Ryan held his shield tightly. Bringing a shield was a pretty obvious decision, considering Ryan’s part in the combat. He couldn’t just leave Maximus to fight them all on his own, so after the first day at the dungeon, a choice was made. Ryan, so that he could take a more active part in combat, now carried two things with him, completely customized by Silvia.

  First was the shield. It wasn’t anything special, just a small riot shield that he could strap to his arm when needed. And the second was a reinforced baseball bat. It was actually pretty heavy, since it was made of solid steel all the way through instead of wood or hollow aluminum.

  Silvia had painted them both; she was getting pretty good at using her new skills at this point and was able to use her Insight skill to glance at certain people while they used their skills, gaining inspiration for art that she could imbue with special effects. That was how she imbued the shield with the defensive power of Maximus’s Knight’s Guard skill; she placed the offensive power of his Knight’s Attack skill on the bat. This allowed Ryan to place a couple of points’ worth of MP into either of them to support him, though it didn’t seem to work to the same degree as Maximus’s skills.

  At this point, they gave the knight a more than thirty percent boost both to attack and defense, but Silvia’s skill only allowed for three to four percent at best, though that was still better than nothing, of course.

  Ryan waved Gaia over, who carefully approached him. She also had some new equipment, though it was just a new backpack that fit her properly. Silvia had also designed this one, being put in charge of any and all equipment for Ryan and the spirits. She had been actually quite upset that the other craftsmen had designed all of Maximus’s weapons, but she liked how they looked, so that faded pretty soon. She was sure she would get a chance to make new ones in the future, anyway. But when she made the backpack for Gaia, for some reason she decided to make it look like some sort of wooden scaffolding had been placed on the Golem. But it seemed to fit Gaia perfectly, and she was happy with how it looked, so Ryan didn’t mind, either.

  He placed the new coin in the backpack. Runar said he would explain what these were for when Ryan beat the area boss. They had quite a few of them already, so he was getting more and more curious, especially since it was the only thing that any of the mascots dropped.

  Ryan carefully peeked over the windowsill, watching the area boss walk past them in the middle of the road. It was a mascot probably twice the size of all the other ones. While the other mascots had their “rotten” parts on their insides, this one was practically falling apart. The fabric that made up its skin was falling apart, and maggots were crawling all over it. The smell of rotting flesh reached all the way to Ryan, though he wasn’t even all that close to it right now.

  This guy seemed like he was the most popular mascot of all of them. At least, there was more art of him on the walls, and the souvenir shops sold more of his things than any other mascot. It appeared to be something like a gorilla with blue fur, holding a large jute bag that it was dragging on the ground behind it. Ryan didn’t know what was in that bag, but it was completely stuffed.

  “You think we can take him?” Ryan looked at Maximus, who glanced over the windowsill to take a closer look as well. He carefully turned to Ryan, nodding.

  “Alright, then let’s do it.” Sighing slightly, Ryan got ready to attack the area boss. The only good part about this guy was that he seemed to scare even the other mascots, so they didn’t have to worry about being surrounded by other mascots, at least not until the battle was over. Ryan glanced at the back of his hand. “Tiar, you get ready as well; I might use the Spirit Armament skill if I need to.”

  Tiar’s patterns quickly changed, as the symbiote replied with a quick salute: o7

  With a smile, ready to attack the area boss, Ryan carefully moved out of the shop. The massive gorilla mascot was slowly dragging its feet through the road, kicking up dirt and crushing trash in its way.

  All the mascots so far had acted completely the same, so Ryan doubted that this one would be any different, but he should still be careful. It was the only one with a bag like that too, so it was possible that it had some kind of new pattern to it. Plus, considering its size, it might be a bit harder to get through some of the attacks.

  Ryan glanced at Maximus, who was currently asking for the largest weapon that had been prepared for him. It was so large that carrying it around normally was quite unhandy, as it was a whole thirty centimeters long, almost ten more than Maximus himself, and that was just the blade itself, not even the handle. It was basically a dagger that Ryan could also use in an emergency as well, though the handle was a little thin.

