CLANG.
The sword stopped a full step away from him, not merely a handspan.
“Tsk.”
The boss had clearly never anticipated a surprise attack, because it remained frozen even when I attacked again.
Only then did it come to its senses and glare at me, its face twisted with rage.
[As expected of one who consorts with traitors. You are a coward as well.]
“When your life is on the line, who cares whether you fight fair?”
Surviving meant winning.
Surviving was all that mattered.
[You are nothing but an intruder, yet rather than face me honorably, you shamelessly refuse even to conceal your cowardice!]
Why was everything that lived here so obsessed with fighting honorably?
“You will stop talking once I beat you anyway.”
Ah, maybe that was why it wanted to say as much as possible before then?
When my attack had been stopped just now, it had felt less as though the boss itself had blocked it and more as though something else had been between us.
‘It stopped me like a Shield, but I do not think it was actually a Shield.’
Then it was probably one of the Curses.
[No matter how many times you try, it is useless.]
Which of the things it had said earlier was preventing me from approaching?
[Grave indeed is the sin of disturbing the King's peaceful slumber.]
“Ah. Was it, ‘For your sin, you shall never reach this place’?”
[Indeed. Foolish one, who knows his own sin yet still dares challenge me.]
“Immunity to direct attacks?”
Then would ranged weapons or thrown weapons work?
When I threw the spear earlier, the boss had knocked it away himself before it even got close, so I had not been able to confirm anything.
I hurriedly covered myself with my shield and sorted the weapons in my Inventory by type.
[Ha! Have you finally learned your place?]
Did every monster in this place have the concept of a strategic retreat carved out of its brain?
It actually thought I had hidden behind my shield because I was afraid.
If it wanted to let its guard down like that, it suited me just fine.
I pulled a dagger from my Inventory first and threw it at the boss.
[!]
CLANG.
This time, instead of the weapon being stopped by the unseen barrier, its trajectory only changed after the boss moved its hand.
Next, I loaded the crossbow and fired.
TING.
Just as with the dagger, the boss had to move.
“Good.”
Thrown and ranged attacks definitely worked.
I started with throwing weapons.
Daggers, axes, spears—even longswords I had no intention of using. If I could throw it, I hurled it at him.
[What is the meaning of this?!]
The boss trembled with rage, yet all it could do was keep repeating the same gestures.
WHOOSH, CLANG.
WHOOSH, BANG.
WHOOSH, BOOM.
The room became deafening with the sound of weapons crashing into things from every direction.
“You really are not very creative.”
He attacked with wind and defended with wind.
But with melee attacks completely useless at the moment, nothing was more effective than what I was doing.
‘I am starting to run out of things worth throwing.’
I still had a bow and a crossbow, but arrows were lighter than daggers, so with the wind this strong, I could hardly expect them to be useful as weapons.
And the wind was steadily becoming stronger.
Simply weighing myself down with heavy objects was no longer enough to keep me in place.
In that case, I would have to anchor myself so I could not move at all.
THUNK.
I drove my shield into the floor and gripped it so tightly that my hands trembled.
[You truly are persistent.]
“I think that applies to both of us.”
He was going to die eventually anyway. Why could he not simply let himself be beaten so I could move on?
Why insist on dragging things out and making this difficult?
Then again, the bosses on the upper floors had been the same.
This one might look human, but it was still a monster.
“I suppose expecting you to take a hint would be ridiculous.”
It was not as though I could persuade him to let me pass simply because he could speak.
[I truly cannot understand. Why would one who did not betray the Will seek the King's resting place?]
“I told you I was dragged here. Where did you leave your ears before you started spouting all this nonsense?”
Forget persuasion. We were not even having an actual conversation.
I answered him while checking the contents of my Inventory.
I still had not finished Identifying the potions during this run…….
[Why do you persist to such an extent? What did the traitors promise you?]
“If they had promised me something, I would feel a little less cheated.”
Even the [Final Door] only guaranteed that I could leave the dungeon.
I had no idea whether it would actually return me to the place where I used to live.
Even if it did, I did not know whether I would return in the way I wanted, at the time I wanted, or to the place I wanted.
“I have nothing but Flame Potions.”
Using those incorrectly would only help his attacks.
Potions did not distinguish between friend and foe at all.
A [Frost Potion] would have been useful, since its effect would not be influenced by the wind, but the remaining potions had not been Identified, so I had no idea which one was the [Frost Potion].
I had also Identified a [Poison Mist Potion], but using that was practically the same as blowing myself up, so I passed on it.
If I could apply it directly to a weapon, it might actually have been useful.
“Ha. Why do they only work when thrown?”
I also had a [Regeneration Potion], but since neither of us could currently deal Damage to the other, it was equally useless.
[Honor? The honor of traitors is worth less than garbage cast upon the ground.]
What use would honor from this world be to me?
I had absolutely no intention of settling here.
[Wealth? Do you truly believe those who refuse to relinquish anything already in their grasp would ever give you what they promised?]
I did not know about this world's currency, but gemstones might be worth considering.
Jewels had value everywhere, regardless of country or world.
If I managed to bring some home, they might make life in a capitalist society considerably easier.
[Or did they promise you a beautiful lover like the one lying unconscious over there?]
“Has this bastard lost his mind?”
I had been about to ignore him and think about my next attack, but that ridiculous remark made me shoot upright without thinking.
The wind was still raging, so I staggered and immediately dropped back down.
“Like that woman?”
Of course I admitted she was beautiful.
Unless someone was blind, had something seriously wrong with their eyes, or possessed a radically different standard of beauty, anyone would clearly consider her attractive.
