"I need to find Bonifacius ASAP!" Foxly exclaimed sprinting through the wet, swampy part of Mournwood.

"No... that Arthur guy would just cut through him and spawn-camp him to death..."

"Crown can't cheat anymore..."

"Pedecree and the Thief wouldn't be of any use..."

"Bromy... to be fair I wouldn't put it past Bromy to beat him, I just can't see how..."

"I doubt John can mind-control people anymore..."

It was at this moment that Foxly realised, nobody he knew stood a chance against Arthur.

"Just who is that Arthur guy?! How does someone get this OP?!"

From the distance, a screeching sound like the sound of a million nails scarping on a million sheets of glass erupted from the widening crack following Foxly.

It received his torso in half, quickly Magnus healed it.

Another crack hit Magnus, again he fractured into gas before reforming, this time he looked more visibly beat up.

"Are you alright?!" Foxly asked.

"It's just the mana loss... his hits pack a bit more of a punch!" Magnus laugher nervously.

Foxly wanted to tell Magnus to save his mana and not heal him, but he knew that was essentially suicide.

"I need to figure out a weakness..."

"I might not be a strategist like John... or an indestructible tank like Bonifacius... but this much screentime means one of three things... me getting OP, character development or death..." Foxly thought.

"SO THINK, FOXLY! THINK!"

"He can crack anything, his range seems infinite... he can make both normal cracks and world-cracks..."

"Hmmm..."

"It's wouldn't be elemental damage... or physical... his magic is like an indestructible fort... or rather a wall of cracks..."

Foxly's eyes widened as he suddenly thought of a solution.

He grabbed two seals.

"Muffle, Explosion"

He places the two seal together and stopped still as from with another loud noise Arthur appeared.

"Have you give up?" asked Arthur, he looked extremely smug.

Foxly picked up a rock and casually threw it at Arthur, as expected it cracked into bits, bits, stone-powder flowed in the air.

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A piece of the splintering rock flew out and cut Arthur's cheek.

A tiny stream of blood ran down his cheek as Foxly tossed a rock into the air and a seal below him.

Arthur's attention focused on the rock, he didn't even notice the seal until it was too late.

A plume of smoke enveloped both him and Foxly as the forest went quiet.

Moments later Arthur emerged from the smoke, black arms appearing in patches around his body.

"It's not a shield, it's more like a net of cracks, it means I can still hit him!"

Foxly tossed another few rocks, aiming for the spots with the charred black colour.

"And the crack-net doesn't move, once you find a place to hit you can keep hitting it!" Foxly realised.

"I think it's about time you finish playing detective..." Artur remarked as a screeching sound accompanied by a crack cut Foxly in half.

Again, his respawn timer was cut short by Arthur, Foxly was prepared though and immediately dodged upon appearing, narrowly evading the earth-shattering crack that appearing in the soil.

Foxly continued his escape as the ever-fading image of Magnus followed.

"Hey, buddy... we should get out of here as soon as possible... I'm running a bit low... on mana..." Magnus explained handing Foxly the makeshift No*ia flail, "I'll be inside the phone, give me ten minutes..." he added.

Then he disappeared into the No*ia while he recovered mana.

"GREAT TIMING!" Foxly thought, though it wasn't like he could blame Magnus for how much mana he spent healing him.

Foxly looked at the flail.

"I figured out his weakness... poison or fire should work against him... I need to make it back to the group and let them know, they might be able to figure something out!" Foxly thought.

"If only I had any AOE spells except that weak explosion..." Foxly sighed.

One again, from behind a massive crack came, Foxly jumped down as he looked into the distance and saw a tall hill slide down, Arthur just cut a hill in two.

"Where are you running, Foxly? I'm a pretty busy person you know, I have more strangers in the woods to antagonise!" Arthur laughed.

Foxly could feel it, the nauseating effects of mana loss.

In the distance, he saw it, his ticket to victory, a cave.

Foxly began running for the cave, as soon as he was close enough he charged in.

As expected, Arthur casually followed him.

With a single, short-ranged crack, Arthur cut Foxly in two, then cut his respawn timer short and sliced him again.

He kept going over the same routine over a dozen times, each time making it deeper into the cave.

Eventually, upon reviving Foxly, Arthur heard a loud crash behind him, he looked back and saw an explosion collapsed the cave.

Arthur looked back to Foxly with a pitiful expression.

"Really? You think I'm some dumb ogre or dragon that you can just lock in a cave?" asked Arthur.

"You didn't play this game a lot back on earth, did you?" asked Foxly.

"I haven't played this game at all, actually," Arthur replied.

"I can tell... because otherwise, you'd know not to go into caves with funny looking mushrooms!" he laughed.

Arthur looked around and saw that the cave was filled with a dust like substance in the air.

"They're Doomshroom spores, you do a level forty-three quest to get a potion recipe that makes you immune for twenty-four hours," Foxly replied.

Arthur looked to Foxly.

"Don't tell me!" Arthur gasped.

"No, I don't have it..." Foxly replied anticlimactically.

"Still, I can just-" Arthur began.

"Crack the cave walls and collapse it on us?" asked Foxly.

"...considering your XP penalty, losing a life won't do much to me... but it most certainly will cost you dearly," Arthur remarked.

"I guess taking one of the big bag guy's lives is the most a background character can do..." Foxly replied.

"Illogical... if you kept running away you would have had a better chance..." Arthur replied starting to feel the effects of the spores, his mana began dropping, his crack-shield disappeared and his health began to ebb away.

Foxly began to cough, he pressed his back against the wall of the cave.

"That's right... taking a single one of the boss' lives is a thing a background character can do..." Foxly thought.

He was starting to feel himself becoming numb as Arthur fell to his knees and blood began to run from his nose.

"XxFoxlyxX... even now you're nothing but trouble for me!" Arthur exclaimed.

Arthur looked over to Foxly.

"What the hell are you smiling about!?" Arthur demanded.

"I've yet to die at all! An XP penalty of one is nothing to me!" Arthur exclaimed, he wasn't bragging, in fact, he sounded more upset.

"I bet if John was here he could have killed Arthur for real... he'd pull some magic soul-killer bullshit out of his ass and pretend it makes sense..."

As Foxly felt his life come to an end, he looked down to his numb, shaky hand.

"XP - 122"

"XP Death Penalty - 16384"

With his remaining stamina and rage, Arthur stumbled over to Foxly and Grabbed the frogman by the collar, lifting his body off the ground, he didn't struggle.

"I told you to quit grinning like an idiot! You achieved nothing!" Arthur exclaimed.

As this happened, a messenger seal was being flown towards its target, Bonifacius.

In it, Foxly detailed his discovery.

"Hey, Bonifacius." read the letter.

"As much as I'd like to explain everything... I'm kind of in a rush..."

"For whatever reason, this Arthur guy is after me, I think it's personal..."

"He talked about fighting an undead and pulled out John's poisonous dagger... so I guess he ran into Arthur too..."

"In any case, I have a feeling you'll need to deal with him sooner or later, so here is what I managed to find out..."

Foxly proceeded to give detailed information about his attack patterns and his shield discovery, as well as his plan to kill Arthur with poison.

"I realise I can't beat him as a background character, this world is too sadistic to let me advance to a main character too... but I didn't accept my faith just yet!"

"So I'm handing you guys this info, so when you kill him for real, it's like I killed him too, and only a main character would kill the evil boss guy, right?"

"I'll see you guys around."

"-Foxly."

[https://i.imgur.com/0HyMyiu.png]