Save the Boss (5)
Floor 10 of the Menestail Dungeon.
Back when Lucy, Carl, and Alsaetin had come through here together, we'd settled things with an arrow to the core — but today was different.
We didn't do anything at all.
Benedict had sworn up and down that nothing needed doing.
Watching from the front as the golem coalesced around its core, Benedict rolled his shoulders with a hearty laugh.
"Sir Benedict. A buff?"
"Not necessary, Bishop Johan. What would I need something like that for, to handle this?"
Once the golem's form was complete, it dropped from empty space and hit the ground, its sheer weight shuddering the cavern as it announced its presence. Then it spotted Benedict standing at the very front and raised its massive arm.
It was a punch. Nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable punch.
If an average person had moved their hand like that, onlookers would have snickered.
But the owner of that fist was a golem.
A golem with overwhelming size, weight, and hardness. It was precisely those traits that turned such a simple punch into a catastrophe.
There was enough force packed in there to make even me think, I'd have a hard time blocking that.
Yet Benedict, the one meant to receive it, was utterly relaxed.
He didn't use magic. He didn't take a buff. He didn't even draw his sword.
He simply stretched one arm straight back, preparing to take the golem's punch head-on.
Anyone watching would have called it sheer madness. However big Benedict might be, he was still, at the end of the day, human. How was anyone supposed to withstand the fist of a giant whose hand alone could crush you flat?
He looked for all the world like a mantis blocking a carriage. For all of Benedict's bravado, the outcome seemed obvious.
But Benedict flatly denied the very concept of common sense.
KWAAANG!
The moment golem and fist met, an impact bloomed and my hair whipped around me. And through it, I saw something bizarre.
The golem's arm was trembling.
The punch that was supposed to demonstrate the unbridgeable gulf between their kinds had stopped dead.
I tore my eyes from it and looked at the other side — at Benedict's face, hidden in the shadow of the fist. The face of a man absorbing a golem's weight with his bare hand still wore a smile.
"Is that all you've got?"
The instant Benedict, casually bearing the mass, added more strength to his arm, cracks began spiderwebbing out from the point where his arm met the golem's fist.
They spread with the speed of a stone hitting the frozen surface of an early-winter lake, and soon an ominous groan rang out before the golem's arm lost its shape and crumbled away.
"Weak! Weak! Is this really all the fight you had in you?!"
The golem — senseless and soulless, incapable of feeling pain — thrust its remaining arm at Benedict. The result was the same again.
The giant's arm failed to beat the human's fist, and shattered.
"Shall I finish this?"
So saying, Benedict — who had been watching the falling chunks of stone — leapt upward. Clad in armor that boomed with every step, he should have been heavy, yet climbing the falling rubble, his body looked light as a feather.
Before long he reached the golem's head, and from a stance with not a single sure foothold, he drove his fist down into its core.
KWAAANG!
When the sound like a detonated bomb had passed, what I saw was the golem's midsection — hollowed out so cleanly I almost doubted anything had ever been there.
Benedict touched down before the power-drained golem could even finish collapsing, and turning his head toward me with the dust cloud of its ruin rising behind him, he squared his shoulders with an obvious flourish.
He was clearly angling for a Wow, Dad, you're amazing! — peeking my way like that the whole time.
Benedict just doesn't get it. The truly cool move is to do something like that and then act like it was nothing. When you go around telegraphing ain't I awesome?, it makes people want to withhold the praise.
That rebellious streak, rising up so naturally. Was this also the effect of the Mesugaki skill? Or was it simply that I, as a person, was trash?
I mulled it over briefly and reached a conclusion: both.
Fine. Ignore him.
<He keeps glancing at you, you know.>
'I know. That's why I'm ignoring him.'
<...A real adolescent phase, aren't you.>
'It's not that. Hmm.'
Blowing apart that golem with my bare hands wouldn't be impossible.
It was true that the Floor 10 boss of Menestail was a gimmick-type boss, but its raw specs were, for a Floor 10 boss, absurdly durable and nothing more. A player who showed up with overwhelming stats was fated to smash it flat.
Still, that didn't mean I could deny how impressive Benedict was. The minimum spec needed to ignore the gimmick and simply beat the golem down was, by game-character standards, early level 100. Considering Benedict had overwhelmed it playfully without even going all out, he had to be far stronger than that.
This guy is on the level of NPCs who only show up in the late game.
He's not supposed to exist at this point in the timeline! Powercreep! It's literal powercreep!
Hey. Pathetic Chief God. How about making Benedict your apostle instead of me?
Wouldn't that be better? A solid, dashing middle-aged knight with gravitas, over a bratty little mesugaki whose only redeeming feature is being pretty?
Right?
...Hm.
No answer.
Figures that wouldn't work.
Then again, our pathetic Chief God is a pedo-sadist-maso pervert.
Dammit. If that worthless garbage Chief God's tastes were even a little more normal, I wouldn't have to flounder around like this!
While I was silently cursing the deranged pervert Chief God with every insult I knew, Benedict had drifted over beside me and was giving me the most pitiful look imaginable.
