I kicked the door closed, but it was probably too late. The mist had already made it inside.

With my arm still injured, my Ether probably running low, and the fight either resetting or getting much harder now, I saw no other option than to run.

My sword back in my sheath and bucket held in my good hand, I ran.

It didn’t take long for me to hear the door being slammed open again and I cursed the intricate maze that led to the stupid boss room. That was probably the point, though. To prevent people from running away.

I heard the sound of metal rolling on concrete and hurled myself to the side and instinctively knocked over a nearby table and took cover behind it. The thing rolled by and I heard the sound of metal pinging off of wood – wait, shouldn’t the bullets bury themselves into the wood instead?

I didn’t waste time pondering that and peeked out of my hiding spot to see that my hunch had been correct. The two coins had merged somehow. Now it was just one coin half silver, half gold, reminding me a little of the yin-yang symbol.

It skidded to a halt and faced me for a moment before it began spinning on its axis and I could already tell what was going to happen. I immediately crouched back down before the sounds of its movement began to sound like a turbine and a hail of bullets rained down onto the table I was hiding behind.

What I didn’t expect was for silvery-golden spikes to sprout out of the landing bullets. Luckily, the table still held strong despite supposedly only being made out of wood, but I could clearly see the spikes jutting off to the sides and above.

Because of course the thing also combined attacks from both the coins. I’d already categorized the golden coin as the melee one and the silver coin as the ranged one, and there were strategies to deal with each, but how the hell was I supposed to beat them when they were combined? My panicked mind only supplied the idea to run.

As soon as the sound of the bullet barrage subsided, I dashed away from my cover in the direction of the entrance. I briefly turned to the coin, who I noted was in the middle of slowing down its spin, and spat flames in its direction, hoping it would at least slow it down.

Turn left, go through a short corridor, turn right, and now I could finally see the window leading to the main hall again. I wasted no time dashing for it.

Naturally, it only took a moment before something crashed into the wall behind me, sending bullets everywhere that pinged off the walls and furniture. And as my rotten luck would have it, one of those bullets hit me in my side.

I gasped, an empty scream stuck in my throat. I almost fell over, but by some kind of miracle, or maybe sheer power of will, I stood my ground, and threw myself out of the window. A moment later, a chunk of half-silver half-gold metal flew right over my head into the opposite window, landed, and then exploded into a crown of metallic spikes.

I didn’t stay around to marvel at it and ran down the hallway back to the entrance, hoping the coin wouldn’t be able to get through the window.

Thankfully, I was right. I made it over the threshold without the coin following me and the moment my feet touched the grass, I crumpled into a heap, the bucket clattering from my good hand as I immediately made to clutch at my bleeding side.

KaiEbikoOfficial: NANA?!?!?!

KaiEbikoOfficial: you’re not dying right?!!

“Give me… a moment…” I forced myself to say.

I completely crashed after that. I just lay there, tears running down my face, taking deep shaky breaths.

It took me a good few minutes in my slight delirium to remember that I had a fiery healing salve that could probably help. Bleeding out sounded like a bad idea.

I reached into my pocket, found the potion, uncorked it, and tipped it over myself. While the viscous matter took its sweet time to drip down at me, I shakily lifted up the hem of my shirt to look at the wound. Surprisingly, it looked like a mere scrape. The shirt hadn’t gotten torn, either. That was nice.

I decided to apply the ooze right at the wound, remembering how it had reacted to blood before.

A drop of the ooze fell, hit the wound, and I felt the familiar spark of fire coursing through my body. The wound rapidly closed and I even felt my left arm fixing itself. It was, once again, overwhelming with how powerful it was, but somehow less than before. I could handle it better now. I didn’t even drop the vial.

Once the feeling subsided and my mind cleared again, I let out one more calming breath before sitting up and staring back into the dungeon.

KaiEbikoOfficial: Nana??

“That… sucked,” I announced. “I’m fine now, though.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: thank god

KaiEbikoOfficial: I’m so sorry

“For what…?”

KaiEbikoOfficial: shouldn’t have goaded you into going in

KaiEbikoOfficial: I’m a terrible shrimp fairy

“No no, it’s fine…” I shook my head. “Well, it’s not fine, but I’m alright.” I sighed. “Dammit, I keep having these close calls… I should be dead many times over. Ugh, I hate this! What am I supposed to do?! This game is impossible!”

KaiEbikoOfficial: maybe try farming skill points outside the dungeon first?

I huffed.

