Chapter 430: Midday Nightmare (3)
“For something calling itself a king, you’re awfully cowardly.”
I gripped the spear tightly in both hands. At the tip aimed at it, Rauchitas reflexively shrank its neck. The Han Yoojin on the ceiling sent me a curse through our minds, then moved position again.
“How long are you going to just keep staring?”
I slid one leg slightly forward and took a stance as though I might charge at any moment. The two remaining pairs of dragon eyes stared at me without blinking. It would have looked like a taut standoff in which neither side could move first—but Han Yoojin was moving just fine.
His hand gripped the A-rank spear. As if to make up for his low stats, he took out wire and tied the spear and his wrist together. The spear aimed for the crown of Rauchitas’s right head, and Han Yoojin bent his legs deeply.
The ceiling of the cave was high enough for the giant dragon to move around wildly. If an F-rank or E-rank jumped down from there, it would be nothing more than suicide. The monster waiting below was S-rank, on top of that. It would have made perfect sense to hesitate at least a little, but Han Yoojin only let out a thin breath.
It wasn’t only because of Fear Resistance. Even without Fear Resistance, he, I, would have taken up the weapon with trembling hands.
To avoid an ending far more terrifying than an S-rank monster.
“I killed your daddy, by the way. Maybe you can’t understand me. I tore him into pieces.”
-Grrrrrr.
I drew back the spear. The spear drew back. Rauchitas grew tenser still. Strength gathered at my toes, and strength gathered at his. I did not lunge out. But Han Yoojin kicked off the ground—the ceiling.
“I’ll make you end up the same way!”
He sprang, and at the same time I shouted. To hide the sound of his movement, even a little. With the stealth skill added on top of it, Rauchitas did not notice the presence of a powerful leap coming down at it.
Han Yoojin’s body dropped straight down. Just before the skill settled into the weapon and the spear point touched the scales, the ceremonial robe’s instant acceleration activated.
His whole body became a single sharp spear and drove straight down.
Craaash!
-Kyaaaah!
The thick scales shattered to pieces. Unable to withstand the force, the spear point crumpled as though melting away. The warped spear shaft—and Han Yoojin’s body—pierced through the dragon’s head, punching a huge hole out beneath its jaw before dropping down and tumbling away.
As I dashed forward, I threw the wire toward Han Yoojin. As though he had been waiting for it, he grabbed the end, and I yanked hard. The moment I hauled him free, Rauchitas started going berserk again. Its right head, nearly half-destroyed, finally split apart with a crack and rolled to the ground.
-Kyarrrrk!
The cursed poison dragon, half-crazed now, charged at us. Boom, boom! Its massive claws left long gouges in the floor. We hurriedly activated stealth again, but with our stats it was difficult to avoid every attack from a dragon rampaging like this. We got tripped by claws, stepped on underfoot, crushed by its tail. If not for Eunhye, we would have lost our lives four or five times already.
‘Looks like calming it down is out of the question now!’
‘I thought getting the last head too would be hard!’
‘Got any flying or teleportation items?’
‘I didn’t buy any, but even if I had them, they’d be useless.’
Flying wouldn’t keep up with its speed, and even if I teleported, with it rampaging like that, I’d just slip off again immediately. With our stats, we could only attack while it was standing still. Which meant we needed some way to hold that last head in place.
‘Damn it, that bastard’s heading for Yoohyun!’
The two of us dropped stealth at the same time. Rauchitas, which had been moving to track us, turned its body around.
“Over here, lizard, ngh!”
Sharp claws slammed my body down. Thank God the lizard bastard hadn’t thought to cut off my airway. I raised the spear and drove it hard into one of its claws. Clang! The claw snapped clean off, and Rauchitas roared and recoiled. But claws like that regenerated in an instant anyway.
“Looks like scratching away at it won’t be enough.”
Han Yoojin said, holding a new A-rank spear.
“There aren’t any more A-rank spears! Use them carefully!”
“Ghk!”
His figure vanished beneath the dragon’s foot. Damn it.
“Rauchitas!”
I shouted with momentum and thrust a hand forward. Electric current crackled at my fingertips. At the sight of me trying to use a new skill, the giant dragon grew wary and jumped back in one great leap. Han Yoojin, who had been half-buried in the floor, groaned and pushed himself up.
“That actually worked.”
“Well, once you’ve been startled by a tiger, even a pot lid can scare you.”
How would that bastard know that it was only a tiny bit of support-type elemental power? Just in case, the two of us used stealth again at the same time, and the retreating Rauchitas began thrashing about all over again. It clearly had no intention of tolerating hidden enemies approaching it.
