The Miracle Mathematician

Pygmalion's Cloister reconfigured every five days.

Five days might sound short, but the dungeon was small enough that clearing it never posed a real problem.

Nine days left until the Knight Tournament preliminaries.

That meant two chances at the boss, at most.

Gorgon's Ring had a five percent drop rate, right?

The main reason I'd come here was to build petrification resistance and secure a way to force myself into a petrified state when I needed it. Gorgon's Ring would be nice to have, but it wasn't essential. Even without it, a captured Gorgon could substitute for the effect to a decent degree.

There's something else on my mind, though.

Pygmalion would be the first intelligent humanoid boss I'd ever face.

In Paeoga, fights against intelligent monsters and bosses always opened with a cutscene and a short exchange of dialogue. How would that play out in reality? I was more curious about that than about the boss's drop table.

A soft hissing filled the air. Black fog began to seep across the ground around me.

Still alive, then.

Monsters emerged from the fog one by one. A skill of Pygmalion the Summoner.

"WAAAAAAAH!"

A shout rang out in the distance. Moments later, the clash of weapons and the howls of monsters erupted from every corner of the castle. The other mercenaries had started fighting the creatures Pygmalion had summoned.

Hisssss!

Around me, Gorgons and other petrification-type monsters flashed their eyes. To me, with petrification barely able to touch me, they weren't much of a threat. There was just one problem.

My gear's going to get wrecked.

The greave a Gorgon had bitten was already rusting. My body might shrug off status effects, but my equipment didn't share that resistance. Wasting a perfectly good kite shield and suit of armor on trash mobs felt like a crime.

I scanned the area and spotted a statue of a soldier mid-flight, spear in hand. A round shield hung across his back, petrified solid along with him.

Perfect.

I offered the nameless soldier a brief nod of thanks.

Snap!

I broke the petrified leather strap, and the round shield dropped free.

Thud!

A dull impact cracked a thin line through the stone floor. I grabbed the handle and lifted the shield. It was heavy. Essentially, I was holding up a millstone in one hand and calling it a shield. An ordinary person would have struggled to cradle it with both arms, but for a level-25 Guardian with an A-rank Strength correction, the weight was manageable.

Whoooosh—!

I swung the shield a few times, testing the strain on my arm and the range of motion. A little sluggish, but nothing I couldn't work with. If anything, I liked that I could thrash it around as hard as I wanted without worrying about the equipment breaking.

"UWOOOOOOOH—!"

Ready at last, I activated Taunt and charged forward.

Hisssss!

The Gorgons and the rest of the pack rushed me as one. I thrust the petrified round shield out to meet them.

CRASH!

The shield bash sent a Gorgon flying, taking the monsters beside it along for the ride.

Thud-thud-thud!

"Whew."

A whistle slipped out of me before I could stop it. The impact felt fantastic.

A tank needs weight. That's just how it is.

Getting hit by a compact car versus getting hit by a dump truck. No explanation required for which one hurt more.

Crunch! Boom!

My kite shield was solid iron and had some heft to it, sure. But it couldn't begin to compare ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with swinging an entire millstone. Linking shield bashes and parries while running Flesh-Carving Bone-Crushing, I shredded through monsters whose durability matched the dungeon's recommended level in seconds.

"Hoo."

I let out a satisfied breath and checked my surroundings. Black fog still blanketed the entire castle — proof that Pygmalion's summon waves weren't finished.

Slow.

There were two ways to make Pygmalion appear: kill every monster he'd summoned on the field, or destroy the first statue he'd ever made. The first option was a trap dressed up as the proper method. Whenever his summons dropped below a certain number, Pygmalion simply called more. Try to clear them all and you'd drown in endless combat, never meeting the boss before the dungeon reset five days later.

Wait. Is that actually why nobody bothers trying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to kill the boss?

Low-level mercenaries circled the castle outskirts, hunting relatively safe monsters. High-level ones set up shop inside the walls and farmed whatever Pygmalion kept summoning for steady profit. Leaving him alive to keep spawning monsters was safer and more lucrative than putting him down.

They say safety regulations are written in blood.

Pygmalion's recommended level was 35. His raw physical stats were low, but the summoner kit itself was a nightmare. In a boss fight, a single party had to face alone the same monster flood that could blanket an entire castle. Countless mercenaries must have challenged him and died. And even if you took the risk and won, the drops were pure RNG. I could understand why people didn't bother with the adventure.

