A reward shall follow those who endure.
But only suffering awaits those who do not challenge.
-Exia von Grenesian
Run Away
“……This really leaves a bad feeling.”
I was used to seeing words engraved on stone monuments.
When I first discovered them, I had studied them closely, wondering if they might contain tips like in the game, or perhaps information about the game's setting.
Despite how carefully I had read them, there had never been much of use.
“What is with the color of the letters this time?”
The message was nothing important this time either, but the problem was that the words looked as though they had been written in blood.
It felt even more unpleasant than if the letters had simply been red.
A reward shall follow those who endure.
But suffering shall follow those who do not challenge.
-Exia von Grenesian
And beneath the words, which had been written as though they were some famous quotation, someone had hastily scrawled a single word.
Run Away
“How? Where am I supposed to run?”
Downward was the Boss Room, while going back up only led to the starting point, which was sealed off on all sides.
A monster had been planted squarely in front of the starting point's only exit, so I used to die as soon as I left the room.
After I died a few times, though, the monster moved farther away from the door, so at least I no longer died the instant I stepped outside every time.
“Let us beat the boss first and think about it afterward.”
Why did something like this have to be right in front of the Boss Room?
When I took out the Boss Room Key I had obtained on this floor, both the door and the key turned golden at the same time.
The key vanished from my hand, and the light emanating from the door slowly darkened until it became a deep crimson. Then an eerie sound rang out.
CREEAK. CREEEAK.
It sounded partly like a stone door being opened and partly like a rusty iron door scraping along the ground.
Maybe it was because everything around it was made of stone while the door alone was iron.
Even so, perhaps the material was never exactly the same, because the sound was always similar yet slightly different, and the deeper I descended, the more grotesque it became. My body trembled on its own.
“Good. Let us go.”
There was no one around to hear me, but I said it anyway as though cheering myself on, shook out my body vigorously, and raised my shield.
BANG!
Something struck the shield before the door had even fully opened.
I had raised my shield first because I suspected this would happen, but…….
“This thing has absolutely no sense of fair play.”
It was a pattern that had started appearing from floor 30 onward.
As long as the boss detected me, it would launch a projectile attack even before the door had fully opened.
Thanks to that, I had wasted twenty or thirty perfectly good lives.
‘What a waste, even thinking about it now.’
Keeping the shield raised, I squeezed through the gap in the door and rushed inside.
Then I opened my Inventory, pulled out a Throwing Axe, and hurled it.
CLANG!
I had thrown it blindly without even looking, but since I heard the sound of metal being struck in a room surrounded by stone, I seemed to have hit the boss.
‘Did it only graze it?’
I would have to lower my shield and look if I wanted to aim properly, but I was still near the entrance and the room's lights had not all come on yet, so I abandoned the idea.
Instead, I pressed myself against the wall and moved while making as little noise as possible.
‘This boss is incredibly quiet.’
Despite attacking before the door was even fully open, it did not react at all, even after I completed an entire circuit of the room.
At one point, I accidentally dragged my shield and mistook the noise for something the boss had made.
Every torch sconce on the walls had lit up by then, but the light still failed to reach the center, leaving the boss completely invisible.
‘I should bring a torch next time.’
This was my first time facing the floor 50 boss, so I had come here expecting to throw away this run, but I still could not return without gathering any information at all. I slowly advanced toward the center.
After I had gone some distance without seeing or hearing anything, a red glow began to spread beneath me.
[A reward for those who endure.]
“What?”
The words I had seen outside rang out in an unfamiliar voice, and the floor shook.
I reflexively turned around and saw that the floor near the center of the room, excluding the edges, was glowing red in a circular area.
“Fuck…….”
Were the words outside actually describing the Boss Room?
Either way, I needed to get away from the spot that was so blatantly marked as dangerous.
The instant I reflexively stepped backward—
[But pain for those who do not challenge.]
One step.
I had taken only a single step backward before the voice immediately rang out.
Then, along with a violent tremor, flames erupted from the floor.
“Fuck.”
The moment I opened my eyes, I saw a pitch-black background.
And hundreds of candles floating in midair.
“Inventory.”
As always, my Inventory had been emptied clean.
The [Maru Stones] and [Magic Stones] I had worked so hard to collect were both gone.
Instead, only a single [Worn Dagger], about as long as my forearm, remained.
I knew what I would find, yet I checked every time anyway.
I supposed I simply could not let go of the hope.
“Ah, if only that had not happened at the end.”
Losing the [Maru Stones] was frustrating enough, but I also hated losing all the items that had disappeared without me even getting the chance to use them in the Boss Room.
They would have disappeared anyway if I did not leave them in the Starting Room.
Still, watching all of them go to waste left me with lingering regret no matter how many times I experienced it.
“Ha.”
Was this why the old man had tried so desperately to sell me that map?
Had he known that the very next boss had an instant-death attack?
I pulled the dagger from the Inventory I had been staring blankly at and immediately left the room.
“If I have enough left over, I should buy it.”
It was not absolutely necessary, but there was no question that having it would be useful.
Even with hundreds of runs' worth of experience, bad luck could still get me killed on the first floor, so I did not lower my guard.
“So give me a good haul this time.”
Whether it was [Maru Stones] or items.
The more, the better.
This dungeon also had a Level system, so every monster I killed gave me Experience, allowing my Level to rise.
Whenever I leveled up, my Health and Mana were restored and my Strength increased, so I sometimes used leveling up as a substitute for Healing Items.
But there was no way to allocate Stats myself, which meant I absolutely had to obtain better equipment.
‘Good. It has its back turned.’
I carefully opened the door without letting the hinges make a sound and slowly approached from behind.
