CHAPTER SEVEN!
────demon castle (2).

❝CAN THE UNDEAD ALSO FEEL FEAR?❞

WITH THE POWER OF THEIR fists, the two players sent vulcan flying.

they land gracefully on the ground a bit dazed, realizing they let get their anger get the best of them.

"we stupidly invested in strength. we're idiots." [y/n] states as the two look at their stats with a sweatdrop.

then, a familiar mechanical beeping alerted the two as they see the boss was getting up and letting out an ear-shattering battle cry.

[THE RULER OF THE LOWER FLOORS, AVARICIOUS VULCAN IS USING SKILL: 'WRATH.']

[VULCAN WILL MAINTAIN HIS 'RAGE' STATUS.]

[VULCAN'S STATS WILL INCREASE BY 50%. VULCAN WILL FEEL LESS PAIN.]

'this is the same skill kerberos used!' jin-woo notes as he covers himself from the powerful wave of magic heading his way

"man, fuck this!" [y/n] growls raising her arms to protect herself and she keeps a steady footing.

even before they could do anything, the boss rushed at the two players like a bullet.

jin-woo quickly glances back, locating iron who was in the midst of regenerating. 

"IRON!"

he shouts and iron threw his shield to his master. catching the shield, jin-woo grabs [y/n]'s arm pulling her close to his body. he shifted his glance away to find vulcan standing right before them.

he raises his shield to cover them both as the boss slammed its club down, his hits more fearsome than the last.

'woo can withstand this due to his strength but we need an opening for a counterattack. on the next attack, during its continuous movements!' [y/n] thinks, her eyes frantically scanning the boss.

seeing the opportunity, she gets out of her friend's hold. quickly leaping up towards vulcan's head, summoning her dagger in hand.

however, she wasn't the only one waiting for a chance as the boss leaned his upper torso back causing her [e/c] eyes to grow wide.

'shit! was he also aiming for this chance?!' she grits her teeth as the club flew towards [y/n] from the side.

'damnit! i can't avoid his attack in midair. if there was a way i could—' her thoughts were interrupted when some grabs her out of the air, carrying her princess style.

"woo?!" [y/n] exclaims in surprise, looking up at him and he doesn't meet her eyes.

once they land, he carefully sets her down and squishes her cheeks a bit hard.

"next time, tell me your plan! don't go running off on your own, you almost gave me a heart attack!" he scolds, though it was obvious he was extremely worried about his friend as he lets go of her cheeks.

[y/n] purses her lips into a thin line. she wasn't used to people worrying about her so she usually acts on her own unless told so.

"sorry, i didn't mean to make you worry like that woo." she mumbles, playing with her sleeves.

he sighs and pats her head. "[n/n], i care about you. just remember that." he states making her look up at him.

warmth fills her heart at his words. she was still getting used to the fact of having a friend like jin-woo, it's a process but to hear that he cares, makes sticking with him all the more worth it.

"alright let's go defeat vulcan now." he states bringing her out of her thoughts. she nods as she lets her friend explain his plan. 

"the only place we can harm vulcan with a dagger is on his head. but it'll be too dangerous to aim for his head while reading his movements." jin-woo points out with narrowed eyes.

[y/n] hums in response and speaks, "so what we need to do is stop his uber-fast moves. we have to create an unavoidable situation."

"unavoidable situation..." he mutters as his cool grey eyes look around before spotting a remnant of a building that was leaning to the side.

the [h/c] haired player follows his gaze and her face brightens. they lock eyes, already forming a plan.

───── ⋆⋅ ☽ ⋅⋆ ─────

[Y/N]'S LAUGH RINGS in the air as they run through the ruined city.

"ahaha! this is awesome! it feels like we're running away from the cops!" she cheers making jin-woo shake his head in disbelief.

he looks over his shoulder and grins when he saw the boss following after them as planned. the two make a turn and were finally approaching the building.

when the building was in their sights, the two activated their skills.

[SKILL: 'SPRINT' ACTIVATED.]

the two blast off, their speed increasing as they ran up the outer wall of the building. the boss was suspicious of their actions and tried to stop but the two grinned in return.

"even if you noticed it, it's too late fatass!" [y/n] taunts flipping him off as she summoned baruka's dagger.

jin-woo laughs at her crude gesture and follows in summoning his own dagger in hand. "it'll be hard for you to suddenly stop at that speed." he states confidently.

with that, jin-woo and [y/n] kicked the wall behind them and jumped towards the boss. with an expert swing, they both slashed vulcan's vital spots. he lets out a cry of pain before falling to the ground dead.

[YOU HAVE KILLED THE RULER OF THE LOWER FLOORS, THE AVARICIOUS VULCAN]

───── ⋆⋅ ☽ ⋅⋆ ─────

THE TWO PLAYERS stood by the dead boss, as they check out their drops.

"as expected from a boss-grade monster. the drops are excellent." jin-woo states, inspecting the items they've gotten.

YOU OBTAINED
[ITEM: DEMON MONARCH'S EARRING.] X2

YOU OBTAINED
[ITEM: ORB OF AVARICE.]

YOU OBTAINED
[ITEM: VULCAN'S HORN.] X2.

