A Little Too Big 5

Had I known it would end up like this? Had Han Se-ah? Had the rest of the party, somewhere deep down, already seen it coming? The moment I appeared — shoved along by the boss monster, dragging it behind me in a rather undignified pose that left me dangling in front of its massive maw — the party's gazes swept over me with a peculiar intensity, as if they were picking me apart piece by piece.

It felt like their eyes were asking, What on earth are you doing?

"…So, should I just cut that thing?"

"Yeah. I'm counting on you, Kayden."

Thankfully, the boss monster — the Giant Worm, to be precise — was still thrashing about without a hint of fatigue. The instant Kayden, still seated in the Knight-type Golem, gripped her sword, I released the Giant Worm's sturdy teeth from my grip.

The Giant Worm didn't spare so much as a glance at me as I stepped aside. Instead, it thrust its slightly crumpled snout forward and charged furiously at Kayden. Apparently the golem's whirring, grinding noise bothered it more than anything else — it even ignored the man who'd been holding its mouth shut.

Hundreds of razor-sharp teeth packed into a round maw like a lamprey's. It was a sight that could turn even an Intermediate-grade adventurer in full armor into ground meat in seconds — and yet the party showed no tension at all, just a limp, halfhearted reaction as they cheered Kayden on.

"It looked so strong, but I guess to Roland it was just another ordinary large-class monster."

"Is it similar to the worms we ran into outside?"

"…Pretty similar. It's easier to deal with since it isn't burrowing underground — it just keeps thrashing around on the surface."

Well, of course. I'd practically dragged the boss monster into the room. The truth was that the thing was faster than my full sprint, so I'd been shoved along by its massive body the whole way, only steering the direction — but the party had now learned that those hundreds of sharp teeth couldn't chew through me.

If anything, sealing off its pattern of diving underground and erupting from underfoot to shred ankles first made this easier. How should I put it? It had the strong feel of a large-monster tutorial designed around learning the gimmick.

The viewers seemed to sense the tutorial nature of it too, because they weren't paying any attention to the fierce power struggle between the Knight-type Golem and the Giant Worm. They were talking about something else entirely.

Yeah. The chat had it right.

A boss monster charge faster than a born 6★ tanker's full sprint. If you put the speed at roughly 120 km/h, that was the same as a car doing over the limit. There was no way the game would tell a player to outrun a horse.

In a normal playthrough, you'd encounter the massive Giant Worm first, then explore the 30th floor the way those two surviving adventurers — the warrior and the rogue — had, ducking into the tunnels along the passages. Only by hiding like that would you eventually discover this golem hangar.

But thanks to the freedom unique to a VR game, we'd taken the exact opposite route. We'd found the golem hangar before the boss monster. So of course we never discovered the lure gimmick, and the quest updates were lagging a beat behind.

Just like this.

A quest window that appeared a beat late — just like Han Se-ah's — as if the one who'd sent me into this world was insisting, through BB Games, that it had made Heroes Chronicle. The quest appeared and completed in the same instant, reward and all.

If I remembered right, the last reward had been something similar — a Fragment of Unknown Information. Visiting the Temple had automatically unlocked it, and a portion of my mana had been replaced with Holy Power. But this time it was a Fragment of a Dimension, not Information.

Information I could check. But what the hell was a dimensional fragment even for?

"Hup—! This thing is clearly treating the golem as an enemy!"

"Want a hand?"

"No! I'll handle it myself!"

While Han Se-ah and I quietly checked the quest window, Kayden — whether her pride and competitive fire as a swordswoman had ignited, or she'd simply fallen head over heels for the Knight-type Golem — was locked in a fierce battle with the Giant Worm.

A grinding, rising whine — not an engine so much as a mana-stone hum — grew more violent as the two giants entered a pure contest of strength.

The Giant Worm, its shell like a boulder, coiled around the Knight-type Golem like a snake and tried to gnaw through it with its teeth, but Kayden's fluid movements foiled it every time. Sometimes with footwork, sometimes with swordplay, she disrupted the worm's motion, shoved it back, and drove home a crushing blade strike.

A monster large enough to swallow a grown man in a single gulp, versus a six-meter steel giant standing against it. For people of a certain taste, it was a scene more captivating than a beautiful woman naked.

Which was probably why even Han Se-ah looked a little flustered.

"Uh, uhhh? Did the viewer count just jump another digit? I'm not imagining ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that, right?"

