Something whizzed through the air and before I could even figure out what it was, much less dodge, it hit me to my side.

I screamed as pain raced in my lower abdomen and I stumbled. The moment I looked down, I saw that a freaking arrow was stuck in me.

It had pierced through my clothes.

I instantly lit my entire body on fire in response just as another arrow flew through the air and hit my bicep I’d raised just in time to block a neck shot. Both arrows were quickly burned through, their tips pushed out, and the fire damage I was causing myself began to work on healing the puncture wounds.

Even if I felt like hyperventilating in panic that something had just stabbed me in the stomach, I instead grit my teeth, ignored the pain, and looked around for the attacker.

It didn’t take long until I spotted her. A faceless feminine figure with long green hair, bark-like skin, a long flowery skirt, and sandals, wielding a long bow in her hands and already pulling back another arrow.

I slashed diagonally with my naginata while feeding it some Ether and shot out a slash of lightning in her direction before she could shoot again. But she deftly dodged by doing a side flip and released the arrow while mid-air.

This time, since I could see it being fired, I attempted to actually avoid the arrow, but it still flew too fast for me to dodge completely and ended up hitting me in my forearm. Another quick burst of fire from Flameguard got rid of the arrow and began healing me again.

My naginata was useless in this fight. Too slow and bulky for someone so agile. I needed something faster.

I dropped it where I stood and then reached into my backpack with my left hand while summoning my key sword to my right hand, lighting it on fire, and tossing it at the archer zombie. She calmly side-stepped it and shot another arrow at me, but I’d already anticipated it and jumped to the side to completely avoid it.

As I landed, I finally pulled out the item I had been looking for from my backpack – my water gun – aimed it at her, and fired.

I did not expect her to dodge even the supersonic water bullet, but she did, albeit barely. The water explosion still unbalanced her for a moment, long enough for me to take advantage of it and rush at her.

As I ran, I fired off another water bullet to further distract her, but she managed to dodge this one completely by spinning out of the way and letting the knockback from the water explosion carry her through the air to the side. Then she nocked another arrow and fired before I could get close enough.

I narrowly blocked it with my forearm again and prevented it from hitting my face before burning it.

This wasn’t working. I needed to get close, but she was too good at keeping me away and dodging my own shots. And I couldn’t keep using the gun unless I wanted to risk running out of Ether soon.

Then I had an idea. I passed the water gun to my right hand and pointed my gloved left hand forward. I shot a bubble out of my glove slightly to her left and watched her give it a wide breadth as she prepared yet another arrow.

I shot another bubble to her right and kept my eyes on her hands, darting to the side as soon as they released the arrow at me. She backed off further to avoid the other bubble.

Perfect. These bubbles weren’t actually that dangerous, but because she treated them as a threat, her back was now to the hedge and the two bubbles floating to the side were caging her in.

I rushed forward while resummoning my key sword in my left hand even as I side-stepped another arrow – I was getting better at predicting their trajectory.

Finally, I got close enough to slash at my adversary directly with my key sword. She aborted the nocking motion and instead used the arrow as a blade to block my own.

I expected to easily break the piece of wood, but she managed to surprise me again. The whole length of the arrow got suddenly wrapped in gleaming green gems, effectively transforming it into a dagger and successfully parrying my attack.

Before I could do anything else, she lashed out with her leg and kicked me in the stomach – right where the arrow had hit me, fuck – and pushed me back.

I stumbled but managed to not fall over. Before I could recover though, my stomach got pierced again, this time by the gem-covered arrow.

I gasped in pain and lit my body on fire again, but the gems seemed to be much more resistant to fire than the arrow itself. I had to manually reach down and rip the thing out of me before I began healing myself with the fire.

By then, my enemy drew another arrow, converted it into an emerald dagger, and threw it at me again. Luckily, it wasn’t as fast as a shot arrow and I somehow managed to smack it out of the air with my key sword.

I was about to move in again when I realized that the area around my stomach and my bicep felt a little numb.

Was that blood loss? Or…

I deflected another emerald dagger and then quickly lit my weapon on fire and threw it at her.

I almost toppled over as the numb feeling kept spreading through my abdomen and I couldn’t help but feel terror.

That was poison. The arrows were poisoned. I had been so busy trying to dodge that I hadn’t even looked at the tips! I needed to finish this fight fast!

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I breathed in and before she could launch another projectile at me, I flooded her general position with as much fire as I could. A moment later, she came stumbling to the side in panic, her dress and hair burning. In her panic, she ran into the bubble that was still sitting there, the flames licked it, it popped, and she was violently tossed through the air and landed near me with a nasty crunch.

I barely hesitated as I aimed the gun down at her crumpled form and before she could recover, I shot her from point blank range and let the shower of water and plant zombie archer viscera knock me away.

I gasped as I painfully landed on my back and tried to frantically stand up again, but the numbness had spread to my thighs and on top of that, I was very low on Ether.

I could barely move.

“C-Chat! I can’t–” I gasped again as the chunks of my opponent vanished into mist and the door leading to this place clicked again. It didn’t help my rising panic, though. “It’s– It’s poison! I can’t feel my–”

I gasped again and looked at chat with tearful eyes. Many were saying this had been a mistake and panicking just as I was, some were suggesting to eat life ooze, others were congratulating me on beating the boss.

