The Unexpected NPC

Chapter 37 Boss (1)

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"Liz! Briar!"

I shouted their names in joy.

I finally met my two teammates. How could I not be happy!

I stood up and quickly ran towards them.

When I called out, Liz and Briar also recognized me. Both of them quickly came over with joyful expressions.

We were very happy and relieved to finally be reunited.

I looked at the two of them from top to bottom and realized that they didn't have any major injuries. As expected of the main characters.

"Are you okay? Your injuries look serious." Briar asked me with a worried look.

"It's okay, I'll be fine after resting for a while." I waved my hand and smiled.

"If you say so, then it's fine." Briar scratched his head and replied.

Typical Briar, always worrying about everyone. He still likes sticking his nose into everyone's business. He'll never change.

"Hey Danny. How are we going to get out of here? We've lost the entrance." Liz asked.

"I think we'll just have to deal with the boss." I replied with a bitter smile. But it can't be helped, this is the only way.

"..."

Why the sudden silence???

'Someone please say something...'

"...Do you know where the boss room is, Danny?" Liz asked.

"...no"

What could I do? I've never entered a dungeon to fight a boss before, this is my first time. Not to mention this is a maze-like dungeon, the hardest place to locate the boss.

The three of us fell silent.

After a while, Briar slowly spoke.

"...I think I know where the boss is."

"What. Really?!" I asked back excitedly.

"Um, I passed by the boss room before meeting Livy. But at that time, I just wanted to find you two and I was alone so I didn't dare to risk going in."

That's great, if I knew where the boss room is, it would save a lot of time. Who knows, maybe we'll be able to get out of this dungeon before the new week starts.

"Then please show us the way. We're counting on you." I patted Briar's shoulder and said.

"Yrah, trust me." Briar replied confidently.

Then Briar led us to the boss room.

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"So this is the boss room." I asked.

"Um."

We were now standing in front of a large, old stone gate. It gave off a very dangerous feeling.

"Thanks to you, we were able to find the boss room so quickly." I smiled and patted Briar's shoulder.

But halfway through, I felt something was wrong.

'Briar...'

Isn't he notoriously bad with directions? How could he have come all the way here without making a single mistake?

My patting motion stopped when I suddenly realized this abnormality.

"What's wrong?". "Briar" noticed that my movements and expressions were a bit strange and asked.

"Nothing..." I twitched my eyelids and withdrew my hand.

I was sure that this Briar wasn't the real one. Even though the disguise was perfect, the real Briar was terrible with directions, not to mention utterly hopeless at it. He could get lost even on a straight path, so there's no way he could navigate so smoothly.

But I wasn't so sure about Liz. Maybe she was a fake like "Briar", but what if she wasn't? Maybe she was just like me, fooled by the illusion.

'I have to test it out'

"Hey." I glanced at Liz and asked.

"What wrong, Danny?" Liz replied innocently.

"What do I normally call you?"

I had to try each level to see if she could answer all of them.

"Huh? Why are you asking that all of a sudden?" She tilted her head in confusion.

"Just answer me." I urged.

"...you call me Liz."

It seemed like this was okay. Usually, illusions wouldn't know how to address people intimately. But I still felt that it wasn't quite right. I had to ask again. This time I had to ask something more difficult.

"So... how many people are in your family?"

Actually, I didn't know if this was considered difficult. I simply thought that if it was a dungeon illusion, it wouldn't know the personal information that we had never mentioned while in this dungeon.

"...don't you already know? Why are you asking again?" Liz had a puzzled expression.

This time, I didn't urge "Liz" to answer anymore. Because I already knew that the two people in front of me were all illusions.

If it was the real Liz, she wouldn't hesitate to answer me with these kinds of questions. She would just show a curious expression but still answer happily.

"Stop it." I looked straight at the "Liz" in front of me seriously.

"What do you mean, Danny?-"

"Stop that disgusting attitude. Don't use Liz's face to talk to me. You too, fake Briar. I know you're just an illusion." I shouted.

The two illusions in front of me showed surprised expressions, but not long after, both of them revealed disgusting smiles.