It really did have a brain left. Even though two of its three heads were gone. Since I was afraid it might head toward Yoohyun, we had no choice but to drop stealth again right away.
-Grrrk, krrrrr.
The single remaining dragon head glared at us, breathing harshly. It had stopped moving for the moment, but the instant it felt anything suspicious, it would go berserk again.
“Rauchitas falls asleep every five hours, but in that state, I doubt it’ll happen.”
Like before the regression, unless it dealt a fatal blow to us first, there was no way it would fall asleep.
“So long as it can see both of us.”
“It’ll feel safe, right.”
“Even if it doesn’t sleep, it’ll at least try to recover. If a gap opens.”
Its injuries were severe, and its Regeneration skill rank had dropped as well. And though the two of us had gained attack power, our actual movements were still slow. The bastard must have figured it out by now. That if it weren’t for the stealth skill, these tiny things could easily be kept from attacking.
The head was too high, and attacking beneath its legs couldn’t inflict a fatal wound.
So if it just kept its distance, it would be able to relax.
“Who’s going?”
The hesitation didn’t last long. The me from before the regression asked.
“It’s too risky to part with Eunhye even for a moment, so I’ll go.”
Eunhye’s sturdiness came not from a skill, so it couldn’t be shared either. After making his preparations, he shouted loudly.
“Yoohyun, it’s really not that, so don’t worry!”
No point startling him for nothing. We both gripped our weapons tightly and started running toward Rauchitas at the same time. We kicked off the ground with all our might, but to an S-rank monster our speed would have been enough to make it yawn. On top of that, neither of our legs was fully fine.
With a rolling growl, Rauchitas spun its massive body around.
Scrraaaape!
Its spiked tail sharply scraped along the cave wall. Chunks of rock flew toward us. The damage was nullified, but the sheer weight was too much to withstand, and Han Yoojin went tumbling first.
-Kyarrrk!
The lizard bastard bared its teeth as though mocking the sight. It seemed to be relaxing now that it knew there was no chance of suffering a fatal wound so long as it was careful. Yeah, go ahead and let your guard down as much as you like.
Crunch, its foreclaw gouged the floor, ripped a huge boulder free, and hurled it at us. Boom, boom! Rocks came crashing down one after another. We were buried, struck, knocked over, completely swept around with no way to resist. It felt like becoming an ant with absurdly stubborn vitality.
“You sly bastard!”
“It got smarter after losing heads!”
At this point, shouldn’t it be thanking us for cutting them off? Ungrateful lizard. Boom! A rock nearly three times my body size came crashing down, sending up dirt and sand. Staggering badly, I drove the spear point into the ground.
Thanks to the skill, it sank in deep with a crunch, and part of the earth bulged upward. Another rock came flying, and then—
“Han Yoojin!”
Han Yoojin shouted. He grabbed the body rolling across the ground and pulled back. Rauchitas narrowed its eyes as it watched us.
“Damn it, snap out of it!”
Putting more distance between them, Han Yoojin held the limp body half-shielded behind his own.
“You were calling mine a death flag! So why the hell did you die instead?!”
-Grrrrr.
It couldn’t understand the words, but it seemed to grasp the atmosphere, because Rauchitas rumbled with satisfaction. Even then, though, it did not take its eyes off us for a moment. Han Yoojin took out a potion, but his shaking hands dropped it. The potion bottle rolled away across the ground.
“You damned lizard bastard!”
Though he shouted savagely, Han Yoojin still didn’t move from that spot. Rauchitas crouched slightly. It was going to use this chance to recover.
The single remaining head swayed beneath me. I tightened my grip on the spear.
Doppelganger Doll. Against an S-rank, it would normally notice even from a distance that something was off, but if what it was pretending to be was not a living person but a half-corpse, that changed things. The lack of life made it all the more believable.
And if there was someone there to react to it, so much the better.
Rauchitas was still looking only at Han Yoojin and that doppelganger doll. Han Yoojin screamed in rage, and at the same time I kicked hard off the ceiling. If I could just cut off the last head—
-Kyarrrk!
But it had already been caught by the same trick twice. Rauchitas hurriedly jerked its head back. That was the movement I had expected. When it dodged attacks aimed at its head, it moved backward. So I had deliberately jumped from a point behind the center of its head, but—
“Ugh!”
The spear point slipped because of the violent motion! It might have used a defensive skill. Not one of its optimized skills, but one acquired later.
Craack!
