Chapter 38

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

If nothing else, its instincts were so pointlessly sharp it left me speechless. Earlier, it had definitely cast first, then raised its arm and slammed it down, but this turn’s Flower of Mourning had no cast time. Was this some kind of joke...? If the cast bar had popped up in advance, I would’ve carefully saved my one and only buff skill and used it at the very end...

While I was sighing, this time the golem snatched me up not with its broken right hand, but with its perfectly fine left. Contrary to the previous turn, it seemed this was the part where I survived with Jaesugang’s help.

My HP began ticking down little by little as I was tightly bound in the golem’s hand. If Jaesugang hadn’t topped me off beforehand, this might have been dangerous.

[Party] Jaesugang: Whoa

Just like me earlier, Jaesugang must have been stunned by a gimmick he was seeing for the first time in his life. I get it, I get it. I really do. Since mine had been a moth silhouette, his must be a butterfly silhouette, right? It was a simple mini-game where you just had to press any key in time with the beat like a rhythm game, so there was no way Jaesugang would fail. I looked forward to the dramatic scene that was about to unfold.

[Party] Jaesugang: If I fail this

[Party] Jaesugang: what happens?

And that expectation collapsed in an instant. Not just collapsed—my heart dropped with it.

[Party] Kkulppang: srsly?

[Party] Kkulppang: Seriously?

[Party] Jaesugang: Aren’t you curious?

I mean, well, I was, but... I wanted to see Jaesugang dramatically save me first. Wasn’t this a unique scene where the guy who’d only ever gotten me killed was now struggling with all his might to save me? To begin with, I’d saved him right away without even thinking—well, I’d just pressed it instinctively, but still!

[Party] Kkulppang: If I say I’m not curious, will you not do it?

You’re not going to wipe the party like this, right? Right? The golem only has 16% HP left, you’re not going to make us retry, right? Right?

I racked my brain, trying to figure out how to appease Jaesugang. While my inner self was reaching an agreement that I’d accept if he demanded we get on Discord, party chat popped up.

[Party] Jaesugang: Come on lol

[Party] Jaesugang: Do you really think I’d fail on purposss sdfsgh  h＼＼＼＼＼

The chat looked weird. The vibe felt weird too. I lowered my aim as far as I could and looked down toward where Jaesugang was. Then the black silhouette of a butterfly cracked cleanly in half on the spot and vanished.

Hey, you didn’t actually—

[Party] Jaesugang: ..lol

[Party] Kkulppang: Hey

[Party] Jaesugang: Ah, I’m rea;lly really;sorry;;

[Party] Kkulppang: Way to trigger the flag like this;

The screen shook violently as I plummeted to the ground along with the golem’s hand.

Jaesugang, the great sinner who had failed a rhythm game, was unable to block the golem’s hand and staggered back. My character, forced to take the full impact, instantly lost all HP and died.

On the garden floor, which had already been smashed into chaos by the golem, my corpse—a lone lump of light—was left lying there forlornly. In the end, I had become a seed of the Flower of Mourning, exactly as the spirit wanted.

[Party] Kkulppang: <Seed of the Flower of Mourning> x1

In my desolation, I pretended to be a dropped item.

[Party] Jaesugang: Ah l..lololol

[General] Kkulppang: U laughing?

[Party] Jaesugang: ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

Whether Jaesugang was apologizing for his mistake or not, he acted vaguely about it while his fingers hurriedly used <Mental Focus>, which increased casting speed, and began casting resurrection on me.

The slight problem was... resurrection skills had an 8-second cast time, so even with Mental Focus, there was still a 4-second cast. If the golem attacked faster than that, the cast would inevitably be interrupted.

Left with no other choice, he resorted to the prayer meta: if the cast got interrupted, he’d cast resurrection again and pray; if it got interrupted again, he’d cast resurrection again and pray. Occasionally, if you were lucky, the stat effect called Focus would let your casting continue even after getting hit by a boss-class monster, so it was all or nothing.

Between healing himself because the auto-attacks hurt and trying to resurrect me, Jaesugang was moving frantically. When I looked at his buff window, the skill duration was already down to exactly 4 seconds. He’d used up two-thirds of the 12 seconds and still failed to get the resurrection cast off.

I watched Jaesugang’s cast bar nervously. If you bring me back, I’ll let it slide a little, so bring me back. I don’t want to retry.

My prayer was desperate, and Jaesugang’s prayer was desperate too. (If he had a conscience, it had better be.) After recovering just enough HP to take exactly two more auto-attacks, Jaesugang waited a little as if timing it, then used the resurrection skill right after the boss’s auto-attack motion. The boss’s auto-attack cycle was faster, so I wondered if that could possibly succeed, but...

[System] You have received the Return from the Brink effect from Jaesugang.

It really succeeded, like a miracle!

As soon as the resurrection button appeared, I accepted and got up, while Jaesugang was busy recovering his own HP. The resurrection animation was quite long, so with the heartfelt wish for my character to hurry up and stand, I frantically alternated between mashing the A and D keys. Then, once I could move freely, I didn’t forget to use consumables as I charged at the boss.

In Dusk, when you get up with a resurrection skill, your aggro value doesn’t build for a set amount of time. It’s a system that doesn’t matter to dealers or healers, but for me, a tank, it was a tremendous penalty. If the tank, who was supposed to take the boss’s attacks, couldn’t hold aggro, all that damage would go straight to the dealer or healer.

If I used a taunt skill, I would temporarily become first in aggro priority, but that wasn’t a permanent aggro value. It meant that when I used taunt, the boss would look only at me, but the actual aggro value I built up through attacking was separate, so once the taunt duration ended, it would return to the original accumulated aggro value.

In other words, even if I used taunt now, my real aggro value wouldn’t build up, so once its duration ended, Jaesugang would take the boss’s aggro again.

The golem’s auto-attacks were extremely threatening to Jaesugang. Right now, even a single auto-attack with normal damage would shave off about a third of his total HP, and if it crit here, things would get ugly.

I hurried over to where Jaesugang was and stood between him and the golem. Then, blocking the golem’s auto-attack that had just been swung at Jaesugang with my shield, I quickly tapped at the keyboard.

[Party] Kkulppang: Behind me

As soon as he saw the chat, Jaesugang, whose veteran instincts were on another level, scurried up behind me and stuck close at a suitable distance. I had to use the fact that shield block also applied to allies behind me and save Jaesugang first.

I was doing this much for him, and that bastard had killed me by failing one simple mini-game? Just you wait. I’m going to milk this for the rest of my life.

Even as I simmered with anger inside, my hands diligently used shield block on every one of the golem’s auto-attacks to protect Jaesugang’s HP. Maybe he had more breathing room now that the damage he took had been cut in half compared to earlier, because Jaesugang refilled my heals and buffs and then started sneaking in bits of damage. He had apparently figured out in advance the occasional cone-shaped attack that appeared on my side too, because when the golem showed a frontal attack motion, he reliably used his evasion skill.

While Jaesugang still held aggro, the golem’s HP dropped below 10%, and it began casting its tankbuster skill, <Ground Slam>. This was a targeted skill, so if Jaesugang got hit, he would absolutely die. Fortunately, it was about time my aggro value started rising again, so the timing was perfect.

I saw the cast bar, used taunt to steal the aggro target, then walked forward and took up the same position as at the start, with Jaesugang at the golem’s back. We were back to a stable formation.

[Be crushed! I said, be crushed!]

Unlike before, the voice line sounded more desperate, as if it were thrashing in agony. Would the damage be higher? As I was vaguely thinking that, the golem’s arm moved. But the golem, which had previously pulled back and swung only one hand, was now preparing to unleash its tankbuster with both hands. I felt a sense of déjà vu, similar to when I’d just been at death’s door.

I hurriedly put up one more defensive cooldown. Then, before the fist flew in, I quickly asked Jaesugang for help in chat.

[Party] Kkulppang: hheal

No sooner had I hit Enter than the golem’s waist twisted sideways, and its left fist, loaded with acceleration, came flying first. Even though I used shield block with the right timing, that one tankbuster sent my HP plummeting to below 10%. Was this damage insane? I had two defensive cooldowns up and even succeeded in a perfect block, yet the damage was over 90% of my HP? And there was still one more tankbuster left? Was even Jaesugang capable of saving this?

My heart was not getting a break today. I was stunned, wondering what more I could possibly do here. Still, just in case, I kept my eyes on the golem with the mindset that I might as well try one more perfect block...

Unlike me, who was overwhelmed by the thought that it wouldn’t work and had lost some of my nerve, Jaesugang saw the state of my HP bar and apparently thought it could be done, because he refused to give up and began throwing heals in at lightning speed.