Which means no competition. Perfect.

I picked up my pace toward the castle's heart, where the first statue stood.

In the community, Pygmalion went by two nicknames: "Crazy Pure-Love Bastard" and "That Fucking Netori Pervert."

He had been the lord of this place, back before it became a castle of the dead, and he had fallen hard for a woman. The problem was that she was already married. Every time he thought of her, lovesickness tore him apart, and he endured each day by carving that longing into statues.

What he did next, you could guess from the second nickname alone. He tore the woman from her husband by force. But she never once showed him the smile he had fallen in love with. Clinging to the memory of that fading smile, he threw himself back into his statues.

Then one day, she slipped past his watch and met her husband in secret. And only in front of that man did she wear the radiant smile Pygmalion had so desperately craved.

In that instant, his reason snapped completely.

What a lunatic.

If he could not possess that beauty, he would freeze time before the smile could vanish. With that twisted logic, he cast a petrification spell over the entire domain. The setting claimed a dark god had welcomed him with open arms and personally granted him power — so just how deep his obsession ran was beyond imagining.

I looked up at the statue of the woman standing at the castle's center.

Galatea. The woman Pygmalion had loved, and the first victim of his petrification.

I'm sorry, ma'am.

Being kidnapped and tormented by a madman was already more than anyone deserved. Ending up as a statue, suffering for eternity, was worse. And now she was destined to be smashed to pieces by my hand. Even knowing this was just a dungeon replaying events long past, the uneasy feeling wouldn't leave me.

I hope you found peace somewhere better.

I swung the millstone shield.

CRACK!

The statue shattered into fragments — and in that same instant:

An ear-splitting shriek tore through the air, and the black fog blanketing the castle surged toward a single point. From the condensed mist, a man took shape.

He was bloated and misshapen, his features looking half-melted — nothing like a noble. Both hands clutched at his hair as he stared at the shattered statue.

"How dare you, how dare you, how dare you, how dare you, how dare you—! WAAAAAAAH!"

Pygmalion's howl was the signal. The black fog exploded outward, and countless monsters materialized in its wake.

So this is what they mean by a legion-class blessing.

The monsters roaming the castle outskirts were nothing special if you watched out for status effects. But the ones Pygmalion summoned personally were organized by role: solid wall golems that shielded the summoner; assassin gargoyles that hunted blind spots from the air; snake-form Gorgons, lizard-form Basilions, and bat-form Gorbers that layered on petrification. The difficulty felt far higher than it ever had in the game.

With numbers like these, even a level-40 party would be in trouble without a reliable frontliner. Even a party with its own summoner would struggle to hold back summons empowered by a dark god's authority.

Not that I had any reason to be afraid.

You don't need superior specs to win every fight.

Petrification barely worked on me. Rock-type monsters resisted slashing but were weak to blunt force. And Flesh-Carving Bone-Crushing converted defense points into blunt attack power. These things had the worst possible matchup against me.

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to pull this out."

This world had no shortage of ways to get stronger beyond raw levels. One of them was Quests. I'd been fighting with nothing but a shield to complete a specific quest early — but taking on this entire legion with just the millstone shield in my left hand was absurdly inefficient. No reason to cling to a quest when lives were on the line.

Full power, then.

"Galatea! Galatea! AAAAH! GALATEAAAAA!"

Pygmalion's wailing rose as the monsters charged in unison. I shoved a hand into my pack and pulled out the tool I'd packed for pitching a tent — a mallet.

A mallet had a narrow striking surface. Perfect synergy with Flesh-Carving Bone-Crushing, which concentrated the barrier into a single point and converted it into blunt damage.

Here we go.

Edwin Revan's secret technique — Flail Like Hell.

I planted the millstone shield in front of me and advanced, swinging the mallet in my right hand without pause.

Thud! Crunch! Crack!

Trash mobs like Gorgons, Basilions, and Gorbers burst apart at the slightest graze of the mallet. Dozens of them threw themselves at me trying to land even a scratch, but the nearly weightless mallet swept the battlefield faster than they could close in.

Whooosh!

Skreee! Skreeeeek!

Deciding trash mobs alone couldn't stop me, four gargoyles that had been waiting took to the air at once. On the ground, the monster horde kept surging forward; from the sky, gargoyles with stone talons extended dove straight down.

I swung the shield in a wide arc.

BOOM!