“Most achievements have something to do with dungeons, though… I guess I could start doing squats and pushups, but that would still take several days to complete… And by then, I’ll probably just starve to death,” I reasoned before looking down at my bloodied pants and shirt now. “I think I just need some proper armor. This outfit is cool and all, but… yeah.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: can you make armor?

KaiEbikoOfficial: with craftsman?

I hummed. “Maybe…? I probably could, but I don’t have any materials.” I glanced at a nearby tree. “Making wood armor sounds pretty stupid. Not like I even have any tools for it either…”

KaiEbikoOfficial: use your sword?

Well, that was an idea, but I still felt like it was wasted effort. It would take so much time to carve something I could move in and even then, it probably wouldn’t even provide that much protection.

I shook my head.

“Not worth it. I don’t think I can make good enough armor to be worth it right now.”

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KaiEbikoOfficial: okay…

KaiEbikoOfficial: are you going back inside?

“Probably… But, ugh. Not sure if I want to right away.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: could you maybe find a different dungeon?

I stopped and frowned.

“I could, I guess…? But there’s no guarantee it will be easier than this one.” I shook my head. “No, actually. Chances are, it will be harder, since this one is apparently D-rank.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: hmmm

“I think I’m just going to try and get past that coin and hope there’s food in there at some point,” I said with a grimace.

KaiEbikoOfficial: ok!

KaiEbikoOfficial: strategy time then!

KaiEbikoOfficial: how can Nana the pro gamer beat a giant homicidal coin?

I couldn’t help but smirk at that. But then, the smirk slowly slid off my face as the thought struck me. Figuring out how to beat various enemies in video games was my specialty, so why couldn’t I do that here?

With that in mind, I stopped thinking of it as a real-life thing that could actually kill me, and began thinking of it as a video game monster.

“I think it has three… maybe four attacks,” I said with a thoughtful frown. “They are all telegraphed pretty well, I think. The silver one could spin to minigun me… and the bullets create spikes now that they fused. Then it could do the little flip to toss a bomb at me. Again, now it makes a bunch of spikes… The gold one just drove around and spawned spikes after glowing a little… and I’m pretty sure the combined one can also drive around, but spawns bullets instead,” I summarized as I clutched my healed side, remembering getting hit. “Those bullets don’t spawn spikes, at least.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: damn that’s a lot

I nodded as I continued to think.

“I beat the gold coin by messing up its balance while it was driving. Maybe I could do something similar…? I just have to be careful about the stray bullets,” I mused. “And I could knock the silver one on its butt by blowing up its bomb in its face with my fire… No idea what to do to counter the bullet rain, though. Other than dodge. I could try using fire on it too, but I’m not sure if it will do anything… Actually, the bullets couldn’t even scratch the furniture in the dungeon. Maybe I could use it as cover again…”

A plan began to form in my head. A way to counter each one of its attacks so I wouldn’t be flailing around like an idiot. This was one of my favorite parts of playing difficult video games. Figuring out the enemies and how to beat them.

I couldn’t help it, I was just a little giddy, despite my life being on the line.

Maybe I’d gone insane.

Well…

Insane circumstances required insane measures.

“Alright!” I cheered as I stood up again. “I’ve got a plan now, chat! Let’s smash some stupid coins to dust!” I huffed. “Ugh, that sounded really lame. Why does my opponent have to be a frikkin’ coin?!”

KaiEbikoOfficial: it’s a metaphor

KaiEbikoOfficial: something to do with capitalism

I snorted.

“Yeah! Let’s go defeat capitalism once and for all!” I yelled as I unsheathed my sword and held it above my hand in a dramatic gesture.

KaiEbikoOfficial: heck yeah!!

And with that, I grabbed the bucket in my freshly healed hand and entered the damn dungeon once more.

Even though I knew that the boss room was connected to just one of the windows, I still kept up my guard, watching for any signs of the stupid coin. There were no signs of it though, even when I reached the window I’d jumped through just a few minutes ago.

I briefly remembered the spaceship and how the robot had returned to its starting spot the moment I left. Was this something similar? Would the two coins split? I wasn’t sure whether that would make it easier or harder. Probably harder, since having to split my attention could easily get me killed.

“Alright, chat. It’s time for round two.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: good luck!

KaiEbikoOfficial: please don’t die!

“Don’t worry. I got this… Unless there’s another phase.” I shook my head. “If there is, I’ll make sure to run again.”

Was I a coward for always running from new enemies? Heck no. It was called a strategic retreat. Being ‘brave’ would be worthless if I just died. I was probably already braver than most would be in my situation, if I were to guess.

