Chapter Eight #2
“Rosie.” I grabbed her by her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “Most men from my world would absolutely kill for that.”
“Wh—what about… what about you? Would—would you… kill for that? O-or—”
“You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?” I slipped one of my hands off her shoulder to hold her by her chin. “What do you think? Will I be upset and tell you to stop? Or will I become addicted to your touch and desire it every waking moment?”
“D—du—dungeon! Dungeon. Right, dungeon. Aha. Yes. Dungeon. Right. Yep. Skeletons. Not so scary now. Nope. Grinding time. Yep.” Rosie ran away from me.
Teasing her was addictively fun.
But I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to hold back.
Sure, technically, I was a grown adult almost thirty years old, but I stopped having experiences when I was a little kid. There was still so much new to me that, even if I didn’t show it much, I felt like someone going through puberty who desperately wanted to try out all sorts of new things.
It just so happened that I loved dungeons even more than that.
Even so, being around Rosie, knowing that our feelings were mutual—I really wanted to take the next step.
But at the same time… was it too soon? I had no idea.
I felt like, by most people’s standards back on Earth, I was probably trying to rush things, but was that a problem if we both wanted it?
Romance progressed extremely fast in the game, so that was probably normal to people in this world.
Well, fortunately, there was an extremely easy way for me to take my mind off that.
And that was by killing every single monster I saw.
“You know,” Rosie said, right after pulling her mace back after just slamming it into another skeleton’s head to kill it. “These guys really aren’t that scary. “But I’m kind of annoyed at what got me over my fear of them.”
“Teehee,” I said.
“Don’t you teehee me.”
“Hey, the important thing is that you’re not afraid anymore. That means we can finally go deeper in and fight more than the skeletons around the starting area.”
Really, I wanted to be fighting more than skeletons already, but…
the other group we saw took the more straightforward path that led to stronger enemies and thus the boss sooner.
I didn’t want to deal with them, both in the sense of them freaking out over me being a guy and in the sense of competing for monster spawns.
So, we took the longer “noob” route full of weak skeletons to kill and get easy experience from.
But we were just about to reach the end of that. The cemetery we had been fighting in, with paths dictated by fences and ruins, just led us to the entrance of a forest. A stone sign reading, “Grove of the Lost,” was next to its entrance.
“This looks kind of scary,” Rosie said.
“We won’t just be fighting skeletons in there,” I said.
Rosie gulped. “That’s… that’s okay. Even if they’re scarier than skeletons, I need to face them.”
“I know you can do it. Ready to go ahead, tank?”
“I think so—no, I am. I am. A tank can’t be so unsure.”
“That’s right. Tanks are usually the leaders who choose the path, forge the way, and protect everyone else. A tank without confidence is a party without confidence.”
“I know. I’ve got this.” Following a deep breath, Rosie stepped forward onto the dirt path between arching, dead trees.
Crows who had been waiting in the trees took off flying as soon as we entered the new area. Their calls made Rosie jump a little, but she didn’t stop moving forward.
Rosie was a girl who was shorter than me with a smaller frame than me, but it was impossible for me to see her as small as she led the way. Her back, occasionally trembling from fear, was far larger than she looked. A safe, protective back entrusted to me as she faced her fear.
A back I wanted to support and would be glad to give a push to when needed.
[Shambling Corpse]
[Level 6]
Three zombies with rotten skin and tattered clothes stepped out from behind the trees on the sides of the path.
Even though they were only two levels higher than the skeletons, they were notably stronger thanks to just how much health they had, plus their appearances were far more grotesque.
Even compared to the game, it was hard to look at them.
One of them had blackened intestines hanging out of its gut while another had a broken arm with exposed bone alongside only half a face with an eye hanging out of its socket.
Even I felt a little afraid seeing them.
As for Rosie, she stopped in her tracks, totally still.
I tried to say, “You—”
But Rosie raised her shield and readied her mace in her other hand. “I’ve—I’ve got the two on the left. The… the right is yours.” She sounded terrified. Far more scared than she ever was when it came to the skeletons.
“Got it,” I replied.
She didn’t need words of encouragement. She didn’t need me to tell her that it would be alright—that there was nothing to be scared of.
The enemy was scary. I was scared.
