WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving the Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage ◈
Chapter 99: 3rd Floor Field Boss
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The entrance to the Forgotten Citadel, where the field boss was hiding, lay beneath the roots of an ancient tree.
It was a gloomy jungle packed with rotten trees, a place that would be impossible to find without the Corpse Witch's map.
'You even have to put out your torches to enter this secret zone.'
Down the dim hole where vines and insects crawled, we tossed in our torches to light the area before slipping inside.
"I don't see any monsters."
Gimlius went in first and kept watch. Since the drop was deep enough to hurt someone, Elena caught me from below.
"Aww, how does it feel for our weak little mage to be held in his big sister's arms?"
Her smug expression annoyed me, so I placed a hand on Elena's flat chest and said,
"Hm, is it because they're so small? There's barely any cushioning..."
"Kyaak!"
"Urk!"
That idiot elf threw me down. As I clutched my ass in pain, Hans warned us.
"Shh. It seems everyone's let their guard down."
"You said it's not as strong as a Floor Master or a Dimensional Guardian anyway."
Elena snorted.
A field boss normally required at least ten people, meaning two or more parties, to defeat safely.
Still, as a veteran player, I thought our group could handle it, so we entered.
'I can't share the rewards.'
I needed to grow stronger quickly.
That didn't mean we could afford to be careless.
"Hans is right. Everyone should stay alert."
I recalled the spells I had Memorized at dawn.
[Magic Missile][3] [Arcane Barrier][2] [Frost Burst][3]
[Ice Spike][5] [Rising Water Jet][3][Arcane Doppelganger][2]
[Arcane Ray][2] [Ice Armor][2][Ice Spear][3]
[Mystic Dimensional Gate][2]
The monsters here, including the Fallen Nun who was the boss, also belonged to the undead type, so I had prepared mostly Arcane spells.
We cautiously began exploring the citadel's interior.
"Vines have covered the buildings."
Like the watchtower before, ruined human buildings were overgrown with thick vines.
Unlike before, though, the plants squirmed as if they were alive. It made my skin crawl.
Fwoooosh!
Woo-woooooo.
[The darkness deepens.]
The torchlight weakened as an ominous voice burrowed into our ears.
"My heart's pounding."
It was the field effect.
The Forgotten Citadel had an even denser concentration of malicious energy than the forest.
Daisy asked,
"Should I use Purification?"
"No. Save it in case of an emergency."
I figured this much was manageable.
'It's not enough to cloud our minds.'
[The darkness blooming from the cradle of corruption was far from ordinary, yet Ian did not even blink.]
-Damn it, why can't I do this?
[Cool-headed judgment, knowledge, eloquence, and charisma.]
[Ian is an outstanding leader and mage, but he has one flaw.]
[He judges every situation by his own standards.]
I took out an oil-soaked torch.
We also took Holy Water.
A refreshing energy spread through us, calming Gimlius and Hans's trembling.
"We should proceed carefully."
'The interior layout is random.'
Still, it wouldn't be that large.
It wasn't a Secret Dungeon, just a place where a field boss lived.
Uuuuugh...
As we moved forward, burning away the vines clinging unpleasantly to our feet, monsters appeared.
Corpses lay scattered carelessly throughout the citadel. The vine-covered walls split open, and Corpse Soldiers sprang out from inside.
"They'll be stronger! Don't let your guard down!"
With the boss fight ahead, we carefully dealt with the monsters blocking our path.
Then a monster unlike anything I had seen before appeared.
An amorphous creature that wriggled as it dripped slime.
An Ectoplasm.
Unlike a slime, its slimy body contained human bones, skulls, and eyeballs.
Kiiiik.
[A grotesque fusion of slime formed from countless corpses being crushed and melted together. Unrecognizable skulls and limbs float in a tangled mess within its transparent, sticky, dark-red outer layer. Its unfocused eyeballs swim aimlessly inside its body, and the sickening sounds of bones breaking from within whenever it wriggles are enough to twist the minds of the living.]
"Fuck... That thing looks truly disgusting."
Even Elena, who had a strong stomach, said that. It was that horrifying.
"Ugh..."
It felt like the jerky I ate yesterday was about to come back up.
It was like learning something I never wanted to know.
Once again, the reality of the Labyrinth's depths was more horrifying than the illustrations in the game.
"Fall back! If it catches you, you're finished!"
We quickly put distance between ourselves and it.
If it caught us, its powerful acid would turn us into corpses like those inside its body.
Fwoooosh!
Hans fired a flaming arrow, exploiting the Ectoplasm's weakness to fire.
"...!"
Something astonishing happened.
The spot it struck seemed to burn, then the Ectoplasm suddenly split apart.
Wooooo.
They were smaller, but there were now two of them, making them even more dangerous as they wriggled.
