Chapter 131
The declaration of war against the Royal Dullahan and its subordinates, who dared to invade the dungeon under the Wind Dragon's domain without so much as a glance in my direction, came in the form of a single strike—the Wind Dragon's breath, infused with immense magical power.
The range, power, and area of effect were incomparable to that of a Wyvern's breath.
Two Dragon Zombies caught in the path of the unleashed breath were instantly obliterated.
『■■■■■■■■■!!!』
A single strike was all it took to annihilate those notoriously tough Dragon Zombies.
The sovereign of the skies did not descend to the ground. Instead, it deployed wind magic around itself and began its ruthless assault.
Even after its devastating breath, it continued to unleash Wind Cutters—razor-sharp blades of wind that rained down chaotically from above.
Yeah… this is a nightmare, isn’t it?
For a brief moment, the thought that I might be able to defeat the Wind Dragon crossed my mind, but my overconfident emotions waved the white flag within seconds.
Just because my great bow worked against Wyverns doesn’t mean it would work against a Wind Dragon. That kind of arrogance would guarantee my death.
To make matters worse, my trusty Flame Demon Great Bow doesn’t even have the Dragon Slayer effect yet, so my chances of winning are slim—no, practically nonexistent.
"Ugh, this is one-sided…"
For the Royal Dullahan, who lacks air superiority, there’s only one way to defeat the Wind Dragon.
Its skill—Neck Hunter.
A critical strike skill that exclusively targets the weak point: the neck.
It consumes a massive amount of mana, requires a thirty-second cooldown after use, and even imposes a damage penalty on the first strike if it doesn’t land on the neck.
On top of that, if the attack is blocked, it’s guaranteed to fail, making it an extremely difficult skill to use effectively.
However, in exchange, it grants special effects when striking the neck: ignoring defense, guaranteeing a critical hit, increasing critical damage, and even a chance to inflict instant death.
If it lands on the neck, it can even one-shot a boss.
Among players, most accidents when challenging a Dullahan happen when this attack connects with the neck.
Despite its lethality, it can’t be applied to long-range attacks like arrows or Wind Cutters—it only works with melee weapons like swords or bladed handheld weapons.
"Hmm… if you’re getting bombarded from the sky, you’re completely helpless, huh?"
To reliably kill enemies with the Neck Hunter skill—including the Royal Dullahan—the best method is exactly what the Wind Dragon is doing: attacking from a distance with overwhelming force.
"As for the Dullahan… well, it’s retreating, right?"
The Royal Dullahan mounted one of the largest Dragon Zombies—one conspicuously missing its head—and began its retreat.
It positioned the surviving Dragon Zombies as rear guards, taking two with it as it withdrew.
"The Wind Dragon… seems to be ignoring the Dragon Zombies for now and focusing on pursuit."
Given the terrible matchup and the insurmountable stat difference, retreating isn’t the wrong choice.
In fact, the real mistake was challenging it in the first place.
From the Dullahan’s perspective, it probably attacked the Wyvern dungeon to secure Dragon Zombies for its own dungeon’s defense.
Sacrificing the Dragon Zombies it worked so hard to obtain just to retreat…
Maybe it came here to replenish the Dragon Zombies that had been reduced by adventurers and knights.
The Royal Dullahan’s dungeon is based on a Goblin Dungeon.
Since it can only summon Goblin-type monsters, the Dullahan has to personally venture out to gather materials for Dragon Zombies.
And it seems the Wind Dragon isn’t about to let that slide.
"Now then… what should I do?"
Holding my breath, hiding behind a rock, I waited quietly to avoid drawing the Wind Dragon’s aggro.
Even as I muttered to myself, one of the options in my mind was still "fight the Wind Dragon."
If I were discovered, combat would be inevitable.
And right now, since the Royal Dullahan holds all the aggro, I could land a surprise attack and gain a damage advantage.
Gripping the Flame Demon Great Bow tightly, I thought carefully.
