Live Dungeon!

Tsutomu and his party finally reached the Black Gate that connected the ninety-ninth layer to the hundredth. After one last round of strategy checks, they opened the gate. Garm led the way through, followed in turn by the rest of the group. Only Tsutomu remained behind, lingering at the threshold. He drew a deep breath… then stepped forward at last.

On the other side, four figures stood with their eyes turned upward, scanning the leaden sky, anticipating that the boss monster would descend from above. Their calm presence gave Tsutomu a small measure of relief. As the others remained alert, he checked over his gear and Potions, going through the mental checklist he’d rehearsed countless times.

[Compared to what I had back then, this gear feels downright flimsy…] he thought.

Indeed, his current equipment was nowhere near as impressive as what he’d worn coming into this world. But those pieces had been forged from materials looted off the Corroded Elder Dragon and maxed out to the limit; wearing them into the hundredth layer would be outright cheating by game standards. Now, his set was a hybrid configuration, incorporating components from the Light and Darkness layers as well as the Ancient Castle. Altogether, it was more than sufficient to face the challenges ahead. And in terms of tools and support items, which hadn’t even existed in Live Dungeon, he wasn’t lacking in the slightest.

[More importantly… I’m not alone this time. And it’s not an unwinnable fight.]

Overhead, the silhouette of the Corroded Elder Dragon began its descent. Tsutomu promptly casts support skills toward Garm, Amy, and Amira. As the others moved into formation, he positioned himself near Daryl, who was nervously waiting in place. Seeing how Daryl’s black-furred tail was twitching with unease, Tsutomu gave his shoulder a reassuring pat.

”First, take a breath and just watch Garm. Learn from how he reacts to the attacks. And even if something goes wrong, your VIT’s high enough that you won’t die easily. There’s no need to worry so much.”

”…Do I really look that nervous?”

”You sure do.”

Tsutomu’s gaze dropped meaningfully to the tail poking out through the gap in Daryl’s armor. Daryl followed his eyes, then glared in protest.

”I don’t think it’s fair to judge based on my tail alone…”

”Oh, I don’t judge every Cynokin by their tails… But look at Garm. He keeps a straight face no matter what, so his ears or tail usually give him away. And you, well, you’re just easy to read.”

”You’re so sneaky, Sir Tsutomu. You always hide how you feel.”

”Hey, I was born with this face. I never actively try to hide anything,” Tsutomu replied, feigning innocence.

The casual exchange served to loosen the tension a little. With Daryl momentarily distracted, Tsutomu turned his attention back to the Corroded Elder Dragon. A dark mist obscured the air as veins of blood spread through its chest, sketching out the shape of a monstrous, coiled organ; it had already begun regrowing its heart. A spear of blood, homing in on aggro, shot toward Garm.

”…”

Garm met it head-on. His feet rooted firmly to the ground, he raised his tower shield and shattered the blood spear into a spray of crimson. Floating mid-air using [ would have made it harder to absorb the impact. He could’ve been knocked off balance but standing on solid ground gave him a clear advantage.

Reading the battle through his sharp eyes and twitching ears, Garm weathered the storm of blood-forged weapons with calculated precision. As his time as a security guard meant his combat senses were tailored toward anti-personnel combat, the attacks hardly fazed him even when they came from every direction at once.

Once Tsutomu had confirmed the frontline was holding steady, he turned toward Amira, who stood with her eyes closed, taking deep, steady breaths.

”Amira, how are you holding up?”

”If I were the Ancient Dragon, I might’ve pissed myself,” she muttered. ”But I’m good. This thing’s not even as scary as the Devourer Dragon anyway.”

As a Dragonewt Deity, one of the lineages closest to true Dragons, Amira was especially sensitive to the aura of powerful draconic beings. But having already witnessed the rampaging, over-tuned Devourer Dragon, this encounter seemed to leave her only mildly shaken.

”I’m fine too!” Amy chimed in, raising a hand.

”Good. Then let’s move as planned. [!”

A green glow struck the blood-clotted mass in the Corroded Elder Dragon’s core; Tsutomu was accelerating the regenerating process of its heart. In moments, a fully-formed heart pulsed within the beast’s ribcage. That was Amira and Amy’s cue as they charged forward with weapons drawn.

”We just chop it up for now, right?” Amira shouted.

”The liver’s the one we really need to take out, so don’t overdo it on the warm-up!” Tsutomu called back.

”Tch… can’t wait to transform already.”

Still uneasy in her base form, Amira muttered under her breath. She wanted to push down the fear still lingering in the back of her mind. [ would let her mask it, albeit by throwing off her mind and making her drunk on the rush of power. But then she glanced over her shoulder at Tsutomu and, finding him steady and focused, cracked a smile of her own. With renewed resolve, she gripped her greatsword tighter.

