I kicked the front door open and went straight for the computer.
While it was booting up, I washed my hands, came back, and started the game. My character, kk1234, was still holed up in the guild hideout. I let out a deep sigh and checked the time.
5:55 p.m.
Not late. I loosened up my hands and rested them lightly on the keyboard. Riding the good mood, my fingers danced across the keys.
[Guild]kk1234: Anyone for Dragon Pit
[Guild]kk1234: hurry
[Guild]DuckButtHee: me me me me
[Guild]DuckButtHee: Uh, but is Keke even allowed to go to a dungeon?
[Guild]kk1234: Why the hell not
[Guild]DuckButtHee: I heard Keke’s getting stalked
DuckButtHee was a freshman who’d just entered college this year. Between the entrance exam and matriculation they spent all day gaming, but lately their logins had dropped off, like they were trying to live in the real world or something.
And even Duck knew about that psycho 『rainfall』 now. All I could do was sigh.
[Guild]kk1234: He’s not here right now
[Guild]kk1234: I mean he’ll be here soon
[Guild]DuckButtHee: ?
[Guild]kk1234: That bastard never logs in between 6 and 7 p.m.
[Guild]kk1234: And he’s never on from 1 to 2 p.m. either
[Guild]DuckButtHee: ????
[Guild]kk1234: Pretty sure that’s his mealtime
Mealtime was just a guess, but the times were right on lunch and dinner. If someone disappears like clockwork at those hours, they’re eating, obviously.
This is what pisses me off…….
What pisses me off is that I know 『rainfall』’s mealtimes.
[Guild]DuckButtHee: He eats that precisely?;
[Guild]DuckButtHee: What is he, Kant or something
[Guild]Rete: Kant lolololololololololol
Rete, who I thought was AFK, popped up cracking up. Normally I’d tell him to fuck off, but right now it was 6 p.m. In that awkward window when office workers are just getting off, he was more useful than fertilizer as a party member.
[Guild]kk1234: Rete, you’re coming to the dungeon too
[Guild]Rete: gogo
[Guild]Rete: Just us three?
[Guild]Rete: Anyone wanna run a dungeon
[Guild]shine..: Already in one
Three DPS. I could tank if I had to, but we didn’t have a healer. That might be fine for an easy dungeon, but we were talking about Dragon Pit, and this comp was nowhere near enough.
Dragon Pit’s official name was “Twelfth Lair of the Nameless Red Dragon.” The name was such a piece of shit and such a mouthful that nobody could even shorten it cleanly, so everyone just called it Dragon Pit.
It was a cave dungeon with lava zones, so Dragon Pit fit well enough. In other words, there was a gimmick where the floor turned into a lava field. If you fell into the lava, you got burned, and the burn could only be cleansed by skills, which meant a healer was mandatory.
We didn’t have the time to carefully scout for a healer, so I just made a party and invited the two of them first.
[Party]kk1234: We’ll match the rest
[Party]DuckButtHee: ?
[Party]Rete: RNG roulette
[Party]Rete: I like it
[Party]DuckButtHee: I don’t
[Party]Rete: Then you’re not coming?
[Party]DuckButtHee: Who the hell runs Dragon Pit with matchmaking;
[Party]DuckButtHee: The whole party’s gonna explode
[Party]kk1234: I’ll tank
[Party]DuckButtHee: Fine, let’s go lol
I usually played as a DPS, but it’s not like I couldn’t tank.
Dungeon clears went smoothly when the trinity of tank, DPS, and healer meshed well.
DPS only really had to hit stuff properly on their own. Tanks and healers had to keep an eye on mobs and save party members flailing around like lunatics, so they were trickier.
Trickier meant there were fewer people who were good at it, which in turn meant the game was full of idiots playing with their feet.
Tanking wasn’t fun, but if the party was going to blow up, I’d rather just do it myself.
Dragon Pit dropped relic enhancement materials, so it was a dungeon people ran consistently. Because we ran it so often, if it was just guild members, we could cruise through it.
But when you grabbed randoms through the matchmaking system, there was no point hoping for the miracle known as “a relaxed run.”
The hardest content in the game was playing with strangers. Beating the insanely tuned stuff the devs poured their souls into was at least fun. This was the kind of thing that even a saint like me couldn’t help getting mad at.
[Party]kk1234: Where the hell are your eyes
[Party]DarkChocoSand: On my face
[Party]kk1234: They don’t look properly stuck in, go jam them back in
[Party]kk1234: Do you not know the mechanics
[Party]DarkChocoSand: It was a mistake
[Party]kk1234: Make that “mistake” twice and we’re wiping
[Party]DarkChocoSand: Misread, sorry
Our ranged DPS was fucking awful. Either they hadn’t even read basic guides, or they started by hitting the red hatchling you’re supposed to kill last.