YOU OBTAINED
[INGREDIENT ITEM: WORLD TREE'S FRAGMENT.] X2

[y/n] holds the earrings in the palm of her hand looking at its stats. "this set will be a nice addition from the amor i got a while back..." she mumbles with a small smile.

she looks over to jin-woo, who was inspecting the other items. she approaches him and he hums as he gives her his full attention.

"bend down, we got a set item drop." she orders showing him the earrings and he does what he's told.

the [h/c] haired hunter gets close to his face causing him to tense up a bit. she delicately clips on the earring to his ear, her fingers brushing against his skin.

'i wonder what it's like to hold her hand...' he suddenly ponders but he shakes the thought from his head as she backs away.

she clips on her own earring and throws up a peace sign with a smile. "now we match!" she cheers and he ruffles her hair a bit.

someone approaching them catches their attention and jin-woo sweatdrops as demon heads were placed in front of them.

"can you tell him to stop doing that." he complains, as icarus kneels as if he was offering the heads to his queen.

[y/n] chuckles nervously rubbing the back of her neck. "it's not like i tell him to do it." she defends gesturing to her knight.

"well, tell him to stop cause because of him, they're doing the same thing!" jin-woo argues, pointing to irgis and iron.

iron was dragging the demon boss's head while igris brought the guard's heads also kneeling down.

the female player bursts out laughing as the male player continues to deadpan at his predicament.

"not to mention, we were the ones that killed him? why is he bringing his head to you?" [y/n] asks in between her giggles.

he shrugs his shoulders and sighs. "okay, since you lent me your shield, let's say that you helped us." jin-woo suggests causing his friend to snicker.

───── ⋆⋅ ☽ ⋅⋆ ─────

THEN, THE TWO players reached the next 75th floor, its sky was dyed red and the area was a huge graveyard.

they were greeted with the next boss of that floor and its undead army.

[y/n] and jin-woo stood side by side, narrowing their eyes at the skeleton boss as they utter the names of their soldiers.

"IGRIS."

"ICARUS."

the two knights stood by their respective masters as they make an order, their eyes glowing dangerously.

"OPEN UP A PATH."

the two knights sped off with the rest of their army following them and the battle began. but it wasn't really a battle, it was a one-sided massacre.

the boss flinches in surprise as he watches his army be defeated by shadows and rays of light.

"ARE YOU SURPRISED BY HOW STRONG OUR KIDS ARE?"

a voice asks from behind, making the boss turn around to be faced with two figures. their silhouettes visible from the light of the red blood moon.

[y/n] and jin-woo stood together on top of a tall gravestone. they stared the boss down with unreadable expressions and their eyes glowing threateningly.

"you didn't expect this, did you?" [y/n] muses, her voice full venomous hot poison.

the boss felt his body shake at the sound of her voice and it made the two players wonder.

'CAN THE UNDEAD ALSO FEEL FEAR?'

it didn't matter much now, seeing as they were going to kill him.

so, an in instant, multiple slashes were cut across the boss's face and before he knew it, he was dead.

───── ⋆⋅ ☽ ⋅⋆ ─────

"FUCK MAN, I'M tired." [y/n] sighs laying her head on jin-woo's lap as he sat on the ground.

[YOU DEFEATED THE GUIDE OF SOULS, METUS.]

[YOU RECEIVED SPRING WATER OF THE ECHOING FOREST.] X2

[YOU RECEIVED 200,000 EXP.]

[DEMON SOULS SEALED IN METUS' PENDANT HAS BEEN DISCOVERED.]

[YOU RECEIVED x200 DEMON SOULS.]

[YOUR LEVEL HAS BEEN RISEN BY 2.]

"this guy's magic was powerful and he was able to control hundreds of more summons than we are able to." jin-woo mentions.

"yeah, but your shadow extraction didn't work right?" [y/n] interjects making him hum in agreement.

she puts an arm over her eyes tiredly. "the system wouldn't even let me get near the body as if its mana would taint me." she adds as she feels something lay on her chest.

"is it the set piece?"

"yeah."

"put it on for me, i'm too tired."

[y/n] hears him chuckle and sits up so that jin-woo can put the necklace around the neck. she shivers at his fingers brushing against her neck delicately.

'i wanna hold his hand...' she thinks but shakes the thought out of her head.

she checks on the item set stats and her [e/c] eyes widen a bit. "this gives the same effect as going up five levels, holy shit." she exclaims and swipes her screen away, going back to laying on her friend's lap.

"i wanna get the last piece of the set, but we are at our limit. we don't have any strength to continue forward." jin-woo states looking up at the magic circle nearby.

"we already completed the quest. so there's not much we can do now." [y/n] points out.

[COLLECTED DEMON SOUL: 10,001/10,000]

she tugs his shirt making him look down at her. "tell me what you wanna get for the rewards and i'll get the same as you. you're smarter at this than i am." she mentions making him snicker and mutter a small "sure."

in the end, they got two keys from a cursed random box with no description. jinwoo helped [y/n] to invest her points into mostly intelligence and not strength.

FINALLY, THEY RECEIVED A CRAFTING RECIPE FOR A PECULIAR ITEM.

CHAPTER SEVEN! END!
────demon castle (2).