Episode 37

[Weakness Reinforcement: Guardian - Sensing the Guardian’s aura, you enter an attack power enhanced state.]

[Weakness Reinforcement: Harmonizer - Sensing the Harmonizer’s aura, you enter an attack power enhanced state.]

Seeing the names and descriptions of the buffs let me breathe a little easier. Apparently, the golem had recognized that our party composition was a tank and a healer—a composition with fucking terrible DPS—and had only strengthened our attack power. The fact that its HP had already dropped by 6% from us hitting it a little at the start meant the golem’s defense itself was weak enough that even a tank-healer duo wouldn’t lack damage. If we’d both come as DPS, it probably would’ve balanced things by stacking defense enhancement twice instead.

Retake must have been relieved too, because he jumped a few times behind me. It was a gamer’s innate trait. When you’re happy, you spam the space bar to show off how happy you are.

[Party] Retake : Flag

[Party] Retake : I picked it back up^^

……Then again, maybe he was just relieved that the golem didn’t seem likely to die late, exactly as the flag he’d raised implied.

[Party] Honeybun : Don’t

[Party] Honeybun : forget

[Party] Honeybun : there’s

[Party] Honeybun : still

[Party] Honeybun : one left

He seemed to have forgotten that one death flag aimed at me was still left, so I reminded him through chat in between using skills. The hopping movement behind me stopped dead.

[Party] Retake : Haha;

The mechanics that came after still weren’t anything special. A dodgeable AoE centered on the boss, a dodgeable fan-shaped AoE aimed at Retake, and a tankbuster with a name that made anyone think, yep, that’s definitely a tankbuster. Maybe because it was a two-person dungeon, no raidwide attacks had come out so far.

It might also have been made easy because it was the first boss. Thanks to its low defense, the golem’s HP went down smoothly, and my HP stayed stable.

Just as the try was going so smoothly that I felt embarrassed for criticizing Retake over raising flags, the golem raised both arms and cast a new skill. <Flower of Mourning>. I couldn’t quite get a feel for what this was.

During the brief cast time, I fiddled with the movement keys, wondering whether I should go over to Retake or stay where I was. The name just had to be Flower of Mourning, so I couldn’t predict what sort of mechanic it was, which made it even more confusing. Was it a shared attack that both of us had to take together? Or an attack one person had to handle while the other mourned them? Or maybe an attack neither of us should get hit by.

After pacing back and forth and thinking hard, I figured it would be a problem if the healer died from one wrongly handled attack, so if someone had to die, it would be better for me to sacrifice myself. So I stopped wiggling around and, without going to the rear, stood in place and kept dealing damage.

But Retake seemed to think differently.

[Party] Retake : Come here

Retake’s judgment felt more trustworthy than mine, anyway. As soon as I saw the chat, I went over to Retake, stood behind the golem, and started striking it. Just in case, I used Moonlight Protection in advance, applying a damage reduction buff to the whole party.

The golem finished its cast. When the cast bar emptied, I carefully watched the golem’s motion, then stood in front of Retake and pressed shield block. That was because if a party member was right behind me, shield block reduced their damage by a certain amount too.

[For my children who died……]

[I shall scatter your final breaths and make the flowers of mourning bloom!]

And immediately, the golem, which had been holding up both arms, slammed the ground violently. From the impact of the golem’s fists smashing into the earth, Retake and I were launched into the air in an airborne state, unable to use any skills, and in that opening, the golem swung its right arm and snatched up Retake.

Only my character fell back to the ground and hurriedly got up, while Retake was still trapped in the golem’s fist. The attack pattern didn’t seem to be over yet, so I kept my eyes on the captured Retake, and the golem tried to drive its fist into the ground with even more force than before.

Wow, he’s dead. One hundred percent dead. Even if I, the tank, had been in there, it had enough force to kill me no matter what.

I was opening my equipment window, deciding that if Retake died, I’d take off my gear and quickly reset the fight (*retry; try again), when a suddenly unfamiliar notification sound rang out and a black moth silhouette the size of a child’s fist appeared in the center of the screen.

