The boss room was many times larger than the one where we had encountered Terra. It was likely that the other boss room had been allowed to shrivel up like the rest of the dungeon on account of the lack of mana. Only this last floor, which contained the bulk of the curse, was preserved until this time. As soon as I saw the clockwork dragon at the end of the boss room, I found myself shivering a bit.

I know I was saying that humans were scarier than monsters because they could strategize and were sometimes sadistic, but I had found they also had a certain degree of self-preservation and would take actions to save themselves. Staring down at this dragon that could only roar in an ear-piercing challenge reminded me that this was the first boss I had fought that didn’t have at least some level of sentience. He was a guardian, like a guard dog, ready to tear us apart until his dungeon was safe once again.

“Armor,” I muttered, casting armor on myself, even though I knew I couldn’t give it to the others.

I had White Mage, Hero, and Basic Magician equipped. Although I was stronger than I had ever been before, I still felt extremely weak when comparing to this dragon. Perhaps I was letting appearances deceive me. All final bosses looked intimidating, but was the first final boss in a game really that threatening compared to the one at the end of the game? I meant that maybe he just looked scarier than he was.

We were halfway across the room when he half turned away. I almost thought he was about to flee until his tail swept out. A massive wave of air shot out at us. Celeste was in her fairy form and seemed to avoid the attack with ease. The rest of us got struck and lost our footing. Lydia, Miki, and I were all thrown back and slammed into the ground. Carmine was knocked back several steps, but managed to keep her footing. The only one who seemed unaffected was Terra, but she had stayed back a distance as I had commanded and was farther away from the attack. Still, she really felt solid, taking the blow without moving an inch.

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“Cushion.” I cast, trying to lessen the blow of my landing.

The animalgirls both seemed to have a lot more finesse and were able to right themselves without landing painfully on their backs as I was prone to do. I got back up and immediately cast a group heal for everyone. Checking on the Party Status, I could see that everyone was still in good shape. We began our advance again. The dragon might have used his tail a second time, but because of Celeste and Carmine, he lacked the room to initiate another tail attack.

Carmine immediately cast some kind of holy spell, hitting the dragon. It let out another roar, which just had a hint of metallic grind in its voice which really made my hackles bunch. I struck out with a Mana blast while Miki attacked with a spiritual attack. Celeste flew up and created a mini-dust storm directly in the dragon’s eyes. Meanwhile, Lydia danced under its feet, trying to cause it to lose its footing. The fight was going perfectly, for about a minute.

The Dragon seemed to have enough of our attacks, and in a single roar, a powerful storm exploded out. Lydia was knocked to the ground. Miki was tossed aside. Even Carmine was shoved back. I tried to break the spell with a well-timed Mana blast. The dragon’s eyes suddenly turned to me. With the other girls knocked down, somehow I had attracted aggro! I cursed in my mind, as I turned to run. However, the dragon was too large and fast. He took a single step forward and turned. He was using his tail again. However, this time, he wasn’t attacking me with wind. The same tail that sent a wind attack that caused enough damage to sprawl me on the floor was now planning on hitting me directly!