Chapter 27, You Can’t Run Away From a Boss

Translator: Lizz

 

A single swing from the ogre carried deadly force; even a graze could cause serious injury if it struck the wrong spot. A direct hit meant joining the stains on the floor.

 

He rolled away from the iron club. Using the momentum, he quickly stood up, then stepped back to avoid the next diagonal strike.

 

Masato did not let the tension of being face-to-face with death break his spirit; he patiently waited for a chance to counterattack.

 

“Gwooooo!!”

 

The frustrated ogre roared, and its attacks grew fiercer. As Masato landed from a backstep, the ogre’s front kick rushed toward his face.

 

—Short-Range Teleportation.

 

In an instant, he had moved about three meters away.

 

By continually evading attacks, he had accumulated experience and gained the skill.

 

Forced to face a powerful enemy alone with no option to flee, he had no choice but to fight.

 

In a situation so hopeless that most would have stopped moving, there was a clear reason why he still struggled and clung to survival:

 

As long as he lived, he might gain a skill to defeat his foe. That hope sustained him. Without acquiring Skill Sublimation, he might have given up long ago.

 

“It was powerful, but a difficult skill to use…”

 

The Short-Range Teleportation skill warped space to move the user. The time from activation to relocation was less than a second. It was an extremely powerful skill, but it had many limitations.

 

The movement distance was less than five meters, and obstacles could not be crossed. Once used, mana greatly decreased, so repeated use caused problems such as making other skills unusable. Even so, without learning Short-Range Teleportation, he would not be able to endure the ogre’s attacks.

 

Using the newly-sublimated skill, he kept dodging. As his spirit nearly broke, he finally gained a chance to counterattack.

 

An arrow flew from behind the ogre.

 

It was knocked down by its arm before hitting, but the ogre had turned its back on Masato to see who had attacked.

 

Seizing that brief opening, he stabbed the ogre with an upward thrust, then followed with a slash to widen the wound.

 

“Gugaaaaaa!!”

 

The ogre glared with eyes full of hatred, trying to crush Masato.

 

—Short-Range Teleportation.

 

He avoided it with the skill. He moved to where his thrown knife had fallen, picked it up, and held a knife in each hand.

 

The ogre bled heavily but showed no sign of collapsing. The wound was shallow. Masato wanted to follow up with a fatal strike, but the ogre swung its arms wildly, rampaging without control, making it impossible to approach.

 

Because he had kept using Short-Range Teleportation, his mana had temporarily dropped sharply. He had no leeway to cast a fireball.

 

Seiji continued to shoot arrows, but they were knocked down and could not hit.

 

Rika and the others, freed from fear, still could not approach in that situation.

 

Things grew worse. Gradually, the blood flow slowed.

 

Masato quickly used Mana Vision and saw the ogre’s mana gathering at the wound.

 

“—Self-Recovery.”

 

It was the only skill a normal ogre possessed. There was no way the special one before them could not use it. On the contrary, its effect was even stronger. From the outside, the wound already looked closed.

 

With its pain subsided, the ogre ran not toward Masato who had attacked, but toward Seiji, who had interfered.

 

It tried to crush the easier target to reduce their numbers.

 

“Run——!!”

 

Shouting, Masato also ran at the same time. But the ogre was closer, and Seiji, frozen in fear, stood motionless. Anyone could see it was too late.

 

Faced with another’s sudden crisis, Masato could not endure it. His thoughts and emotions were thrown into chaos.

 

‘I only became an explorer to survive, to make a living!! So using Seiji as bait to escape is the right choice, but my heart can’t accept it. Damn it!! Is it telling me that abandoning him would make me no different from the old men exploiting the young!? Or is it that I want to save someone I’ve just begun to get along with? I don’t even have such a moral sense, and yet!! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to let him die!!’

 

—Short-Range Teleportation.

 

Masato stood between the ogre and Seiji.

 

He raised both hands and caught the descending iron club with two knives.

 

“Uooooohhh!”

 

With a body strengthened at Level 2, combined with the Physical Enhancement skill, he held his ground.

 

“Reckless!”

 

“Just run!! Please, before everyone gets dragged in! It’s easier to fight alone!”

 

The grinding sound of metal being scraped could be heard from the knives. They would not last long.

 

Seiji hesitated only for a moment. It was not abandonment. He convinced himself he was retreating so as not to get in the way, then dashed toward the tightly shut iron gate. Rika, Reika, and Hinata followed after him.

 

The ogre’s attention shifted to the four trying to escape, and the pressure on Masato lessened. At that moment, he knocked the iron club away.

 

“Gwa?”

 

The ogre, shocked that a human had overpowered it, wore a stunned expression. Masato slashed its thigh, breaking its stance. As its face lowered into range, he stabbed both knives into its eyes.

 

“Gugwaaa!!”

 

The ogre clutched its face and crouched down.

 

Masato moved to strike its unguarded back, but Rika’s voice stopped him.

 

“The door won’t open!!!!”

 

In a boss room, the door never opened until one side was defeated. Otherwise, the previous party might not have been wiped out.

 

If that rule did not exist, someone could have escaped and carried back information about the red ogre.

 

‘It hadn’t turned out that way. This is definitely the boss room of the 5th floor. It’s stronger than usual probably because it’s a special variant.

 

Considering how often parties are wiped out fighting ogres, it seems that rare irregular cases like this do occur, and with total annihilation, no reports ever came back. Is that it?’

 

Even though he had taken its eyes, letting his thoughts wander in the middle of battle was careless and dangerous against the threat before him.

 

One of the ogre’s wild swinging attacks happened to strike Masato’s chest.

 

“Gwah!”

 

His ribs shattered, and as he was slammed into the wall, cracks spread through his spine and the bones of his arms. Just one blow. Even though it had only struck by chance, the force had left him gravely wounded and on the verge of death.

 

The knives remained stuck in the ogre’s eyes, and it had no weapon in hand.

 

They were trapped, and Masato was critically injured.

 

Seiji’s heart was consumed by fear, but he still chose to fight.

 

An arrow pierced the ogre’s side. Next, its arm. Then its cheek. The damage accumulated. Rika and Hinata constantly struck from behind, while Reika stabbed at its legs the moment its arms swung past.

 

At Level 1, their attacks only left scratches against its tough skin, but they succeeded in drawing its attention. The ogre did not pull out the knives, prioritizing its rampage, and even interrupted its Self-Recovery.

 

Masato, watching his party’s struggle, regretted that he could not join them. He could not move a single finger. The pain threatened to knock him unconscious, but it was no reason to give up.

 

He had seen it only once. He was certain he could use it.

 

Clinging desperately to his fading consciousness, he focused his mana at the center of the pain. He had already learned how to direct it from using Fireball, so it was not difficult.

 

He prayed for the wound to heal.

 

Masato’s wish carried through the magic and spoke to Skill Sublimation.

 

[Self-Recovery: Consuming mana to heal wounds.]

 

As the message of skill acquisition flowed through his mind, the shattered bones regenerated, and his fingers began to move. The pain eased, and his awareness grew clearer.

 

With clearer vision, he looked at the ogre.

 

It had just pulled out and crushed the knives. One eye had begun to heal, though not completely.

 

Masato, drained of much of his mana by Self-Recovery, slowly stood. He suppressed the urge to rush forward and instead focused on restoring his mana.

 

For now, all he could do was observe the battle with the ogre.