“Muribelle, let’s do it again. Are you ready?” I ask, casually aiming near the player who insulted me twice just because he didn’t like my face. “On my count. One, two…”

“Buu!” Something strikes my shoulders at the same time it makes that sound.

“Hiee–”

“Kyaaaaaah!”

I shout, surprised. And Balmy, who as usual has been ‘borrowing’ my head as her perching place, shouts even louder than me.

I cover my ears with my hands as fast as possible, but it’s too late. “Ugh, my eardrums…”

What the fuck? An attack? Is it a monster? If so, why didn’t Lightning Shield trigger? I should have seen the visual effects even if the attack came from my back… What’s going on?

When I turn around I find two people. The first one is Balmy, who released me after the surprise. Like a scared cat, she has all her hair standing up and glares at the other person as if they were their worst enemy. She’s even making hissing noises.

As for the other person…

“Lily? I didn’t expect to meet you here!” I tilt my head. “But how did you find me?”

Yeah, even if both of us found our way to the last boss, how did she find me? With so many players around and the chaos of the ongoing battle, it’d be hard to find the other one even if we knew the other was near and actively searching for them.

“It wasn’t that hard. Your loud laughing and lightning effects are easy to recognize. ‘Fufufu! Hahaha! I’ll turn you into fodder for my next creations!’” She imitates me.

“Ahaha…”

Was I doing such a thing? I don’t remember ever doing anything like that… My eyes spin around as I do my best to delude myself.

“Khm! So… are you here for the secret quest too?”

Laura nods. “Yes, I am. And who’s this little girl? Is she your younger cousin?” She asks, pointing at Balmy.

Balmy opens her eyes so wide they seem they’ll fall from their sockets, staring at a certain part of Laura’s Champion. Her chest area, to be more precise. She then covers her inexistent chest and explodes in anger.

“Little girl!? Are you implying something? Kyaah! We must kill her! She’s the enemy of all fairies! No, she’s the devil! We must purify her!” She makes a stabbing motion with her empty hand. “Let’s start by slicing the unnecessary fat sacks… Hehehe…” Balmy tries to fly towards Laura, but I grab her by one leg before she can do something stupid. “Release me! You’re supposed to be my ally!”

“Shut up for a while, Balmy.” I cover her mouth with my hand.

Balmy struggles to get out of my grab, biting me in the process. But her Strength stat is so low I take almost no damage. She does trigger Lightning Shield, though, and the shock she receives from it seems to calm her down. Even so, she keeps glaring at both of us.

What an annoying and flat-chested fairy… Hahaha, I’m sure she’d explode again if she could read my thoughts.

“She isn’t my cousin. She’s just my teammate.” I give Laura an answer to her question. “My other two crazy teammates are Muribelle,” I point at her, who’s standing a few steps away from us, burning enemies while laughing like a maniac, “and Moo, the minotaur over there…”

Upon realizing I’m implying she’s crazy too, Balmy starts biting my hand again. This time, she bites me a few times, until Lightning Shield’s cooldown ends and gets electrocuted.

How persistent.

I finish my introductions pointing at Calaban’s party. They, as well as Moo, have been keeping the monsters away from our group while I and Muribelle attacked the dwarfs protecting the inactive golems.

“...and those three over there are also my teammates. Well, they aren’t on the same team, but we’ve been playing together since the middle of the Mystery Event.”

“I see.”

At her downcast look, I realize there’s no other player who came near to us, just her. “And you? Are you alone?”

“Yes. They died long ago when a Calamity ambushed us. But it doesn’t matter because I’ve met you now,” she smiles. “Oh, I also met Baldy a while ago. He was riding one of the golems.”

Ugh… how envious I am… I wanted to ride a golem too! I wanted to order one to squash my enemies under its feet, while I laughed perched on its shoulder. That would have been so amazing.

“When I asked him if he wanted to come with me, he told me it was a waste of time. That it was more effective to accumulate points steadily using his golem than facing the unknown and possibly dying.”

“Hahaha,” I chuckle. This is so typical of Ricard. Efficiency over fun, as always.

“He was constantly bickering with Barbarian. She was sitting on the golem’s shoulder, and they were fighting over the golem’s control.”

I tilt my head. “Who?”

“You know, one of the members of the party that defeated us in the tournament. The girl with the large axe and reckless behavior.”

“Aha… I remember now…” I nod. No, seriously. Who? “So… Do you want to join us in defeating the dwarves?” I change the topic. “In case you don’t know yet, we need to defeat them before the golems awaken or we’ll have to face four final bosses at the same time.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Yeah, it was hard to understand what’s going on because the ongoing chaos in this place isn’t much different from the one in the city above us. But I don’t understand. Why are all of you so focused on the golems instead of completing the hidden quest?”

“Isn’t it obvious? If we don’t, they’ll kill us all…” I don’t understand what she means.

Seeing the enormous question written on my face, she reformulates her question. “Why aren’t you trying to destroy the quest’s objective?”

“...Huh?”

“...?”

Both Balmy and I tilt our heads at the same time. I’m sure we both would have made the same stupid sound, too, if I wasn’t covering her mouth.

“It says it here, in the mission’s description, right? ‘Find the ????? and destroy it before it’s too late’. Why aren’t you trying to destroy instead of wasting time with the golems?”

“That’s…” I’m completely lost. What are we supposed to destroy? “How are we supposed to destroy something if we don’t know what it is?”

She shakes her head at my question. It’s almost as if she was disappointed in me. It’s as if she expected more… but that can’t be, I’m sure of it.

