The Hobgloblin's club descended.
Dante's [Haste] buff was a live wire in his brain.
He wasn't seeing the club; he was calculating its path. It was a blur of wood and iron, but to his accelerated senses, it was a hitbox.
He threw himself sideways; a pathetic roll that was pure adrenaline-fueled instinct.
He was fast.
But the club was faster.
WHUMP
BUMMM
The ground where he had been standing exploded.
'Like a bomb!'
A crater of mud, stone, and pulverized roots erupted, and the shockwave alone, a fist of compressed air, slammed into Dante's chest, knocking the wind from him.
"Huff huff huff, I was alive." Barely.
He tried to scramble to his feet. His [Haste] buff was tell him to:
'Move, move, move, dammit!'
But the Hobgoblin... it was still a Level 12 boss.
Dante was still on one knee, and the monster, roaring in fury at the "miss," was already on him.
It didn't swing its club again. It didn't need to.
It simply backhanded him.
The motion was a blurring swat. The flat of its massive iron-hard hand connected with Dante's side.
SPLASH
He heard the sound before he felt the pain. A series of wet and sharp cracks.
'My ribs!'
The world vanished.
He was just like a ragdoll now.
He was in the air for a split second, then he slammed into the stone wall of the watchtower, ten feet away.
BUMMM
He hit so hard his teeth clicked together.
'Fuck! I got to do something!'
He slid down the wall, his body is on pain.
His interface flashed.
[HP: 40/100]
[STATUS: STUNNED (3.0 SEC)]
[STATUS: RIB FRACTURE (MINOR)]
His [Haste] buff, his only advantage, flickered in his vision, the "buff" icon greying out.
He was stunned. He couldn't move. He couldn't even think.
He was on the ground, helpless.
"Producer-sama!" Rin-Rin's voice was a distant, terrified squeak.
She was still singing [Toxic], but her voice was wavering. The song was just... annoying the monster. The poison was, once again, useless.
The Hobgoblin, having dealt with the fast gnat, turned its attention back to the source of the song.
It took one step toward Rin-Rin.
Then it stopped.
It looked back at Dante.
It was smart. It was a boss. Of course it recognized the "stun." It knew a "kill shot" when it saw one.
It turned, ignoring the caster, and stomped toward the downed target.
Dante, his vision still swimming, watched the seven-foot-tall Hobgoblin approach.
He tried to move.
His fingers twitched in the mud. Stunned. The timer in his head was a frozen.
[2.0 SEC].
He was too slow.
The Hobgoblin stood over him.
Its massive shadow blotted out the purple sky.
'Ahhh, it smells like spoiled meat.'
It raised its tree-trunk club with both hands, a slow "execution" animation.
'This was it.'
This was the "Game Over" screen.
He was Level 2. He had 453 summons. And he was going to die.
'I'm sorry, Shivvy…' he thought, his mind going strangely calm.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.
***
Shivvy was hiding.
She was doing exactly what the Creator had told her to do.
"Cover your ears."
She was huddled behind a mossy boulder, her hands pressed so hard against her head they hurt. Her eyes were squeezed shut.
'Hide. Hide. Be quiet. Be safe. The Creator is working!'
She was a bank and a mule. Her job was to wait.
The ROAR of the Hobgoblin was a physical vibration she felt in her teeth.
She peeked. One eye, just a slit.
There, she saw the Creator dodge. He was so fast.
'Amazing.'
Then she saw him get hit.
The sound, that awful wet crack, made her flinch.
Seconds later, she saw him fly. Then him hit the wall.
'One, two, three, four… five…'
He wasn't getting up.
'Get up, Creator. Please. Get up. Get up. Get up!'
The monster. It was walking to him.
It was standing over him.
And raised its club.
Shivvy's world, which had been a simple binary system of [FEAR] and [OBEDIENCE], just... broke.
There was a new, third, overriding command that blasted through her programming.
'The Creator was going to die.'
The Creator, who had summoned her.
The Creator, who had fed her.
The Creator, who had given her a purpose beyond just... existing in a black silent void for ten years.
He was her god.
And if he died, she wasn't just lost. She was nothing. She would be "dismissed" forever.
The fear of that—the fear of the empty nothing—was, for the first time in her existence, greater than her fear of the monster.
The Hobgoblin's club reached the apex of its swing.
"N-N-NOOO!"
The sound that tore from her throat wasn't a shriek. It was a negation.
She moved.
She was a Level 3 Rogue.
Immediaetly, she burst from behind the rock, her tiny legs churning through the mud.
Her hand, by ingrained Aethelgard Online muscle memory, was on the hilt of her tiny [Common Iron Dagger].
She wasn't a warrior. And she had one skill that she never even used it.
[GOUGE (LVL 1): 'A quick strike that causes Bleed and cripples the target's movement.']
The Hobgoblin heard her.
It started to turn, annoyed by the new noise.
'It was too slow.'
Shivvy didn't aim for its back. She didn't aim for its head.
She aimed for the only thing she could reach.
The back of its knee.
In fact, she didn't know how to fight. She just leaped, putting all 80 pounds of her terrified body into a single two-handed lunge.
THWACK
The sound was wet, and hard.
The cheap iron dagger punched through the tough leather, past the thick tendon, and crunched deep into the joint.
A gout of hot foul-smelling blood erupted, spraying Shivvy in the face.
'It was warm. But also disgusting.'
"AAAAAAaaaAAAAAA CREATOR!!!!"
She screamed, letting go of the dagger, and fell backward into the mud.
***
Dante was waiting for the end until—
He heard the ROAR.
But it wasn't the "victory" roar of the Hobgoblin. It was a shrieking sound.
THUD
The world shook. The club hit the ground next to his head. Not on his head. But next to it.
Dirt, mud, and pebbles rained down on his face.
'I'm alive.'
He opened his eyes.
The [STUNNED] status had faded.
The Hobgoblin was not looking at him. Its massive body was contorted, its head thrown back as it screamed at the sky.
It was buckling. It was trying to turn, but its right leg... its leg wasn't working.
And then he saw her.
"Shivvy."
She was on the ground, twenty feet away, scrambling backward, her face and tattered leathers covered in the monster's black blood.
His iron dagger buried to the hilt in the back of the Hobgoblin's knee.
"KHHAAAAHHHAHAA!!!!!!"
The monster roared in pain, its leg folding.
Then it dropped to one knee, its "kill shot" on Dante completely forgotten. It swiped, blindly and furiously, at the agonizing source of pain.
"SHIVVY! [SNEAK]! HIDE! NOW!" Dante roared.
His [Haste] buff flooded his system. He rolled to his feet, ignoring the fire in his ribs.
The fight had changed.
The Hobgoblin was crippled.
A new pulsing-red debuff icon was floating over its head, visible only to Dante:
[CRIPPLED: -70% MOVE SPEED]
[BLEED: (MODERATE)]
It was slow.
It was so goddamn slow.
It was still a Level 12 boss, but it was maimed.
Dante, his body thrumming with [Haste], felt like a hummingbird facing a wounded bull. The threat was gone.
'Now it is just a mop-up.'
"Rin-Rin!" he roared, his voice filled with a confidence.
Rin-Rin had stopped singing, her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with terror.
"HIT IT! KEEP HITTING IT! [TOXIC]! FULL VOLUME! NOW!"
"R-Right, Producer-sama!" she squeaked, and immediately launched back into her song.
"Oh-oh-oh, you're toxic, my baby...!"
The rest of the "fight" was just an execution.
It was a massacre.
Dante (Hasted) didn't even run. He just strolled in lazy circles around the crippled, bleeding, and roaring monster.
He was a matador, and the Hobgoblin, its [Magic Resist] not enough to stop the stacking [Poison], was slowly bleeding out.
Then it swiped at him. He was ten feet away.
Rin-Rin, now safe at a massive distance, just sang her terrible heart-out.
The Hobgoblin roared one last time, a sound of pure frustration, and then... it just... fell.
It toppled sideways, its one good leg kicking, and then lay still.
A final chime.
DING!
[System: 'Goblin-Chief' Defeated. 150 EXP Gained.]
And then, the big one. The golden light.
[System: Creator Level 3 Achieved!]
[System: All Stats Increased.]
[System: Max Mana Increased: 20 -> 30]
[System: 'Summon Slot' Unlocked. Total Slots: 3/3]
The golden light washed over him. The pain in his ribs didn't just fade. It vanished. The [Rib Fracture] status was gone. And his [HP] bar was full.
The Level-Up Heal.
'Ahhhhh, it was the best feeling in the world.'
Silence.
The only sound was Rin-Rin's final triumphant, "T-O-X-I-C!", which she struck a pose to.
Dante was panting, his hands on his knees, his mind a blur.
He looked at Rin-Rin, who was bowing to her "audience" (the corpses).
He looked at the dead Hobgoblin, its massive still form.
And then he looked at Shivvy.
She hadn't moved. She was still sitting in the mud where she'd fallen, twenty feet away.
She was just... staring.
Her hands, held out in front of her, were covered in the monster's black blood.
She looked up, her wide eyes finding Dante's.
She had done it.
She had saved him. She had killed the monster.
She opened her mouth. A small, hiccuping sob escaped.
"HIC-UP!"
Then, she doubled over, her body convulsing, and was violently sick all over the grass.
Dante's "Kouhai" had just made her first kill.