Ideas flashed through my mind. I ran calculations. And the result?
"Yeah… no way."
The tension drained from my body.
No matter how much I strategized, no matter how I tried to maneuver, every possible future ended in defeat.
Defeating a Class 6 Wind Dragon at low level is a feat only achievable with fully optimized gear and skills.
Even in the game, it was a grueling challenge—one that required repeated deaths and retries to barely accomplish.
If someone asked if I was willing to bet my one and only life on this, the answer would be: not yet.
Considering the current situation, with Iris being targeted by Jackaran, part of me wanted to take down the Wind Dragon here and now.
But courage and recklessness are two different things.
Fighting the Wind Dragon right now… just felt wrong.
"Time’s running out. I should probably make my escape soon."
It was disappointing that I couldn’t craft Dragon Slayer equipment in one go, but trying to push for more today would just be greedy.
Just as I was about to retreat, I felt an unusual gust of wind.
Even though I was hiding behind a rock, some wind still blew through.
This was a mountaintop in a canyon-type dungeon—a rocky peak with nowhere to hide except behind boulders.
Wind blowing here wasn’t strange at all.
But something about that gust gave me a bad feeling, and I instinctively looked in its direction.
"……"
In hindsight, that was the right move.
But at the same time, it made me grimace and think, Seriously?
Before I could even question why that was there, the first words out of my mouth were:
"My luck is just the worst."
A lament for my own misfortune.
At the end of my gaze was the figure of the Wind Dragon—the one that should have been chasing the Royal Dullahan.
Had it given up the chase and come back?
No. Absolutely not.
The sounds of battle still echoed from the direction it had gone, along with the Wind Dragon’s furious roars.
So then… what was this thing?
The answer was simple: there was another Wind Dragon. That’s all.
"Twins?! Of all the rotten luck!"
When dungeons are generated, there’s a rare phenomenon that can occur under certain conditions in dungeons of a certain strength.
A phenomenon where the boss multiplies—an absurd mechanic.
Back when I was playing normally, some FBO players reported encountering this as a bug, and at the time, I just thought, Huh, I guess that happens sometimes.
But then the FBO developers’ response left all players stunned:
"The boss duplication is not a bug—it is an intended feature. When generating dungeons of Class 4 or higher, there is an extremely low chance for bosses to multiply. This is a measure to increase drop distribution rates. Thank you for your understanding."
Dungeon bosses multiplying.
At first, everyone was worried about the developers’ sanity, but upon reflection, since some items could only be obtained from bosses, this was actually a good thing—or so we rationalized in the game.
But encountering this in real life, unprepared to fight even one dragon, made me want to scream.
"And it already noticed me?!"
Seeing the buildup of magical energy in its mouth, I immediately bolted from behind the rock and sprinted away.
A few seconds later, its breath attack was unleashed. I barely survived by diving behind a massive boulder.
"You bastard!! What kind of cursed luck makes you hit a 0.05% chance?!"
The mechanics of twin dungeon bosses had been thoroughly investigated.
First, it only occurs in Class 4 or higher dungeons.
The probability is uniform across all eligible dungeons.
And it only applies to bosses in dungeons generated with a Dungeon Key.
No other conditions apply—race, attributes, nothing. The phenomenon has been confirmed in all kinds of dungeons.
And once, an extremely unlucky FBO raid party hit that 0.05% chance again, spawning triplet bosses in a dungeon.
Worse, that dungeon was Class 9, so the entire party was wiped.
They complained to the developers, "You never said it could go beyond twins!!"
But the response was:
"While the probability is exceedingly low, it is possible for bosses to multiply beyond twins."
This sparked outrage. Players who suffered item loss and death penalties were understandably furious.
Wait… if there’s another Wind Dragon here, does that mean there might be another one in the boss’s territory deeper in the dungeon?
If I’ve somehow stumbled into triplets, then the Royal Dullahan’s abysmal luck has rubbed off on me—what kind of disaster is this?!