I knew what that strange sign meant.
"It's a Mutant!"
In the game, it was a Named Monster.
The one called Grid the Splitter.
"It's just like the information Ian told us! It's resistant to fire too!"
Unlike ordinary Ectoplasms, it resisted flames and split its body every time it took a hit.
"Everyone, fall back!"
'A Mutant can't be dealt with using ordinary spells.'
I put away my staff and took out a grimoire instead.
Fwoosh!
I found the optimal spells to counter its traits, then fused them.
That was...
[Rising Water Jet] + [Frost Burst] + [Ice Spear]
If I combined them?
[Frostspike Storm]
The mystical grimoire glittered with starlight and released an unusual surge of mana.
A new spell was born.
A spear of frost shot from my hand.
Unlike before, it carried an even colder chill and spun violently through the air.
The real effect came next.
The spear of frost pierced directly into the Mutant Ectoplasm's chest.
It shuddered.
With a chilling noise like glass breaking, it released frost, then passed its critical point and exploded from within.
Crack!
A cold wind blew past us, and all that remained were chunks of frozen flesh scattered like jewels.
"Fusion spells are fucking overpowered..."
"Heh heh. This is the power of magic, you ignorant masses."
"That's Ian for you!"
Everyone was amazed by the power of my fusion spell, which had finished even a Mutant in one blow.
"Ugh."
Gimlius looked in disgust at an eyeball trapped in the ice shards, then took out a metal bottle from inside his clothes and drank from it.
It was water, not alcohol.
He had said he was quitting drinking because it affected expeditions.
"Was this one a bust too?"
Mutants sometimes dropped magic items, so I had hoped for something, but there was nothing besides Mana Stones.
"Let's look forward to the boss."
Then the grimoire started acting strangely.
Grrrrr...
The book, which usually purred like a puppy while flicking out its tongue, suddenly bared its teeth and began thrashing about.
"W-What? What's wrong with it?"
Leaving the startled Elena behind, I rummaged through my backpack.
"It's a side effect of the Tome of Starlight."
The more powerful a magic item was, the greater its side effects.
Some demanded a price. Others came with physical or mental risks.
The Tome of Starlight's price was its greedy tongue.
In exchange for its spells, it demanded material offerings.
Sometimes it asked for something as minor as Mana Stones or gold coins, and other times for magic equipment.
Geh heh heh!
Fortunately, it seemed satisfied with Mana Stones this time.
Once I fed it some, it began flicking its tongue again and returned to normal.
"It's a money-eating monster."
Elena was right.
"It's cheap for what it can do."
If I could use fusion spells for that price, it was more than worth it.
We started walking again.
The deeper we went, the darker it became.
Words had been written in dried blood on some of the more intact walls.
They blasphemed against the gods in a cursed language.
"A cradle of corruption... It has to be purified."
Daisy's expression grew increasingly fierce as she looked at them.
"I think it's ahead of us."
After defeating the Mutant and moving farther in, we soon found the entrance to a wide space that looked like a cavern.
Before cutting through the ominously writhing vines and entering, we drank water to quench our thirst and took Holy Water to dispel the accumulated poison and malicious energy.
Hans took out the silver arrows he had saved for this moment.
"Whew."
"Ready?"
"Yeah. Let's kill it and get out of here."
Crackle.
We stood in a vast cavern where neither torchlight nor Daisy's holy light could fully drive away the darkness.
Malicious energy swirled fiercely in the space where vines writhed as though alive.
...
Beneath a grotesque bell made by binding together human skulls and ribs, a figure dressed in priestly robes knelt before a twisted demonic statue, praying with her back to us.
Her priestly robes were torn and stained with filth and blood, but they clearly bore Lu's symbol.
Except the symbol was an inverted cross, as if to represent heresy.
[A devout nun who oversaw relief work for the Church of Lu in the citadel.]
[She struggled to protect people through plague and invasion, but fell into madness and corruption amid the agonized screams and evil of those dying without salvation from her god.]
The Fallen Chaplain Nun, the field boss of the Emerald Forest.
"Turn your eyes away. That disgusting light is all a lie."
Unlike the mindless monsters we had faced so far, this undead could speak.
An ominous vortex swirled in her empty eye sockets as she turned around.
Before she could curse us, there was no need for words.
"Shut your mouth."
[Arcane Ray]
The moment I faced her, I unleashed my spell.
Flash!
Kiiiaaaak!
"Nice!"
The destructive light scorched through the Fallen Nun's arm and blew it away.
But disgusting darkness and vines gathered around the arm like insects, regenerating it in an instant.
Her regeneration was powerful, so we had to push her to her limit.
Right before Gimlius and Elena charged in,
[That One is coming!]
The Fallen Nun prayed.
