I was hard at work on my new magical circles that had a limiter in them to limit how much mana they could absorb because it would be a problem with my knives absorbing the magical shards in the monsters, leaving nothing for me after they died.
During the last week, I went to Kinwall to pick up the knives that he fixed and the new ones that he made, which included a new holster that could hold a lot of throwing knives.
He also gave me Mila’s magical engraver to deliver to her since I was going to her after him to pick up the engraved knives she was engraving, let her check on my new magical circle design, and give her more knives to engrave.
I was fixing up the designs for the new magical circle that Mila looked over, till I heard a knock on the door.
I grew suspicious of who it was because it might be someone after me, but once I heard the voice, my suspicions went down.
“Hi, it's me; it’s Alice, and Wendy is also here.”
Putting my pencil down on the table, I open the door to greet them.
“Hello, what brings you here?”
Alice looked a bit surprised by how messy and cluttered my room was, which, if I were still a noble lady, would be very unbecoming of me, so I said.
“Oh, excuse the mess; I haven’t had time to clean up.”
“Right… The reason I came is that I was wondering if you would come fight the 20th-floor boss with us.”
“20th floor boss?”
“Yes, we have been trying to take it down for the last few days now and failed every time.”
Why are they fighting the 20th-floor boss? I asked why, and Alice responded with.
“Well…”
Alice said a day after I suggested to Maria to do business in the village on the 19th floor, she just did that, saying that she really needed a lot of money for some reason, so they went to the village to do just that.
While Maria was in the village, Alice was with everyone on the 19th floor, and she caught up surprisingly fast with everyone, except for the physical part since it takes time to build up strength and endurance.
Hearing that, I kind of expected Alice would catch up quickly since she was part of Alex’s party; after all, Alex is the main protagonist and all.
Going on, since the orc incident happened where there was an unlucky amount of orcs that attacked us, they found that Alice was more suited to be the tactician of the party.
As they were in the second stratum all day, Wendy, Lucia, and even Maria wanted to fight the 20th-floor boss.
Wendy because it would be fun; Lucia because she wanted to test her magic with a challenge; and Maria wanted to get some materials on the third stratum.
Alex, seeing that they wanted to fight it and no one objected, thought, Why not?
However, it did not end so well because they got their buts kicked multiple times.
They tried different tactics and bought better gear from Kinwall, which they could afford with how much money Maria had made.
“Oh, that is why you got new gear and Wendy even got the halberd she wanted.”
“Yeah.”
Continuing on, Alice said that they were doing some errands to pick up supplies for Maria with her alchemy and thought it would be a good idea to ask for my help defeating the 20th-floor boss.
After hearing her request, I said.
“I see, give me a minute, and I’ll be ready outside.”
Alice thanks me and walks outside to wait. I look at Wendy, who is silent the whole time, if not meek, with her tail tucked behind her legs and ears down like a scared animal for some reason.
Honestly, I did not expect today I would be fighting the 20th-floor boss who was an owlbear. Thinking about it made me grin because this would be the strongest monster I would fight yet and would be a great change of pace after being mostly cooped up in my room for a whole week.
For some reason, I noticed Wendy was turning pale and was on the verge of tears, with her legs shaking like crazy.
Hearing Alice call for her to come down, Wendy slowly moved away from me till she was out of my sight and ran out of the inn.
Grabbing my gear, including my new holster, which was a belt that could hold a lot of knives on it, 10 in total, 4 of them being engraved—I went outside where Alice and Wendy were waiting, and we went to the dungeon together.
Going inside was relatively uneventful because Wendy stopped being meek and insisted with great determination that she would handle it like a battle maniac. Oh right, she is the meathead of the party. I kind of forgot she was like that because of how different she was acting when I first met her.
On the 10th floor, I used the bypass ring for the first time because I wanted to save my strength to fight the 20th-floor boss, which would be even harder than the 10th-floor boss, and so I could maximize the amount of fun I was going to get.
At the village, we enter the village, and Alice leads us to everyone, which is a building that looks to be a small house.
I asked Alice why we stopped in front of this house.
“Yeah, sorry, I forgot to tell you, but Maria is renting it out.”
“Really?”
Nodding yes.