“No matter how much I liked women, why would I fall for someone who keeps getting me killed unless I was insane?”
[If it is none of those things, then why did you set foot in this place?]
“Haah.”
Was it simply standard behavior for every NPC here to say whatever they wanted without listening to anyone else?
He was loud enough to make my ears hurt too.
“If you are going to fight, concentrate on fighting.”
He was not a recording device, yet he kept repeating the same things over and over.
Had everyone here become a master of talking to themselves because they had no one else to speak with?
At this rate, I was starting to worry I might become like them if I stayed here much longer.
“Whew. Is there really no way?”
After thinking briefly, I decided to use a [Flame Potion].
It was somewhat dangerous, but at least its effect was visible enough that I could avoid it by sight.
The [Poison Mist Potion] was also fairly visible, but parts of its effective range could not be seen, so it was not time to use that yet.
[Unless you came here seeking the Will, there should be nothing a living being could possibly need in this place.]
That was true.
Apart from the unnaturally placed chests that appeared from time to time and the shops, there was no food anywhere.
Even the water flowing through the dungeon was drinkable only because it happened not to be contaminated.
[Did you believe some hidden treasure awaited you? Or did you come to make some wish too difficult to achieve on your own?]
“If I tell you, will you grant it for me?”
I was sick of starting over from the beginning.
Every day was exhausting, tedious, frustrating, and infuriating.
I had said I felt like dying more than once, but even when I actually died, all that happened was that I came back to life.
Dying and coming back was truly no way for a human being to live.
“I want to go home.”
I wanted to see my friends and family.
I wanted to stop eating scraps of jerky that barely qualified as emergency rations.
I was tired of carefully comparing every item and wondering which one might keep me alive a little longer.
I was tired of constantly worrying that a single fleeting moment might kill me.
“If you send me home, I will leave this place. That makes it a win-win.”
I would get to go home, and he would get rid of an intruder.
[So in the end, you too covet the power of the Will.]
Had he chewed up and swallowed everything I said after the first few words?
His face twisted as he raised both arms.
WHOOOOO……
Apparently preparing something large, he began drawing in the air with enough force to make it feel as though he intended to suck every last breath from the room.
And now that the direction of the wind had reversed—
‘This is my chance.’
I pulled the [Flame Potions] from my Inventory and threw them one after another.
SHATTER!
FWOOSH!
Flames surged upward.
[Do you truly believe such a pitiful thing could defeat me?!]
Despite what he said, the fire riding the wind was clearly hurting him.
The edges of his clothes burned, and the flames licking across his skin left it blackened.
Perhaps the monster truly did possess a human body, because the smell of burning flesh was disturbingly similar to eggs scorching in a pan.
[Foolish.]
As he slowly lowered his raised arms, the licking flames bent away from him.
The boss parted the sea of fire blocking his path and began walking slowly toward me.
[This place is the King's tomb.]
What?
I thought it was the King's resting place.
“So when you said he was sleeping, you meant he was sleeping forever?”
Was the entire dungeon one enormous tomb?
Who builds a hundred-floor tomb?
Even Qin Shi Huang would not have gone that far.
[My power originates from the King…….]
So did that make me a grave robber now?
Being an intruder was already troublesome enough, and now I was apparently a grave robber too?
According to him, anyway.
[And the power stolen away by you people also originated from the King.]
“I never stole anything.”
Still, watching the [Flame Potion]'s fire die down at his gesture gave me a fairly good idea of what he meant by power originating from the King.
Attacks made through potions were classified as ‘Magic Attacks.’
Which meant the ‘power originating from the King’ he was talking about was probably ‘Magic.’
‘If he is immune to melee physical attacks and Magic Attacks, how the hell am I supposed to hurt him?’
Ranged physical attacks worked, but even those were deflected by his wind.
He was effectively invincible.
I had expected this floor to be difficult, but had the difficulty not risen far too sharply all of a sudden?
[The Will was deceived by you and granted your wish, but the wise King foresaw even this…….]
“Are the ‘Will’ and the ‘King’ different beings?”
He kept speaking about the ‘Will’ and the ‘King’ as though they were separate entities.
He also treated the ‘Will’ as though it were alive.
Then again, he had said it granted wishes.
Perhaps it really was alive.
[The wise King foresaw this situation and bestowed upon me a true fragment.]
“Ah.”
[Therefore, there is no possibility that I will lose to ruffians who stole fragments of the King.]
For someone supposedly so wise, that King did not seem to trust his followers very much.
Judging by the fact that a boss-class creature had been granted access to only one type of Magic.
Whether the King was wise or simply excessively cautious was another question.
‘If he could use other kinds of Magic, he would have shown another pattern by now.’
That was good news for me and bad news for him.
Although the boss himself seemed intoxicated by the belief that he had been trusted, so apparently the thought had never crossed his mind.
‘Still, why did it have to be wind?’
The Curse blocked melee physical attacks, while what seemed to be his innate Magic Immunity rendered Magic and potions useless as well.
If I had swept through the monsters on the way down with potions, I might have discovered the Magic Immunity earlier…….
“So hoarding everything is not always the right choice.”
Regretting it now was already too late.
Even if I had known beforehand, though, I would not have had any clear solution.
Besides, even though potions and Magic were both treated as Magic by the System, they differed in certain ways.
That meant potions were not completely unusable.
I pulled another potion from my Inventory, intending to throw it.
“……Wait.”
The cool sensation against my hand suddenly gave me an idea.
“This……”
Once a potion had been made, the System prevented me from removing its seal.
But an empty bottle was different, was it not?