Chapter Nine #2
“Still,” the party’s tank said, “a man in a dungeon… who acts so…” The girl looked at the others in her party and they all nodded to one another. “Wo-would you like to join our party?! We won’t do anything weird! We’ll even let you have most of the loot if you want! We—”
“I’m good,” I said. “Anyways, we encountered an invader over here—a giant hyena that must have maxed out on experience in here. We barely fought it off, but it ran away.”
“I—I see.”
“If you encounter it with its pack, toss some bones to distract them and they’ll run off. If you see the big guy, be careful. He almost oneshot my tank here.”
“Thanks for the advice. A-ah, right, my name. My name is—”
“Sorry, but I’m on a dungeon date with my Rosie, so we’ve got a boss to go kill. You guys were clearing that other route, yeah?”
“… we—we were.”
“Sweet. Thanks.” I grabbed Rosie by her hand and walked through the group of girls rather than around them on purpose.
Rosie silently came with me, but she did squeeze my hand after we made it past them.
Her ears and tail made it obvious just how happy she was.
“Still,” I said. “To think you were willing to pin me down like that. How bold.”
“It—it was the adrenaline!” Rosie whined. “We just survived a deadly battle! It’s not my fault! I wasn’t thinking clearly!”
“Aww. Here I was hoping I got to see a new side of Rosie who couldn’t resist pinning me down and making me hers. What a shame. I liked that side of you.”
“There—there you go again! Are you trying to bait me into violating you?!”
I tilted my head back and looked down at her with a smile. “You tell me. Am I?”
Still, despite how flustered she might have been from the teasing, she didn’t let go of my hand.
We made our way through the dungeon’s main path, fought through more skeletons and zombies, and then reached the first elite spawn. A Bloated Corpse. Basically, just a tall, fat zombie who exploded with poisonous gas on death.
But after fighting that invader, the elite was a piece of cake by comparison. All we did was get him low enough for me to finish him off with a Spark and we were safe.
Then came the Skeletal Hounds, which were just skeleton dogs, and a couple of skeletons wearing armor, and we made it to the end of the dungeon while gaining another level in the process.
Now, it was time for the boss itself.
The cemetery’s main path led us straight to it.
At the end of the path was a large, circular area surrounded by graves and dead flowers with a grand mausoleum on the far side of it.
That mausoleum would actually take us to an optional, deeper part of the dungeon full of higher-level enemies, but that wasn’t our goal.
Our goal was the boss standing in front of it.
[Otto Oakson, the Grave Knight]
[Level 9 | Boss]
The boss, Otto, was a tall skeleton clad in black armor wielding a heavy mace and shield with a sheathed, ornamental sword hanging from his hip.
Honestly, he looked really cool. That was why he was always one of my favorite undead to “recruit” whenever I used a build with Necromancer as one of the classes.
There was also the fact that I knew how tragic his story was and that he didn’t deserve to be stuck as an infinitely respawning spirit of evil in a dungeon, but he was, and his mind was already lost. He was no longer the same Otto who was betrayed by his own men as he protected his princess.
“He’ll be easy compared to that hyena,” I said, “but still. Treat him with respect.”
“With respect?” Rosie asked. “But… why?”
“Forbidden knowledge. Until you figure it out yourself, all you need to know is that he’s a—or was, a noble knight worthy of respect who didn’t deserve this fate.”
“But he still ended up here. Another reason for why no god is worthy of worship.”
“I can’t blame you for that.”
“I wish we could free his soul from this place.”
“He’s only an evil spirit now. Everything that once made him so proud and heroic is gone. Only madness remains.” Or so the lore went.
“Even the mad deserve rest.”
“You’ve got me there.”
Rosie raised her shield and nodded toward the boss.
Otto raised his shield in response and… nodded back.
“That… wasn’t in the game,” I said. “He’s supposed to be—”
Otto didn’t care for my confusion. He ran at us ready to attack.
Why was a boss who was supposed to be nothing more than a mad spirit honorably waiting for us to be ready and nodding in response to Rosie’s nod? That made him feel like… there was still a part of his old, noble self in there.
His mace clashed against Rosie’s shield, and then her mace clashed against his. Rosie took damage from blocking his attack, but he didn’t take any from blocking hers.
There was no time for me to be confused. I had a job to do.