“Your suggestion for Maria to do business down here was surprisingly successful, to the point that Maria managed to get enough money to rent a house.”
“Huh…”
That is actually surprising because I thought it would make a quick buck or two, but how did she manage to get this much?
Alice opened the door with a key and let me inside. Going in, they were surprised to see me.
Lucia shouted first with her usual tsundere self and pointed her finger at me.
“What are you doing here?!”
Alice had a wry smile and said.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Sorry, but we need all the help we can get if we want to fight the 20th-floor boss.”
"No, we don’t need him here; we can do it ourselves.”
“We’ve tried other options, but we need the extra help, so please let him help us.”
After a bit of a back and forth, Lucia finally said fine, then said
“Don’t forget that you’re not going to run away from our duel like last time; I’m not letting it happen after this.”
After she said it, she was back to the silent treatment again.
Oh right, I kind of forgot about it. Well, this day got even better; I got to fight the 20th-floor boss and Lucia.
I looked at everyone, and Alex looked like he was about to scream in terror. I don’t really know what that was all about; maybe the owlbear really traumatized him.
Seeing them, I saw that Maria and Chelsie were not there, so I asked Alice, and she said.
“There in another room, Chelsie is helping Maria with her alchemy.”
“Oh, I see.”
Alice told me the room where Chelsie and Maria were.
I knocked on the door and told them it was me.
Opening the door, Maria said hi, and looking inside the room, I saw Chelsie putting some ingredients into a small cauldron. I said hi to her, and she said hi back.
“I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Yeah, Alice brought me here to help you with the boss fight.”
Maria had a bright smile and said.
"Oh, thanks; thank you for always helping us; just give us a minute to get ready.”
After a minute or two, Maria and Chelsie came out, wearing their adventuring gear and equipment, which looked new and better than the ones she had before.
We left the building Maria was renting, and on the way out of the village, some of the adventurers began talking to Maria as if she were very well known around here.
“Hey Maria, when is the next batch of health potions coming out?”
“How is my order coming along?”
“Why don’t we have a contract?”
Maria responds to all of them.
“In a day or two, if things go well, Tobias. I haven’t started with it yet, so a couple of days, Jack. And, no again, Vanessa, I can’t do a contract with your party; I’m already busy enough with my workload right now.”
It was like this when we were leaving the village, where I was surprised by how many connections Maria had made in a couple of days, especially to the season and veteran adventurers.
Outside the village, it was not that far of a walk to get to the 20th-floor boss room, around 10 minutes to get there.
Standing in front of a big black metal door, Alex and Wendy looked really scared, but instead of looking at the door, they were looking at me for some reason.
Chelsie looked to be her normal composed self; Alice looked determined, and so did Lucia, who looked the most determined out of all of us.
However, it left us with Maria, who was beginning to act very differently when we were walking here and even more so at the boss room doors.
“Hee Hee Hee”
She was giggling to herself with a smile, but it wasn’t a normal smile because, looking at her eyes, I felt like there was some madness in them.
I was quite concerned, to be honest, because it is almost like she has another side to her like I’m seeing the signs of a mad scientist character in video games.
Either way, Alex reluctantly opened the pair of doors, and we went inside, seemingly not perturbed by her behavior but by something else.
Inside, it was very different from the 10th-floor boss room. The room looks like a massive hollow-out tree with vines covering the walls.
At the center, there was a tree of some sort, and from the Dradevow dungeon book, it’s where the Owlbear spawned in. Additionally, it wasn’t just the Owlbear we were facing but six blood owls who acted as its minions.
Vines on the tree in the center started moving. I and everyone else readied to fight but weren’t too surprised because everyone had faced it before, and I already knew everything from reading the Dradevow dungeon book.
However, seeing it spawn for the first time was quite an interesting sight because the vines were gathering together from the trees and began tangling into a big, menacing thing.
It formed into a bear with the head of an owl around 3 meters in size, then the vines started to detangle to reveal the Owlbear. As the vines were detangling around it, I smelled blood in the air, so I looked up to see six Bloodowls descending from the sky and into the hollow-out tree.
Once all the vines clear up, it opens its red eyes and roars, sounding like a mixture of an owl hooting and a bear roaring, which was almost deafening.
