The sound of constant striking roused her. The first thing she felt was the cold of her wet clothes clinging to her skin, then the burning ache in her arms. "Am I… still alive? Impressive."
A booming clap of thunder jolted her fully awake. She was lying on a flat terrace, and a glance at her HP bar showed only a third was left, which seemed like a small miracle after such a superhuman kick.
I'm out of mana too.
She opened her inventory and found two blue potions and a single red one. She was about to drink one when she remembered that Kat was still down there.
She crawled to the hole in the terrace, peered down, and saw Dylak clawing at a huge chunk of ice. Despite his strength, he seemed able to do no more than scrape its surface. In fact, Astrid saw the exact moment the ice mended itself.
Astrid frowned. What's he doing? And where did that thing come from? Don't tell me that…
Dylak paused as if weighing his options, and in the sudden lull Astrid noticed the small figure curled up inside the translucent ice, hugging her staff.
Not a bad strategy, Kat. Even if it's just for stalling.
Astrid nodded, her hair stuck to her scalp, and uncorked the first potion to drink it. But her fingers were slick with rain, and the cork slipped away. It fell through the gap, landing on the floor below with the faintest of taps that should have been drowned out by the storm.
Dylak's head snapped around, scanning the throne room, and then his eyes rose and found hers.
"SHITE!" Astrid yelped. She scrambled away from the hole, gulped down the blue potion in a hurry, and had just started on the red one when the steep slope beyond the railing exploded. Dylak burst through the tiles, scattering them in every direction, vaulted over the iron railing in a single jump, and landed on the terrace with a menacing snarl. Lightning split the sky and lit up the whole rooftop: the wrought-iron railing around the terrace, the steep, slick slopes falling away on every side, the dormer windows, the two tall chimneys, and a tower in the distance.
Astrid stood up and pressed her right foot against the floor to check the grip. It was slippery, but she could move here.
She finished the red potion and snickered.
"Round three, you bloody wanker…"
Dylak charged. Astrid stepped to one side and received him with a fireball to the face, which blinded him for a moment. His feet slipped on the wet tiles, and his momentum carried him forward into the railing, bending the iron.
She took the opening to strike his back again from a safe distance, but Dylak closed the gap in an instant, making her flinch. She ducked at the last second, the claws slicing through the rain above her scalp.
That was close! He doesn't even give me a second to breathe! This has now become a game of cat and mouse, and no matter whether the mouse is holding a lit match to defend itself, it'd eventually end badly for the small rodent.
Especially in this weather that weakens my spells.
She had no other option but to continue.
"Blaze!"
Every fireball hissed as it left her palm, and a quarter of its heat bled away into steam before it reached him. Thanks to the Red Potion, her HP bar sat at 71%, but would that be enough to survive a hit after what had happened to Helen? One clean strike from those claws, and Astrid would be back at Unus Town's fountain alongside her friend.
I need to survive for at least two minutes. Three at the most. Until she…
"Okay," she muttered, flicking the rain from her eyes. "Now it's my turn to stall."
Her User Interface displayed a timer in the top corner of her vision, unprompted, and the numbers climbed steadily.
Dylak charged, swiped, tanked a fireball, and charged again. Ten seconds. Twenty.
By the time a half a minute had passed, Astrid noticed that he had stopped doing anything else. The bear hug was gone. So were the flanking swipes and every other pattern she had memorized across two failed runs. All that remained was the monstrous right arm and its heavy swing.
He has gone berserk. All aggro, no brain. Not that Dylak had ever had a brain to begin with, only a programmed behavioral script, and the code behind it seems to have narrowed it down into a single attack loop.
She could exploit this.
Astrid could have attacked Dylak's neglected left flank, the safest route to survive the fight. But something about finally figuring out the monster that had beaten her so many times awoke a thirst for revenge.
So she stopped circling him and slipped forward, escaping right between his legs. The hammered claws stuck on the floor for half a second, and she took the opportunity to drive a point-blank "Twin Blaze" into the base of the nearest claw, making a hairline crack run up its length.