With that in mind, I carefully inched my way back toward the boss room, leaving behind empty halls of the dungeon. Interestingly enough, even though there were no bullet holes left behind, the gold and silver spikes the coin had spawned were still around. Were they a permanent feature now? If so, how come there weren’t any spikes around before? Was I the first ever person to enter this dungeon?

Well, considering there weren’t any people around, the answer might be yes…

I made it all the way to the door leading back to the boss room. I heard no sounds of giant coins rolling or spinning so I stopped for a brief moment and went over my strategy in my head.

KaiEbikoOfficial: sending you all my energy!

I smiled and put my sword back in my sheath.

“Thanks, Ebi…” I whispered, unsure whether a coin could hear me without ears. Either way, I didn’t wanna alert it.

With my free hand I grabbed a nearby table and tried pulling it with me. Surprisingly, I had no problem doing so even though I was still in the body of a tiny kid.

But then again, I could lug around my sword just fine as well, and that was made out of metal, which should be heavier…

I wasn’t going to question it. I already knew this body was physically beyond what it should be, after all.

I dragged the table all the way to the door where I stopped, took a deep breath, stood on my tiptoes and then slowly, carefully grabbed the door’s handle and creaked it open. I cautiously eyed the inside and found that it was empty, save for the giant desk again. My eyes narrowed in suspicion. It was probably behind the desk again. Either as two or one combined coin.

“Here goes nothing…” I muttered as I opened the door wide.

I grabbed the table again, fiddled with it for a moment, and then shoved it through the doorway inside the boss room. Once it was fully inside, I followed it and quickly repositioned it so that I could use it as a shield if I needed to, before unsheathing my sword again.

Just as I expected, my adversary appeared not too long after I entered. It was still just one fused coin, thankfully, so I didn’t have to split my attention. It rolled in front of the desk and did a little hop, exactly like the gold coin had done the first time around, and I immediately had an inkling of what it was about to do.

Just as expected, it then turned and began rolling, launching itself at me. I didn’t hesitate and immediately jabbed my sword forward, intending to trip it up. Unfortunately, it hit the ground too far to the left and didn’t affect it at all, so I immediately pulled my sword back and slashed instead before crouching down under the table when I saw it emit a silvery glow.

The pings and pangs of bullets resounded all around me as I heard the coin skidding across the ground vaguely to my right. I dropped the bucket and instead gripped the table’s leg to turn it so that its flat surface remained between me and the coin.

As soon as I heard it crash into the room’s wall and no bullet sounds followed, I stood up again, ready to pelt it with lightning. But it had already somehow recovered and was jumping in place, beginning to flip.

I spat fire at it before the bomb could even leave it and it blew up right in its own face. Numerous spikes exploded from it and showered the room, but thankfully, they were nowhere near as fast as the bullets and I easily backed away from the few that nearly hit me.

As the smoke settled, I saw the coin, its form misshapen and pierced by its own spikes, and I couldn’t help but grin, thinking I’d dealt it a fatal blow. It wasn’t going to be rolling at me anytime soon in that condition.

Unfortunately, the fight wasn’t over quite yet. As I began running at it again, wanting to finish it off, it began to slowly spin on its axis.

My mind froze for a split-second, wondering whether I should press the attack before the bullets could come flying or hide behind the table, but seeing its battered form and how sluggishly it tried to spin, I ultimately decided to end it right now.

I jabbed with my sword forward and this time, the lightning bolt scored a direct hit, causing it to spin out of control in the other direction and ultimately fall flat on its face.

I reached its struggling form in another second and then didn’t hesitate to completely cover it in so much fire that I began coughing soon after.

It was probably a stupid move to do something so risky when I could have just played it safe, but hey.

It worked.

The moment the coin and all the fire covering it turned to fine mist, my mouth broke into a wide grin and I jumped in place and then did a little dance, while yelling, “Woooooo!”.

KaiEbikoOfficial: yeaaaaaaaah!!!!!!

KaiEbikoOfficial: you did it!

KaiEbikoOfficial: good job Nana!

This had gone so much smoother when I knew what attacks it had. Maybe this isekai survival thing wasn’t completely hopeless, after all.

As the mist dissipated, three things happened in quick succession. I heard a loud click coming from the closed door next to the oversized desk, and then a big chest shimmered into existence where the coin boss had been. The chest looked similar to all the other chests I’d seen in the dungeon, but it was about fifty percent bigger and had a golden skull symbol on the lid.

Finally, a system window popped up in front of me.

‘I’m the boss now’ achievement unlocked!

+3 Skill points