But she needed to learn firsthand that keeping calm and coming up with a plan was the right approach. She didn’t rush in. She didn’t run away. She stood her ground, came up with a plan, and relayed it to me.
The best thing I could do to encourage her was to do my best carrying it out.
“Ready?” Rosie asked me.
“Ready,” I answered.
Rosie nodded without looking back and ran forward. I watched her as I charged at my respective target. She bashed the first zombie with her shield, stunning it and knocking it over, so that she could swing her mace at the second one.
That was all I got to watch as I had my own zombie to deal with.
The zombie in front of me lunged to try and intercept me, but I was able to dodge and—
Slip.
I just so happened to dodge onto a patch of mud that I didn’t notice and slipped, falling onto my side from it.
Terrain hazards in the game weren’t so simple. They existed, but they were only in more complex dungeons, and they were things like giant pits, rivers of lava, or electrified ground. They weren’t patches of mud.
“Sev!” Rosie shouted.
“I’m fine!” I shouted back as I just barely dodged the zombie’s follow-up attack. “Seriously, mud,” I said to myself. “Come on, Sev. You’re not cool at all slipping on mud.”
Once more, the zombie attacked me, but I was able to attack back this time. I parried the swing of its arm with my sickle before slicing into the side of its torso.
Poison was useless against undead, but I had something else pretty effective against them.
I took aim and snapped my snapped my fingers.
Spark sent a flame flying into the zombie right where I cut it, knocking it back a little while dealing critical damage.
Zombies were critically weak to fire, so every source of Fire damage had a dramatically increased critical chance while dealing improved critical damage.
Really, thanks to how much I enhanced my sickle, all that critical weakness did was bring Spark up to be as strong as a single attack from my weapon.
But using Spark like that felt cool.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much point in using my torch. Even with the debuff it could inflict, it was way more effective to simply use my sickle more.
I got in one more attack, but the zombie recovered in the process and chunked my health by swiping its hand against my arm.
Normally, getting basically slapped by a monster wouldn’t do that much damage, but the zombie had sharp, jagged nails with maggots and other insects living under them.
Some of those maggots got onto where the zombie scratched me, so I was quick to smack them off of me even though I doubted they would actually do anything.
But that distraction was a problem.
The zombie grabbed onto me and had its face right in front of me, its mouth hanging open ready to bite me with those decayed teeth.
I knew I wasn’t in danger of dying. Even if it bit me, I’d still have at least 30% of my health, plus I had potions.
But I felt afraid.
Why was I so afraid? I didn’t feel any fear in the first dungeon. It wasn’t like I was afraid of horror, either.
So, why?
Why couldn’t I move?
Why—
A shield slammed into the zombie’s shoulder to knock it away.
In front of me was that same back I had been watching. The back of the party’s tank—the back of a brave fighter willing to protect her companion no matter what.
It was the back I relied on so many times back in the game. Now, it was right in front of me.
“I’ll cover you while you heal,” Rosie said.
I didn’t need to heal. Arguably, it’d be a waste of a potion to heal now.
But it was the tank’s order.
I opened my inventory, pulled out a potion while Rosie held off the zombies, and chugged it to restore my health to full.
“You’re too damn cool, Rosie,” I said, drawing my sickle again to go after the same bastard who was about to bite me while she held off the other two.
I was so focused that I didn’t get to see her reaction.
Now, though, that fear was gone.
I wasn’t sure where it came from in the first place. Maybe it was my mind catching up with the situation—catching up with not just being in a video game. It was a real, life-or-death battle. Or maybe I was just more afraid of rotting corpses than I knew. Whatever it was didn’t matter.
What mattered now was that I wanted to prove I wasn’t a coward who could only survive thanks to others taking care of me.
I wasn’t getting back in that damn bed.
One. Two. Three. That was how many cuts I could get in after dodging each attack from the zombie. Three slices from my sickle in quick succession, carving more and more of the zombie’s body open with each attack.
It lunged at me again.
I dodged, got behind it, and kicked. Kicking it sent it stumbling forward into the same mud that I tripped in. Only now, it was the one that tripped, and it was easy for me to swing my sickle down into the back of its skull to finish it off.
Zombies were weak—they barely dealt any damage, but they had annoying amounts of health for their level.
So, it was time to deal with the remaining annoyances Rosie had been keeping busy.