The Prince and the Princess
You can't always fight at full strength, picking only the battles that suit you. The world simply isn't that forgiving.
In truth, most deaths during dungeon exploration happen because someone failed to respond properly to the unexpected. No matter how carefully you plan, unless you possess the power to see the future, a hole will open in that plan somewhere. Closing those holes depends entirely on the explorer's own capability. Fail to handle them, and you die.
Get your head in the game, Arsha!
Arsha tightened her grip on her sword, steeling herself. The giant monkey that had locked eyes with her threw its head back and began to roar.
"UOOOOOOH—!"
A massive roar that made her heart slam against her ribs. This was no mere battle cry meant to crush an opponent's spirit. The giant monkey's howl was a skill that reduced the enemy's combat power.
"Tch...!"
Her body grew heavy, as if she'd been submerged in water. Her breathing turned ragged, and her field of vision seemed to narrow. A debuff from the roar skill.
Combat power reduced. Body weighted as if underwater. Breathing irregular. Field of vision narrowed.
A frontal fight was, no matter how she looked at it, impossible.
Running didn't look any easier. The simulation she'd run based on the opponent's agility had already told her that escape was out of the question.
"Fine. Let's see who dies—you or me."
A human unleashes their greatest strength when driven into a corner. Having burned her bridges, Arsha raised her sword with a grim, resolute expression.
Only thirty percent of her mana remained, and she had precious few skills left to use. Without caution, her life would be forfeit. Arsha moved as if walking on thin ice.
"GUOOOOOH!"
Taat!
The giant monkey kicked off the ground and charged straight at her.
Watching it come on so fiercely, Arsha realized her decision not to flee had been the right one. If she'd turned her back, she would have been run down and slaughtered without even a chance to counter.
"You're just a monkey!"
Arsha's blade became sheathed in mana. She invoked Mana Sword to push the weapon's killing edge to its limit, then swung to meet the massive monkey's club.
Mana Sword
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Three exchanges crossed in an instant. True to a boss monster's weapon, the giant monkey's club refused to be cut by the Mana Sword. Instead it deflected Arsha's blade, boasting a durability as massive as its wielder.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Every time sword and club met, a tingling shock like an electric current ran through her hands. In a situation where her stamina was already failing, a prolonged fight was impossible.
The one silver lining is that, aside from that roar earlier, it doesn't seem to have any special skills.
This boss monster appeared to be a close-combat type, built entirely around raw physical ability. The fact that it had no attack skills to momentarily spike its output was a tremendous stroke of luck for Arsha.
But that was, quite literally, a blessing in the midst of misfortune. How this exchange would end was not hard to see. As the shock of each collision accumulated in her body, her own power and speed grew duller—while the opponent's speed didn't drop at all.
The giant monkey seemed to have figured out whose side time was on, too. It didn't suddenly escalate. Like a hunter slowly cornering a deer, it swung its club at a leisurely, patient tempo.
This way, there's no opening...!
If the opponent overextended and charged in recklessly, she could create a thread-thin variable—and that was the last strike Arsha was aiming for. But if it attacked this strategically, she couldn't even manufacture that.
Arsha felt her mind growing hazy. Where had things started to go wrong?
If she traced the beginning of her mistakes, she'd have to start with the fact that she'd carelessly followed Johann Baker into an instant dungeon. Looking back, it had been an arrogantly stupid thing to do.
Come to think of it, what happened to that guy? Don't tell me he ran into this thing before I did...
Johann Baker.
A truly inscrutable person. At first, she'd thought of him as just some peculiar commoner that Sara Leoris had taken an interest in. But the more closely she looked, the more fascinating a man he became. The way he'd carried himself in the entrance ceremony duel, his victory in the exchange match—he was a type of person you couldn't find anywhere else.
"GUOOOOOH!"
Was it because she'd let go of the thread of hope and let her mind wander?
She missed the opponent's club as it came sweeping in like a storm. From Arsha's upper left, the monkey's massive club came crashing down.
This is it.
Arsha squeezed her eyes shut. Abandoning your vision in the middle of combat is more dangerous than dropping your weapon. She let go of hope and resigned herself to fate.
"......"
Strange.
The searing pain that should have punched through her skull wasn't there at all.
The boss monster's club should have smashed her head in. Had she died before she could even feel the pain?