A full-body shield bash cleared every monster in front of me. For a split second, my field of vision opened wide. I whipped the mallet up at the diving gargoyles.

Crack! Crack! CRACK!

No fancy techniques. No clever tricks. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Shove back whatever came at me with the shield; smash whatever dropped from above with the mallet. That was enough.

Petrify the enemy with a flood of stone-type monsters. Distract them from the air with gargoyles. Then drive a golem's fist into the target too busy watching every direction. Pygmalion's tactics weren't much different from the game. He'd simply more than doubled the numbers.

The pattern was so familiar I almost yawned.

"Worst matchup imaginable, huh?"

"You son of a bitch!"

Pygmalion had finally decided I was a real threat. The man who'd been doing nothing but screaming climbed onto a golem's open palm. The golem lifted him onto its shoulder and started putting distance between us.

Fake madness, then.

For all the frothing hysterics, enough reason remained to read the battlefield. The moment things turned against him, he was using his summons as a shield and running.

But if he still had his wits, that meant Taunt would work on him too.

I called out to Pygmalion as he edged away.

"Looking like that, no wonder Galatea dumped you."

The golem froze.

"Who's going to love a pig who rubs his tiny little dick on statues all day?"

"…"

"And the way you turn tail the second things go south? Hilarious. Then again, a guy who ran from the reality of being unloved was never going to stand tall on a battlefield."

Pygmalion's body began to tremble.

"You're a disgrace to the nobility."

"You…"

He slowly raised his head. Black energy streamed from bloodshot eyes.

A deep hum filled the air. The black fog scattered across the castle was sucked into his hands. The concentration of mana spiked. The fog thickened into a viscous liquid that dripped between his fingers.

He was going all-in.

Whoosh!

The moment Pygmalion raised his index finger—

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

The shattered remains of the gargoyles I'd smashed rose as one and coiled around my entire body. It happened so fast I couldn't even react.

This pattern wasn't in the game…!

Before the debris could fully encase me and harden, I threw both arms up and barely managed to cover my upper body with the millstone shield.

Rumble—!

At the same time, the golem kicked off the ground and charged. A massive stone fist filled my vision.

BOOOOOOM!

The petrified shield exploded into fragments. The barrier, unable to absorb the impact, shattered like glass.

"Ghk!"

Pinned by the gargoyle remains, I took the full force through my entire body. A mild concussion left my stomach churning.

"I— I— I—!"

Black magic blasted from Pygmalion's left hand. Not particularly fast, not particularly slow — but with stone debris locking me in place, there was no dodging it.

"GALATEAAAAA!!!"

Whoosh!

The black energy streaked toward my whole body. I threw both arms up to protect my head — the vital point. The dark force wrapped around me, and petrification began to set in. My blessing-enhanced resistance kept me from turning into a statue on the spot, but sensation was draining from every limb.

So reality really is different from the game…

A pathetic boss that only repeated fixed patterns. In the game, anyone could beat him by following the guide. But this was reality. He had intelligence, which meant Taunt worked on him — and which also meant he could invent new attacks. Look at this: a fight that would have been over already in the game had dragged out this far.

Still. Guardian was the right call.

Any other blessing and I'd be dead right now. But as a Guardian…

"Hah… hah… hah…"

Through the gap between my hardened arms, Pygmalion's face was soaked in exhaustion. He'd burned through a serious amount of power — enough that the golem had been unsummoned.

"You — I will kill you myself!"

True to his sculptor origins, he drew a hammer and chisel from his belt. Apparently still stung by the tiny-dick comment, he kept glancing at a certain part of me as he crept closer. Which meant he hadn't noticed I could still move.

Life Conversion…!

Thump!

My heart pounded hard, and something hot drained out of me. I felt the shattered barrier wrap around my body once more.

"You insolent little insect—"

"Up close, you look ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even more like shit."

"…What?"

"This one's for Lady Galatea."

I funneled the freshly restored barrier through Flesh-Carving Bone-Crushing, concentrating it into my forehead. Then I swung my head — the one part of me both arms had shielded from petrification — with everything I had, and drove it straight into his filthy face.

CRACK!

"Gahk!"

No summoner with zero defense could tank that. He clutched his shattered nose with both hands and rolled across the floor. The impact was so violent that the magic binding me came undone.

I immediately concentrated the barrier into my feet, which the stone casing had kept free of petrification.

"And this one's for the people of the domain."