Standing on its 2 legs, it went on all fours and pawed the ground, leaving large claw marks with its long and sharp claws, to prepare to charge at us.
Alice had already told me about their strategy to fight that thing, which is to let Lucia fire off her powerful spells as the main damage dealer while everyone else covered for her.
Lucia prepared and charged up a fireball; while she was doing that, the owlbear charged at us, and two of the Bloodowls started to dive with their sharp talents aimed at us.
Lucia fired off her fireball, while Chelsie shot some arrows, and I threw my spikes at the Bloodowls diving toward us since our arrows and spikes couldn’t go high enough to deal with them.
My spikes and Chelsie’s arrows had been laced with poison beforehand, causing the 2 Bloodowls diving at us to fall from the air and hit the ground dead.
The fireball was fired at the charging owlbear, causing a huge explosion that was even more destructive than the last time I saw her use it.
However, to my surprise, or I should have expected it, it blew away the owlbear back and hit the walls of the boss room but got up like it was not a big deal.
I could see why they had failed to kill it, and the Dradevow dungeon book should have emphasized that it was very tough instead of just saying it was tough; honestly, I couldn’t ask for a stronger opponent.
It got right back up with some burnt fur and feathers while coughing out some blood.
Alice told Alex, Wendy, and me to fight the owlbear while Chelsie covered everyone from the Bloodowls, and Maria gave Lucia a mana potion to recover her mana because that fireball took a lot out of her to cast.
We ran; I took the lead in the middle while Alex and Wendy followed from behind for some reason, reluctantly not wanting to fight it. Are they really that traumatized by the Owlbear?
I threw my spikes, using my usual tactic of taking out its eyes, but it moved out of the way and I missed.
It ran toward us on all fours, then stood on two legs to use its long, sharp claws to take multiple swipes at me.
They were so blindingly fast that I had to rely on instinct to dodge most of them. If I were in my prime in my past life, dodging its attacks would be child's play, but I guess I could take the challenge since I was cooped up in my room for a week, doing nothing except designing my new magic circle.
I had a slight grin as I was dodging its attacks. Alex and Wendy came from behind and slashed at its back with their new weapons.
It led to an X-shaped wound on its back and caused it to turn and swipe at Alex and Wendy.
The wound looks shallow, but it’s damaged either way. I ran up to it, two Bloodowl diving toward me, but Chelsie shot a couple of arrows at them.
The Bloodowl fell to the ground, and I stabbed the Owlbear with my sword into the x-shape wound; however, thrusting my sword into it felt like I was stabbing into a monster with a really dull sword. Just how tough is this thing?
“Everyone get back!”
Hearing Alice's warning to get back, I saw that Lucia had prepared another fireball.
We got back, and Lucia fired it at the Owlbear. She knocks it away, and it hits the walls again.
Now greatly pist off, it seems to have taken a great amount of internal damage, to which it roars.
Hearing it roar, I knew it had entered its second phase and where we should be the most wary.
Vines from the central tree started to move toward Alice, Maria, and Lucia.
Anticipating this, Alice told Wendy to take care of the vines while I and Alex dealt with the Owlbear, who was going after Alice, Wendy, and Lucia.
I threw some spikes at it, but it dodged my attempt to blind it. At this point, I’m going to have to resort to my engraved throwing knives.
Rushing in with Alex following, I ark my body backward at the blindingly fast swipe of its claws and counterattack at its arm, leaving no time for thought, just relying on my instincts and intuition.
I continued dodging and counter-attacking, with Alex attacking whenever there was an opening.
I was smiling, full-on smiling, because one wrong move would be death. It felt great being in a life-or-death battle again. I was about to start laughing for all the fun this fight was, but a vine, which had somehow gotten past Wendy, had gotten hold of my right leg.
God dammit.
I cursed myself because I was so focused on the owlbear that I didn’t notice the vine suddenly around me. Plus, I think I heard Alice warning me but was too busy to hear her as well.
The vine grabbed my left leg tight, and I couldn’t move out of the way of the Owlbear’s swing of its claws.
This is not good. I used my sword and my direwolf cloak to guard against its claws, but it was no good. The Owlbear claws managed to pierce through my cloak, and I was sent flying back with blood coming out.