's try it. What if it works?
"Let's go," Luluwo said.
"Target: Death Rite Bird."