Once she regained her footing, she fired a second "Twin Blaze," and the claw snapped clean off at the root, sending it clattering down the slope.
Dylak roared, rivaling the sound of the storm above, and predictably swung again, which made Astrid laugh out loud.
"Look at you, Count! Reduced to a flailing prat! 'Regression to Primal Evil'? More like 'Retardation to—' you get the idea!"
At a minute and a half, a claw tip grazed her ribs, and her HP bar dipped to 58% as she swallowed the sharp, hot pain behind her teeth.
She kept checking the clock. She kept striking. She kept going forward, now through the open gap between the remaining claws. One after another snapped, until the last one dropped uselessly onto the tiles with a dull clang, and Dylak's right hand was now nothing more than a blistered, blackened club.
The demon paused, as if weighing his options. Despite having lost his primary weapon, Overfiend Dylak's HP still sat at 50%.
"What are you going to do now, you daft git? Bite me?"
He tackled her. The impact drove the air out of her lungs, and her back slammed into the wet tiles with enough force to blur her vision. His weight pinned her down, and his jaws opened wide above her throat, the saber-toothed fangs gleaming yellow in the lightning.
"Got you!"
Astrid threw her forearm crosswise into his mouth, and the oversized fangs, far too long to close around it, braced against her arm and kept his jaws apart. She felt them grind against her skin as her HP bar slid down to 24%.
As Dylak's head blocked the rain from reaching her, she took a moment to study his demonic features up close, realizing something: there was nothing behind his groans and glare. It was all an act, a lie, a false sense of danger, the product of the most advanced and realistic video game ever created.
Despite her precarious situation, her mind drifted to Alan, who sometimes wore a strange blank gaze whenever Astrid celebrated a victory.
"I think I get you better now, Mr. Warden," she murmured.
Through the roar of the constant rain, a voice reached her from somewhere nearby, just as two magic circles bloomed above them.
"Ice Crafting!"
I knew it. Astrid glanced at the timer, which read two minutes and fifteen seconds. It took you a while to climb up here, eh?
"You lost the moment you became more grotesque," she scoffed at Dylak before yelling, "Get him, Kat!"
"Hailsong!"
Every raindrop hanging in midair above Dylak froze instantly, and a strong gust of freezing air from the magic circles propelled them downward with the force of projectiles. Hundreds became thousands as new rain fell and froze in turn.
Dylak had no time to even move aside. His body convulsed on top of Astrid as the hissing barrage of blades pierced his shoulders, his back, and his skull. His jaws still tried to close around her forearm, as if the scenario script refused to admit the fight was over.
"But this isn't about you, D.! This bloody game is all about us, the people who left Earth for a better future, so we could form alliances and learn about teamwork! So DIE already!"
Blood ran from Dylak's head onto her forehead, while the glow in his yellow eyes flickered and finally went out, his HP bar draining to zero.
For a long moment, there was nothing but silence. Even the rain stopped, little by little, as if some made-up curse had finally been lifted from those lands. The weight on Astrid suddenly broke apart as the boss's body turned into pixels that drifted away into the sunset air.
Astrid sighed, relief washing over her, and before she could get up to finally leave that place, a certain someone crashed into her, knocking her back onto the wet tiles.
"I was so afraid you'd die at any moment! If you did, I don't think I could do this alone! And… and I was afraid that if we lost, you and Helen would blame me for being such a coward and kick me out of the team!" With that, Kat broke into tears and sobs, her face buried in Astrid's chest.
What is it with these women using my tits as crying pillows?!
Astrid exhaled and waited until Kat finished crying, as the last rays of sunlight made their way through the dark clouds.
"Let's head back, Kat."
"Y-Yes!" the brunette girl replied with a shy smile.
A cart pulled by a pair of blue four-legged monsters, their sleek heads resembling horses', awaited them, with an NPC at the reins. He congratulated them on beating Dylak's Mansion and offered to take them to Unus Town, free of charge.
