Balmy keeps poking my ear during all the fall. Since she’s the only one who can fly, she’s free to disturb my perfect calmness as she pleases. It isn’t until we land on the ground that my patience ends and I snap at her.

“...will you stop already?”

“No,” she shakes her head, “I won’t stop until you admit you’re mad that your plan failed so spectacularly.”

The nerve… I clench my fists to contain my anger. It isn’t that I can’t try to swipe her away, but that I’ve learned my lesson. As long as she keeps it at poking my ear and doesn’t do anything else, I won’t risk making her scream. Not when she’s so close to my ears, at least.

“A way out, a way out…” I scan our surroundings.

The remaining fragments of the giant crystal are slowly turning into black particles, floating upwards. When they collide with the black fog, they start swirling, creating a massive whirlpool. They get sucked into the center, disappearing into nothingness.

The spectacle is breathtaking, but I have more important and urgent matters to attend to.

The three golems, with their colossal and bulky frames, have fallen to the ground. Their once imposing presence is now gone. From the crystals embedded in their bodies, purple lightning constantly bursts forth in erratic and unpredictable paths. It looks dangerous, and I’m sure we’d take damage if we were to touch them.

When the golems were alive and attacking us – and the crystal, by extension –, they distributed themselves into a triangle, to avoid hitting each other with their attacks. Now that they’ve fallen over, and taking into account the unpredictable lightning bursts, they form impassable walls enclosing us in all directions. Just a tiny gap remains between two of them, barely wide enough for us to pass through.

I’m not sure who’s the one to make the first move, but we all start running, hoping to escape the explosion area on time. Now that we’ve gone so far, everyone wants to do everything possible to obtain the extra reward. Balmy, in particular, uses her flying ability to fly upwards, being the single one of us who is almost guaranteed to get to safety.

“Damn fairy… she’s been so obnoxious all the event and now she’s the only one who can safely get away…”

If she’s the only one who makes it, I’ll demand part of the bonus as compensation. After all, she didn’t do anything but scream and complain since the boss battle started.

Just look at Laura! She could be using Blink to get an advantage over the rest of us but she’s instead running right next to me. That’s what you call a good teammate, unlike that nasty fairy.

“Are you sure you can’t use Aegis again?” I ask Calaban for the second time. “Just a tiny little bit will be enough…”

He shakes his head. “I already told you I can’t.”

“Ugh…”

His upgraded Aegis, the reason we could withstand the coordinated assault of all the players and bosses, has a single use unlike the normal Aegis, which has three. But you know… you can always hope and ask again. Maybe, the answer will change.

By the way, the upgraded Aegis looks like this.

Aegis - Lv 2 (Activated skill) Cost: 200 EP, 100 MP You ignore all damage and status effects for the next 10 seconds. You can’t move, attack, or use skills during this time. You can’t use this skill more than three times per Dungeon Invasion or Dungeon Battle. Upgrades Shieldfield: Aegis now affects all allies within 2 meters of you, and it now has a single use per Dungeon Invasion or Dungeon Battle.

As we run, I have nothing better to do but to check the state of my arm. In the status screen, the curse has disappeared, and when I look at my arm, the progress has stopped. I haven’t recovered the lost maximum HP, and my arm looks the same as before, with the eyes staring back at me…

…ugh, sorry. I can’t keep looking.

“But thank god. Something good at least.” As awful as my arm looks, it isn’t getting any worse now.

We keep running and the discharges from the golems keep growing in intensity. One of them hits Muribelle and sends her backward, but Navigator picks her up and they resume running. Moo is ‘accidentally’ hit by another burst that would otherwise have hit me… no, I’m not complaining. I’m glad he protected me, even if he made a weird moan and I suffered mental damage because of it.

This is just the damage we take before we get to the gap between the fallen golems. There, it’s inevitable that we all take severe damage from the lightning bursts, as they’re too close together.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

I, in particular, who is always taking extra damage when I cast any spell… and no, it definitely has nothing to do with my skill choices. It’s the game’s fault and not mine. It’s never my fault.

So, as I was saying, I watch in horror as my HP falls to a dangerous level, but Laura saves me by spending her last MP points on healing me. “T-thank you…”

Laura sends me a flying kiss. “Fufufu, you’re welcome. You can pay me back later, when we’re alone… I’m sure you know what I mean.” She winks, and her comment sends a shiver down my spine for an unknown reason.

By contorting our bodies to avoid the lighting, we finally emerge on the other side, but we’re only halfway there. We’re still inside the explosion area. To be more precise, we’re now right next to the center. And our HP bars are in tatters, except for Calaban, the unkillable undead with unlimited survival skills. Well, not unlimited, but you know what I mean.

