[POV: Toru Makabe] [Location: Deep Tunnels - The Chase]
"I can't!" Toru screamed, his voice cracking. "I seriously fucking can't anymore!"
He slammed into the wall, his legs turning to jelly. His lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass. Beside him, Hinata stumbled, vomiting bile onto the stone floor. They had been running for what felt like days. From the Warlord. From the Hyenas. From the Goblins. And now, from a giant, pissed-off snake.
"Get up, Toru!" Mei grabbed his arm, pulling him. "It's coming!"
CRASH.
Behind them, the corridor walls buckled. The Ancient Basilisk smashed through a support pillar like it was made of styrofoam. It was bleeding, it was missing an eye, and it was moving with the frantic, jerky speed of a creature that just wanted to kill everything in sight.
"I'm done!" Toru pushed Mei away. "Go! Just go! I'm empty! I have zero mana, zero stamina, zero fucks left to give!"
Ren skidded to a halt at the front. He looked back at Toru, then at the monster closing the distance.
"Go!" Ren shouted to the group. "Get to the surface! I'll hold it here!"
"Don't be a martyr, you idiot!" Rika yelled, grabbing Ren's collar and shaking him. "You have 10 HP! If it sneezes on you, you die! We are not leaving you to play hero!"
"We have no choice!" Ren screamed back. "Look at it! It's faster than us!"
The Basilisk roared—a wet, gurgling hiss. It coiled its massive body, preparing to launch itself down the hallway to turn them all into bowling pins.
"This is so annoying," a tired voice muttered.
Noa Yukimura stopped running. She turned around, ripping the headphones off her neck. She held her brush with trembling hands.
"Gouache," Noa whispered. "Kamikaze."
The blue slime dog, Gouache No. 1, which had been trotting faithfully beside her, suddenly stopped. It looked at Noa. It wagged its tail.
Then, it launched itself at the Basilisk.
The monster opened its mouth to bite. Gouache jumped straight into the open maw.
"Burst," Noa commanded.
SPLAT.
Inside the Basilisk's mouth and face, the slime exploded. But Noa had mixed something new into it. Flash powder.
BANG.
A cloud of sticky, glowing blue foam erupted, coating the Basilisk's remaining good eye and clogging its nostrils.
SCREEEEEEEE!
The monster thrashed, blinded again, clawing at its own face to get the sticky paint off.
"Nice shot, emo girl!" Daigo cheered, though he was leaning heavily on his dented shield.
"Formation!" Ren barked, seeing the opening. "This is it! We stop running! We kill it here or we die here!"
Ayaka limped forward. She uncorked two small vials—the last of their supply.
"Toru! Hinata!" She threw them. "Catch! It's the last of the mana potions! Drink it, don't sip it!"
Toru caught the vial. He popped the cork and downed it. It tasted like battery acid and blueberries.
"Gross," Toru grimaced, but he felt a spark of heat return to his veins. "Okay. Okay, I'm back. Let's roast this overgrown gecko!"
"Circle up!" Ren ordered. "Daigo, anchor! Rika, Hinata, flank! Mei, Toru, range! Sora... stay back!"
Sora, who was standing near the wall catching his breath, just nodded. He gripped his rusty machete. He knew his place. He had no skills to contribute to a DPS check.
The Basilisk ripped the paint off its face, taking some scales with it. Its one red eye focused on them. It didn't roar this time. It just charged.
And then, chaos broke loose.
"EAT SHIT AND DIE!" Daigo screamed, abandoning all knightly decorum as he slammed his shield into the Basilisk's nose.
CRUNCH.
The impact sent Daigo skidding back ten feet, sparks flying from his boots. "Ow! Ow! My arm!"
"Fireball!" Toru yelled. "Take this, you ugly worm!"
A stream of fire engulfed the monster's head. It shrieked, but the stone-hard scales barely blackened.
"It's not working!" Mei cried, stabbing her broken spear into a gap in the armor. The tip snapped off. "Fuck! My weapon!"
"Aim for the legs!" Hinata shouted, diving under a tail swipe. "Cut the tendons!"
Rika and Hinata moved like a blur, slashing at the thick legs. But the Basilisk was learning. It stomped.
BOOM.
A shockwave of mana knocked them both flat.
"Mana Spike!" Itsuki warned. "High density! It's radiating chaos mana!"
The air in the tunnel turned purple. The Basilisk's spines began to glow with a sickly, radioactive light.
"It's leaking!" Riku Kamishiro yelled, checking his scanner. "The mana radiation is spiking! It's poisoning us!"
Suddenly, Itsuki grabbed his head and screamed. "GAH! My brain!"
Blood started trickling from Itsuki's nose. Then Noa collapsed, vomiting blue liquid. Then Ayaka fell to her knees, clutching her chest.