I rolled to the side with a lot of effort, just so I could reach into my backpack and pry the bucket out of it. As soon as I did, I toppled it over right next to me so I could easily reach inside and begin gulping down the ooze.

I felt my Ether return to me as expected. Unfortunately, the numb feeling didn’t abate and kept spreading albeit slower than before. I was starting to feel kind of light-headed as well.

This was really really bad.

“It’s not helping…” I said with a faint voice. “What do I do…?”

I was going to die to poison. Slowly and painfully. I would have to watch as my body slowly stopped responding and my organs–

GonguuH: try to get it into your bloodstream

GonguuH: like you did once before

Right, the poison was probably in my blood. Logic dictated that getting even more foreign stuff into it would be really bad, but I’d done this before and it hadn’t been a problem.

I tried slapping the ooze on my stomach where the arrows had pierced me, hoping it would get into the wound, but then I realized that the wound had actually completely closed up thanks to my fire healing.

Goddammit!

I reached into my backpack, pulled out one of the sharp war shark feathers, held it carefully between my fingers, and after a moment of hesitation, made a shallow cut in my stomach again with a whimper.

Then I shoved more life ooze at the wound, hoping it would do something.

And it did. I felt something warming up my insides, similar to what had happened with the potion back at the spaceship except not as intense.

It was uncomfortable, but still better than the poison’s paralysis, so I endured and prayed that it would actually do something.

It took a subjective eternity of me shoving more ooze at the wound and reopening it with the feather when it healed before the warm feeling reached all the way to my lower thighs and upper chest and slowly regained feeling again.

The numbness in my bicep and shoulder wasn’t as serious, but that too abated after a while.

When I could finally feel my entire body again, I was left gasping on the grassy yard with a sweat-covered forehead.

“Ugh… Chat, I… I don’t feel so good…” I moaned.

I still felt really hot, but something told me that it wasn’t the life ooze warming me up anymore. It wasn’t the good kind of hot that let the blessing heal me, either. I was sweating like crazy.

…Did I have a fever? I felt like vomiting too. Shit.

With great effort, I managed to sit up and immediately had to catch myself from flopping over again from the sudden vertigo I felt.

“Chat…” I rasped. “I–I feel awful. I’m done for today.”

My eyes slid off chat and I didn’t even have energy to give a proper reply to all the people who were worried or even to snap out at George, who was still joking around.

After a few shuddering breaths, I carefully stood up on my shaky legs and looked around.

There was the familiar black stone chest sitting in the spot where I’d blasted the crap out of that archer zombie. I was so out of it that I nearly just walked right up to it to open it, but luckily, I stopped myself.

I glanced around and saw the water gun I’d dropped when I’d begun treating the poison and knelt down to retrieve it.

Another moment of vertigo found me sprawled on the grass again, groaning.

Oh god, would I even get out of this dungeon safely?

Did I even need to get out? Could I just stay and sleep here? The grass felt nice, the sun was shining–

No. I had no idea how this dungeon worked. Just because nothing respawned at the water park dungeon didn’t mean it would work the same way here. What if another archer woman spawned while I was sleeping and finished me off?

I grabbed the gun and blearily looked around while still splayed on the ground.

Then I aimed the gun at the chest and shot it as a way to check for mimics.

The chest violently flew back, bounced against the doorframe, and landed on the porch with a thud. It didn’t move afterwards.

“...No mimics,” I murmured before forcing myself to stand once more.

I walked up to the chest, popped it open, barely even registered the emerald-green palm-sized gemstone as I put it into my backpack, and then walked to the door.

I stopped in front of it and grit my teeth.

I really didn’t want to keep going. If this really was a boss rush, then the bosses seemed to be exponentially harder with every encounter. And if this fight had almost killed me and left me crippled even with life ooze, there was no way I would survive whatever was next.

“How do I get out…?” I moaned, certain that the door wouldn’t lead back to the classroom place.

Then I remembered the map and pulled it out of my backpack to stare at it.

Just like the previous room, there was a red dot to indicate me in the middle of the yard-shaped rectangle, and then a space for the door where both a green and a blue arrow went.

“What does it mean…?!” I whined as my head ached just from the thought of trying to figure it out while I was in this state.

Hadn’t someone in chat suggested that the doors would know which way I wanted to go and redirect themselves accordingly or something? Should I just open the door wishing to be out of here?

It was a risk. But so was staying here.

I was between a rock and a hard place and I really wished I wasn’t currently feeling like shit so that I could properly think about it.

Instead, my stomach lurched, I fell to my knees, and vomited life ooze all over my map.

Oh god, it was getting worse. I really needed to get somewhere safe.

I forced myself to my feet again, stumbled to the door, prayed to the fucking Fate Weaver that it would lead to safety, and tore it open.

Light shone down upon me and I blearily realized that the door now led back to the streets of the city.

That was good… as long as there weren’t any zombies waiting in ambush.

I scuttled forward, forcing my eyes open through the mental fog that began to creep into my head, and looked around. The city gate was right there next to the house I’d exited.

Great. Perfect.

I ran toward it as fast as I could without tripping and as soon as I crossed the boundary and felt the telltale feeling of relief, I immediately collapsed on the grass just outside face first.

I tried to push myself to my feet but it just couldn’t be done.

My vision spun, my entire body somehow felt numb again, and it was starting to become hard to form coherent thoughts.

I blacked out shortly afterwards.