This Dogshit Patch

KYAAANG—?!

Cerberock screamed as the skill tore into him from inside his own maw.

"Gggrrrraaagh!"

Agony made him try to clamp his jaws shut on instinct, and the force bearing down on me surged. My knees damn near buckled.

I held. Superhuman grit and every stat I'd stacked up to now kept me standing. You dared lay a hand on my Aquaril? I was going to make this bastard pay for hurting her.

KRA-KOOOOOM—!

While I attacked and braced from inside Cerberock's mouth, the party unleashed a full assault from the outside, trying to back me up.

"Alan! For fuck's sake, stop this insane shit!"

Kanisia shouted as she hurled mana-charged spears and magic javelins. She looked badly shaken — this wasn't the Suicide Squad, and watching me throw myself into a kamikaze rush had clearly rattled her.

I'll make it up to you with love, Kanisia...!

FWOOOOOOSH—!

"...Huh?"

A fireball began to gather in Cerberock's throat. He couldn't bite down on me and he couldn't spit me out, so the plan was apparently to just roast me alive.

I'm fucked... wait. Hold on.

The second I thought I was done for, a completely unhinged idea flashed through my head.

My inventory was packed with precious "donations" from various rich bastards, plus camping gear, rations, the works. Including oil.

I'd already confirmed that even a same-element attack dealt satisfying damage inside this tender-fleshed maw. So what if I grabbed the oil and dove straight into that fireball?

Well. I'd die. That much was certain.

"Fuck, that's a batshit insane idea, you crazy bastard! Doing it anyway!"

A viable strategy, when you walk around carrying spare lives. I had plenty of Gems on hand. I threw myself at the fireball without another thought.

Thmp—!

"Alan!"

"Master!"

"Lord Alan!"

The second I stopped bracing the jaws open, Cerberock's mouth slammed shut. I caught the faint, horrified shouts of the party from outside.

Slick—

Ah, fuck!

Cerberock's tongue dragged across my face. It left my skin shredded as if I'd been worked over with sandpaper — the thing wasn't soft at all, just a coarse, grating slab of hide. But the wounds were nothing next to the smell. Whatever the hell this thing ate on a regular basis, its drool reeked of rotting garbage so thick it made my eyes water.

Disgusting as it was, I didn't forget what I was here to do. I pulled molotovs from my inventory, one in each hand, and roared.

KRA-KOOOOOOOM—!

Having successfully cleared the raid on Cerberock, boss of the C-rank dungeon Hell's Gate, we returned to camp.

"I have lived a long life and I have never — you hear me? Never — met a crazy bastard like you. Alan. You are the first."

"...I'm sorry."

I was on my knees in front of Kanisia with both hands in the air. Come on, she knew I could resurrect...

"What are you looking so pleased about?! Eyes down!"

"Nnh."

I snuck a glance up and got her fury right in the face. I dropped my gaze in a hurry.

I understood why she was this angry. Knowing I could come back to life and watching the person you love die in front of you are two completely different things. Honestly, if Kanisia ever told me she was going to throw a suicide attack because she could just resurrect, I'd have lost my mind and physically dragged her back. Call me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a hypocrite — I wouldn't have a comeback. I still don't want to watch my woman die.

And I hadn't even needed the suicide rush this time. Aquaril had been hurt, yes, but we could have pulled her off the front line and taken Cerberock apart properly. We had a solid light-attribute tank and DPS. It was more than doable.

I hadn't done that for two reasons. First, seeing Aquaril wounded had flipped a switch in my head. Second, I'd used Lust Release. The desire I'd been harboring in that moment was Revenge. The need to kill that son of a bitch Cerberock for hurting her had surged up so hard that the option of a careful, methodical clear simply vanished from my mind.

"Nnh... it's sad, but Master really does need to get scolded!"

"I'm sorry, Master. Because of me..."

"I suppose I should be grateful I wasn't there? If I'd seen Master die with my own eyes... I would have gone mad and done something unthinkable."

Not a single fairy took my side. Aquaril at least looked miserable, convinced I'd thrown myself into a suicide attack because of her — but even she didn't haul me up off my knees.

"Arms straight!"

"Yes, ma'am."

I'd started to let them droop. Kanisia's sharp bark snapped them right back up.

After serving my sentence, I went out for a short walk with Kanisia.

"Ahem. It's really dark."

Darkness in the mountains makes city night look like dusk, so I lit Will-o'-the-Wisp to push it back. It wasn't a lantern, but it was enough to tell one shape from another.

"....."

Kanisia walked beside me without a word, arms folded, eyes locked straight ahead. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, then reached over and poked her in the side.

"You mad?"

"....."

"Come on, Kanisia. Don't be mad."

"....."

"I wasn't in my right mind back there..."

"....."

"Nnh... you're really not going to forgive me?"

"...Haa. I swear, you're going to give me a heart attack. I can't live like this."

I kept poking her in the ribs and talking at her until the wall of silence finally cracked. She let out a long breath and looked at me.

"Can you just... not do that? I know you can come back. I know. But I really, truly cannot stand watching you die."

"...Sorry. I'm not going to stand here and promise I'll never do it again, though."

"Haa... fine. I'd rather you be honest than lie to my face."

"Honesty is one of my best qualities!"

"That was not a compliment."

"Nnh."

"Pfft!"

I let my shoulders slump like a puppy that had just been scolded by its owner, and Kanisia burst out laughing. Guess I was cute.

"Hey. So."

"What now?"

"If it had been you in that state instead of Aquaril, I would have done the exact same thing."

