WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 56: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

──────

A beam of light barely grazed past me and pierced the ceiling.

Sparks clung to the edge of my shield where the attack had struck. When I smacked them out with my hand, that spot had been burned black.

Given the grand title of Hidden Boss, I'd expected it to have some dangerous, unique patterns.

Still, I hadn't expected it to suddenly twist its neck and fire a laser.

No, seriously, wasn't that unfair as hell?

What the fuck did spiders have to do with lasers?

If it was going to shoot something, shouldn't it have been special webs or poison?

It already had a pattern where it shot crystal fragments from its mouth, so what was with firing lasers from that same mouth too?

I didn't know exactly how powerful it was, but if I'd taken that head-on, I wouldn't have walked away unharmed. I'd almost died in the dumbest way possible.

"Hey, human, are you okay?"

Rizmel, who had wrapped herself in shadows to block the laser, asked me.

The only reason I hadn't gotten hit by the spider's laser was because Rizmel had reacted instantly and pushed me away.

No, that wasn't quite right. Rizmel hadn't reacted after seeing the attack.

It had clearly been a prediction.

Rizmel had predicted that a laser would fire from the spider's mouth, quickly shoved me away, then wrapped herself in shadows.

Thanks to the bonus from my [Intuition] skill, I could predict the signs of an attack and dodge to some extent.

But Rizmel had predicted the attack far faster than I could, even with [Intuition].

That wasn't all.

Rizmel had even predicted the form of the attack. She must have known a laser attack was coming instead of another fragment barrage.

Otherwise, she couldn't have decided to cover herself in shadows to defend against it.

How had Rizmel known even that? Did she already know how the spider attacked?

"You..."

Just as I was about to ask, the ground shook. More accurately, the spider's back beneath our feet shook.

-Boom!

Sharp spikes sprouted from the crystal spider's back. Rizmel and I leaped down to avoid them.

Just like when it twisted its neck earlier, it seemed capable of reshaping its body to some extent.

So much for the foolproof spider-fighting rule that said getting on its back meant it couldn't do anything.

"Careful, it's coming again!"

The spider's giant leg swung toward us as we landed.

-Bang!

Its basic leg attacks still weren't much different from a Twilight Spider's. They weren't particularly fast either, so I could dodge them easily.

As long as it kept repeating leg attacks, I had room to breathe. I should analyze that bastard's patterns while I could.

So far, I'd identified four patterns.

Laser beam, fragment barrage, spike generation, and leg attacks.

The leg attacks were slow and easy to dodge, but considering their weight, trying to block them was probably a bad idea.

The fragment barrage was fairly fast, but not very powerful. It didn't seem to have any extra effects if it hit, either.

The laser was fast and absurdly powerful. Judging by the burned edge of my shield, I probably couldn't block it at all.

I still wasn't sure about the spike generation. At least the warning signs were obvious, so it was easy enough to avoid.

"This is manageable."

Considering what it looked like, it probably had more patterns like webs or poison attacks, but those shouldn't be much of a problem.

"Manageable? What are you talking about? We need to run!"

Rizmel heard my muttering and screamed. Then she started spouting nonsense about how I didn't value my life.

Telling me to run from something like that? She needed to say something that made sense.

A huge chance to grow was sitting right in front of me. How could I just run away?

What had happened when I'd turned my back and run because I was afraid of dying? What had happened when I'd feared reality, fled from it, and shut myself away?

"I can beat something like that. I've got something in mind."

I faced the opponent head-on, analyzed it objectively, then asked myself.

Was the enemy in front of me so hopeless that retreat was the only answer?

No. Not even close.

Once I reached that conclusion, my blood naturally began to boil. My heart pounded on its own, anticipating the thrill of getting stronger.

-Thump, thump, thump!

The spider was still stubbornly swinging its legs in close combat. I didn't feel any sense of danger.

I tightened my grip on my sword and shield.

Then I charged at the spider coming for me once again.

* * *

As the spider and I sprinted toward each other, the distance between us quickly closed.

A gleaming leg swung down to crush me, but I dodged it cleanly again.

After weaving around its attacks, I ran beneath the spider this time.

-Creak.

The spider's mouth opened, firing a barrage of crystal fragments.

I hadn't been able to dodge freely before because I'd been in the air, but things were different now.