"Dammit! If that wasn’t an indestructible object, I’d be dead!!"
If there hadn’t been a place to hide from the boss’s attack, I would’ve died just now.
The Wind Dragon’s breath slammed into the boulder, scattering in all directions.
While it’s unleashing its breath, it can’t move or use other attacks, but…
"Don’t call your lackeys too!! I’m just a Class 2 weakling!? Going all out against someone like me—how unsportsmanlike!!"
As if to compensate for the boss’s temporary immobility, Wyverns began gathering.
"You—go crash!!"
Before they could swarm me, I landed a headshot on the first Wyvern to approach, sending it tumbling down the cliff face I’d seen so many times before.
"Escape routes… yeah, right!!"
If I’d known this was here, I would’ve never climbed to the summit.
The path down from the mountaintop was narrow, treacherous, and barely passable—one wrong step, and I’d plummet off the cliff.
And I’d have to navigate that while dodging attacks from the Wind Dragon and its Wyvern minions.
I’ve faced plenty of challenges head-on, but this was beyond impossible—my instincts screamed in protest.
There were still places to hide, but now that the Wind Dragon had detected me, those hiding spots were just the first step on the road to hell.
"……"
Cold sweat trickled down my forehead.
What do I do?
Do I throw myself into an escape with no hope of success?
Or do I throw myself into a battle with the faintest glimmer of possibility?
Whichever I choose, the words "what if" will haunt me, leading to an ending—for better or worse.
『■■■■■■■■!!!』
"Seriously?! If you’re gonna give me choices, at least give me time to think!!"
No time to hesitate.
I remembered how much I hated timed choices in games as I spun around and landed a point-blank headshot on a Wyvern circling behind the boulder.
Thanks to my anger and panic, I’d somehow looped back around to calmness—my focus sharper than ever.
When you don’t know what to do, there’s one thing you do know for sure:
If I don’t kill the enemy, I die.
That truth drove my body instinctively, resulting in a flawless headshot.
"Fine! Fine, you damn monster!! You really wanna fight me that badly?! Then I’ll show you the desperate struggle of a gamer who poured his life and soul into gaming!!"
That single shot solidified my resolve.
Running was never an option.
I had no confidence in surviving a no-rope bungee jump off the cliff, nor could I imagine outrunning the Wind Dragon on the narrow paths.
Even if I used smoke bombs, the area was too open—I didn’t have enough to fully conceal myself.
So, the only choice was to fight.
"At least it’s an open area… damn it!!"
The one small mercy was that this place had several dungeon-specific indestructible objects.
And though it was a slim hope, I still had some arrows left.
Plus, if I kept killing Wyverns, the Flame Demon Great Bow would eventually gain the Dragon Slayer effect.
Fighting was the slightly better option—a spider’s thread of hope dangling from the Buddha’s hand, but a chance nonetheless.
First, I dashed out from behind the boulder to assess the battlefield.
"Knew you’d do that!!"
The Wind Dragon’s attacks were mostly wind-based.
Wind breath, wind magic—those were its standard long-range attacks.
Wind Cutters (razor-sharp blades of wind), Wind Hammers (shockwaves that blow targets away), Tempest (an area-of-effect version of Wind Cutter that scatters blades in all directions), and Downburst (a crushing gale from above).
And then there was the one I hated most—the most troublesome of the Wind Dragon’s spells.
"Removing the air?! That’s too OP for something of your tier!!"
Air Zero Field.
A spell that momentarily removes all air within a designated area—an utterly vicious anti-creature attack.
It’s useless against undead or inorganic golems, but against living beings, even a second without oxygen can knock them out—or worse.
It’s the number one attack I have to watch out for when fighting a Wind Dragon.
While sprinting at full speed to map out the terrain, I muttered:
"But… if it didn’t have that, I wouldn’t stand a chance!"
Ironically, it was also the only reason I could win.