  But for a guy this large, it was necessary to use a large weapon, since anything else could only cause shallow wounds. The downsides of Maximus’s size were becoming more than apparent. Ryan took a deep breath. It was time to bait the area boss.

  Gaia was safely staying inside the shop for now, and Maximus was waiting behind some trash until the area boss was properly distracted. Ryan glanced at the knight to make sure they were on the same page, then stepped into the middle of the road. The shield was strapped tight to his left arm, while the heavy bat pressed down onto his right palm.

  “Yo, you big monkey!” Ryan exclaimed, getting the area boss’s attention. The massive gorilla turned its head around toward him. One of its eyes was missing, revealing a maggot-filled socket. It slightly tilted its head for a few moments, as if curious about Ryan. But that curiosity only lasted for a few moments, then the mascot immediately rushed over toward him. It moved with that sort of clunky, newborn-deer type of control that all the other mascots seemed to have over their bodies. Or maybe it was even rougher, since its body was clearly decomposed much more than the other mascots’. But even so, despite its size, it still moved incredibly fast and came at Ryan like a truck.

  Just in case, Ryan poured mana into his shield and bat, waiting for the right moment. He held the shield in front of his body to defend against the area boss’s massive reach, jumping to the side at the last moment. The mascot couldn’t stop or swerve, though it did swing its arm at Ryan. But before the mascot could hit him, he hit the mascot’s knee with his strengthened steel bat.

  Ryan felt the massive resistance, but with all the forces working together, he could tell that the attack had worked. Though, before he could process how much damage was actually done, Ryan watched as that massive jute bag was swung toward him. He had managed to dodge well enough out of the way so that he couldn’t be hit by the mascot’s hand, but with the extra range of the bag, he was still hit.

  He had tightly held on to the shield and braced himself, but was still thrown across the road. His arm felt numb; rather, both of his arms did. Both attacking the mascot and defending against its attack was pretty intense. But it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Ryan scraped over the road, but his armor protected him from actually getting too hurt. He might get some bruises later, but that was fine.

  Especially because now, the area boss’s limp had become rather extreme. Its defense was quite high, but its body was broken down to the point that any damage was a lot of damage. The mascot was slowed down and focused completely on Ryan, which gave Maximus the perfect opportunity to attack. He stabbed his sword into the back of the mascot’s leg, tearing through it horizontally. The aura-enhanced sword cut through the mascot’s tough bones with ease, and its leg was now only attached through a few lumps of rotting meat.

  The mascot lashed out, trying to swing the bag at Maximus, but by then, Ryan had already run back toward them, blocking the attack by holding the shield above them. The impact coursed through his body and Ryan buckled under the weight, dropping to one knee. He groaned loudly. “Maximus!”

  The knight knew what to do; he threw his large sword up over the shield, then stepped into his domain, traveling up onto the shield almost instantly to catch the weapon there. The mascot’s bag was still in reach, so, in order to get rid of the area boss’s main weapon, Maximus slashed at it.

  The mascot pulled the torn bag away, and a flood of those hard plastic coins flowed out of it. There was something else mixed in with those coins, but it seemed to be some kind of figurine, so Ryan ignored it for now.

  Once he recovered enough, Ryan pulled the shield down slightly and then pushed it forward rapidly to throw the knight at the area boss. Maximus stabbed the mascot’s shoulder, and the aura seemed to be making sure that his body weight was enough to let him tear through the boss’s arm from shoulder to hand.

  The mascot’s right arm and leg were now loosely hanging on the sides of its body, but it wasn’t done yet. Clearly, it didn’t quite care about the integrity of its own body, just like the other mascots. One of them had impaled itself because it didn’t care about keeping itself safe. And this one didn’t hesitate to use its own arm as a whip, swinging it at Ryan, the target it was confident it could hit. Once more, Ryan could do nothing but block the attack for the third time. This time, though, his arm didn’t just go numb; he felt something crack.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thieving Mascot

  The crack coursed through Ryan’s whole body. He slightly pulled on his sleeve, seeing dark purple bruises form. Tiar’s patterns were anxiously moving around, as if trying to figure out a way to fix Ryan’s arm, but he quickly looked at the symbiote’s patterns with a smile to calm them down.