I got behind him and slashed at his back with my sickle, but his armor meant I didn’t do much. It still chipped his health, though, and it chipped away more of his health than I was able to chip away from that oversized hyena.
“I told you to treat him with respect, but here I am, trying to stab him in the back just like his soldiers did,” I said.
“Sev?” Rosie asked as she blocked another attack, grunting from the force of the blow.
“I’m going to be selfish, Rosie. Back off from attacking him.”
“Wh-what?! Why?!”
“I want to be selfish and treat him with the respect he deserves.”
I saw Otto’s head start to turn after hearing that, but he kept his focus on Rosie who was right in front of him. At least, until Rosie backed off and said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but be careful.”
“I will be.” I put some distance between myself and Otto now that Rosie backed off. “Hey, Sir Oakson,” I called out.
Otto turned to face me but did not attack.
“You’ve still got some of your old pride in you, don’t you?”
He remained still, his eyeless sockets staring into me.
“That princess of yours deeper in the dungeon—inside that crypt behind you. You’re still protecting her even now, aren’t you?”
The hand holding his mace twitched, but that was all I got for a response.
“Even after getting stabbed in the back, you took down over a dozen traitors before falling. You don’t deserve to die from getting stabbed in the back again.
” I put my sickle and torch away to pull out Rusty instead.
“If I’m going to defeat you, it’s going to be a duel.
An honorable knight like you deserves that much. ”
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting.
But I knew that I wasn’t expecting Otto to toss his shield and mace aside before pulling out the old, rusted sword at his hip. A sword that was only meant to be ornamental and that was just as rusty as mine.
“What—what’s happening?” Rosie asked. “He’s… a dungeon monster shouldn’t—”
“He gets to serve his princess even in death,” I said. “From now until the end of time, he’ll protect her.” I shot Otto a smile. “You couldn’t be happier to be here, could you?”
Otto gripped his sword with both hands and raised it in front of him.
“Thought so. This is how a dungeon fight should feel—fun, not tragic.” I copied his stance with Rusty. “Show me the swordsmanship that put down those traitors all those years ago.”
Otto was the one to nod first that time.
I nodded back.
Our duel began as he came at me. Before, when he was swinging that mace around, he felt unrefined—like a monster just trying to inflict damage. But now, as he raised his sword to strike at me, there was grace and skill in his movements.
I could have dodged, but I didn’t. Instead, I turned my sword to block his with mine.
He barely did any damage to me. Had I tried that while he was wielding his mace, I was sure it would have taken off way more of my health. Instead, he barely hurt me.
That meant we could enjoy our duel for longer.
A boss fight normally only took a couple of minutes for these early dungeons. The later dungeons had boss fights that lasted anywhere from a couple minutes to almost half an hour with a few ridiculous fights lasting far longer.
If we fought the normal way, Rosie and I probably could have defeated Otto in a minute and a half at the latest.
Instead, I found myself getting worn out and panting after dueling with Otto for nearly ten minutes.
His health was down to 20% while mine was still around 40%. Even if he was once a noble, skilled knight, he was only a shadow of his past self now. I was tired, but there wasn’t a chance of me losing.
More importantly.
I could tell he was having as much fun as I was.
“I wonder if you’ll remember this the next time you respawn,” I said.
Our swords clashed together once again.
“This won’t be the last time we duel, and I’ll be even stronger next time, so you better get in some training, noble knight.”
Otto broke off the clash, paused, and nodded before striking again.
I had no idea if it was even possible for a dungeon boss to grow stronger. It probably wasn’t.
But I loved to see he still had at least a fragment of his old self in him.
The fight was valuable for me, too. Even if I had the unfair advantage of unearned experience in me, I watched and studied his movements to learn how a true swordsman fought. I watched his techniques, his movements, the way he positioned his feet, and I put all of that into my own attacks.
“I doubt anyone ever told you, Otto,” I said.
“But those traitors—the ones who killed you and your princess, they lost. Their rebellion failed and they were held accountable for their sins. Nobody alive knows the story, but your old kingdom knew the truth. The people knew your princess was innocent and that you were an honorable knight who protected her until your last breath. And it was all thanks to you. Your last stand was what inspired some of the surviving traitors to tell the truth. Your honor showed them the right path.”
Otto went still for a moment before stepping back and dropping his sword. The next thing I saw was something else I never could have expected. He reached up, removed his helmet, and knelt in front of me.