Cradle of Obsession (1)

Nianbach had succeeded in completely shaking off his pursuers.

But he did not survive.

The poison eating away at his heart had driven him, in the end, to the very edge of the cliff. He abandoned any thought of spending what life remained on his own survival. Instead, he scraped together every last scrap of his power and set about creating a guardian.

The guardian was finished in the final moments before his breath gave out. Nianbach settled into the arms of the wife and daughter he loved. The two of them held him close, wordlessly.

"Evrin… please look after our daughter. I'm sorry to leave you first."

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A short while later, the guardian completed its initialization sequence and opened its eyes. In those eyes lay Nianbach, sleeping with a peaceful expression on his face.

The guardian's voice was mechanical. And that was exactly what it was. Father was nothing more than a machine that moved on reason alone, devoid of emotion.

And yet, anyone who heard that voice would almost certainly have felt that it was uneasy.

…

…

After that bitter recollection faded, a system message flickered as if demanding a decision — stay or leave.

A blue portal that would take us out of the dungeon. A red portal that led deeper still. At that fork in the road, our choice was as good as made.

"We're going further in, right?"

"Obviously we have to check it out."

Everyone standing here was a core gamer who had poured no small amount of time into this game. Higher difficulty. More dangerous adventure. And, finally, better rewards. Anyone who didn't hunger for those things would never have made it into this party in the first place.

BoozeBread moved first, and the rest of us followed. Our vision blacked out for a moment, and a new area came into view.

I… didn't like this dungeon's story.

As we advanced down the long corridor, red lights flickered at irregular intervals. A warning tone — beep, beep — that called to mind a real-world siren. It blared emergency after emergency, and yet not a single monster appeared. All that reached us was that dry, mechanical voice unique to machines.

The further we went, the more I thought I understood the source of my discomfort. A guardian born with nothing to protect. A wraith shackled to the past, with neither growth nor meaning. An idiot pouring a finite life into a hollow dream. The three stories didn't feel all that different from one another. Something in my chest grew tight.

Walking the empty corridor, my hand drifted almost unconsciously toward a corner of the interface.

Recruitment offers written in every language imaginable. Ever since we'd won the Arena — honestly, some of them had started piling up even before that — they'd been stacking neatly in my inbox. I'd gone through the trouble of running each one through a translator. In the end, I'd turned them all down.

Though it hadn't been by my own will, so calling it a "rejection" felt a little strange, didn't it?

And yet, for someone in that position, the fact that I'd received these pro offers had made me so happy. Every time I looked at them, my heart settled and a stupid little grin crept onto my face. I'd been treasuring them the way you hoard precious trophies.

Thinking about it coldly, it was pretty pathetic. Downright sordid, really.

Maybe… maybe the time is coming when I need to make a decision of my own.

I knew. All of it was lingering attachment. Clinging to something already discarded, something already failed — that was obsession. Just as this dungeon's guardian had been given a mission it could never fulfill, I was captive to a dream I could never achieve.

I'd even won a championship once, hadn't I? From here on out, I should quietly set down my attachment to the sword. Study like a normal person, get a job — I'd live a healthier life than I did now.

But could I still call that person me?

Irritation ground its way up from somewhere deep. I gripped the hilt of my dagger and shoved the feeling down into the furthest recesses of myself. It was something I was very, very good at. As long as I wasn't holding a sword directly, I could cram unpleasant emotions like this away as much as I wanted. It might explode someday — but not today.

All the way to the end of the corridor, the guardian sent out no forces at all. At the entrance to a vast battlefield, we came to a stop.

"Nothing particularly visible."

"The arena looks pretty wide. Think there might be AoE skills or big gimmicks?"

"Judging by everything so far, it feels like it'll just be a straightforward boss."

The moment we set foot on the battlefield, combat would begin. So anything we could figure out in advance, we needed to figure out now. My rabbit ears kept twitching and getting on my nerves, so I decided to leave them free for the time being.

Aside from the boss monster's appearance, nothing else could be confirmed. Its basic weapons were dual blades. The guardian was a roughly two-meter humanoid. That was about it. The only notable detail was that other weapons floated in the air nearby. A melee-focused fight seemed likely — if it had human weapons, it intended to use them. The excessively wide battlefield looked completely empty, and there was no more information to be gained beforehand.

In that case, there was only one answer.

"We go by the book. Just in case, MountainBird unnie handles map pattern observation. BoozeBread tanks, and if it looks like he's going down, Uncle Gokturk goes into Frenzy. Everyone else regroups at that point."

"What about me?"

"DPS is… well, you and I just figure it out as we go."

And that was the end of the orders. Without hesitation, I stepped forward. For some reason, my hand seemed to be gripping the dagger harder than usual today.

Hell if I know.

The guardian leveled the tip of its blade at BoozeBread at the front. A spear came flying from somewhere on the map and collided with his greatsword. The parry failed, but the warrior didn't stop advancing. That said, his health bar had been absolutely shredded.

That damage was terrifying. I was definitely not taking a hit from that.

"You holding up?"

"Not even close!"

"Yeah, looks like it."

But what could you do? That was the fate of every melee warrior. Whatever state BoozeBread's HP was in, there was nothing I could do for him right now. Figuring I needed to get a little ahead of the curve, I planted a foot on the shoulder holding the greatsword and leapt. I climbed up, lashing a rope around a beam supporting the ceiling.

From up high, the entire battlefield was laid out clearly before me. Gray light stretched out along the tip of the guardian's blade. The floor it touched turned red and began to melt. Leave that alone and our front line would end up as a well-roasted whole chicken.

I threw a dagger toward the guardian's ankle in advance, then dropped like a falling body. The first thing to aim for was, of course, the neck.

Whatever the case, creatures that walked upright on two legs and two arms all had more or less the same weak points. The human body had been shaped to follow the most efficient form, after all. The most critical sense — vision — was better the higher it sat, so up top. To receive visual information without corruption, the brain as central processing unit occupied the same location. The best place to distribute power throughout the body was, naturally, the heart. If you were going to model something after a human, the least you could do was give it human weaknesses. That was just good manners.

"Fall back!"

BoozeBread and Uncle Gokturk pulled back immediately. The instant I drove my dagger down, shadows surged upward. Several black blades punched through the guardian's body — but my own weapon failed to pierce its armor.

The floor rippled briefly with black light. A bad feeling made ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me step back — and in that instant, ash-gray blades erupted from the ground. It was the exact same skill I had just used.

An uneasy premonition rang like an alarm bell inside my head.

"A-are you insane?! Shut your mouth!"