Curiosity getting the better of her, Arsha cracked her closed eyes open to check.
"Miss Arsha. What are you doing here?"
A face so handsome even the sun might grow jealous.
The way he smiled, white teeth showing, was enough to make her heart hammer in her chest.
Suddenly, a fairy tale she'd often read as a child came flooding back. The heroine had been a kingdom's princess, kidnapped by a dragon.
Trapped in a high spire, with nothing to do but gaze at the sky, the princess was visited by a prince on a white horse.
The prince who fought the terrifying fire-breathing dragon and claimed victory knelt before her.
The prince who saved the princess, and the princess who came to love that prince.
But the trials didn't end there. The king had promised marriage to whoever rescued the princess—yet a prince from a minor kingdom could never satisfy a king's heart.
The story always closed on the same happy ending: they abandoned status and power, and chose love.
When had she stopped reading fairy tales?
As she remembered it, it was around the time she turned five—when she'd thrown herself into training to surpass Sara Leoris. As she built up her qualifications as a swordswoman, she had developed an aversion to that fairy-tale plot. That was probably why.
A story of a passive princess, saved by a man.
That it would feel childish to Arsha, who walked the path of the sword, was only natural.
And yet, even after she had become someone who no longer opened fairy-tale books, Arsha had—without quite realizing it—still harbored the longing every girl feels for a prince on a white horse. It was the same kind of fantasy that men harbored toward Dragon Slayers.
"Y-y-y-y-y-you!"
She was so shocked her mouth wouldn't even work. Johann had stretched out a hand and caught the club flying toward her.
He turned his gaze from Arsha toward the giant monkey and spoke.
"First, I should take care of this thing."
The moment those words left his mouth, a sharp dagger flew from his other hand like a throwing star. As the blade, carrying a biting, frost-like chill, streaked toward the giant monkey, the beast took a step back.
However—
"Snake Ending."
Infuses a throwing weapon with mana and launches it at the enemy. The weapon automatically identifies the target's weak points and strikes. Power increases in proportion to the HP the target has lost, up to a maximum of +200%. Against enemies with activated weak points, power can rise as high as +500%.
Power: Throwing Weapon ATK + 30 + (Agility × 1.5)
Johann's knife writhed toward the monkey like a living snake. The movement wasn't merely irregular—it was fast.
The giant monkey, which had shown speed equal to or greater than Arsha's, began to panic at the knife's nimble, darting path.
Shhk-shhk!
"GUOOOOOH!?"
It bored into the monkey's right side, then its left.
Watching it toy with the beast in movements as elusive as a swarm of bees, Arsha's eyes flew wide.
An A-Rank skill at minimum...
He was perfectly cooking the boss monster that had given her so much trouble. Of course, if Arsha had been at full strength with skills to spare, she could have taken it down herself. What Johann was showing her now was that his combat power was at least equal to her own at her peak.
The monkey's body was covered in writhing, snake-like wounds. Blood fountained from them.
Thud!
The giant monkey's massive body collapsed. The thick club in its left hand fell and rolled across the ground. The victor of the battle was Johann.
"Looks like I won."
Johann said it as if it were nothing at all. Then he turned his gaze from the fallen corpse toward Arsha.
"Miss Arsha. Are you all right?"
"Y-you... are you okay?"
"Honestly, I'm not. I think the left hand I used to block that attack is fractured."
When Johann said that, playing it off, Arsha's eyes went round and she hurried over to him.
"Really!? Ugh! Let me see that! You idiot! You're a Thief class! How could you block an attack that stupidly!?"
A Thief class, even in close combat, fought around evasion rather than defense. Naturally so—they were relatively lacking in strength and durability.
That giant monkey had been a typical warrior-type monster. The kind that, instead of possessing outstanding skills, held its advantage in raw base stats.
In other words, trying to tank a hit from a monster like that was a foolish thing to do. It was lucky it had only ended in a fracture. It wouldn't have been strange at all if his hand had been completely wrecked.
At the sight of Johann saying that with a bright smile, Arsha was at a loss for words.
That was right. The reason Johann—who had nearly perfectly dismantled Bohn Zaborg through strategy alone—had pulled a stunt this close to shooting himself in the foot was none other than her.
Arsha looked at him again. The image of the knight from the fairy-tale books she'd read as a child superimposed itself over Johann's face.