As soon as the game began, the exact same scene I’d seen an hour ago started playing again.
Against the backdrop of an old cabin, the two elves who could be called the protagonists of this game, Cynthia and Ash, began to talk to each other—
Clickclickclickclickclick!
—or rather, it was skipped before they could.
‘Well, the second time around, this is usually how it goes.’
There was quite a lot of text in the prologue, so having to spam-click through it every time you started over would be a pain.
‘I should add a skip function later.’
In any case, the prologue, which was originally five minutes long, ended in just thirty seconds, and the game began in earnest.
Unlike Saori’s first run earlier, where she had encountered a squirrel on the first floor, this time two slimes appeared.
Of course, whether it was a squirrel or a slime, there wasn’t much difference.
They were both trash mobs that would burst after a few hits anyway.
After clearing the first floor in the blink of an eye, Yang Bibi immediately chose the shop when a fork in the path with two options appeared.
‘I wonder what she’ll buy first.’
Earlier, Saori had agonized for a long time before buying only one skill card that looked the best in the shop.
Yang Bibi, on the other hand, scanned through the list of items in the shop, then chose an item that required investing all the money she had at the start.
It was the basic weapon in the blunt weapon category: the “Mace.”
‘Oh.’
That was quite an interesting choice.
For reference, the game currently had three types of weapons based on my ideas.
Swords, spears, and blunt weapons.
Each weapon had slightly different characteristics. For example, if a blunt weapon’s basic skill consumed 5 action points and dealt 8 damage, then a sword consumed 3 action points and dealt 4 damage, while a spear consumed 1 action point and dealt 2 damage.
‘Looks like she’s keeping the pattern that Rune Golem showed earlier in mind.’
The tutorial boss that appeared on the 20th floor, the Rune Golem, cast a buff on itself when it first appeared.
The buff was called “Rune’s Protection,” a type of shield that prevented its HP from decreasing until it had taken a total of 30 damage.
Instead, once the shield broke, it would fall into a groggy state for one turn. But if you failed to kill it then, it would regain the “Rune’s Protection” buff and wrap itself in a barrier again—a vicious gimmick for a monster to have.
Basically, there was a limit to how much damage a player could deal in one turn.
Meanwhile, the golem was in a situation where its 30-point barrier refilled infinitely, so if the battle dragged on, there was simply no comparison in terms of sustain.
To solve this problem, you had no choice but to cram in as much damage as possible when the golem entered its groggy state. In the previous run, Saori had chosen the sword as her main weapon, so her damage was insufficient, and she died without even cutting its HP in half.
‘Well, for someone playing the game for the first time, getting that far was already impressive.’
For reference, the Rune Golem’s 150 HP was a very awkward number.
At first glance, it didn’t seem like much HP, but if the maximum damage a user could deal in one turn was 30, then theoretically, in order to take down that entire 150 HP pool, they would have to deal a total of 300 damage.
The lower the damage you could deal in a single turn, the more it became a mountain of a monster.
That was the Rune Golem.
‘Now then, Bibi. How are you going to solve this problem?’
Thinking that, I glanced at Yang Bibi, who was focused on the game.
***
‘Still, I got pretty lucky and made it this far without much trouble.’
Having just cleared the 18th floor, Yang Bibi thought that as she collected her loot.
There were only two floors left until the long-awaited 20th floor.
After the battle rewards came in and the map unfolded, only one option was displayed at the fork.
The shop.
‘Since I won’t be able to use it once I go up to the next floor anyway, I guess the idea is to spend all the gold I have here before going on.’
When she moved the mouse and entered the shop, an old NPC with one eye and a black robe greeted her.
[Welcome, strange outsider.]
This time, she was lucky.
She had thought Firewall, which could deal 30 damage to an enemy at once without consuming any cost, was essential for clearing the Rune Golem, and it just so happened to be on the sales list.
The only flaw was that it disappeared after one use despite costing 200 gold, enough to buy two decent skill cards, but it was money that would disappear after beating the boss anyway, so she flexed without hesitation.
After that, she scraped together all her remaining resources and used them to strengthen the cards in her deck.
‘Now I have no choice but to leave it to luck.’
After closing the shop, she pressed the proceed button and climbed to the 20th floor.
At the end of the grasslands, in front of the spiral staircase, the last guardian of the Age of Myth awaited her.
The Rune Golem, with its massive marble body engraved with blue runic letters, appeared majestically before the stairs leading to the upper floor.
It looked just like a “guardian” protecting the stairs upward.
Soon, as the boss battle began, a round white curtain enveloped the Rune Golem’s body.
‘That must be the broken buff I saw earlier.’
In that state, its HP could not be reduced until it had taken 30 damage.
‘First strike wins.’