I made full use of my [Intuition] skill and Agility stat, dodging the attacks and blocking only the fragments I couldn't avoid with my shield.

Without taking a single hit, I made it beneath the spider's body. Its body immediately began to transform.

Crystal spikes, just like the ones that had sprouted when I'd climbed onto its back, began to target me.

-Bang! Bang!

I rolled out of the way as spikes shot up, threatening to pierce the top of my head.

The spikes formed quickly, but their warning signs were still obvious. I pulled my arm back wide and activated a skill.

-Clang!

[Brandish] activated, and my body moved on its own. Just as I'd expected, the blade cut through a spike as it emerged.

The sharp tip of the spike shattered and fell away. I couldn't deal massive damage in one strike, but my attacks still worked.

-Screech!

The next moment, the spider sharply twisted its head to look beneath its body, where I was standing. A laser attack was coming.

It was hard to detect the warning signs, but if I knew its range and direction, I could dodge it somehow.

-Kaboom!

A beam of light swept beneath the spider's body. Naturally, I quickly rolled away to the side.

When I opened up the distance again, the spider responded with another leg attack.

Hidden Boss or not, it was still only a Floor 7 boss. Its attack patterns were simple.

An ordinary Challenger wouldn't have been able to handle that attack power and defense, but for me, this was just repetition now.

What the hell? This thing was a total pushover.

* * *

The way to take down a large boss solo was simple.

Dodge everything, hit everything. Stats like attack power and defense only needed to be high enough to make the bare minimum exchange of blows possible.

The Crystal Spider was bigger than any boss I'd faced so far, and its attacks were just as powerful.

But in return, its intelligence was extremely low.

No, it wasn't even that low if I thought about it.

It simply had the intelligence that suited its appearance. Spider-level intelligence for a spider's head.

When attack patterns were simple, high stats didn't mean shit. Just like that Ranker spear scrub, Choi Gilhyeon, had been no match for me.

-Boom!

The Crystal Spider, after having most of its legs destroyed by my continuous attacks, collapsed without much resistance.

I could damage its body somehow even with normal attacks, and using skills landed more effective hits.

Naturally, destroying its less durable legs had been even easier. Now the spider was a punching bag that couldn't move.

"You're fucking nothing, just needlessly tough."

-Clang! Clang!

Keeping the possibility of a second phase in mind, I hammered the spider's head with the [Death Knight Greatsword].

-Bang! Bang!

Of course, even when it couldn't move, the spider kept twisting its head in bizarre directions and firing lasers.

But it wasn't a new pattern, and I'd already memorized the timing of its laser attack perfectly. I couldn't get hit even if I tried.

In the end, after its legs were smashed and it collapsed, the spider died after taking my one-sided attacks for over ten minutes.

[Clear Reward: You have obtained ‘Experience Points’ and ‘Gold’.]

[First Clear Reward: You have obtained ‘Light Mithril Ingot x5’.]

[Maximum Contribution Reward: You have obtained ‘Hexagonal Crystal Necklace’.]

[Final Blow Reward: You have obtained ‘Active Skill - Light Gathering’.]

Maybe because it was a Hidden Boss, the rewards were pretty sweet. I opened my skill window and inventory to check their exact effects.

The necklace gave a small increase to my maximum MP, while [Light Gathering] was a skill that gathered nearby light to create a small lamp.

I'd thought I could fire lasers like that spider, but I just got a flashlight?

That was kind of disappointing.

"See? I told you I'd win."

I closed the interface and spoke to Rizmel, who had been watching the fight from a short distance away.

Rizmel hadn't joined my fight with the spider, but she hadn't run away either. She'd just kept watching with an exasperated expression.

"I-is that all that matters? You almost died so many times! Do you know how scared I was?!"

"What do you mean, almost died? I didn't get hit once."

"Of course not! Getting hit means dying! You almost got hit over and over! Why are you smiling like you did something great?!"

I brushed the dust off my armor. The wounds I'd taken from the fragments had already completely healed through [Combat Healing].

In other words, I'd won without a scratch. By now, Rizmel should have understood there was nothing to worry about.

"You're not normal, you know that?"

Still, Rizmel's eyes held an oddly intense concern.

What the hell had I done?

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried