DAY 119
EVENING
Even a shut-in doesn’t want to be shut up in a pocket universe when it’s got no form of entertainment!
A KINGDOM DUNGEON
MY TIMING COULDN’T HAVE BEEN WORSE! Whenever I attacked, it blocked; whenever I blocked, it swept right past me. The dungeon king—a “Corrosion Fog, Lv: 50”—was a tough customer, but not anything to write home about. I’d fought worse in bigger dungeons or frontier dungeons. It was the corrosive part that gave me pause. I didn’t dare go near it for fear of rotting, and how was I supposed to fight a fog with no core to target?
The miasma swept in without a puff of air or single sound. Qing Qigong was no help—with no wind, I couldn’t be propelled anywhere. I had to jump and dash out of the way, and once I was at a safe distance away, I found myself in a deadlock once more.
Bobble bobble!
Tum-ta-ta-tum, tum-ta-ta-tum!
Slimey did his best little drummer boy impression on the cheerleading drum for me, but the others refused to join in the cheer squad. No uniforms and pom-poms for them!
I unfurled my Black Demon’s Bladed Wings and tried flap, flap, flapping the mist away to little avail. The fog scattered, only to congeal again in a matter of moments.
“I’d slash at it if that would kill off the fog, but I fear that’d only make more fog particles…”
Nor were heating or cooling viable options. The fog would simply absorb any magic I cast. Physical weapons weren’t much help either. If I got too close, I’d have to contend with Rot, Equipment Fracture, and MP Absorption.
“This reminds me of the Sand Giant. It didn’t have a core or weak points either. I had to use Demolish to homebrew my own atom bomb, but that wouldn’t work here. And if I use Holding magic to pull the fog together, the fog will just suck up my MP.”
So, we were at a standstill. The fog shied away from my divine swords. Every time I tried to grab it, I missed—or mist, if you will. Using Demolish on a rapidly dissipating handful of fog technically was an option, but it wouldn’t set off a chain reaction like I wanted. And none of us wanted an uncontrollable nuclear meltdown.
“Not to mention, it’d take too long. Anyone have ideas on how to beat this thing? Wanna switch in for m—whoa! Watch it there, fog! I wish this thing would stop spreading the moment I take my eyes off it…”
I did not want the entire room covered in a flesh-eating fog. I slashed and hacked away at it, driving it back with my divine swords, to stop it from touching me. It shied away from the swords. We were playing a game of attrition crossed with a game of keep away. Hey, gang? Any ideas on what to do next?
“Good, luck.”
Jiggle, jiggle.
“We believe, in you!”
Wriggle wriggle.
“Let’s go, Master! Let’s go!”
Bobble bobble.
Tum-ta-ta-tum-ta-ta-tum!
Their ideas? Cheering, apparently. None of them wanted to fight this stupid fog either!
“Y’know, a teenage boy would feel more get up and go from a squad of frisky cheerleaders… Just throwing it out there…”
Forget pom-poms. All I had were Slimey’s bom boms.
Bom bom bom!
With enough effort, I corralled the freakin’ fulsome fog into a corner. If my plan worked on walls, why wouldn’t it work on fog? It would be limited range, and I wasn’t sure if the explosion would travel from fog particle to fog particle—but hey, that was why this was an experiment. I Entangled my magic, qi, and Skills to create a zone of deadly vibrations powered by Demolish, Vibration, and Void magic. This had to work—or else. I had to one-shot the fog, or else it’d eat all my MP.
“Hoo… Okay. Let’s roll.”
Speed was unnecessary. I only needed Thought Acceleration to give myself complete control. I slowed time to a crawl, leaving a scattered morass of time particles breaking apart like so much plasma. Then I stuck my foot out and stomped. This was no perfect, instantaneous bengquan, but a ground-shaking, earth-quaking, power-awakening mixture of magic, qi, and physical prowess. The dungeon emperors shied away, horrified. Dancer Girl snapped her chain at me, forcing me to dodge. Oops. Was this attack supereffective as friendly fire?
“Eeek! Aaaah!”
The air trembled; space itself creaked like the rotten beams of a crumbling building. The world shuddered and warped before melting in on itself like myriad mirages layered over one another. If the dungeon emperors were running, this was bad business! But I couldn’t run for cover myself, or else I’d lose control—and then who knew where the attack would go? The whole room shivered and spun in a spherical vortex centered on the tip of my staff!
“No! Stay, back! Get away!”
The sphere began to collapse; space began to decay. The destructive powers of magic gone mad curved around the edges of my divine weapons, but the fog succumbed completely to its fey pull. There was a horrible, earsplittingly high-pitched shriek of high frequency harmonics gone haywire. Low-frequency rumbles shuddered through the room. Molecules vibrated, generating heat, turning the room into a furnace of cataclysmic proportions. Then everything ceased. All light vanished. All sound failed.
I looked down and found nothing. My body was gone. Oopsies. Miss Armor Rep screamed and sobbed, but no sound reached my nonexistent ears. Dancer Girl stood stock-still, horrified, one end of her molten and melting chain still clutched in one hand. Sleeping Beauty ran over to where my last molecules were rapidly dissipating, lobbing Healing in my direction and keening fit to wake the dead. I wanted to speak, to at least give some word of comfort to the silent and stupefied slime, but I couldn’t. I had no voice. I had no mouth. No ears. Nothing but silence. Darkness. And nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Sinking into nothing…
Whew! Okay, I’m better now. That was a close one, huh, fellas?
“I’m not sure what I expected, to be honest. Like, no duh, vibrating atoms is stupid dangerous! Had I vibrated a little harder, I would’ve left you all sad and lonely without me. When they say ‘the world disappears in the fog,’ I didn’t know they meant literally… Anyway, blame the fog! Not me!”
The dungeon emperors stopped bawling just long enough to yell, “Shut up, Haruka!”
Jeez, they were spitting mad! They glared, chewed me out, and sobbed in equal measures. They forced me into a penitent position and gave me actual hell. The menacing morning stars at the ready made me gulp. And gosh, were the dungeon emperors still crying? It’d been well over an hour! My feet fell asleep at thirty minutes in! Then I was forced into another half hour of them hugging me and sobbing onto my shoulder while I cradled heads and whispered, “Shh, it’s okay now. I’m here.” I’m watching the clock, girls… It’s almost nighttime. Hmm. What should I make for dinner tonight?
“Really, guys, I’m fine. You all knew—well, Sleeping Beauty didn’t—that I have the Sacred Severing Staff. And I have Void magic. Even if I were willing to blow myself up, you know I could always teleport out of the way. Guys, I’m on death’s doorstep every other day. I wouldn’t actually die. It’d be a waste of my extensive collection of close shaves!”
You remember the Severing Staff, right? It was that relic thingy the church archbishop dude had had when he attacked the Kingdom. Using mithril on it upgraded it into the “Sacred Severing Staff: +50% to all stats. Magic control boost (ultra). Severing. Seal. MP boost (ultra).” Its Severing Trait allowed me to shut myself away in a pocket universe in times of trouble. Shut-ins the world over wished they were me. Thing was, the pocket universe shrouded its occupants in silence and darkness. The user could see nothing in the space—not their body, nothing—just the outside world. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t cast magic. They were stuck. Had someone not brought my staff to me, I would’ve been locked in there for good. It was a great hidey-hole in emergencies, but entering it used oodles of MP. No wonder I’d forgotten about it until this moment. Had I not had a flash of inspiration—when in doubt, be a NEET—I would’ve been toast!