  “Don’t worry, it’s fine, it doesn’t hurt that much,” he explained, slowly taking the shield off his arm. He couldn’t risk blocking with this again, so he just threw it to the side for now. Since he could only use one of his arms now, he figured going for the steel bat was the better option. Worst case, he could block with it to some degree as well. Plus, with just the bat, he could concentrate on dodging a bit better, which was definitely necessary right now.

  The mascot was swinging its arm around like some kind of whip; Ryan could hear its muscles and skin tearing the more that it did so. Dark, almost-brownish blood was flung around together with chunks of flesh and the maggots that had burrowed into them. At least this would all disappear when the area boss was dead, so it wasn’t that big a deal for now.

  During the boss’s rampage where it just wildly swung its arm, it was otherwise fairly stationary, probably because its leg was only hanging on by a thread as well. A thread that Maximus was aiming to cut just then.

  The knight ran across the ground, dodging out of the way skillfully every time the mascot was trying to swing its arm at him, soon reaching its legs. Turning his body and almost dragging the sword he was carrying behind him, Maximus cut through the mascot’s leg, or the parts that were still attached. Immediately, the monster’s body slumped, sliding off the chunk of flesh that used to be its foot.

  The arm that it was swinging around wasn’t particularly helping with its stability, either, so Ryan knew that it was a good chance to counterattack and make it fall completely. He glanced at the arm, waiting for the right moment, and then swung the metal bat right at the knee of the mascot’s “healthy” leg, though even that one was maggot-infested to the point where Ryan was shocked that it could still stand.

  At the very least, it seemed like that attack did something, and the mascot almost toppled. It tried to reach out to Ryan as it fell, but he hurriedly stepped backward out of reach. Though, of course, there was still its other arm that it was swinging around haphazardly, and it was headed straight for Ryan’s head. Without even seeing it, Ryan instinctively squatted down, feeling the arm swoosh by above his head. He was covered in splatters of rotting blood, but that was better than having his skull smashed in.

  The mascot now completely lost its balance, and it fell down to its right side. Since it could no longer use its right arm to halt its fall, it dropped right onto its shoulder, crushing the already-injured arm under its weight. As it tried to stand back up, what used to be its limb was torn off from the last bits that it was holding on to, now lying limp on the ground.

  Ignoring the gushes of blood and gore, Maximus threw the dagger-sized sword at the mascot’s chest, lodging it solidly above its heart. But somehow, it didn’t seem to have gone deep enough. Ryan saw the mascot try to reach out to Maximus, who was trying his best to keep it distracted for a few moments by attempting to climb onto its body, and Ryan swiftly moved around its right side, which was now left completely defenseless.

  With a swift motion, Ryan swung the steel bat at the dagger lodged in the mascot’s chest. Like a hammer smashing in a nail, he forced the dagger deeper inside, feeling its rib bones break, stabbing the sword straight into its heart. Though … it didn’t react. The other mascots still died when their hearts were crushed or stabbed, but the area boss seemed to be too far gone in the direction of some rotting undead for that to work anymore.

  It seemed to have a little bit of an effect, at least. The mascot was getting really mad. Incredibly, incredibly mad, so Ryan had to build a little bit of distance between himself and the mascot.

  “Maximus, we need to crush its brain,” Ryan pointed out to the knight, who once more joined his keeper’s side. Without warning, Maximus stepped through the domain to safely position himself on the metal bat, and Ryan stretched the bat out closer toward the mascot’s chest. Maximus jumped onto it to try and pull the sword out, and Ryan immediately swung the bat at the mascot’s remaining arm to distract and stop it from grabbing onto the knight as he was doing so.