The crystals on the golems start to shatter, releasing an intense purple light. They will detonate anytime now, and we’re nowhere far enough. We don’t have time to relax, so we don’t stop running.

“I have a plan. Follow me!” Moo unexpectedly takes the lead and changes the direction he’s running toward.

“What are you doing now!?” I shout, not understanding his move. “Why aren’t you running in a straight line!?”

What the fuck is he doing? The shortest path is always the straight line! When two bombs are ready to detonate, aka the closest two golems, you should run perpendicular to them, to get out of their area as soon as possible. Why is he running at an angle instead? This way, we’ll quickly get out of range of one of them, but it’ll take a lot longer to get out of the other’s!

“As I’ve said, I have a plan. Believe in me,” Moo proudly pats his chest.

Muribelle shrugs her shoulders and follows after him. “It’s better than nothing, I guess.”

“Ugh… fine. I’ll do as you say.” I, too, start following Moo; as well as Laura, who doesn’t seem to want to leave my side.

Calaban, Navigator, and Thunder Thighs look at each other, not sure what to do. Maybe by inertia, maybe because they somehow understand what Moo’s trying to do, or maybe simply because they trust him, they decide to follow too.

Everything is painted a purple color as three tiny suns, the same color as the light that’s painting everything, appear where the golems were. The tiny suns start contracting, clearly indicating that their inevitable explosion is about to come.

“Stay behind me. Now!” Moo shouts, opening his arms as wide as he can to cover as much area as possible. He then turns to us, wearing a smile. “Don’t forget about me, okay? This is going to hit, very hard. Mooohahaha!”

Is he planning to protect us with his Impenetrable Wall? It might not work because–

*BOOOOOOOM!*

The purple light floods the world after three explosions overlapping each other. I watch in horror as the rapidly expanding purple light obliterates everything in its path. The remaining corrupted dwarves, the scattered monsters, the players that couldn’t evacuate in time…

Everything disappears.

Everything, until the light reaches Moo. Then, as if it were a miracle, a shadow is created behind him. A tiny shadow, insignificant when compared to the light that creates it. But still, that shadow is enough to protect us, leaving us unscathed.

“We… we survived?” I say, still not sure of our victory. “Or am I dreaming?”

“We survived, you fool,” Laura smacks me. “Your teammate did protect us as he said.”

“That doesn’t give you any right to hit me.”

“I’ll hit you if I want to,” she declares, puffing her chest out before delivering another blow to my head.

“Ouch…!”

Interrupting our fight, the light vanishes as if it were all a lie. Then, at the same time as Moo’s corpse hits the ground, a window pops up in front of me.

Whoa, you survived that!? Congratulations! You survived the golem’s explosion and have received the same bonus points as everyone else…

I clench my fist tightly. “I swear, I’m going to kill whoever is behind all this bullshit.”

“Oho?” Laura, right by my side, tilts her head. “Why does it sound so familiar…? The style, the taunting, the laughing at the end… Ah!” She turns to look at me. “...Did you have anything to do with all this?”

“I didn’t! I swear, if I could get my hands on the one who designed this, I’d like to skin them alive and turn them into the most ugly Stitched ever!”

“Fufufu… it’s funny when it’s you the one who says it.” Laura laughs merrily at my frustration. “Hey, what are you doing after this? Would you like to–”

“Hey, heeeeey! Koalaaaaaa! You have some luck surviving that! If it weren’t for Moo, you would have died for sure… I was so looking forward to taking a few screenshots of your corpse as a souvenir of this Mystery Event, but I guess I’ll have to settle for your written apology that you promised a while ago.”

Accompanying the shout, there’s a tiny figure flying our way, waving her hand at us enthusiastically.

When the hell did she come back? Didn’t she fly away a long time ago? How did she get here so fast?

“Fuck off, Balmy! And shut up, for god’s sake!”

The tiny figure flying in mid-air is suddenly engulfed by a sea of dark flames. “Ugyaaaaaah! Aaaah, I’m dying! Save me, Koala!” Balmy shouts.

I swear, it wasn’t me this time. Not like I’m complaining, though. I think, a smirk on my lips as I watch her dance, trying to stay alive.

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

Somewhere inside a dark room filled with screens showing several areas of the Mystery Event, a certain DMA staff worker was laughing like there was no tomorrow… up to the point her coworkers thought they had to call the ambulance because she was having a seizure.

After having pestered her coworkers for weeks just to be allowed to plan the final showdown, she had been looking forward to watching the players face it. She just never expected her favorite player, the one who she took inspiration from, to be the one to fall for her tricks.