Chapter 4: The Boss

Having used up all of his two-day holiday and even working overtime for several days, Paul was in a state of utter disarray by the time he finally reached the 7th floor where the boss was.

The potions he carried, which were few to begin with, were already running low, and how many times had he died?

The amount of level he lost was similar to the experience he gained from killing monsters, so sadly, his level hadn’t changed a bit compared to when he first entered the dungeon.

It was at least helpful for his skill proficiency, but whether he should be happy about that or not…

“Hoo…”

Paul let out a sigh that could make the ground sink.

The weapon he had barely been maintaining with the [Shoddy Repair] skill a few times now had its durability hit rock bottom, to the point where it couldn’t be fixed by repairs anymore.

It was so precarious that it seemed like it would shatter with the slightest impact.

If he hadn’t had other weapons he carried as spares and the [Worn-out Sword], [Worn-out Bow], and [Worn-out Wand] that dropped from the dungeon in between, he might have given up and gone back.

“I’m never coming back.”

Paul roughly brushed back his messy hair with a scowl.

Of course, the condition of his other equipment besides his weapon was similar.

The durability of all the armor and clothes he wore had hit rock bottom, and how realistic it was, the rips and tears were reflected as they were, making his appearance even more shabby.

Paul counted the number of arrows left in his quiver.

Even though he had shot his arrows calculatingly, there were only about 10 arrows left now.

As a main bow user, he always kept his arrows fully stocked, but his inventory was now quite empty.

‘If I ever come here again, I’m a dog, a dog!’

But at this point, he couldn’t return to the village even out of spite.

‘I’m going to see the boss, no matter what!’

It was thanks to him being a jack-of-all-trades that he could use various weapons and their corresponding basic skills to get this far.

When Paul was low on arrows, he picked up a sword, and when the sword was on its last legs, he took out a wand.

When magic didn’t work, he picked up a sword again, and sometimes, he took out a spear.

All the skills he used were basic skills that could be learned as a taster when selecting a job, so they had no impressive impact and didn’t look cool, and of course, their attack power wasn’t that high either.

They were just better than a normal attack.

But he finally made it here.

“…”

Paul stood in front of a huge, jet-black door.

It was so huge that it could be mistaken for a wall at first glance.

But he raised his hand to push the door and stopped for a moment.

‘Wait, something’s strange? The boss here… didn’t they say I’d face it as soon as I reached the 7th floor?’

‘Was there any story about having to enter a room like this?’

Paul felt uneasy and took his hand off the door, tilting his head.

He was sure that in the post he had read, the boss was a knight in black armor riding a headless black horse.

He even remembered reading a line that said it was a pre-emptive mob that stood in the middle of the open 7th-floor square and attacked as soon as the player reached the 7th floor, which was a surprise.

“Then what is this?”

He scratched his head with a look of confusion, glancing once at the huge jet-black door in front of him, and once at the empty square he had just passed through behind him.

‘Well, does it matter?’

But he soon dismissed it as unimportant.

He had been clinging to the game for the past few days, and even though he didn’t say it, his mind and body were quite exhausted.

So right now, as long as he could see the face of the boss monster that had caused him all this trouble, it didn’t matter if its appearance location was the middle of the square or behind that firmly closed door.

Paul placed his hand on the door again.

Click, creak…

At the same time, with the sound of the firmly locked lock unlocking on its own, the heavy door began to open slowly with a chilling friction sound.

And the next moment, Paul felt his breath stop.

His face, which had been frowning in annoyance, was instantly colored with surprise.

His already large, round eyes opened even wider.

[…]

The being that seemed to be the boss of this dungeon was sitting languidly on a throne with a noble posture, and the sight of it lifting its head was engraved in his eyes slowly, as if in slow motion.

“!”

When Paul didn’t move from the doorway, the boss monster slowly rose from the throne and began to approach him, who was standing there blankly.

Swish, swish. Clank, clank…

Instead of footsteps, the sound of cloth dragging and for some reason, the sound of metal clashing broke the quiet silence.

When there were only about ten steps left between ‘it’ and Paul, Paul let out the breath he had been holding.

“Wow.”

At that moment, Paul was sure he had fallen in love.

