I jerked towards Murr. “I thought bunny dungeons didn’t have bosses?!”

“Ah, well, they don’t have a specific boss like instance type or maze type, but they do have wandering bosses.”

I watched it slurp up a random bird-monster, then turn its eyes toward us.

“Ones we can run away from, I assume.” I pulled out my swords.

“Of course.”

“The thing is,” Kron said, “if we beat this, we’re guaranteed entry into a better rank J dungeon. The kind that the general population of adventurers were not normally allowed into.”

Murr pulled out his slingshot and licked his lips. “Octo-fish is delicious.”

“Yeah, but usually they’re the size of my arm. I doubt the meat from a boss tastes good.”

“Actually,” Jessica said, “I hear that the boss-meat from this bunny dungeon is highly regarded as a delicacy and can be sold for a high price.”

“How about we attack it as a team only this once and split everything evenly?” Murr asked Jessica.

She hesitated. “Is it aquatic? Because if it isn’t, then there is no way I’m taking the chance.”

Everyone stayed silent for lack of an answer to that question.

Wait... wasn’t I underutilizing my one general ability?

Game Sight - This allows you to perceive the world around you in an even more gamified way compared to your peers.

I thought this was something that allowed me to see the system as menus and see the levels of things when I stood still and squinted hard enough — not that I’d had to check much aside from the mantises since everything in here was already well-known. That said, it was an A Rank General Ability. That was equivalent to something a level 200-249 adventurer might have. It couldn’t only be cosmetic.

That didn’t mean I could use it in its entirety. It was very likely, before I made it to 200, there may be many things inaccessible to me. But, now that I had reached level 6, maybe there were some things I had access to?

I squinted hard at the fish. Ever so slowly, the text started to appear over its head.

Octo-fish Boss - Lvl. 10

Come on. Either the goddess’s curse or my dumb luck was responsible for getting me a ridiculously terrible, if overpowered, boon — but the goddess also gave me this starting general ability. It had to be good for more than peeking at levels.

I stared harder without blinking. And nothing changed.

Wait, maybe...

Observe?

Octo-fish Boss - Rank K - Lvl. 10

Aquatic-type.

Skills/Abilities/Spells:

???

Notes: Fugly is this boss’ middle name. Normally it rests at the bottom of a large body of water, but when its prey becomes scarce it leaves and travels to other lakes. This helps ensure the balance of the dungeon’s strange ecosystem.

Its eyes, the only nice thing about this octo-fish, can be used in alchemy. If you’re adventurous, its meat can be cooked and consumed. Hardcore foodies often pay high amounts to try its caviar.

That was all I had to do? Think ‘observe’ like I was opening my stat menu? Apparently, I’d have to go exploring for more things I could do with my Ability but that would have to come later.

“It’s definitely an aquatic-type monster,” I said.

Everyone turned to me and I shrugged.

“I have something that lets me see some vague information about a monster when I study it for a while.”

Murr looked at me with greedy eyes.

What? He already knew I could see levels. Was info like this that useful for a rogue or something?

“As interesting as that is,” Kron said, “we need to decide what we’re doing about this wandering boss before some other group comes along and tries to steal it.”

Jessica nervously stood up straighter. “It’s aquatic! I’m in! At the very least, we can try. If it looks like we’re in over our heads, we can always run away. But if we win, we can split everything four ways.”

It slowly lumbered closer to us.

“Guys, I don’t think we have time to do much in the way of prep work,” I said.

Kron pulled out a blue vial and swallowed it. It must be a mana potion. Next, he took out three vials of yellow glowing liquid and tossed them to each of us. I had to throw my swords into my inventory to catch mine.

“These are stamina potions,” the golem alchemist said. “Drink them now.”

With my thumb, I flipped off the wax seal and downed the bitter liquid in one gulp. These were definitely potions made to be used in combat.

Well, I guessed it was time to get things started.

I pulled out Blood and Honor and taunted the sorry excuse for an elder god. “HEY, NEMO! WE CAUGHT YOUR DAD!”

“Why is it always something that doesn’t make any sense?” Kron complained.

I grinned. “It can’t understand me, anyway.”

Its jewel-like eyes glowed red. One of its main eight tentacles slowly raised above my head, casting a dark shadow over me. Then it lowered. I had a sudden realization that messing with this boss was a bad idea.

Even though I stepped out of the way of the tentacle, when it landed, it shook the surrounding area and smashed the dirt of the lake shore down by a half foot.

Its excruciatingly slow speed was probably the main reason it was in a bunny dungeon and not in a Rank J or G one. Without its slowness, I wasn’t even sure I could take a single hit from it.

Good thing I was going to be a dodge tank.

“Alright, I’ll keep its focus. Everybody else — ” I cut off when I realized that they had already started fighting.

Jessica took out a crossbow and shot at its weak points from a distance.