The translucent spear blade scraped a long line across its scales, and I hurriedly drew a dagger in my other hand and slashed. Even if it was a knife, it could still stab. The dagger, empowered by the skill, bit into the scales.
-Kyaaah!
Rauchitas started writhing, trying to shake me off. Like hell I’m letting go, even if I die! Planting a foot on the dagger hilt, I drew another blade and drove it into its face. One of its eyes, as big as my body, rolled close enough to touch.
“Just stop the foreleg!”
I shouted, and Han Yoojin—who had already run up—drove his spear down into Rauchitas’s foot. The lizard, lifting its foreleg to pry me off, shrieked. The next moment, the cave wall rushed at my face.
Bang!
“Ngh!”
The bastard dragged its face brutally against the wall. I somehow endured by clinging to Eunhye, buried deep into it. In the meantime Han Yoojin pulled his spear free and started stabbing madly at Rauchitas’s foreleg. The C-rank spear he had gone to so much trouble to obtain broke apart at once. Aimed at the spot where scales had been torn off thanks to the skill, he started slashing with D-rank and E-rank daggers and knives.
The weapons kept breaking, and blood splattered upward.
-Kyaaak!
Swept by a blood-dripping foreleg, Han Yoojin tumbled away. His weapon flew from his hand. But he grabbed even a rock. Clang! The rock smashed down over and over on the long-curved claw until at last the claw broke off. He picked up that claw in place of a weapon and rushed in all over again.
I wasn’t idle either. The moment its head lifted away from the cave wall, I slammed in a new blade. Rauchitas’s blood soaked my entire body, and I transformed Eunhye into a chain to wrap around its head.
Stepping on its eye, on the eyelid, I climbed upward.
Thunk!
I stabbed straight in. The blade gouged deep into the lizard’s eye, all the way past my forearm to the shoulder.
-Kyaaak! Krrrgh!
Crackle! I poured out all the electric current remaining in the ring. The eye burst completely, and Rauchitas let out a grief-stricken roar. It couldn’t lift its foreleg, because below it Han Yoojin was going wild. If it lost the use of its leg too, there would have been no point in protecting its head. But there was no way for it to get me off its head either.
If it had had three heads—no, even two—it could have bitten me off. But now it had only one head left, and no wings either. Its tail lashed wildly, but something like that I could endure.
I stepped on the eye socket, on the eyelid, and climbed higher. One side of its face was a total mess now. Wherever the skill had properly connected, white bone was exposed.
Crunch! I tore into the crown of its head and jammed both feet in. Using cold energy, I froze them there completely, so that no matter how violently it thrashed, my body would never be shaken loose. Clink— I drew back Eunhye’s chain and transformed it into a spear again, then raised it high, as high as I could.
And drove it down.
Boom!
-Kyaaaah!
Once more, twice, and then a third time!
Ruuumble— the giant dragon’s body collapsed forward. Overflowing blood formed a pool. It looked like a thick swamp. Toward me, flailing in the half-destroyed head, wire came flying. I grabbed the end, and was pulled free in one smooth yank.
The two of us were both gasping harshly. I was out of breath. Damn F-rank stats. No, E-rank now. We both dropped to the ground, one after the other.
The dragon’s breathing ceased completely.
Silence fell over the whole place. Only our own rough breathing could be heard.
[Nightmare has fallen asleep.]
A system message appeared. So we really did kill it? It’s over, right? Right?
“…Yoohyun.”
There wasn’t any strength left in my body, but I forced myself up anyway. Rauchitas was dead, right? Then he should be safe. He had to be safe.
“Yoohyun!”
We both shouted at the same time. Only afterward did I feel the throbbing in my leg. We hurried over, and there I saw my little brother, half propped up. He was fine. He still didn’t seem able to move properly, but he was breathing. His face was pale only with worry, otherwise healthy.
“Hyung!”
“You’re okay, right? You’re not hurt anywhere, right?”
“No poison mist or curses splashed onto you?”
The me from before the regression dropped to his knees and pulled my little brother into an embrace. I wanted to reach out too, but I didn’t. Yoohyun smiled in relief.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Hyung, are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m perfectly fine! I just look like this, but I don’t even have a scratch!”
There was no way that was true. After rolling around like that, I’d definitely be bruised all over. I smiled, and the me beside me gave a small smile too.
[The boss monster has died. The dungeon gate will open.]
The system kindly informed us with another message window.
“Hey, let’s get out now.”
Before anything else goes wrong. Holding my little brother in his arms, the other me looked up at me.
“I’m not going.”
He said it firmly.
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