Looking at the creature now, it did not seem worth using a weapon on, so I put the dagger back into my Inventory.
THUD. THUD, THUD.
“That is one.”
The creature that had trapped me at the entrance for dozens of runs when I knew nothing had now become weak enough that I could kill it with my fists instead of a dagger.
Not because my Attack had increased, of course, but because my technique had.
In the game, combat had been turn-based, so it had probably existed simply as a practice enemy.
But from my perspective, now that everything had become like reality, it was nothing more than an irritating bastard blocking the entrance.
Since I had to worry about durability, I fought every normal monster on the first floor with my bare hands.
Their Health was manageable enough anyway.
“Nothing good.”
This time, all it dropped was a bundle of Unidentified Herbs.
Usually I could at least get one piece of Cloth Armor on the first floor.
Well, runs like this happened too.
“Still, I hope I can make it to floor 50.”
But whenever the items were this bad at the beginning, they usually stayed bad for the rest of the run.
I had no idea whether I would even reach floor 50 this time.
Just as I expected, I nearly died several times before even reaching floor 40.
I barely survived by successfully Identifying the right items at the last possible moment and using them.
Although even that had nearly ended with me blowing myself up.
“One Candle of Life.”
“Tsk. ……This is the last one.”
Still, [Maru Stones] had dropped surprisingly well this time instead of items, so I was already buying the last candle.
It was not as though anyone was forcing me to buy the map.
“That is all you need?”
Was he trying to sell me the map again this time?
But once again, buying the candles had cleaned me out of [Maru Stones] and everything else, leaving me with nothing.
“Yes. I do not need the map.”
“You do not need it?”
“No.”
“Then I suppose it cannot be helped.”
As expected, the old man stared at me with obvious reluctance, but I ignored him and turned away.
“Hmm. Very strange. Strange indeed. There is no way you would refuse to buy it…….”
“…….”
It seemed that line was fixed dialogue whenever I refused to buy the map.
Remembering how unnecessarily uneasy those words had made me during the previous run immediately soured my mood.
Making people worry for no reason.
In front of the floor 50 Boss Room stood a stone monument identical to the one from before.
A reward shall follow those who endure.
But suffering shall follow those who do not challenge.
-Exia von Grenesian
“It is the same.”
The words that would normally have changed at random were exactly the same as during the previous run.
“Come to think of it…….”
Had the words I heard after entering the Boss Room last time not sounded similar to these?
《[A reward for those who endure.]
[Pain for those who do not challenge.]》
“Is this supposed to be a strategy guide for the boss?”
It was absurd that a boss strategy only appeared after I had descended all the way to floor 50.
At the same time, though, the fact that a strategy guide existed inside the game itself gave me an ominous feeling.
For a single-player game like this, were strategies not normally discovered outside the game and shared outside it?
“How difficult did they make this thing if they had to put the strategy guide inside the game itself?”
There was even an unsettling message beneath the strategy.
Run Away
“…….”
But if this really was a strategy guide, then would that message not be part of the strategy too?
In that case, why did it tell me to run away?
“No. That cannot be it.”
Even if it was a strategy guide, it was only one or two lines long.
It probably explained only one of the dozens of patterns the boss could have.
It just so happened that the pattern connected to the words written here was an instant-death attack.
“Does ‘Run Away’ mean there is a pattern that cannot be blocked or countered?”
Then why had I died last time?
I had definitely been inside the range of the instant-death attack.
But whatever the attack was, there should have been some condition that triggered it…….
What action had it reacted to?
I had barely moved before the flames erupted.
‘A reward for those who endure.’
It could not have attacked because I stayed still.
No matter how awful a boss's patterns were, they never used fake-out attacks.
There had to be some action that served as the trigger.
‘I saw the floor glowing red and tried to move backward…….’
Had taking one step backward really counted as ‘not challenging’?
Just one step?
“Insane.”
It was not as though I were Orpheus. Why should I have to die just for turning around?
Well, I had not actually died because I turned around.
Either way.
“Whew.”
Still, it was a relief that I had figured out how to avoid the instant-death attack.
At least I would not die screaming at full Health like last time.
“Good.”
Never step backward…….
No matter how urgent things become, do not move backward…….
I repeated it to myself over and over again as I took out the Boss Room Key.
This time, I hoped I could learn some of its other patterns besides the instant-death attack.
“…….”
What was the point of figuring out the strategy and learning the patterns?
They would only matter if I could make it below floor 50.
I kept dying before I could even reach the floor 50 boss, and then dying to the boss whenever I did reach it.
“Have you never heard of a strategic retreat, you fucking bastard?”
Even putting the other patterns aside, I had a feeling that single mechanic alone was going to make me suffer plenty.
Damn it.
Run 1111
Floor 50 was absurdly difficult, yet absurdly easy at the same time.
Every time I entered the Boss Room, I kept worrying that I would not know when it would attack, so I stupidly moved closer to the boss and then stepped backward, killing myself over and over again.
As it turned out, the key to the strategy was the part that said, ‘A reward for those who endure.’
Endure.
In other words, it literally meant that after entering the room, I only had to ‘wait’ in place.
A boss that could be cleared just by waiting.
No wonder I kept failing.
And how could it possibly have no patterns at all besides the ambush when the door opened and that instant-death attack?
Every other attack had actually come from traps inside the Boss Room.
At that point, having a hint was practically meaningless.
But then what the hell was that final message telling me to run away about?
Run 1112
I knew the floor 50 boss seemed too easy.
So floor 50 is an instant death, and floor 51 is another instant death?
Run 1113
While picking up items from where the floor 50 boss had collapsed, I found something strange.
A notebook?
What kind of event is this now?