Murr loosed his slingshot. While he couldn’t shoot as far as the orange haired girl, he was able to distract it by pebbling it with small explosive shots, then coming in close to one of the large blubbery arms and carving a chunk out of it with his dagger.

Kron had jogged backward until he reached the edge of the tree line. Mana light glowed around his feet, and he threw a spell at the massive monster.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

I wasn’t idle either and started to hack away at the tentacles that kept attacking me. Eventually, the boss became frustrated that its tactic of slowly crushing the red-headed elf wasn’t working and it curled one arm near me, then it slid in with the second arm, leaving up the only direction I could dodge. This, hands down, would have caught a golem tank in the nards, but for me — even with my armor weighing me down — I was able to step on the slippery limb and jump high into the air as the arms collided with a ground hardening slap.

“Why did you dodge?” Murr called. “That was the perfect attack to redirect into your balls.”

“Fuck you! If you think it’s so easy, you try it!”

The red glow around the boss’s eyes diminished and it turned toward the rogue doing the most damage to it, Jessica. That was not good! I yelled, “HEY, DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME MR. SHELLFISH BREATH!”

“You see,” Kron said, “that made sense — sort of. You need to do more of that and less of...”

That was when the octo-fish started snaking its arms like rope and flinging dirt in every direction as if it were shaking off a bunch of gnats.

Using Dangerous Dodge, I avoided two nearby tentacles, side-stepping them with style.

While I managed to get out unscathed, unfortunately, not everyone did. One of the attacks hit Jessica in her abdomen and sent her flying. She landed between a pair of pines. She appeared dazed, but okay.

Murr, on the other hand, caught a massive tentacle between his legs. Oof. While I’d told him to try it, I didn’t think he actually would. His expression made me wonder if I looked like that every time something struck me there. Then, that before the guy was tossed high into the air, making it even worse.

Ooof! That did not look good. At least when that happened to me, I leveled. Poor Murr just suffered for nothing.

When the rogue touched down, he rolled, then skidded to a stop on all fours... Apparently, catfolk did land on their feet. He also showed no sign of having been hit between the thighs and started shooting iron balls at the fish’s head.

Wait a second. We were all doing our own thing here. While this would take it down eventually, this was a terrible strategy. This world may not be a game, but there were some things that transferred over. One of them was that bosses often had multiple body parts that needed to be destroyed first.

“Hey, everyone pile on your attacks to one tentacle at a time!” I yelled.

“Which?” Murr said.

“The one that’s taken the most damage,” I said before ducking under a suction cupped limb, then jumping over another. “Hit it until it’s immobile, so the boss has fewer weapons to attack us with!”

While I worked on quickly slashing at a single spot in the tentacle that kept attacking me, Murr and Jessica focused on the arm that the catfolk had torn a chunk out of. After several more rounds of attacks, the buildup of their aura within the boss’s limb cause severe enough damage to turn the limb into dead weight to the Octo-fish. The monster blubbed in pain.

“One down, seven to go!”

“You can’t be serious?!” Jessica yelled.

“We’re punching up. We need strategy over brute force. And you’re not alone. I’m working on my own tentacle over here,” I said as I made two aura infused slashes on the same part of the main attacking limb, then dodged an incoming swatting attack from a second. I ducked under a third swiping arm, then stabbed both swords into the rubbery surface of the second. Unfortunately, that was when the original tentacle slipped through a crack between them and flung me into the sky.

Pain shot through my chest from its aura infused strike as I fell. I managed to get my legs under me and skidded to a stop near Kron.

The golem gave me a thumbs up and sent a heal my way. Without me there distracting the monster, it started to turn its fish head towards the two rogues who were firing shots at another tentacle.

I sighed. “This is taking forever.”

“What do you expect from a boss fight where we’re punching up four levels? Usually you’d have a full group of 5 level 10s. Then there’s Jessica.”

“What about her?”

“While she’s able to damage it and take hits from it as if it were equal to her level, she doesn’t have the same skills a level 10 rogue would have. So be ready for this exchange to take some time.”

I nodded, then yelled at the boss while activating my taunt, “HEY! GOLDFISH BRAINS!”

A red glow appeared around its eyes, and it slowly turned back toward me. I ran up to it and slashed deeply into the tentacle I’d been working on.

It stopped curling to beat me and flopped onto the ground like a dead kelpie.

This wasn’t working. I needed an attack-type skill. I wouldn’t be physically stronger than some of these massive monsters. At most, I could develop an aura-expensive skill that throws a monster like this back a few feet. But a skill like that required a lot of aura to work with, something I wouldn’t gain for several dozen levels.

What I did have was speed and agility. I’d already seen with the kelpies and with the first tentacle immobilized that multiple attacks to a single area worked, now I just needed to hurry it up even further using my aura.

I dodged a tentacle and slashed at its blubbery surface. This time, I focused on my speed, removing any excess motion. Striking the same spot over and over while aura-enhancing the swiftness of my muscles. My arms became a blur.