"Mana Poisoning!" Riku realized, his own knees buckling. "The density is too high! Our circuits are overloading!"
Ren swung his sword, but his vision swam. The golden lines of [Divine Guidance] turned into static fuzz. He felt like his veins were filled with boiling oil.
"Can't... focus..." Ren gasped.
He swung wildly. The Basilisk dodged easily and headbutted him.
THWACK.
Ren flew across the room, slamming into the wall. He slid down, his sword clattering away. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't work. The poison was shutting down his nervous system.
One by one, they fell.
Daigo was on his hands and knees, drooling. Rika was curled in a ball, clutching her head. Toru was unconscious.
The Basilisk loomed over them. It hissed, a sound of triumph. It raised a massive claw to crush Ren, the Hero who had hurt it.
CLANG.
A rusty piece of iron bounced off the Basilisk's snout.
The monster blinked. It turned its head.
Standing alone in the center of the tunnel, surrounded by his fallen, vomiting friends, was Sora.
He wasn't holding his head. He wasn't bleeding from his eyes. He wasn't vomiting.
"Hey, ugly," Sora said, his voice shaking slightly but clear. "Over here."
"Sora?" Ren wheezed, looking up through blurry eyes. "Run..."
"Shut up, Ren," Sora snapped.
The Basilisk looked at Sora. It sensed... nothing. No mana. No threat. Just a piece of meat wrapped in grey leather.
It lashed out with a claw.
Sora didn't block. He couldn't. He ducked.
WHOOSH.
The claw took a chunk out of the wall where Sora's head had been a second ago.
"Is that all you got?" Sora taunted, scrambling backward. "My grandmother hits harder than that! And she's dead!"
The Basilisk roared and snapped its jaws. Sora threw himself to the left, rolling over a pile of rubble. The jaws snapped shut inches from his boot.
"Come on!" Sora yelled, waving his machete. "I'm right here! Come get the Defect!"
He was dancing with death. Every dodge was desperate. He slipped on slime, barely recovering. He ducked under a tail swipe that would have liquidated him.
He was the only one moving. Because he was empty. The Mana Poisoning had nothing to latch onto.
"Ren!" Sora screamed, dodging another bite. "Why are you on the floor?!"
Ren looked at him. The Hero looked broken. "I... I can't..."
"Get up!" Sora roared, his voice cracking with desperation and rage. "Why are you on your knees?! You are a Hero, right?! You're the Chosen One! You got the gold light! You got the cool sword! Stand up and show the others you are the Hero here!"
Sora turned his attention back to the monster for a split second.
It was a second too long.
He stepped on a patch of wet goblin blood. His boot lost traction.
"Oh, shi—"
THWACK.
The tail didn't hit him full force, but the tip caught him in the ribs.
CRACK.
Sora was launched. He didn't fly gracefully. He ragdolled, smashing into a pile of rocks near Riku. He didn't get up. He just lay there, wheezing, clutching his side.
"Sora!" Ren screamed.
The sight of the grey-clad boy—the one with no power, no title, no hope—lying broken in the dirt triggered something.
Something deep in Ren's soul snapped.
He fought. He fought when I gave up. He fought when he had nothing.
Ren's hand clawed into the stone floor. His heart began to hammer against his ribs.
Stand up.
The static in his vision cleared. The boiling oil in his veins cooled, replaced by a searing, golden fire.
[SYSTEM ALERT] [EMOTIONAL TRIGGER MET.] [SKILL UNLOCKED: DIVINE AURA - KING'S RALLY]
VWOOOOOM.
A shockwave of golden light erupted from Ren. It wasn't an attack. It was a pulse.
It washed over the room. It washed over Daigo, over Rika, over Toru.
Blue windows popped up in front of everyone's eyes (except one).
[BUFF RECEIVED: KING'S RALLY] [EFFECT: CLEANSES ALL STATUS AILMENTS.] [EFFECT: MANA REGENERATION +300% FOR 60 SECONDS.] [EFFECT: ALL STATS +20%.]
Daigo gasped, his eyes clearing. "Whoa. What the hell? I feel like I just chugged five energy drinks!"
Rika stood up, her migraine vanishing instantly. "My mana... it's refilling!"
Ayaka's eyes snapped open. "Mass Cure!" she screamed instinctively. A wave of white light washed over the party, knitting flesh and soothing burns.
Ren stood up. He wasn't wobbling anymore. He was glowing. Literally. A faint golden aura wreathed his body.
He picked up his sword.
"Round two, you bitch," Ren growled.
The Basilisk hissed, confused. The prey that was dying was suddenly standing.
"Kill it!" Ren roared. "No formation! Just kill it!"
"With pleasure!" Daigo charged. He didn't use his shield. He dropped it. He grabbed a massive rock from the floor with both hands. "RRAAAAAH!"