Whoa. That's a lot of pressure.
Okay, okay, fine! I'll pat your head for you, alright?!
'Wow! Benedict! That was so cool! You shredded that golem!'
"What's this? Silly Father. You think smashing one tin can earns you praise? Wow. Pathetic."
No — hey! At least give the compliment properly, you rotten Mesugaki skill!
You talked down to him and now his spirits are crushed!
Aaagh. Fine. I get it. You want me to say it myself?
I'll say it! I'm saying it!
"Still, you were a little cool. For a pathetic Papa♡, anyway."
After desperate deliberation, I dug out a line of praise so backhanded it barely counted as one — and Benedict's face lit up like the sun.
"See? Papa was cool, wasn't he?"
To ignore Benedict as he fussed and preened like he'd forgotten we were even in a dungeon, I forced myself to think about something else. If I didn't, a stream of curses aimed his way felt inevitable.
The meeting that had begun that morning, once full authority had been handed to me, started with a single question: had anyone here ever cleared the Menestail Dungeon?
If the dungeon's systems would let us jump straight to Floor 46, all we'd need to prepare for was the fight against Karia.
Count Georg, naturally, had seen the dungeon's end. Benedict, too, said he'd once reached its depths.
'I have never cleared the Menestail Dungeon myself.'
The problem was Johan. A man who had served the Church as a priest his entire life — there was no reason he'd ever have set foot in a dungeon this treacherous.
It wasn't a real problem, though. The force gathered here was our full force, and every single one of them deserved to be called a hero. Clearing Menestail was nothing to them. Merely tedious.
So I proposed that we push through to Floor 46, rest for the day, and challenge Karia the next morning. Then we moved on to discussing how exactly to run the dungeon — a discussion that wrapped up before we'd even finished lunch.
The reason was simple: every potential obstacle to clearing Menestail could be solved by the three of them.
The dungeon's notorious heat was neutralized by Count Georg's magic. Thanks to that, I never felt the heat even once the entire time I traveled with them.
The monsters lurking in the dungeon's depths kept their distance, cowed by the killing intent Benedict radiated. Because of that, we descended all the way to Floor 10 without fighting a single battle.
Even when we occasionally came across an injured adventurer, one gesture from Johan's hand healed them completely — there was no reason to waste time.
With the situation like this, all I had to do was ignore every other factor and chart the shortest route.
Boss fights? With a force like this assembled, was that even a question? Gimmick or no gimmick, the moment anything appeared, it vanished under pure damage. Just like that golem a moment ago!
This wasn't a bus ride. Comparing this to a mere bus would be an insult to these people.
More like a train — no, an airplane. I was the passenger, and these people were the pilots flying the plane.
Though there was one complaint I did have.
This airplane's ride quality was terrible.
Not figuratively. Physically.
"Come along now, Lucy. Let's get going. It's a long road — we should move quickly."
Midway through my musings, Benedict, having finally finished his celebration, scooped me up and set me on his shoulder.
Right. Just as I had once carried others on my shoulders sprinting through the Academy Dungeon, this time it was Benedict carrying me through the dungeon run.
It hadn't been the plan from the start. I've done all that training, after all — I'd intended to run on my own two feet and keep up.
But I realized before long that that was my own arrogance. My body was in poor shape, sure, but more fundamentally, these humans' specs were simply too high for anything I did to matter.
So, half against my will, I'd been reduced to dead weight riding on Benedict's shoulder.
No matter how I thought about it, this was the most efficient option, so there was nothing to be done. And hanging on for dear life as we descended, I came to understand the wisdom of the old sages.
Put yourself in another's shoes, they say? When I was the one doing the carrying, I never understood — but now that I was the dead weight, I got it. I truly did.
I'm sorry! Vishy! Phoebe!
If something like this happens again, I'll be as considerate of you as I possibly can!
"Alright, let's go, Lucy!"
Ueeeeegh.
Somebody, anybody, saaaave meee.
Reaching Floor 46 of the Menestail Dungeon took a grand total of six hours.
And that was with a margin of consideration worked in for my sake — which said everything about how monstrous this party was.
Benedict was still fresh as ever. Bishop Johan remarked that it felt like his first proper workout in ages and seemed delighted. And Count Georg, a veteran of dungeon clearing, showed not a hint of strain.
"There we are. Let's head back and rest now, shall we?"
At Benedict's declaration, I let out a silent cheer.
Finally! This hellish run is over!
Haaaah. I think that was the hardest dungeon clear of my entire life. It would've been at least a bit easier if my body weren't in this state.
But it's fine. I just head back to our lodging and rest comfortably. Tomorrow we only have Karia, so there's no reason to rush anymo—
Ding.
The system's notification chime rang out.
The moment I lifted my head to check it — Benedict, standing in front of me, swung his arm.
Huh? What—
Before I could process what was happening, the crack of an impact grazed my ear, and I saw the figure of a woman knocked backward, daggers crossed, skidding away.
Karia's expressionless eyes passed over Benedict — and fixed on me.