Unfortunately. It still wasn’t enough to create a skill.

I flipped off the tentacle, avoiding an arm attempting to crush me, then skidded to a stop on the grass beside the shore.

Again!

***

By the time I’d accomplished that ten times, I had become slightly faster with each attempt. At this point, Murr and Jessica had already taken out two more tentacles, and I just stabbed my swords into my second, causing it to still. With only three tentacles, the boss wasn’t able to hold its massive weight. It fell partially into the lake and the rest slammed onto the shore. Its gaping fish-mouth opened and closed like it was dying.

Unfortunately, I’d miscalculated. Now that it only had three tentacles, its aura concentrated and it could increase its speed. In a desperate attempt to kill us, it started to fling its trio of arms in every direction like a four-year-old with a jump rope.

“I don’t think this is working,” Jessica said.

“It’s on its last legs!” Murr said.

“That’s not funny!” Kron jumped into the tree line to avoid the dirt and grass chunks that were a byproduct of the arm’s chaotic movements. Then he yelped in pain as one struck him on his nose.

At this point, I had to put all of my concentration towards dodging. Most of the time, I couldn’t even use Dangerous Dodge, as I didn’t have enough aura or stamina.

“Focus on its head now. I’ll distract it!” I said and slammed my swords into the side of one of the arms. The tentacle suddenly lifted high into the air… and since my swords were still embedded into its side, I went with it.

Then another of the octopus looking limbs curled up and flicked me off it like I was an annoying insect. Pain shot through my side, but I managed to protect the foot of space closest to my heart with my aura. I flew through the air, then crashed into some sappy trees and landed on the same side I’d taken the hit from. A pained moan escaped my lips.

Kron ran up to me, sporting two black eyes from the earlier hit.

I weakly held out my hand, which he grabbed. With a concerned expression, I looked into his glowing azure gaze and said, “Heal your elf.”

He immediately let me go. Fortunately, the golem still had a good sense of humor because he bashed me on the side of the head with a ball of blue healing light. He also forced a yellow stamina potion down my throat, but its bitter taste might have been punishment for my bad joke.

Feeling better, I ran back towards the octo-fish and taunted, “YOUR MOTHER TASTED LIKE SALMON AND YOUR FATHER SMELLED LIKE WEEK OLD TAKOYAKI!”

It stopped trying to murder the two rogues and focused all its rage on me. The three remaining tentacles closed in on my pretty face, as if striving to capture a pest.

I Dangerous Dodged my way out of its grasp and countered with a slash to each of its limbs. From there, I put everything I had into moving faster. After a few moments, I felt like I’d become a world famous fantasy movie series watched at 5x speed. This was the swiftest I’d ever moved in my life. Dodge a tentacle here, parry one there, attack all three at once and roll out of the way before they slapped me to death.

Meanwhile, Murr and Jessica did insane amounts of damage to the fish head.

Finally, my speed reached its zenith and my aura reacted on its own, sending ten small slashes for every one of mine. And this happened for ten blindingly fast attacks in a row.

Congratulations! You’ve created a general attack-type aura skill!

A Thousand Will Do - Rank K

- If you can’t kill your opponent in one big move, kill them in a thousand tiny ones! Make them bleed... internally! Maybe even emotionally. Swiftly cut your opponent in ten quick and shallow aura cuts all in the same location for ten times.

- After ten slashes, you must wait 10 seconds before you can use it again.

Note: Sure, it’s not technically one thousand but even a small knife can kill if you do it enough times in the right spot.

I waved the window away. Too focused on not-dying to pay that much attention to information I already figured out.

After spending ten seconds running around while twisting its tentacles into knots, I used A Thousand Will Do and quickly slashed a deep gash into one of the arms. It flopped on the ground... Well, shit. I’d been avoiding killing off another one since I didn’t want the other two to get faster. They stilled, then shook. The otco-fish’s normally jewel-like eyes turned bright red.

As much as I attempted to avoid it, its two remaining tentacles caught me up using a pincher move. They lifted me high into the air.

Oh... This was not going to be good. Then I got a horrible idea. Frankly, I didn’t even think it would work. But if this thing started to bash my head into the lakeshore like I thought it was, I was going to die. For real.

As I plummeted down, I activated The Shocker and re-directed one of the arms between my legs instead of around my waist. The tentacle cushioned my fall, saving my body but not my balls.

The boss froze. I fell over a blubbery limb holding me and groaned.

Kron, who had a spell ready, tossed it at me, healing my poor, barely defended testicles.

For ten straight seconds, Murr and Jessica doubled their efforts as the octo-fish remained frozen. Before it could lift me up again, its tentacles loosened and the fish-head flopped onto its side.

Congratulations! Through insanity that shouldn’t have worked, and beautiful mad genius, you have gained a level! You have 1 attribute point to assign.