“If there’s no name, it doesn’t necessarily mean the information is hidden. In this whole city, and let’s not forget that the mission’s description was unlocked once we stepped inside it, the place that’s the most suspicious is this hole from which monsters spawn nonstop. Inside it, you just happen to find several final-boss-level monsters. And right next to them…”

Laura leaves the sentence unfinished on purpose, expecting me to finish it.

I start looking around, searching for the answer. There are… players. Monsters and dwarfs. The four golems, the black fog, the dwarf's shields. Spells and arrows flying everywhere… More players, more monsters…

…And a giant something that looks like a black crystal right in the middle of everything. Something I have no idea what name I should use to refer to it, because I’ve never seen anything else like that before.

“Ooh… Aah…!” I must have sounded like a fool. “Khm! And right next to them, there’s this incredibly suspicious and giant crystal that has been absorbing the dark particles released by all the monsters and players when they die… Which also happens to be the golem’s source of power.”

Balmy starts nodding her head right next to me.

“Oooh, nice job, big-titted slut. Just for this, I’ll recommend you to the Great Fairy Explorer’s Guild. Of course, you can’t be one of our regular members, but you can be an honorary one!”

I could have sworn I had her gagged… When did she get free from my grip? Was it when I was looking for the answer?

Laura ignores Balmy and slowly applauds my ‘discovery’. “Well done. You just needed me to almost explain everything to realize the truth.”

“Ugh… I was too busy with other things, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say,” she waves her hand around as if to dismiss my pathetic excuse. “So, what are we going to do? Can we destroy it? And more importantly, what’s wrong with your arm?”

I shudder. It’s not that I’ve forgotten about it, but that I’ve intentionally tried to forget. Whatever is growing on my arm is now as big as my head, and it seems to have eyes and teeth…

“Ah, this…?” It’s a long story. It all started when–”

“He got shot by a purple beam the boss uses and is now turning into a monster.” Balmy proudly explains, interrupting me. She puffs out her chest. “He’s now on his way to turning into one of the monsters we’re fighting, and I’m waiting for him to fully transform so I can kill him and make him pay for all his transgressions! Revenge is a dish served cold, as cold as his corpse, hahaha!”

Hey! Let me finish my made-up story! If you want to tell the truth, at least wait until I’ve finished with the lie!

Balmy flies away, hiding behind her ‘newly acquired worst enemy and honorary fairy explorer’, who’s called Laura, before I can grab her and make her regret her words.

I’ll catch you when you come back, you little bug! I swear to myself.

“Ahaha… don’t listen to her. She’s right, but… just don’t listen to her or you’ll regret it.”

“Hey! You’re the one she shouldn’t listen to–”

“I wasn’t planning on doing so.” Laura starts poking at one of the eyes on my arm, nodding to herself. “Does it interfere in your Champion’s movement?”

“Don’t ignore me! Kyaaaaah!”

With screaming sounds in the background, I poke at my arm with one finger. “No, it feels the same as usual. It just looks weird and gives me goosebumps every time I see or touch it.”

“Like this?”

She sticks her finger inside… inside a hole, let’s leave it at that. “I didn’t feel anything,” I shake my head.

“Hey, me too. Me too!” Balmy starts poking my arm too.

Ugh, this is disgusting. I know I swore I’d make Balmy pay, but I can’t keep looking. It reminds me of the monsters from the Abyss faction, and I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Instead, I force myself to focus on the topic we should be thinking about: the crystal sitting in the middle of the chaos.

It seems nobody realized the truth yet, because there’s no one else paying any attention to it. Now that I’m observing it, I start to notice a few things.

With so much chaos going on, it’s impossible there wouldn’t be a few spells and attacks landing on it, even if by accident. When they hit the crystal, it breaks into tiny fragments, leaving a small hole. But then, more crystal grows from the main body and repairs the damage done.

Furthermore, it seems that the crystal is slowly growing over time. Something huge, and with huge I mean dangerous, is getting ready, and I’m sure that’s what we have to stop. Now that I know what’s the true objective of the secret mission, I can’t stop thinking that the golems are but a distraction.

“I’ve noticed it too,” says Lily from my side, “but I believe that if all the players attack it simultaneously, we can break it faster than it can regenerate.”

I test using Cold Blast, but the damage is negligible. The crystal repairs itself in less than a second. With Chaotic Blast, the damage is perceptible, but it isn’t strong enough to keep up with it.

“Hyaaah! Die!” Balmy does her best too. Although she shouts a lot, her attacks aren’t exactly what you’d call strong.

“Why don’t we get the help of the other players?” Insists Laura.

“No, it won’t work.”

I start thinking about a possible solution.

The problem with Laura’s idea is that it requires the other players to collaborate. We don’t know how much time we have left, and convincing them all in the middle of this chaos will take too long. Furthermore, by how brightly the crystals of the inert golems are shining, they’ll start moving anytime soon. When they do, it’ll be impossible to convince the players to focus on anything else.

Taking this into account, I can only think of one possible answer to our problem. A plan that’s so crazy that it’ll solve all our problems.

“So… tell me, Lily. Since you’re the one with the most experience when it comes to designing adventures and dungeons for tabletop games, I have a question for you. What do you think are the chances that the golems will explode after we defeat them?”

Both Balmy and Laura open their eyes wide open at my question. Hahaha, it’s funny that this is the first time they’ve reacted in the same way since they met.

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

Nobody expected that the Mystery Event would end with a bang… literally.