The ride back took nearly an hour. The cart rocked gently over the muddy road, the dead trees on either side dripping in the orange light of the sunset, and the last of the storm clouds broke apart on the horizon. Astrid leaned back against the wooden rail, her forearm still aching where the fangs had ground against it, and asked how Kat had reached the rooftop.
"I climbed out through a window and, although it took some time, I managed to create ice stairs."
"Good thinking. And what about that block of ice you formed around yourself… and that last killer spell! What a finale! Hailsong, was it?"
Kat's pale cheeks turned crimson. "I… improvised both, more or less. I had come up with the idea for Hailsong some time ago, for the… right scenario."
This girl…
"Using rain as your weapon, huh? That's neat. And quite terrifying! Imagine yourself in the future, able to make the whole sky rain blades of ice."
Kat accepted the compliment modestly, looking away while her small hands caressed the shaft of her staff.
"I don't think that'll ever happen. I'm just a support unit. So I'm content with helping my team win."
Astrid's brow rose slightly, and then she rolled her eyes and leaned toward Kat, narrowing her own. When Kat turned to her, Astrid headbutted her.
"You bloody TWAT!"
"W-W-What the actual hell, Astrid?! That fucking hurt!"
"A support unit? Seriously? You obliterated half of the boss's HP bar with a single, well-timed spell—twice! You may have felt that way in the previous battles because Helen and I carried most of them, but when it mattered, you became our precious Glass Cannon!"
"Glass—? Are you mocking me?!"
"What? No! It's a real term in video games like these. It means you're as fragile as glass, but pack the power of a cannon!"
"That… still sounds like a support unit to me."
"So what? There'll come a time when you have so much magical output that you'll be able to solo dungeons like this unscathed, because monsters and bosses won't be able to reach you."
"Do you… really think that?"
"I know it."
Because you've proven yourself quite talented… for a girl who swears she's never played a game before.
"That sounds great," Kat said thoughtfully before a shadow passed behind her eyes. She chuckled. "I'd be satisfied if I could at least be half as powerful as you are, though." Those words perplexed Astrid, but before she could ask, Kat continued. "You can fight without a staff. I'd freak out if mine broke, seriously. You say I'm able to delete half a boss with my spells, but that's only because I stay protected in the backlines. If you had the time to charge properly…"
"No," Astrid said flatly, and for the first time since they met, she was the one to look away. "There'll come a time when my abilities hit a ceiling. The staff offers such a boost in power that anyone would have to be a complete nut not to use one."
"Then why…?"
"Let me be for now, okay? Just a little longer, while the differences in power are not as pronounced yet."
They arrived at the town's outskirts, where the lampposts were already lit and the Mayor and two NPCs in maid uniforms waited to receive them and congratulate them on their quest.
The Mayor then stepped forward, opened a black box of polished wood, and told them to pick one reward each. Inside lay three rings, each giving a different boost: one boosted mana, another strength, and the last agility.
Kat seemed lost in thought, and Astrid knew exactly what was going through her head: she's thinking of leaving the blue ring to me. So Astrid took the Strength ring and put it on.
"Thanks, Mayor."
Kat bit her lower lip and accepted the mana ring. "Thanks."
Then Helen appeared behind the Mayor, took one look at the group, and shook her head. "Don't tell me that…"
"Oh, Helen, I'm so sorry," Astrid said, but the black-haired girl wiped away the tears gathering in her eyes and frowned.
"Fine! Now that you have demonstrated it can be done, I'll kick that guy's ass myself! Here I come!"
With that, Helen charged back toward the mansion, while Astrid and Kat exchanged distressed looks.
"Helen, wait! You don't have to do this alone!" Kat yelled as she chased her. "We'll help you as many times as necessary!"
Astrid chased after them at full speed. "Bloody hell, Helen, stop! We'll go tomorrow! We need to restock on potions and supplies, remember?!"