In Aurora, no matter what monster it is, if it’s a baby, you don’t touch it. You usher it around. If you hit it first, mom and dad show up and trash the place. That’s the pattern most of the time. If you hit it first, the dungeon collapses, the party collapses, and your mental state collapses.
If you hit the hatchling in particular, the Red Dragon’s patterns go completely apeshit. And that bastard hit it.
Thankfully the healer was good, so we somehow got through it……
If you’re bad, shouldn’t you at least be hitting hard?
Dragon Pit was a fire-element dungeon, just like the lava theme suggested. Water-element damage was supposed to do at least double. But this guy’s damage was about the same as mine, and I was geared as a tank.
[Party]kk1234: You call that damage? You’re poking at them like fucking cross-stitch
[Party]DuckButtHee: Stop it;;
[Party]DuckButtHee: I’ll pay ten million gold to anyone who shuts K up
[Party]kk1234: Shutting up now
[Party]kk1234: Trade?
[Party]DuckButtHee: Scammer
[Party]GumaBerryBerry: Let’s just keep going;;
The healer tried to mediate, watching both sides. At least the healer was sane. If we hadn’t had one, the party would’ve blown up ages ago.
In the next room, instead of killing mobs, I focused on pulling as much aggro as I could. Then I handed all of it to DarkChocoSand. There was no way a guy who couldn’t even do damage was going to dodge all that.
Soon enough, I got to admire DarkChocoSand lying face-down on the floor. Trolls really do look best when they’re dead on the ground.
[Party]DarkChocoSand: bastard
[Party]DarkChocoSand: You fucking bastard
[Party]GumaBerryBerry: ;;;
GumaBerryBerry was a true healer. They actually picked DarkChocoSand up off the ground. Thanks to that, I got to knock him down one more time.
After taking a few dirt naps, DarkChocoSand stopped flaming and just quit the game in the middle of the run. Zero persistence.
[Party]GumaBerryBerry: He left;;
[Party]kk1234: it’s fine
[Party]kk1234: We can clear without him
We still had Rete. The other melee DPS barely had any presence, but they did enough damage to matter. Dragon Pit wasn’t that nasty a dungeon as long as nobody trolled, and this was manageable.
[Guild]Rete: He fucks up the party with his personality and then does it again
In the middle of this peaceful, problem-free situation, Rete opened his mouth. “Trash personality,” huh. Says the guy whose guild chat log……
[Guild]Rete: Choco’s a bastard
[Guild]Rete: And he’s still not dying
[Guild]Rete: Non-combustible trash bastard
……still had all that sitting in it if you scrolled up a bit.
[Guild]DuckButtHee: lololololololol
Our little freshman Duck was probably so hyped to be logged in for the first time in a while that everything was hilarious. Our guild was in great shape, as usual.
While that was happening, other guild members reacted to Rete’s random comment.
[Guild]IDJobless: You hunting with K?
[Guild]BoomerLatte: Wow,, such a pure soul,,, understanding the situation even with no subject mentioned,,, true personality,,,
The guild chat turned into pure noise. While we were running the dungeon, a good chunk of our guild—the ones who’d thrown half their lives into the game—had logged in.
I soothed GumaBerryBerry, who looked about ready to bolt even though nothing was actually wrong, and finished off the dungeon.
[Party]GumaBerryBerry: Thanks for the run...
The second the dungeon ended, GumaBerryBerry logged out in a hurry after saying goodbye, like they had something urgent to do.
[Party]Rete: They ran
[Party]Rete: They ran off
[Party]DuckButtHee: They escaped
Useless commentary from Rete and Duck could be ignored. I had another dungeon to run.
[Guild]kk1234: Anyone for Sky Ruins
[Guild]shine..: I just ran all my entries
[Guild]IDJobless: I’m in
[Guild]BoomerLatte: gogogogo
I hooked our healer, shine. I had no more business with this party.
[Party]kk1234: Later then
[Party]Rete: ?
[Party]Rete: I’m going to Sky Ruins too
[Party]Rete: lol just sucking all the juice out of me and tossing me aside
[Party]Rete: I gave you my purity and innocence
[Party]DuckButtHee: pervert
[Party]Rete: ?
[Party]DuckButtHee: hehe
[Party]DuckButtHee: I’m going to Sky Ruins too hehe
Once a healer joined, other guild members started filing into the party one after another.
All the usual faces. Nothing new at all……
Ruins of the Sky was a dungeon you could only enter once a day, so instead of gambling on getting some weirdo in matchmaking, it was better to go with guild members you knew.
Sky Ruins was harder than Dragon Pit, but maybe because it was a guild run, the clear was way smoother. Naturally, the clear time dropped a lot too.
Running the dungeon like that, before I knew it, it was seven o’clock. We had about a third of the dungeon left.
Now it was time to stop the party for a bit.