"...Did you think that was going to move me? Because it didn't."

"I'm just saying. Watching Aquaril in pain snapped something. I was so angry I couldn't hold it in. So don't get hurt. That way I won't do something like that."

"...So what you're telling me is that your suicide attacks are our fault."

"I wouldn't put it exactly like that... wait. No. Yeah. That's exactly it. If I throw a suicide attack, it's because of you lot!"

"Excuse me? You little—!"

I said it with a straight face, and Kanisia threw a playful headlock around my neck. Her full chest pressed against my face and it was incredible. I, uh. I wouldn't have minded staying in that headlock a little longer.

"Heh heh heh heh."

"You little—?"

I started laughing at the soft, generous press of her, so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she rapped me on the skull and let go. I grabbed her by the waist anyway and kept nuzzling into her chest.

"Would you let go now, you dirty old man?"

"Nope. I'm a pervert, so I'm going to keep doing this."

"I said knock it off... eep?!"

Kanisia flinched and made the cutest sound, because my hand had slipped down the back of her pants and closed around her ass.

"Kanisia. I want you."

"Y-you lunatic. We're outside. This is the forest! What if a bear comes charging out?"

"Then we kill it. More importantly, I want you so bad I'm losing my mind. Just once, Kanisia."

A bear is a natural disaster to a normal person. To me or Kanisia, it isn't even a warm-up. We wouldn't have to move. One skill and the thing would drop where it stood.

"W-we can't..."

"Really just once. I'll be quick."

"We really can't..."

"Ah-ah! Your husband says we're doing it, and you dare talk back? A wife... talking back?!"

"Wife? Since when am I your wife."

"What? So you're not going to marry me?"

"Th-that's..."

The word marriage turned her face red enough that I could see it even in the dark. I cupped her cheeks.

"And you're not seeing any other man. You think I'd let you go? Even if you told me you wanted to break up, I'd keep stalking you. And I'd kill any man you tried to see."

"You lunatic..."

"Yeah. I'm crazy about you. So don't even think about going anywhere. Got it?"

"F-fine, I got it, so stop and let's go back."

"Go back where. I said we're doing it here. You can feel how hard I am, right?"

"Nnh..."

I took her hand and pressed it against my cock. Kanisia twitched the moment she felt how swollen I was.

"Hold onto the tree and stay like that."

"...Okay."

I'd said just once. We ended up doing it five times before we went back to camp.

Meanwhile, at that same hour, in a dungeon near the city of Indigo — the southernmost city in the southern territories.

A monster of unimaginable power lay coiled in its depths.

The dungeons clustered around it were all low-rank, every last one of them, so no one in the world had any idea what slept there. Deep inside, the creature rested in silence, quietly knitting its wounds back together.

A stir—!

The monster, which had been lying with its eyes closed, opened them slowly. Something had brushed against its senses. Displeasure gathered in pupils split vertical, like a serpent's.

Who was moving?

The monster weighed the identity of the one stirring back to life. This creature possessed a power dreadful enough to end the world. And more dreadful still was the fact that it was not alone — eleven others like it existed.

Twelve monsters, siblings born of a single father and a single mother. No matter how far apart they lay, they could always feel one another.

When she finally knew which of them it was, the displeasure in her eyes deepened.

The worst of them. The monster that would sow the Black Plague across the world.

That one was about to move. And yet something about it felt wrong.

In a distant age, the monsters had committed an unspeakable act. They had turned on the being that gave them life.

They had wanted to become what the Creator was — the one and only god of this world. Swallowed by greedy desire, they had sunk their teeth into the throat of the one who made them.

The price had been a wound beyond measure. To heal, to reclaim the power they had lost, the monsters had crawled into dungeons and waited for the day their strength would return.

Which was why this made no sense. Recovering this fast should have been impossible.

Not long ago, a strange human had wandered into her dungeon by chance, and she had taken him as her Apostle. Since then, her lost power had been flooding back at a startling pace — thanks to the tribute he sent every thirty days. She had believed, because of that, that she was reclaiming her strength faster than any of her siblings.

She turned it over for a moment, and then she understood why her sibling was recovering so quickly — why he was trying to wake.

No. The sibling who had begun to stir first had not healed his wounds or reclaimed what he had lost. He meant to seed this world with his authority, the Black Plague, and wipe every living thing from the face of it. Then he would devour the souls of the slaughtered and claw his power back in a single gluttonous rush.

A handful of souls — beasts, a few humans — would not have mattered. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The monsters' souls were far stronger than those of such things. But to swallow every living soul in the world was another matter entirely, even for creatures as powerful as they were. Cram tens of billions of souls — perhaps more — into a single body, and reason would collapse. What remained would be a true monster, a thing that existed only to destroy.

If he managed to master those souls, the prize would be everything every monster craved. The risk was enormous. So was the reward.

With the god gone, the only things left that could check monsters of their caliber were other monsters. If that one truly succeeded, the next thing he would hunt was obvious. A creature that greedy would never leave the rest of them alone.

Best to prepare early, just in case.

Even so, she had no intention of stirring as recklessly as her sibling. She had an Apostle who laid tribute at her feet every month. Thanks to him, she was reclaiming her power far faster than the others. She held the advantage. There was no reason to throw the dice.

The monster — Uroboros of Greed, ten stars of coiled hunger — chose to demand ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more from her Apostle.

I was behind Kanisia, driving my hips hard while she held onto the tree, when it happened.

"...The fuck?"

I scowled at the window floating in front of my face.

What the hell is this?! What kind of dogshit patch is this?!!!!!