Live Dungeon!

[I knew it. Even in this world, Boost-Cancel really brings out the best in a Dualblader. Hell, it’s probably even more useful here than it was in the game.]

As unconventional as it was by this world’s standards, the maneuver known as Boost-Cancel was a must-have technique for any Dualblader in Live Dungeon. By activating [ at just the right moment, a player could cancel recovery animations, from attack follow-throughs to even the sluggish motion of reviving from a knockdown. Whether one could do the Boost-Cancel correctly or not made a night-and-day difference in the speed and flow of combat.

At first, Amy had not used it much. She found the jerky, jittery movements ‘uncute’ and had voiced her disapproval more than once. But recently, she had begun to see its potential. Her movements had grown increasingly refined, so much so that one would think she was another Live Dungeon player being transported to this world.

[If she ever breaks into the Boost Dance, I might just cry…]

The Boost Dance – a flashy, high-speed sequence where repeated Boost-Cancels left trails of white smoke. This was something of a post-raid tradition among victorious players. Tsutomu chuckled at the memory even as he cast a round of support and healing on Amy, who was now fending off another blood-red clone, this one modeled after Garm.

Unlike Amira, whose approach to anti-personnel combat was to cut through the flesh to break the bone, Amy was more cautious and analytical. She watched her opponent carefully, striking only when a clear opening revealed itself. That made her the perfect match for blood clones, minimizing the damage she took while being just as effective at destroying her target.

“DIE!”

She had observed the previous battle between Amira and Daryl’s clone, and understood the blood clones’ mechanics: blunt attacks barely fazed it, but cuts were effective, especially when they triggered bleeding. And Amy’s dual blades excelled at exactly that.

On top of that, this particular clone’s resemblance to Garm only seemed to fuel Amy’s bloodlust. Her strikes were precise, deliberate, slipping beneath the clone’s towering frame and slicing into the base of its thigh with surgical ease. It was almost as if she had trained specifically to take on these foes.

[The clone’s no longer an issue. Garm and Daryl are adapting to the blood weapons, and the organ destruction is proceeding well. If things keep going like this, the rest should fall into place too…]

If he were to judge it based on the BFG’s raid mechanics, their current performance was near flawless. With the liver fully destroyed, they had avoided the worst-case scenario of a long, dragged-out fight against an endlessly self-healing enemy. Now, with each additional organ taken out, the Corroded Elder Dragon’s strength would further decline. Once the brain regenerated, they would have the luxury of focusing all fire on it and finishing it off before it could ignore aggro and target the Healer.

But even with everything proceeding smoothly, Tsutomu could not shake off a deep-seated unease. And he would be right to not be complacent, considering his experience with the Corrupted Shell and the sudden addition of an instant-death mechanic into its arsenal.

The Corrupted Shell fight had revolved around petrification; the entire battle concept was built on managing how much of it each party member accrued. Heal too frequently, and the Healer would gain too much aggro. Delay too long, and the petrification would spread too far, hampering combat. That balance made Healers who could manage petrification indispensable, and Tanks or Attackers who could avoid petrifying hits especially valuable. It was a mechanic that even the developers seemed to encourage.

But the version of the Corrupted Shell that existed in this world had added a new, game-breaking twist: a surprise attack that would instantly kill anyone with even the slightest progress in their petrification build-up. A classic ‘first-timer kill’ mechanic. Sure, adding a reverse-constraint mechanic was not inherently bad, but the severity of this one had left Tsutomu indignant.

[If the same sick bastard who added that garbage to the Corrupted Shell is behind the Corroded Elder Dragon… there’s no way it ends with just this.]

No one knew who or what was responsible for creating the monsters of the God’s Dungeon. But if the same entity had designed both the Corrupted Shell and the Corroded Elder Dragon, it was hard to believe they would stop at merely importing raid mechanics and tossing in some mild tweaks and a couple of blood clones.

“Hah…”

Tsutomu’s sigh slipped out before he realized it. It carried not just frustration, like someone seeing a classical masterpiece being ruined by a thoughtless ‘restoration’, but also a deeper unease. Surprised by how natural it had felt to let that sigh go, he quickly masked his expression and focused on Amy, who had just forced Garm’s clone to bleed out and vanish. He sent her another [.