”ORAAAAAA!”

With a battle cry loud enough to shake the air, Amira delivered the first blow. At her side, Amy hung back slightly, eyes locked on the still-beating heart. Korinna had shared key information about its structure; she focused on confirming that for now, so she could figure out how best to strike and where.

[So even the healing mechanics are the same as the BFG’s.] Tsutomu thought.

By deliberately restoring the heart first, Tsutomu had ensured they could test the monster’s mechanics quickly. And what he saw confirmed his hopes: the patterns of regeneration, the organ hierarchy, the timing for breaking and healing… much of it could be extrapolated from his knowledge about Live Dungeon. The layer boss here wasn’t the exact same as the BFG, the Raid Boss… but the battlefield rules were still familiar.

All things considered, the liver was the top priority. Among the Corroded Elder Dragon’s many organs, the liver not only enhanced its regeneration rate but also granted it immunity to numerous status effects. One could say it functioned as the creature’s Healer. Just as the Corroded Elder Dragon had immediately targeted Korinna the moment it regenerated its brain, their first objective was equally clear: destroy the liver.

All organs, once destroyed, would be regenerated as the creature’s black blood pooled back together, but that would only happen once. If they were destroyed a second time, their function ceased permanently. The goal was to whittle the Dragon down piece by piece, weakening it as much as possible before it regained its full, pre-death form. That was the key to defeating the BFG in Live Dungeon, and judging from what Tsutomu had seen so far, the Corroded Elder Dragon had inherited much of its mechanics.

The trick was destroying the critical organs as quickly and efficiently as possible. In Live Dungeon, it had never been possible to destroy every organ due to their total durability exceeding the BFG’s HP. Instead, players developed a variety of strategies, some focusing on the reliable liver-and-intestine pattern, and others gambling everything on a full burst to the heart.

[We’ll go with the stable route.] Tsutomu thought.

That meant the liver would always be the top priority, followed by either the stomach or the intestines. The stomach and intestines were a set, with their combined effect significantly enhancing the Dragon’s overall performance. Fighting it in a fully restored state would be suicidal unless at least one of the two was eliminated.

The stomach, though easier to destroy, released acidic bile when damaged, while the intestines were incredibly long, resilient, and time-consuming to break down.

[The intestines will probably do. In the meantime, Amira should be able to make up for the reduced damage output. We’ll assess again after seeing how it goes.]

The intestines were an especially troublesome target. It was long and durable, broken into complex sections like the small intestine, duodenum, jejunum, and large intestine. In the BFG raid, few players liked targeting them; many preferred the more visceral thrill of bursting the stomach, dangerous though it was. Even Tsutomu had once enjoyed healing Tanks who would literally start melting from the acid splash.

[But this isn’t just a scaled-down version of the BFG,] he reminded himself. [If that were the case, it wouldn’t have the corrosive breath. Which means we might need to target the lungs, too. There’s also the possibility of other organs like the pancreas or bladder doing something unexpected, even though they were pretty much useless in Live Dungeon… Well, I guess we’ll just have to respond on the fly.]

There was no telling what might happen. It was possible the Corroded Elder Dragon’s undead nature had created new mechanics altogether. Perhaps it got some twisted additions like those of the Corrupted Shell, complete with borderline unfair attack patterns that made one want to scream. Thinking too far ahead was liable to give him a headache. Best to respond to each situation as it came.

If this had been Live Dungeon, Tsutomu might’ve been grinning ear to ear while playing support. But this wasn’t a game anymore; he could die here. And worse, he’d already been killed by this monster once before. The memories surged back unbidden, flooding his chest with bile. The feeling of being melted alive was not one he ever wished to experience again.

Even so, Tsutomu had not cracked under the weight of that fear, nor had he lost himself to panic. That was thanks to two things: the knowledge that they still had a chance to win, and the presence of teammates he could rely on.

There was Garm, his exceptional Tanking enabling him to shrug off the Dragon’s blood-forged weapons without so much as a flinch. Amy, who now dug into the regenerating heart with her dual blades, showed that she fully understood what Tsutomu envisioned in a top-tier Attacker. Amira, their highest damage dealer, could be relied upon to deliver heavy hits when it counted. And Daryl, the Heavy Knight, had the highest VIT in the party; he wouldn’t fall easily.

Tsutomu trusted the abilities of his four companions. Which was why, even under more pressure than usual, he carried out his job with his usual precision. His healing was perfectly stable, his timing immaculate. Each support skill landed exactly where and when it was needed.

[There’s the liver… It’s got to go before anything.]

Black blood began to gather in the creature’s abdomen, indicating the liver was regenerating.

Spotting this, Tsutomu immediately instructed Daryl to swap in for Garm at the front. Then, without hesitation, he pointed his staff at the Corroded Elder Dragon and cast [.