The Room You Can't Leave Without Clearing
‘This thing is broken as hell.’
The dog-mole’s attack slammed into my stomach, yet I felt no impact at all. Not even a mark was left on the clothes. Just to be sure I checked my belly—no wound, nothing. It had simply been blocked.
“Sohee! Are you oka—?”
Kim Dongmin, who had just finished off the dog-mole whose skull I’d cracked, looked me over and froze in surprise.
“What the… you’re not hurt?”
“…Yeah, right?”
I’d clearly been hit, yet nothing had happened.
‘Is this even possible?’
If it had been the armor Han Nami wore, sure—but what I had on was just ordinary-looking clothes. The item description even said the defense was low. It looked like something a dog-mole’s sharp claws would shred on contact, yet it had bounced the attack off without a scratch.
‘WheelchairBestDriver. What the hell is this bastard?’
The description claimed he’d made it himself.
‘Ah, is it because it’s Legendary grade?’
Probably just weak by Legendary-armor standards, which was why the description called it low. Anyone who could craft gear like this had to be one hell of a Constellation.
“Yeah. I let my guard down. Sorry.”
Without the gear I would’ve been hurt badly.
“I’ll focus properly now.”
“So you weren’t focusing until just now.”
“That’s not what I meant—I just need to focus harder.”
“You should’ve been doing that from the start.”
This bastard had been needling me nonstop.
“Still, I’m glad you’re unharmed.”
‘Oh? What’s this.’
So he had been worried, in his own way.
“Clearing it alone would’ve taken forever, after all.”
Look at this guy.
“Let’s move a bit slower from here. I’ll match your tempo for y—OOOOOOW!!!”
“….”
He’d gotten another donation; the agony twisted across his face. This time I could even see the effect—lightning crashing down over his head. Not real lightning, of course. Actual Heavenly Punishment would’ve killed him already. The way he kept thrashing told me the donation had been a big one.
Watching him writhe actually felt pretty refreshing.
“Ghhh… FeelGood! Potion-nim! Thank! You! For! The! Donation! AAAAAAGH!!!”
Wait. FeelGoodPotion?
That was one of the Constellations in my room.
Seeing Kim Dongmin suffer was satisfying, sure.
Satisfying… but—
“That’s foreign-currency leakage.”
Why are you spending money that should be going into my room over in someone else’s?
“Ahem, shall we move on now—OOOOOW! NotMyBusiness! Constellation-nim! Donation! More donations!!!”
“….”
FeelGoodPotion has been banned.
NotMyBusiness has been banned.
“Don’t spend coins in other people’s rooms. Spend them on me.”
Foreign-currency leakage gets you banned.
Now that we knew they could ambush us through the walls, we advanced carefully with that in mind.
After a while of that—
“A door.”
Kim Dongmin and I stood in front of one. It was obviously the boss-room entrance. Kill whatever was inside and the gate would be cleared.
“I can see that.”
“You weren’t thinking I said it because I thought you couldn’t see it, right?”
“…I wasn’t?”
“Somebody beat this bastard’s ass.”
“No, that’s not wha—KYAAAAAAAGH!!!”
Kim Dongmin convulsed, thrashing from head to toe.
After a few conversations with him I’d realized something: the more we talked, the more I lost. His way of speaking just kept pissing me off.
‘Can you please just answer yes or no?’
‘We’re live, so that’s tough. If it’s that annoying I can get you earplugs?’
‘Then how am I supposed to hear the ones coming out of the walls?’
‘Just take the hits?’
‘Are you insane?’
‘Even if I get hit the gear means it doesn’t even hu—OOF! WheelchairBestDriver-nim…! OOF-HOOF!’
That was the kind of exchange we’d been having, and every time I spoke the Constellations donated pain to Kim Dongmin.
The Constellations clearly wanted to shock him too, so it was a win-win.
“Let’s go in.”
Enough small talk. I opened the door to take down the boss monster. The door was huge, so I’d expected it to be stiff, but it swung open surprisingly easily—no hinge squeak, just smooth motion into darkness. No light sources inside, so that was only natural.
“….”
I was nervous about going in. The floor was faintly visible and nothing else. In a situation like this the veteran hunter Kim Dongmin should go first.
“You first.”
“Have you ever heard of ladies first?”
“….”
This bastard was supposed to be a veteran? His swordsmanship had been clean, sure.
“…Ahem. Just kidding. I’ll go first.”
Kim Dongmin raised his sword and stepped through the doorway—visibly terrified.
‘Ugh.’
My turn now.
“We can’t leave without going in, right?”
Ah, shit.
I was scared as hell to go in.
“I’m going, okay? I’m going.”