The blood clones kept reappearing at steady intervals, but Amy and Amira took turns dealing with them, keeping their pressure up. One by one, the organs fell. After the liver came the stomach, and then the lungs. With those destroyed, the Elder Dragon could no longer consume Explorers to heal or absorb abilities. Without functioning lungs, its blood weapons, once terrifyingly fast, vanished altogether.

That shift in battle flow lightened the Tanks’ burden significantly. Garm now had enough breathing room to maintain aggro through offensive strikes, and Tsutomu, relieved of constant support duties, could set up defensive [ without dipping into his stock of Blue Potions. For a while, everything progressed smoothly, with the monster’s organs falling in turn.

“…? What’s this…?”

The first to sense the change was Garm, who had been locked in melee with the Dragon. The blood weapons’ stench, already pungent, had grown thicker and fouler, almost suffocatingly so. And while the weapons had felt rock-hard just moments ago, they now struck with an oddly dulled edge.

“Tsutomu!”

“Something’s not right!”

Amy, locked in her own fight with a blood clone, noticed something as well. The resistance against her blades felt softer, and the blood looked darker than before. She opened her mouth to report it, only to speak at the exact same moment as Garm. Then the arena fell momentarily silent.

The two of them paused for just a second, then spoke almost in unison,

“The blood weapons feel… off. And the smell is overwhelming now.”

“I think the blood’s turning blackish! And it feels gross, kinda like cutting through jelly!”

Tsutomu listened, eyes narrowing, and gave his orders with a measured tone.

“Got it. Sounds like it’s dishing out another new attack. Both of you, play it safe and pull back a bit.”

Then, popping a Blue Potion into his mouth, he braced himself for whatever was coming next.

[So the blood’s changing color, and the stench is intensifying. Is the Corroded Elder Dragon reverting to its original form? If so, Holy-element attacks might finally work. That would be ideal. Undead types flinch hard from those. But it probably comes with another hidden kill switch. If it’s a new mechanic, we can treat the first casualty as a test and revive them right away. With current aggro levels, I can probably manage a four-person resurrection, too…]

From his rearward position, Tsutomu could not confirm the change with his own eyes, but he trusted Garm and Amy’s assessments. He reviewed the facts, weighed the risks, and mentally plotted out his response.

It was precisely because Tsutomu had anticipated another sudden-death trap akin to the Corrupted Shell that he had played it safe until now, avoiding any reckless accumulation of aggro and focusing on steady support. He had committed to the high-risk strategy of quickly destroying the monster’s organs, and thanks to Garm and Amy’s performance on the front lines, he’d been able to stay in the background, preparing [ for himself as a final safeguard. He left nothing to chance when it came to the unknown.

“…Something’s off. I can feel it,” Amira muttered as she wiped the blood from her greatsword with a cloth, trying to maintain its cutting edge.

A sinister presence, the kind only high-tier undead monsters could exude, clung to the air. The red heart that had once radiated with life now darkened rapidly, its glow sinking into a sickly blackness. The other organs followed, dimming one by one as though life itself were being drained from them. The bones, previously fresh as though the flesh had just been stripped away, seemed to turn dry as they exuded a miasma of decay.

As the two frontliners had warned, the blood that once coursed through the Dragon’s body turned pitch black, thick and sludgy like waste oil. The same transformation overtook the floating blood weapons and the clone bearing Garm’s likeness. Recognizing the danger, Amy and Garm immediately shifted to evasive tactics.

“Ngh…!”

Unlike Amy, for whom dodging was easily manageable, Garm found it impossible to avoid the dozens of incoming blood weapons at once. A blackened spear hurtled toward him from the side, as if anticipating where he had stepped to evade another. He braced himself, raising his tower shield to intercept…

“[!”

A shaft of white light lanced through the air and struck the spear mid-flight, dissolving it before impact. Tsutomu had already guessed that the Corroded Elder Dragon was reverting to its original form and cast [ to counter the corrupted blood weapon.

“Daryl, change into this equipment and swap in! Garm, anything you can’t dodge, I’ll deal with! Just hold the line as best you can!”

Plunging his left hand into the Magic Bag, Tsutomu pulled out Daryl’s gear and dropped it to the floor. At the same time, he sent another blast of [ to intercept a weapon trailing Garm, then gestured for Amira to help with the equipment change. A white greatsword, newly forged by the Dorren Workshop and imbued with the Holy element, was dropped next.