The eyes of the blasphemous statue flashed ominously, and grotesque vines shaped like demonic arms stretched down from the ceiling toward us.
One of her patterns, the Mark of Sacrifice.
It had to catch at least one person.
Otherwise, the vines across the entire cavern would explode in a frenzy, causing enormous damage.
But...
'If I have this, it's not a problem.'
As a veteran player and genius mage, I had already figured out how to deal with it.
'Remaining calm and solving bizarre situations in the Labyrinth is a mage's job.'
[Arcane Doppelganger] + [Frost Burst] = [Ice Doppelganger]
I summoned a doppelganger with a fusion spell.
Unlike the Arcane one from before, which shattered and vanished when struck physically, my duplicate made of ice was caught by the vines in my place.
[A sacrifice has been offered.]
Pattern nullified.
As long as the doppelganger didn't break, we would be safe for a while.
...!
Not that one.
I could feel the Fallen Nun's confusion.
"Now! Give it everything you've got!"
I issued orders as I fired spells.
"Leave it to me!"
"Meia..."
A bright, clear light, the opposite of the Fallen Nun's.
Daisy clasped her hands together and prayed.
[Blessing]
Divine grace settled over both Elena and Gimlius.
Flames surged from Gimlius's axe.
[Sacred Flame]
Sacred fire bloomed from Elena's mace through the holy relic Daisy had acquired this time.
"Now!"
Whoosh! Thud!
A silver arrow fired by Hans pierced the Fallen Nun and released purifying smoke.
It interrupted her perfectly just as she was about to cast a barrier, exactly as I had timed it.
"Aaaaah!"
"Dieee!"
Whether it was a Lich, an Archlich, or a dark mage, the basic tactic against caster types was to never give them an opening.
In that gap, Gimlius and Elena charged in and hacked wildly at the Fallen Nun.
Kiiiiik!
Her body crumbled, regenerated, and repeated the cycle.
Unable to do anything as she crouched there, the nun used another power in desperation.
[Come to me, my pitiful little lambs.]
It was a summoning-type spell.
Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!
The hideous bell made of bones rang with an ominous sound.
The vine-covered floor split open, and Corpse Soldiers and Spectrises, superior ghosts, crawled out.
Kiiiik!
"Get lost!"
But Elena and Gimlius had already gained momentum.
They cut down the monsters left and right, isolating the boss.
Whenever the Mirror Shield in Gimlius's hand flashed, it reflected physical impacts back at the monsters and struck them again.
Good. If we kept the formation and wore down her health, it was over.
Grrrrrk!
Even as her entire body was being torn to pieces, the cursed nun fled and threw ominously glowing Holy Water everywhere.
Disgusting Ectoplasms sprang out from it.
"I'll kill you quickly, you monster!"
Gimlius swung his flaming axe in a whirl, shaking them off before charging forward aggressively.
[Ice Armor]
Supporting the party according to the situation was also the job of a mage and leader.
I cast Ice Armor on Gimlius.
"Thanks, Ian! This feels damn reliable!"
Things were going smoothly.
The Fallen Nun was a troublesome monster with all sorts of powers, but she was nothing compared to the Floor Master we had faced or the Monster Wave that had poured out thousands of monsters.
'This is easy. At this rate, we'll finish without much trouble.'
That was what I thought.
Then, at that moment...
...
A scream suddenly erupted from Gimlius.
Sssizzle!
"Aaaaargh!"
"Gimlius!"
"What happened?!"
Together with Hans, I had been dealing with several Corpse Soldiers when the scream startled me.
Clang! Kagaang!
The sound of blades rang out one after another, followed by Elena's suddenly urgent voice.
"The damn dwarf got hit in the eye!"
He wore Ice Armor over his Drake Armor.
Yet, against all odds, a tiny bit of slime that had splashed from an Ectoplasm slipped through Gimlius's helmet and struck his eye.
'What kind of bullshit luck is this?'
[Heal]
Daisy healed him immediately, but the dwarf couldn't regain his senses for some time.
"Ugh..."
[The pain of his eyeball melting away, the darkness where he could not see even an inch ahead, and the undead's howls and curses ringing out from every direction.]
The benevolent Lord in Heaven has forsaken us O Father of twisted blood and flesh lead us into your rotting paradise You who dream and wait in the strange alignment of dead stars a thousand eyes and crushed fingers praise your eternal resurrection tear apart our rotted joints and use them as bricks to build your grotesque citadel and drown the souls of the living alive in the holy pool overflowing with blood and bodily fluids remember that the babble of the endless abyss and cursed black foam will cover the whole world.
[Gimlius's entire body is trembling.]
Whirrr.
[Heads/Tails]
The Coin suddenly floated before my eyes.
'Heads.'
[Tails]
[Failure]
"U-Uaaaaah!"
Gimlius panicked.
Footnotes:
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