For that reason, Yang Bibi immediately used the magic spell she had bought from the 19th-floor shop: Firewall.
Then a red magic circle suddenly appeared beneath the Rune Golem’s feet, and a pillar of fire surged upward, dealing 30 damage in one blow.
Since she had stripped away the shield without using any action points, now was practically damage time.
When she used two of the high-tier skill cards in her hand, the golem’s HP pool, which had been 150, dropped to 118 in an instant.
Next turn.
She drew cards from her deck.
‘What should I do?’
Currently in her hand were three attack cards and two defense cards.
If she charged in with the intention of using up all her action points, she could deal a total of 23 more damage.
However, if she combined two cards of the same name instead of using the skill cards separately, she wouldn’t be able to deal much damage right now, but she could build up toward max stacks.
Her hesitation did not last long.
‘There’s no way I’ll ever beat the Rune Golem with chip damage anyway.’
Here, it was time to boldly throw the dice.
And so, after one more turn passed, the golem recovered from its groggy state and restored its shield again.
This time, it was the golem’s turn to attack after coming to its senses.
When the golem, its entire body made of marble, slammed down on the character with its sturdy arms, about a third of her remaining HP vanished in an instant.
‘Dangerous.’
The Rune Golem didn’t just have high HP. All of its stats were simply high.
After taking a single hit, 30 HP had been wiped out in one go, leaving her with only 54 HP.
One wrong move, and she could die pathetically after coming all this way.
And her pride would not allow that.
‘Me, tied with that big-titted woman? That’s impossible.’
The remaining number of skill card stacks she needed was two.
From now on, rather than forcing attacks, she would instead harden her defenses.
‘Good.’
Luckily, in this turn’s draw, another card with the same name appeared, bringing the total to three stacks.
If she drew just one more, it would finally be max stacks.
Boom!!
In the meantime, Yang Bibi’s character was struck by the golem’s attack once again.
If she failed to get the card in her hand this turn as well, it would be game over.
‘Please! Please!’
Perhaps Yang Bibi’s desperate prayer reached the heavens.
The moment she drew the cards for the next turn, the max-stack condition was fulfilled, and the attack card in her hand began to glow gold.
“!!”
At the most important moment, the final key to the strategy had finally been drawn.
There was no thrill quite like it in the middle of a card game.
‘Come to think of it, what’s the effect of a max-stack card?’
She knew that the damage doubled with each stack, but surely there had to be some special ability or something.
Remembering late, she read the card’s flavor text and was left dumbfounded.
‘Ignores the enemy’s defensive buffs and deals 128 fixed damage.’
As difficult as it was to make, the return was undeniable.
No, from the very beginning, it looked as if this had been intended as the way to defeat the Rune Golem.
‘So this is what they call the creator’s intent or whatever.’
When she used the max-stack card she had barely managed to create by relying on luck, a cutscene suddenly appeared on the screen.
It was an illustration of a knight holding a hammer, exuding an intense spirit as if he were about to swing it at the enemy at any moment.
Then, along with a dazzling display of effects, the decisive blow slammed into the crown of the golem’s head. With a screen-shaking effect, the golem collapsed.
After that, loot dropped, and a save window appeared on the screen asking, “Would you like to save?”
It felt somewhat anticlimactic, but she had finally defeated that wretched Rune Golem.
***
“So, you two, how was it? How did it feel playing the prototype of the game I made?”
After the game was over, I asked Saori and Yang Bibi that.
As the developer, I had been itching to give them hints throughout the game and had barely held myself back.
Saori hesitated for a moment, then answered, “It was better than I expected.” Yang Bibi, after thinking deeply about something, asked me a question in return.
“That thing was actually a boss meant to serve as a tutorial for the card stacking system, wasn’t it?”
“Why do you think so?”
“No matter how I look at it, it’s not a boss with the kind of difficulty that should show up on the 20th floor. In the first place, the standard strategy being to use a max-stack card that can only be made through luck? You can see intent in that.”
I readily let her know that her guess was correct.
“That’s right. This boss was made to teach first-time players how to use the stacking system.”
In truth, from floors 1 to 19, it didn’t really matter if you didn’t use the stacking system.
But once you entered the floors 21 to 40 area, there would be an enormous number of monsters with large HP pools, and whether you knew about this system or not would make a huge difference.
More than anything, I had also wanted to show off the cutscene I’d worked so hard on.
“More importantly, I don’t think I heard your answer to my question just now.”
“Ah, right.”
Perhaps she was embarrassed to say it outright, as Yang Bibi hesitated for a moment, but soon she honestly admitted it.
“Well… it was fun.”
“Yes!!!”
I was genuinely delighted, thinking that the two sleepless nights I had spent making it had been worth it.
It was right then.
Ding!
A text message suddenly came to my phone.