  It seemed to be working well enough, and it looked like Ryan had at least broken a finger or two with that swing, but he still jumped back to dodge out of the way as the mascot tried to strike at him.

  Maximus managed to pull out the sword and now used that deep wound as a foothold to jump up higher. He swung the sword right at the mascot’s face, trying to cut through its eye first and foremost, but the mascot’s mouth opened immediately. Maximus ended up cutting through the sides of the boss’s mouth and deep into its tongue, filling the mouth with a thick puddle of blood almost instantly.

  The mascot tried to bite down on Maximus, but before it could, the spirit twisted the sword upside down. Its tip pointed upward, digging into the roof of the mascot’s mouth, while the hilt pushed down into the puddle of blood. Ryan watched as the mascot’s jaw slammed shut around Maximus. But he also watched as the mascot fell down backward like a tree that was cut down.

  Ryan immediately dropped his bat and rushed over to the mascot, pushing its mouth open. Since it was already dead and falling apart, that was pretty easy to do. Maximus climbed out of the mascot’s mouth, covered in blood and maggots. Parts of his armor were scratched, and the cloth covering his lower body was torn, as were his gloves.

  “I’ll get you fixed up later, alright?” Ryan said as he carefully picked the knight up, who just nodded.

  [You have killed the Level 10 -Mascot Boss-]

  [Jester’s excitement has risen slightly]

  Ryan sighed as he saw the message. Every once in a while, messages like these would pop up, as Jester the Harlequin’s excitement rose in response to things Ryan and Maximus did in the dungeon, whether it was an ambush, or defeating an annoying or particularly tough mascot, or anything of the sort. The last time Ryan had gotten one of these was when a dragon mascot nearly scorched Ryan’s hair off.

  Though at least Jester’s quest seemed to be proceeding; Gregor still wasn’t waking up or responding, no matter what they were doing. But for now, Ryan had to concentrate on something else anyway. Since the area boss was dead, there was nothing stopping other mascots from swarming them anymore.

  “Gaia, come over here!” Ryan exclaimed. “And, Anders, we could use some help!”

  Immediately as Ryan said so, the dwarf’s footsteps could be heard. “Aye, good job on that. What’d ya need help with?” he asked, almost yawning, and Ryan quickly explained.

  “My arm’s broken, so we should probably head out and meet Kula.”

  Anders glanced down at Ryan’s left arm, which he was carefully holding against his body. “Ya fought like that with yer arm broken?”

  “It broke toward the end of it all,” Ryan pointed out, groaning lightly as he looked at his arm. “Would you mind helping me out with my stuff?”

  With an immediate nod, Anders walked over to Ryan’s shield and bat. “Of course; that’s what I’m here for. Need help picking up that loot?”

  “I think the sub-golems are going to take care of that,” Ryan pointed out, already looking over to Gaia, whose two sub-golems promptly fell from her torso. They ran over toward the large pile of plastic coins that had fallen out from the area boss’s bag. It seemed like it would take a little while until the boss fully fell apart, so Ryan used that time to take a closer look at the bag’s former contents. There was something else mixed in there as well.

  Buried by those coins stood a small plastic figurine painted in golden paint, portraying the mascot that they had just killed: a gorilla. However, as Ryan looked over toward the mascot, he could see the hints of another one of these statues being left behind.

  “Uh … so, why is it carrying around all these coins?” Ryan asked, looking over at Anders. The dwarf finished a long yawn and scratched the back of his head.

  “That’s its loot. Looks like ya got pretty lucky; this one killed another area boss.”

  “Huh? Wait, so, the boss goes around killing other mascots and then takes their drops? But why would it do that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just kind of aggressive that way,” Anders replied, shrugging.

  “That’s not what I mean, like … Why would the dungeon make a monster that goes around killing other monsters? I may not know a ton about dungeons, but I at least know that they don’t tend to be self-destructive like that, so there has to be some kind of benefit to the area boss doing this,” Ryan pointed out, and the dwarf was silent for a few moments.