And he died.

Your friend, the system <Noah>, regularly checks the player’s biological signals for a comfortable play experience.

Accordingly, if an unusual abnormality is detected in the player’s body during play, an emergency logout will be implemented under the judgment of <Noah>.

We hope you always have a safe and healthy <Arcana Chronicles>!

Click!

With the sound of the lock being released, the door of the token opened.

“Wow.”

Paul… no, ‘Nam Han Gyeol’, who unconsciously let out a word of admiration, had a dazed look on his face.

As if to remind him that this was reality, his very familiar room appeared before his eyes, but Nam Han Gyeol’s mind was still elsewhere.

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

He kept muttering to himself, not knowing what to do.

Nam Han Gyeol had been forcibly logged out as soon as the boss monster killed him.

The reason was very simple.

Upon seeing the boss monster, his heart had fluttered uncontrollably, and Noah had forcibly logged him out due to the subsequent death!

It seems that even death in a game affects the mind to some extent.

Because of that, many people were still afraid of dying in the game.

He had heard that there were cases of forced logouts like this occasionally, but this was the first time he had experienced it.

Well, in this case, it seemed to be a judgment made by adding the shock of death to the fact that his heartbeat was faster than usual.

Anyway, Nam Han Gyeol slapped his cheeks with both hands with a ‘smack’ sound.

It was a habit of his that came out when he couldn’t control his emotions because he was so happy.

It was meant to snap him back to his senses with a jolt of shock, but even that was of no use today.

‘How can it be so cool? I can’t calm down!’

Rubbing his flushed cheeks, Nam Han Gyeol tried to calm his excited heart.

“Totally amazing, how did they make the character customization so well?”

Muttering something that was either a lament or something else, Nam Han Gyeol held his slightly aching cheeks with his hands and kept replaying the situation from a little while ago.

The moment he died, what he thought was, ‘The attack motion is amazing too.’

That indifferent yet quiet movement…!

Such fast body movements that he couldn’t even understand how he died for a moment.

The strange sense of languor he felt from its slow footsteps as it approached him.

The thick, large joints of the hand that reached out to him, the purple eyes that stared straight at him, just wouldn’t disappear from his mind.

That’s right, Nam Han Gyeol had fallen in love with the boss monster at first sight.

“…What was its name, its name…?”

‘Is this what love at first sight is?’

Nam Han Gyeol rushed out of the token in a hurry, but his toe got caught in a gap and he fell flat on the floor.

Thud!

“Aaaah…”

He saw hell for a moment.

His toe hurt, but the chin he hit when he fell also hurt like crazy.

Tears welled up from the tremendous pain, but was being in pain a big deal right now!

He had to search.

Search!

Nam Han Gyeol jumped up and found his personal PC.

…In fact, he could have accessed the internet with the token, but he had completely forgotten in his panic.

Nam Han Gyeol, who hurriedly turned on the PC, sat cross-legged on the chair and tapped his fingers.

Tap tap tap.

Hasn’t everyone experienced something like that at least once?

A moment when an NPC you happened to meet in a game is excessively to your taste.

Hasn’t everyone had a time when they had no choice but to keep playing a terribly boring game because of that NPC?

…Of course, it was a dungeon’s boss monster, but you can like a boss monster if it’s cool!

Tap tap tap, tap tap tap!

“What?”

The first place Nam Han Gyeol looked for information was, of course, the official free bulletin board of <Arcana Chronicles>.

He had simply thought that he could find most of the publicly known game information there, and that it would be the same this time.

“…Why isn’t it showing up? What is it?”

But it seemed it wasn’t something that could be easily solved as he thought.

Nam Han Gyeol stared at the screen seriously with his lips pouted like a duck’s beak.

His upper body was leaning forward as if trying to go through the screen without him realizing it.

He stared at it for a long time, but just staring wouldn’t make something that wasn’t there appear.

Nam Han Gyeol pouted his lips and searched again.

First, he started with information about Flora’s Underground Labyrinth, and then he kept searching by typing in any keywords he could think of, such as underground labyrinth, Flora’s Underground Labyrinth, underground labyrinth boss, underground labyrinth boss monster, masked boss monster… etc.