He smashed the rock into the Basilisk's foot. CRUNCH.
"My turn!" Toru yelled. He pointed both hands. "FLAMETHROWER! MAX OUTPUT!"
A torrent of fire, hotter and brighter than before, engulfed the Basilisk's flank. The scales didn't just blacken; they cracked.
"Hit the cracks!" Hinata screamed.
Rika and Hinata became whirlwinds. They jumped onto the monster, stabbing frantically into the cracks Toru's fire had made.
STAB. STAB. STAB.
"Die! Die! Die!" Rika screamed, stabbing with a feral look in her eyes. "Stop! Moving!"
The Basilisk thrashed, trying to shake them, but then a barrier appeared around its head.
"Boxed in!" Hanae yelled, her wand glowing. "I can't hold it long! Ayaka! Nuke it!"
"Holy Ray!" Ayaka didn't heal. She pointed her staff. A beam of concentrated holy light shot through the barrier, burning the Basilisk's nose.
The monster reared up, exposing its soft underbelly.
"Mei! Now!" Ren shouted.
Mei didn't have a spear. But she had Sora's machete—she had picked it up when he fell.
"For the girls!" Mei screamed.
She slid under the monster. She took the rusty, jagged iron bar and thrust it upward with both hands.
SHUNK.
It went deep into the gut. She twisted it.
The Basilisk gagged. It collapsed forward, its head falling right in front of Ren.
Ren looked at the one remaining red eye.
"Game over," Ren whispered.
He jumped. He drove his sword downward, through the skull, pinning the head to the floor.
CRUNCH.
The light in the red eye flickered. Faded. Died.
[BOSS DEFEATED.] [EXPERIENCE GAINED.]
Silence fell over the tunnel.
Heavy breathing filled the air. They stood there, covered in blood, slime, and soot.
"Is it..." Toru whispered, peeking out from behind a rock. "Is it dead? Or is it gonna do a Phase 3?"
Daigo walked over and kicked the snout. It didn't move.
"It's dead," Daigo laughed. "We killed it! We actually killed an A-Rank!"
"We're awesome!" Toby cheered, throwing his hands up. "We are literally the main characters!"
"Shut up, Toby," Rika groaned, sitting down heavily. "I think I broke a nail. And a rib. Mostly the nail though."
Ren didn't celebrate. He let the golden aura fade. He dropped his sword and ran to the pile of rocks near the wall.
"Sora!"
Ren fell to his knees, digging through the debris.
Sora was lying there. His face was pale, and he was clutching his side. His breath was coming in shallow, ragged gasps.
"Hey," Sora whispered, one eye swollen shut. "Did you win?"
"Yeah," Ren choked out. "Yeah, we won. Because of you."
"Cool," Sora coughed, wincing. "That's... cringe, Ren. Don't be emotional."
"Ayaka!" Ren yelled. "Get over here!"
Ayaka rushed over, her hands glowing. She placed them on Sora's chest.
"Broken ribs," Ayaka diagnosed immediately. "Internal bruising. But... he's stable. He's tough."
She cast a healing spell. Sora groaned as the bones knitted back together.
"Ow," Sora muttered. "That itches."
"You're welcome, idiot," Ayaka wiped a tear from her eye.
Rika walked over and looked down at him. "You slipped? Seriously? You faced down a Basilisk and you slipped on goblin goop?"
"It was a tactical slip," Sora wheezed, sitting up with Ren's help. "I was... luring it into a false sense of security."
"Sure," Rika rolled her eyes, but she reached down and ruffled his messy, dirty hair. "Thanks for the save, Defect."
"Yeah, yeah," Sora brushed her hand away, though he didn't look annoyed.
Ren looked at his hands. He looked at the notification that was still fading from his vision.
[BUFF RECEIVED: KING'S RALLY]
He looked at Sora. Sora wasn't glowing. He hadn't received the buff. The System didn't recognize him as an ally—or maybe it didn't recognize him at all.
"Ren?" Sora asked, seeing the look on his face. "What?"
"Nothing," Ren lied, standing up and offering a hand to pull Sora up. "Just glad you're not dead. Valdorn would kill me if I let his 'special project' die."
Sora took the hand. He pulled himself up, swaying slightly.
"Let's get out of here," Sora said, looking at the dead Basilisk. "This place smells like burnt toast and bad decisions."
"Agreed," Toru said, limping over. "Surface. Shower. Food. In that order."
"And maybe therapy," Mei added quietly.
"Definitely therapy," Hinata nodded.
They turned and began the long walk back to the surface. They were bloody, broken, and traumatized. But as they walked, the distance between them felt smaller.
Ren walked at the front, the Hero. But this time, Sora didn't walk at the back. He walked right in the middle, surrounded by the strongest class in the kingdom.
And for once, nobody told him to leave.