In the end the Constellations’ prodding pushed me into the dark.
Kuuung—!
The moment I stepped into the darkness the door slammed shut. Naturally the inside was pitch black, but Kim Dongmin lit a flashlight. Somewhere in here the boss monster would appear, and killing it would finish the clear.
“…So why isn’t it coming out?”
“How would I know?”
“I wasn’t actually asking you.”
“I thought you were.”
I ignored him and looked around. Low ceiling, extremely narrow, every wall and floor and ceiling made of dirt. Aside from the door we’d entered through, everything was earth.
Kim Dongmin settled into a combat stance.
“It’ll be a giant dog-mole.”
Nothing but dog-moles had appeared inside the gate, and the boss room was made of dirt a mole would love to dig through—reasonable guess.
“It could burst out from anywhere. Be caref—”
Kugugugugugu—
An ominous rumble rose from the floor, vibrating through everything.
“Dodge!”
Before Kim Dongmin even finished speaking I threw myself against the wall. At the same instant something massive erupted from the floor and punched straight through the ceiling. It was so huge I never saw its whole body at once—by the time its tail came into view its head had already vanished into the ceiling. The path it left sealed itself with dirt without a trace.
“…That was a mole?”
“A giant dog-mole.”
Exactly as PrimateGOAT said—we had to strike the instant it showed itself. Long-range attacks were impossible; we didn’t even have the means.
“When it comes out, we hit it then. Ready!”
Kim Dongmin must have thought the same; he was already poised to thrust his sword toward the direction of the vibration.
Kwaaang—!
The giant dog-mole smashed through the dirt wall and charged straight at us. Our faces met.
‘This one actually looks like a real mole.’
Every dog-mole I’d seen so far had dog-like heads, but this bastard had a genuine mole head. The only dog-like parts were the slightly longer limbs and the tail. In other words, it barely had eyes.
‘No wonder the room was dark.’
Given that real moles’ eyes are basically decorative, it made sense. Put another way: it was ugly as shit. Looking a mole dead-on is genuinely hideous. I only realized that now, staring at it.
“Haaap!”
Kim Dongmin tried to drive his sword in, but the speed flung him aside. The giant dog-mole came straight for me, claws scything. Standing still meant death. Trusting the clothes only went so far, and my head had no armor.
I threw myself out of the way and at the same time pressed my club against its hind leg. I would’ve loved to swing properly, but attacking while diving would’ve missed. The whole point was just to land a hit.
Mythic-Grade Item
A club crafted with painstaking care by Hephaestus of Olympus. A weapon meticulously designed to subdue enemies, it unleashes tremendous power.
◈ Additional damage +100%
◈ On hit: 100% chance to apply 69% Slow for 5 seconds
◈ On hit: 100% chance to inflict status: Confusion
◈ On hit: 100% chance to make the target scream
Land a single hit and this goddamn weapon’s effects kicked in. The Slow was nice—digging speed, attack speed, movement speed, everything slowed. But the effect I really wanted wasn’t the Slow.
“Kkieeeeeeeek—!”
And it sure as hell wasn’t the scream either.
“Now! Attack!”
“I’m on it!”
Confusion.
It robbed the target of its sense of direction and made proper judgment impossible. Because it applied at 100% on every hit, one successful strike let me keep the thing permanently confused. The slowed movement was just a bonus.
The monster flailed its limbs trying to dig a tunnel, but with no sense of direction it just clawed at empty air—and slowly enough that dodging was easy.
“Tendon cut!”
He’d been hacking at the hind legs and had finally severed a tendon. He finished the other hind leg, then the front legs as well.
And what had I been doing the whole time?
“Die! Die! Die!”
I just kept smashing its head over and over. It tried to resist, but everything was so slow I slipped past easily. I focused on the skull while Kim Dongmin worked the belly with his sword—thinnest hide, after all.
We kept attacking until it stopped moving. Then the body crumbled into ash and vanished, leaving only a magic stone and a few items on the ground.
“Hoo… hoo…”
“Haa…”
We’d killed it.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah. I really want a shower.”
Unlike me, who’d only clubbed the head, Kim Dongmin had been darting around stabbing the belly and was covered head to toe in blood—plus a full coating of dirt. My clothes had purification and contamination immunity, so I barely got dirty. They even smelled nice. A quick brush of the dirt out of my hair and I was done.
“We’ll wash up outside, then meet when we write the repor— wait what the fuck is this why won’t it—”
Kim Dongmin grabbed the door with an exhausted voice and pulled. It didn’t open.
“A room you can’t leave without XX (clearing) lmaooo”
FeelGoodPotion has been banned.
“Ah for fuck’s sake.”
Stop the bullshit. Please.