CRACK!

"Guh-guh-guh-guh!!!"

"And this one's for my gear, you bastard!!!"

CRUNCH!

"Guhhhk!"

If I hadn't grinded those resistances, this could've gone badly.

I never expected to burn Life Conversion against something with such a hard counter matchup. Yeah — that was the difference between the game and reality. Which was exactly why you always had to give everything and plan three moves ahead.

"Hoo…"

I looked down at Pygmalion crawling across the floor. On the ring finger of his left hand, something caught my eye.

A wedding band steeped in a dark god's power. An item forged from the union of Pygmalion's warped obsession and a dark god's authority.

In the game, it always vanished the moment Pygmalion died.

Kill him and the ring disappeared along with the dark god's power. Only in the rarest cases, when a fragment of that authority held its form, did it drop as an item. But right now was different. Pygmalion was still alive. The ring sat intact on his finger.

So what if I take it before I kill him?

I stepped on Pygmalion's left hand.

"GYAAAAH!"

I grabbed the ring and pulled. It didn't budge. The dark god's power had fused it to his finger as if they were one.

This isn't going to work as is…

Leave him alone and he'd recover his mana and start summoning again. No reason to drag this out. I picked up the mallet from the floor.

A grin spread across my face. Time to try a strategy that only worked because this was reality, not a game.

"What the hell is going on?"

Radun, leader of a mercenary party averaging level 38, scanned his surroundings. The black fog that had blanketed the entire castle moments ago was vanishing, drawn toward a single point as if being sucked in. He'd been running this dungeon for over three months and had never seen anything like it.

"Radun — you think something happened to Pygmalion?"

Either the boss was in trouble, or some hidden piece no one had ever found had just triggered. A new secret buried in a dungeon was money by itself. Especially in high-level dungeons — clear information sold to noble houses for a fortune. The problem was that the value of information decayed by the hour.

"Everyone, gather up!"

At Radun's shout, his party assembled. The other mercenaries nearby seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Everyone started racing toward the castle's center as if competing.

"We're going too!"

Nearly ten mercenary parties poured into the castle, jostling for the lead. They were closing in on the source of the sound when—

"GYAAAAAAAH!"

A man's agonized scream cut through the air. Had someone been fighting Pygmalion and was about to die? The mercenaries who had been racing each other moments before fell silent as one, muffling their footsteps.

Radun and his companions carefully approached the room the screams were coming from. Through the crack in the door, two men were visible.

One was crawling across the floor on a body as bloated as a pig's. Black blood streamed from every part of him, and his left hand was pinned under the other man's boot. The man standing over him held a blood-smeared mallet and asked, almost casually:

"You gonna take it off yourself, or should I go through the wrist?"

CRUNCH!

The mallet obliterated the marble floor next to the fingers. Pygmalion's body jerked violently.

"I-I'll give it! I'll give it to you!"

With his barely functioning right hand, Pygmalion gripped the ring on his left ring finger. He muttered something, and the black energy fused to the digit loosened. Slowly, the ring slid free.

"H-here…"

Pygmalion. The living terror of this dungeon. Offering up the ring with both hands, black blood streaming from his eyes like tears.

The man accepted the ring and tilted his head, looking almost impressed.

"Huh. So this actually works?"

He tucked the ring into his coat. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he swung the mallet.

CRUNCH!

Pygmalion's head shattered against the marble floor. With the dark god's power already stripped away along with the ring, the item remained safely in the man's coat even after the boss's corpse vanished.

Radun closed the door as quietly as he could.

Creeeak. Click.

If the man who had just killed Pygmalion had looked even slightly exhausted, the mercenaries gathered here might have gotten ideas. Mercenaries, after all, were people who dabbled in dirty work of one size or another.

You gonna take it off yourself, or should I go through the wrist?

He'd been ready to pulverize a man's fingers, and there hadn't been a trace of anger or excitement in him. A coldness that treated the other party as something less than human. Maybe that man was this dungeon's hidden boss. Nothing else made sense. Ten parties working all day couldn't clear the summons that had been concentrated in one place — and a human who could break through that alone by raw force shouldn't exist. Shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Radun looked at his companions with a grim face. No one said a word.

That day, the ten mercenary parties that had entered Pygmalion's Cloister made no agreement with each other. But not a single party spread word of what had happened through Remington County.

Information was money — but there was no information in the world more expensive than a life.