Chapter Two #3
And if I did mess up, I just had to deal with it and win anyways.
Alright! Time to—
The sound of battle reached my ears.
It sounded like two blunt objects being swung into each other, so I already knew what to expect.
The starter dungeon always had a chance for one NPC out of the “starting companion pool” to spawn. The rest could be found in the city, but a random one always spawned at the start.
And she was always a girl, of course. The developer—Seth, was just like that.
As for the girl who spawned for me this time around, I already knew who she was. Only one of the starting girls used a blunt weapon that would make the sort of sounds I heard coming from deeper into the cave.
“So… stubborn!” she shouted, confirming she was exactly who I suspected.
There was no way I would forget the voice of my favorite starting companion who I made sure to romance in every single playthrough.
I picked up my pace once I heard her voice.
A couple of snails almost got to drop on me from how quick I was running, but I inflicted Burning and Poisoned on the first one which let me run past it before it even died and the second one was dealt with using Power Bash and inflicting Burning.
Activating skills was also pretty easy. Or at least, natural.
In the game, it meant clicking the right key.
Here, whenever I wanted to use a skill, I felt this sort of…
instinctual knowledge on how to do it. I didn’t have to shout the name out or anything like that, but—for example, with Power Bash, I had to raise my torch above me and wait for a moment as if charging it up before striking. That activated it.
And it was thanks to those skills that I quickly made it to a more open room of the cave where I saw a familiar sight. It was scripted to always happen in the game if she was chosen to be the starting companion, but now it was happening in real life right before my eyes.
On one side of the room, a Blind Cave Scorpion, the elite enemy of the dungeon the size of a horse that had two oversized pincers covered in hard rock used to pummel foes rather than pinch them.
And on the other side of the room… Rosie. The spunky holstaur who was as cute as she was monstrously strong. Though she could be built for any role, she was most commonly used as a frontline brawler or tank, and she herself even preferred being a tank going by her dialogue.
With a metal mace in her right hand and a shield in her left, she blocked one claw from the scorpion before swinging her mace into its other claw, sending the monster reeling back.
As for me… it was hard to tell where to look.
I spent most of my life in monitored environments. Most of the women I was around were old, fully clothed, and not exactly pleasant when it came to personality.
Now, I saw an attractive girl younger than myself who had the horns, ears, tail, and size of a cow.
The plaid skirt she wore barely covered her thighs and the front of her top was left open to show off the immense valley of cleavage all members of her race had.
Back on Earth, women didn’t get breasts like that without being morbidly obese and typically had plenty of back pain to go with them.
Here, girls could have chests like that while still being in good shape and without any back pain.
I knew that because Seth specifically mentioned it in in a post on social media once. It was canon that all the women of Custom Dungeon World had incredibly strong spines so that no boobs could ever be large enough to cause them pain.
Anyways.
No matter how jiggly she might have been, and no matter how much I could just stand there watching from the back, she was still a girl I was meant to save.
Because just like in the game, the scorpion took advantage of her overconfidence to thrust its tail’s stinger at her.
Rosie noticed it too late. She was able to avoid getting pierced by the stinger, but the last-second dodge put her in the perfect position for the monster to slam its claw into her, sending her flying into the wall where she dropped both her mace and shield.
I felt unbelievably happy when I saw her. The Rosie who only ever existed in a game was now real and in front of me. With how many times I romanced her, it was only natural for me to default to thinking of her as my wife.
So, when I saw some monster hurt my wife, that joy I felt was immediately replaced by rage.
I had no idea what Rosie would be like now that she was real. She might not even like me.
But I wasn’t going to tolerate anyone hurting her.
I cast Spark by snapping my fingers toward the monster to grab its attention once it began to approach her again. The small flame wasn’t much, but still did some damage and forced the monster to turn and face me.
“You’re awfully full of yourself, thinking you can hurt my wife like that just because I’m on a new playthrough,” I told it.
I could tell that Rosie lifted her head to look at me, but I didn’t get to see what expression she had.
Giving her attention would come after killing the bastard who hurt her.