Chapter 44

Drip.

Tiny shards settled on my shoulder. A sense of unease, of dread, tickled at the edge of my nerves.

Before my mind could properly identify these fragments, the peripheral nerves, already agitated by the anxiety, took control of my body.

Thunk.

Led by instinct, I grabbed Lier’s shoulder and lunged to the side.

The firm conviction that my life would be snuffed out if I didn’t washed over me belatedly.

Losing her balance from the sudden force, Lier raised the tip of her staff toward the ceiling as she tumbled down with me.

The lightning crackling from the end of her staff crashed against the ceiling.

Upon the white flash’s impact, a spider clung there, its long fangs, like a vampire’s, bared down to its chin. A monster nearly twice the size of either Lier or myself.

The spider descended from the ceiling, intersecting with the remaining electricity, and landed upon the spot where we had just been standing.

A jagged hole appeared in the floor, shards of brick exploding outwards.

“Damn it, Trian…!”

“I know! Hold out just a little longer, Rex! The mage is priority one!”

On a battlefield, a mage is like a glass cannon. Their powerful spells can shift the tide of battle, but apart from their potent magic, the mage’s survivability is woefully low.

They lack the agility to respond to sudden events, and their stamina is so weak they could easily be killed by even the smallest threat.

Therefore, battles in this world are generally fought to protect the mages.

But right now, the situation was far from the norm.

Though diminished now, the monsters initially outnumbered us by at least two to one. And each creature possessed a level of menace one couldn’t dare underestimate.

Placing Rex, ostensibly to safeguard the mages, meant the enemies flooding through the narrow doorway would overwhelm our defenses before we could properly react.

…Essentially, it was a checkmate.

Prioritize the mages’ safety, and the battle never truly began; position the infantry at the front lines, and the mages were left vulnerable to a swift, devastating rear assault.

An utterly, unforgivably unfair checkmate.

Where had we gone wrong?

Was the failure to anticipate a breach in the walls our fatal mistake?

Within the game beyond the screen, dungeon walls never crumbled.

I’d foolishly assumed this wall was some invulnerable barrier crafted from indestructible material.

Once more, the chilling truth settled over me.

This wasn’t some damned game; it was reality.

No systems, no game logic, no invisible walls or exploitable glitches, no experience points – just harsh, unforgiving reality.

The spider, its fangs monstrous and vampire-like, splayed its long legs wide as it lunged, fangs bared, towards Lir and me, sprawled on the ground.

Lir, in a desperate move, shifted her staff behind my back, steadily aiming it at the encroaching arachnid.

Too late.

There wasn’t enough time for her mana to coalesce into lightning, for the lightning to compress into the spell of ‘Bolt.’

Elven agility, for all its renown, was purely ‘physical’—the swiftness of limbs and precision of aim. Magical speed, the rate at which spells were woven, was a separate aptitude entirely.

Furthermore, the suddenness of the situation caused her staff to tremble. A clear sign of her wavering focus.

This is madness.

My mind felt starved of oxygen, my tongue refused to obey. I needed to unleash the Bloom, now, but my mouth was too busy gasping for air.

My tongue refuses to obey.

I feel as if my mind is about to shatter.

The reaper’s scythe presses against my skin, aimed at my carotid artery, yet my body remains unresponsive.

Even more horrifying, my brain, unlike this agonizingly useless body, calmly analyzes the situation with chilling precision.

Death feels vividly close.

If only I didn’t possess this damn [Composure] trait, I wouldn’t be experiencing this terror so acutely. The same foolish lament blossoms.

…Fuck.

‘Using [Bloom] in this situation will undoubtedly pull Lier into it. No barrier deployed. It will be far from a minor scratch. And there’s the possibility that Rex and Trian will be in danger too. That option is ruled out.’

Any second now, my neck could be pierced by those enormous venomous fangs. In less than a second, my eyes will lose their light, and Lier, pinned beneath me, will surely suffer a fatal wound from the canines piercing my neck.

Magic is unusable.

In that moment, despite the shredded state of my body, my mind made a cold and precise judgment.

*Click.*

Grasping the doorknob of the Mimic.

In the chaotic battle where a split-second decision dictates life and death, this was the only move left to me.

*Screech…!*

A pitch-black void emerged from the crack in the door, its gaze fixed on Lier, as if to swallow her whole. I pulled her into my arms from the floor and rolled to the side.

It was only possible because I squeezed every last drop of strength from my almost-fainting body.

I didn’t have a spare moment to care whether the Mimic was reacting or not.

In the game, the Mimic was programmed to only attack the one who touched it.

But this is a goddamn reality.