Apparently some moderately famous Western figure had posted a screenshot of Han Se-ah's stream on social media, and Japan-obsessed Western weebs had seen an East Asian person with a mecha and assumed she was a Japanese streamer, recommending her left and right — a dizzying mess of stories all around.

A few gymnastics routines in a golem had drawn tens of thousands of viewers in a stampede, so even the great Han Se-ah couldn't help but panic. Which meant I got to check the quest window in peace, standing beside Grace and Irene as they cheered Kayden on with sweaty palms.

Do I need to visit the Temple for this one too, like the information fragment?

While I turned the mysterious quest reward over in my head, the fight between Kayden and the boss monster was gradually tipping toward a conclusion.

Even a Giant Worm, without the ability to burrow and ambush from underfoot, was no different from a very large snake. No venom, a few extra teeth — all it could do was coil and bite. And there was no way a 4★ Sword Princess trained in the Northern Frostwolf Knights' swordsmanship was going to lose to an oversized snake with a blade in her hand.

Kayden, growing comfortable in the steel golem that armored her like a full suit of plate, had started using not just the golem's massive sword but bare-knuckle techniques as well.

"Wow, at that rate she could solo it, right? Looks like once you find that Knight-type Golem, you can handle this alone."

A steel golem leg stomped down on the tail coiling for her lower body. A steel fist punched straight into the jaws trying to bite her forearm and crushed the gums in its grip. This wasn't just deep swordsmanship — it was aggressive armored combat that actively exploited a sturdy suit of plate.

Grace, Irene, and the viewers alike had their eyes glued to the dazzling display. Still, we couldn't just keep watching forever, so I gave Grace and Irene a light tap on the shoulder.

"Ah — yes! Should we help Kayden too?"

"No. Let's search this hangar one more time."

"The hangar? Is there something we need to find?"

Irene, thoroughly absorbed in the clash between giant beast and steel titan, jumped at my touch and started preparing a holy spell. Grace watched her with a soft little smile, then quietly sidled up beside me.

Both of them looked puzzled by the suggestion to re-examine the empty golem hangar we'd already spent so much time in, but neither complained. Even with Han Se-ah standing there open-mouthed over the chat crisis, they left her alone — she's a mage, she must be sensing something — and helped me instead.

"That Giant Worm is a southern desert species. The Tower has caves, and the golem claimed to be the guardian of the labyrinth. Doesn't it seem strange that a desert creature suddenly shows up here?"

"True. Until now the Demon King has been creating monsters suited to each location and trying to send them outside, right?"

What I was looking for was the gimmick we'd missed. As the viewers said, the quest order had gotten tangled, and it felt like we'd skipped something.

Having tunnels to hide in along the wide passages didn't solve everything. There had to be something that could re-lure the boss monster after it had already passed a hidden player, didn't there? Surely the game wasn't going to make players scream at the top of their lungs packed with mana the way I had.

Honestly, Kayden was already starting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to dismantle the Giant Worm, so missing a few gimmicks didn't really matter.

That was Adventurer Roland's opinion, of course. All roads lead to Rome — as an adventurer, all I needed to do was cleanly resolve the 30th floor's anomaly and squeeze a nice fat payday out of the Magic Tower. But Gamer Roland, sitting in a corner of my heart, had plenty of complaints.

This was a game quest with dimensional travel and my life on the line. If the progression order was scrambled and the quest rewards were weird, of course it felt off. What if something we missed here turned out to be a critical clue for the final battle with the Demon King? Negative thoughts kept bubbling up one after another.

"It is strange, yeah. Earlier the cave spiders and goblins were attacking everything, so why is this one only going after the golem? Do worm-type monsters always target the biggest thing around?"

"No. Even if that thing looks like a bug, it has a predator's intelligence and instincts ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to a degree — it prefers ambushing the weak. When it hits a caravan, it knows a lone camel or person running away tastes better than a big wagon."

"I see. Well, the Tower's monsters are said to imitate the ones outside, so that Giant Worm's behavior is clearly abnormal. …And so is Miss Hanna. Perhaps as a mage she's sensing something?"

Han Se-ah, turned into a clearly abnormal person thanks to the sudden flood of foreign viewers with questionable tastes. I wondered what face she'd make if she knew even her gentle Mamang of a companion was evaluating her like this — and not even a viewer, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but a party member.

With that idle thought, Grace, Irene, and I headed back toward the hangar where the golem had been sleeping. In this empty space, the most suspicious thing was still the broken Knight-type Golem.