“Sorry! I’ll need your help with this!”

“Tch… What a pain,” Amira grumbled, but didn’t hesitate. She understood that heavy armor took time to put on solo.

The armor in question was jet black, imbued with the Dark element, obtained from one of the Light and Darkness layers’ treasure chests. Holy and Dark were mutually weak to each other, so against the current state of the Corroded Elder Dragon, Holy weapons were ideal for offense, while Dark armor offered the best defense. Until now, they’d prioritized physical durability against a monster with no elemental properties. But with the creature’s grotesque transformation, Tsutomu had made the call to switch gears.

“…Huh!?”

Just as he turned to issue Amy a command to retreat, a surprised cry rang out.

He spun around. Amy, a short distance away from the main formation, was still engaging one of the clones, whose right half had suddenly ballooned outward, as if bubbling up from within.

“Get back!”

Seeing the inflation threatening to rupture at any moment, Tsutomu promptly cast a layer [ between her and the clone to shield her from the blast… but he was a heartbeat too late.

The clone exploded in a spray of tainted blood. Shards of congealed gore scattered like shrapnel from a grenade. While Tsutomu and the others were far enough to avoid serious injury, Amy, being right at the blast’s edge, took the full brunt of it.

Her body collapsed to the ground, pocked with dark fragments. The light had already vanished from her eyes.

[At least the clone is also gone, but God dammit, that was brutal…]

Even as he saw the faint remnants of light leaking from Amy’s body, Tsutomu calmly turned back to supporting Garm. [ continued to fly from his staff, striking down blood weapons one after another.

Ideally, they just needed to hold out until Daryl finished changing his equipment, so the clone not recovering from its self-destruct attack was at least a silver lining.

Besides, he had always planned for the worst. That was the reason he had avoided drawing attention until now was to ensure that, if something like this happened, he could act without hesitation. One casualty was manageable.

“I’m changed and ready!”

“All right, swap in for Garm! Your armor should protect you from the worst of it, but stay sharp. [!” Tsutomu lifted his staff, preparing the resurrection skill, but… “Huh?”

But something was wrong.

The usual fireworks-like light show did not appear, nor did he feel the familiar drain of mental energy that came with casting [.

He was sure he had seen the light leave Amy’s body; she should have already been dead. Still, sometimes the signal appeared in a tiny window of time before the actual death. He turned his eyes toward her and prepared to cast [, but then…

Amy was standing.

“……”

She staggered to her feet, her eyes glassy and vacant. Due to the explosion she had taken, her low-VIT body looked as though it had been torn apart and reassembled by a butcher. The most horrifying wound was the gaping hole in her skull, deep enough to glimpse the far side of the arena through it.

The blood shrapnels had pierced her brain. That should have been fatal. Her body should have vanished already.

A hundred thoughts raced through Tsutomu’s mind before all converged into one chilling realization the moment she took a step forward.

“Daryl! Pull aggro–”

“[…”

Before Tsutomu could complete his sentence, Amy’s corpse used a skill, instantly closing the distance to him. He stared wide-eyed and reflexively jumped back, but she ran past him towards Garm, who already had his plate full dealing with the blood weapons.

“…No! Daryl! Pull aggro off Amy! I think she’s turned into a monster!”

“W-what!?”

As Daryl stood frozen, stunned momentarily by the sudden turn of events, Amy showed no mercy, jumping right in front of Garm.

“Tch…!”

Garm barely raised his shield in time to intercept a dual-blade strike aimed at his neck. But Amy followed through with a spinning kick; though it didn’t deal much damage, the force of it was enough to send him flying backward.

Just as he hit the ground, a monstrous hammer forged of blackened blood descended upon him. The moment it touched Garm’s head, its surface twisted open like a blooming flower… and bit down.

For a moment, Garm’s limbs flailed. Then the hammer, as if being sucked in, disappeared into his body. A pulse of light signaled his death. His body twitched a few times midair, then fell to the ground. As it landed, the floating blood weapons scattered throughout the field withered away, crumbling like rotted leaves.

“Hahaha… What the hell, man…”

Garm rose with jerky, unnatural movements. His eyes no longer held any glimmer of sanity.

And seeing that, Tsutomu let out a hollow laugh, far too calm for a battlefield that had just tipped into a nightmare.