So, something like this, perhaps.

If it doesn’t work, well, I’ll die.

Crack!

Seeing Lir and I roll to the side, the spider with fangs as long as a vampire’s, instantly changed its jump trajectory, slamming its blade-like legs into the floor.

I pulled Lir as close to me as possible, making sure she didn’t even brush the Mimic’s area.

“Haa… haa…”

My vision blurs.

The fight isn’t even over, and I’m about to lose consciousness from hyperventilation.

Haa…

A sticky, damp, and filthy breath, the kind you’d expect from the maw of a massive monster, seeped through the door crack and caressed my cheek.

From the emptiness beyond the slightly ajar door, dozens of eyeballs gleamed simultaneously.

Thunk!

The Mimic, disguised as a door, opened its slightly parted maw wide. The doorknob slammed against the wall, rebounding again.

Whoosh—

A wrinkled, reddish-brown tongue, sharpened to a point like an awl, lashed out in an instant.

The Mimic’s tongue pierced straight through the spider’s abdomen.

With a huge hole suddenly ripped through its torso, the spider couldn’t overcome the pain and convulsed violently.

The Mimic’s wrinkled tongue slowly coiled around its struggling prey, then, like a massive hook, dragged the spider into the abyss.

The spider tried to stab the Mimic’s tongue with its fangs and legs to escape, but the Mimic didn’t even flinch.

Thump!

The mimic, having swallowed the spider into the abyss, sealed its door-like mouth as if the battle unfolding in the room was of no concern to it.

The sound of the spider’s body being crushed echoed sharply, permeating the walls.

Nausea churned within me, my mind reeling. If we had misjudged the timing, it could have been us, not the spider, sucked into that void—the thought alone made my head spin.

“Get up! You damn fools, it’s not over yet!”

Trian’s urgent curse snapped me out of my daze.

Only then did I see Rex’s back, holding off two spiders single-handedly.

“Some, help would be… welcome!”

Rex seemed to be struggling, overwhelmed by the simultaneous attacks of the two spiders.

The two arachnids lunged towards Rex’s head, baring their fangs.

Lir rose quickly, brandishing her staff and firing sparks of lightning. Trian, too, loosed the few arrows he had left. With the opening created, Rex began to slowly retreat.

I entrusted Rex’s cover to the two of them and was the first to open the door and flee into the back room.

My control of the crimson crystals was already shaky enough. Trying to support Rex, caught in a bloody melee with the spiders, could easily lead to a mistake, a tragic accident where Rex became collateral damage.

“Hurry!”

At my signal, Lir gathered her lightning-spewing staff and darted towards the door where I stood.

“I, I’m here!”

She pressed herself against the wall beside the doorway, calling out to Trian, who then started to run towards the room we were in.

Lir, already inside and in position, continued to provide covering fire for Rex.

Soon after, Trian managed to conceal himself behind the doorframe. He immediately notched an arrow and shouted loudly.

“Run, Rex!”

Rex, locked in a grueling fight with the spiders, turned and charged towards us the instant he heard Trian’s cry.

The spiders Rex had been holding back stretched their legs toward the escaping prey before them, but each time, Lir’s bolts and Trian’s arrows halted them.

Rex practically tumbled into the room, immediately pressing his back against the wall, ready for the battle to resume.

Lir and Trian, the moment Rex was inside, ceased their covering fire and spread to opposite ends of the room, preparing to focus their firepower on the entrance.

*Thump!*

Two enormous spiders slammed against the wall almost simultaneously. They were shoving their legs and heads through the doorway, each vying to be the first inside.

“Haaah…!”

Rex, clearly exhausted, inhaled deeply and then once more raised his axe high.

As if a condemned man with his head on the block, Rex’s axe blade swung down toward the green spider that brazenly exposed its nape. The green spider’s head arced through the air.

The second spider, which had only extended its legs into the room, pushed aside the corpse of the green spider, forcing its body through the gap in the doorway.

*Clank!*

The sound of gears meshing. Rex, having severed the green spider’s head, immediately retreated, moving out of the line of fire.

*Whoosh!*

The sound of burning air echoed in his ears. A dark red line pierced straight through the spider’s head, incinerating its chest and abdomen from the inside out.

With the spider’s torso wedged in the doorway, even with clumsy aim, there was no problem striking a vital spot.

The second spider, too, soon became a corpse and sprawled on the floor. Only then could we catch our breath.

“It’s over, righ…?”

I nearly fainted and collapsed on the spot.

Breath.

Finally, a chance to regain this damned breath.

Ah.

The world began to fade to black.

The price for driving my cursed flesh so relentlessly had come due.