Two figures gradually contorted, revealing two white skeletons. A chilling sound emanated from their mouths.

"I didn't expect you to be able to break the illusion this fast, quite commendable for a weak human." The voice was low and distorted, as if it was coming from the depths.

Hearing that voice, I couldn't help but feel a chill, my skin crawling.

"Who are you?"

My intuition told me that the owner of this voice was extremely dangerous. It was something that didn't belong in an E-rank dungeon. An E-rank dungeon wouldn't be able to produce monsters with such high intelligence that could communicate like this.

Could it be... that the owner of this voice was a demon?

But I really didn't want that to be the case. Encountering a demon in an E-rank dungeon? No one would believe it, it was simply impossible.

"Me? I think you've already guessed it." The voice spoke once more, accompanied by a chilling laugh.

My pupils shrank when I heard its answer. My alertness was pushed to its highest level as my right hand was now ready to draw my sword from its sheath.

"Well, I can't linger here much longer, I must be going. By the way, I must admit you are quite skilled at dispelling illusions so quickly. As a reward, I shall grant you an audience with the dungeon's boss."

"Huh? What?-"

Before I could finish my sentence, another skeleton suddenly appeared from behind me. It quickly rushed over and pushed me towards the boss room's gate. I was caught off guard behind me because I was always focused on the two skeletons in front of me.

I fell forward from the great force from behind. The other two skeletons had already opened the boss room's gate while I shifted my attention to the skeleton that had just appeared.

I fell into the boss room and the gate gradually closed, the last thing that echoed before the gate closed completely was the sarcastic, mocking voice coming from the other two skeletons.

"Have fun. Oh, I forgot, I added a little "spice" to that boss. I hope you don't die too soon so I can have some fun watching. Ha ha ha!"

*Bang*

The gate closed, leaving me sitting on the ground with a stiff expression.

"...What the hell just happened..."

What did he just say? "Spice"? He was messing with the boss?! And he saw me as something to entertain him?

'Why am I so unlucky?'

Once I entered the boss room, I couldn't get out unless I defeated the boss...or the gate was opened from the outside. And with the current situation, I had to face and kill the boss alone, I couldn't rely on someone opening the gate from the outside. Who knew when someone would open it?

The boss of the E-rank dungeon was already beyond my ability. If I had my teammates by my side, I might be able to defeat it. It's just that I was alone right now. Not to mention this boss was also played by a demon, who knows what kind of horrible thing it has evolved into??

My heart turned cold at the thought of fighting the boss alone.

While I was panicking and silently cursing the damn demon that had put me in this situation, the sound of a broken chain caught my attention.

I turned around and my pupils shrank when I saw the boss in front of me.

It was a monster with a bull's head and a human body, extremely tall and muscular, with terrifyingly sharp horns. In its hand was a large axe. It stared at me with bloodthirsty red eyes.

'Minotaurus!'

A Minotaurus that shouldn't have appeared in an E-rank dungeon. Perhaps because of that, its rank had dropped a lot compared to a normal Minotaurus.

It's rank reduction doesn't mean it's weak, it's still very strong compared to the general level of monsters in the E-rank segment. Especially since I don't know what the demon did to it. I'm only sure that it will only get stronger.

It was originally an E+ rank monster, but with the demon's intervention, I guess it has reached its limit and is about to break through to D- rank.

The reason why I can be sure it's not D- rank is because this is an E-rank dungeon. The monsters in here won't be able to exceed E+ rank because if there's an entity with a rank higher than E+, it will overload the dungeon, causing the dungeon to collapse.

I don't know how that demon got his hands on this dungeon, I doubt his rank is low. Why isn't the dungeon collapsing? There must be some trick for him to infiltrate and do tricks on this place.

While I was still thinking about this, the Minotaurus in front of me had already started to charge forward. Its two hands tightly gripped the large axe, quickly heading towards me. I was forced to stop my train of thought and deal with this imminent danger.

I used my strength and quickly rolled to the side, avoiding the direct attack of the bull-headed, human-bodied monster in front of me.

*Bang*

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