I wondered, “What is this?” but the silhouette, which had been nothing but black, rapidly brightened, revealing the Bia wing design also drawn in the Dusk logo. And around the time it shone enough that the word “luminous,” a modifier seen quite often in the game, naturally came to mind, white light gathered around the silhouette, and a small prompt appeared beside it telling me to press any button.

I reflexively pressed the space bar in time. Questions or not, I saw the timing to press it, so I just did. Then the moth shining in all sorts of colors moved and vanished into thin air.

[Party] Retake : Looks like I’m gonna die here, right?

Retake, who didn’t know what was happening on my end, was humbly accepting his own death. But to me, it didn’t feel that way. I sharpened my focus and stared at the screen.

There was something here. Something new.

And the game screen that followed lived up to my expectations. Honeybun—my character—struck away the golem’s right hand, which had begun coming down with terrifying force, with a fierce blow of the shield. The golem was clearly made of earth, so its weight had to be no joke, and yet the sight of its arm bouncing back after being hit by the shield was elevated into a dramatic scene.

It didn’t end there. Honeybun stepped onto the golem’s hand, which he had knocked slightly upward, and climbed up. He even threw his shield to the ground, gripped his sword properly with both hands, and drove it down with all his strength. The solid-looking clump of earth grew weaker and weaker as the blade dug in, until it finally shattered, and Retake successfully escaped through the weakened gap. His HP had been reduced by about 70%.

The finishing touch went without saying. With a clean landing animation, then picking up the shield he’d thrown down in one hand and looking up at the golem, my character made my heart pound like crazy. (Even here, the medical officer lost his balance and staggered slightly, which really was something.)

No, fuck, you made something this insanely goddamn awesome and didn’t even tell us? Huh?

[Party] Retake : ?

[Party] Retake : ?

[Party] Retake : ./?

[Party] Retake : ??

[Party] Retake : What was that just now?

I didn’t know if Retake had seen the scene just now too. Judging by his reaction, it seemed like he might have. But the golem immediately let out a sharp roar filled with rage and started throwing basic attacks at me, so I couldn’t answer and had to take position in front again.

I was starting to get used to the large basic attack motions and was now using shield block with proper timing, and I was just beginning to take in the surrounding situation, when I saw Retake suddenly use an attack skill with a long cast time. That skill should barely be used because its damage was low compared to its cast speed, though?

My question was answered immediately.

[Party] Retake : What was that just now?

[Party] Retake : Ah pls

[Party] Retake : Wanna get on Discord>??

It was to talk to me. I admired his tenacity: he’d give up DPS to type in chat, but he would never give up dealing damage altogether.

[Party] Honeybun : no

I only admired it.

I was already busy enough using skills as it was, and what, was he bragging that he could type in chat while casting? It would be one thing if we’d wiped and he suggested voice chat because communication through text was difficult. Of course, even then, as long as Retake had his stream on, there was no way I’d get on Discord with him.

I carefully read through every one of his flattering pleas that filled the chat window and ignored them. If he’d acted cute on KakaoTalk like last time, my heart might have wavered a little, but maybe because his stream was on, Retake was maintaining an appropriate streamer-safe line. Making requests with such a shabby mindset? He lacked resolve.

After begging and begging for a while, Retake eventually seemed to give up too, leaving a few “ㅠ”s before falling quiet at some point.

As familiar mechanics repeated and I slowly figured out when to cram in damage, the golem’s HP began dropping faster. Most of its attacks could be dodged, so aside from the tankbuster hurting, it was honestly a very easy boss pattern to understand. The Flower of Mourning, where Retake had been captured and the scene of me rescuing him had played, had been sudden, but if you were quick-witted, it wasn’t that threatening a mechanic either.

And yet, for some reason, I had a bad feeling.

Why? I’d clearly just used a buff skill that raised attack power for twenty seconds, so this should have been the perfect time to enjoy dealing damage. Why?

If I had to describe this feeling in detail, it was like this: as if the Flower of Mourning, where I’d been launched into an airborne state earlier and couldn’t deal damage for ages because Retake got captured, was about to be cast again…… and this buff skill was about to become completely useless.

[For my children who died!]

My extremely ominous premonition came true.