Episode 176

4.

Kim Buja wanted only one thing.

The last hit.

'Got you.'

He was most confident in one-on-one combat, a specialty of his class. And this was a final battle against a boss who had been nicely tenderized by the other demons. No matter how powerful Beneila was as the Lord of Nightmares, empowered by the castle's buffs and penalties, theme dungeons weren't designed to kill players. They were, quite literally, about the theme.

The story progressed, and at the end, there was always a result. The chance to change that result was what was given to the player. In that sense, themed dungeons could actually be easier than regular special dungeons. In this case, demons had unexpectedly intervened, serving as unplanned allies who threw their lives away for him and shaved off a large portion of Beneila's strength.

If that hadn't been the case, he would have had to spend much more time clearing the dungeon. He might even have used the full thirty-day time limit and truly had a "nightmare."

To avoid that, he could not afford to miss this opportunity.

[Soul Unleashed: Stage 3 has been activated.]

His body felt lighter as he slipped into the still-chaotic melee. He could have waited until the very end before jumping in, but if he aimed too hard for the last moment, he might get stuck facing Beneila's final, desperate rampage all by himself. The first and last to act always draw attention, and with that attention comes responsibility.

He had to play it safe. He needed a moment when no one's eyes were on him—a sudden, unexpected move that would shatter the flow of battle in an instant.

He carefully approached from behind a demon currently trading blows with Beneila. Even exhausted, she was by no means an easy opponent, blocking every attack flying in from all directions while simultaneously thinning the demons' numbers.

He had to change his approach. He couldn't waste the time he had spent waiting for the perfect moment. If he attacked and charged in like everyone else, he wouldn't be able to create a different outcome.

Sching!

After exchanging a few more blows, the demon, just as exhausted as she was, could no longer hold out and finally gave up his heart.

Standing right behind him, Buja watched her claws burst through the demon's back. Without a moment's hesitation, he drove his own sword into the demon's back.

Beneila's eyes widened in shock.

It was an attack that exploited Beneila's signature move—ripping out a demon's heart before whispering one last, sweet nightmare into their ear as they died.

He felt the tip of his sword slice through the demon's back and sink into the soft flesh beyond.

Beyond the demon he had just decapitated, Buja could see Beneila's stunned expression.

It had been a completely undefended strike.

His sword had pierced straight through her abdomen, and since she wasn't invincible, she had to have taken damage. If she were strong enough to ignore such a wound, she wouldn't have been so desperate to block every single attack from the other demons.

Yet she showed no sign of it.

Instead of pain from the blade piercing her stomach, her eyes were filled with curiosity, surprise, and fascination as they swept over Kim Buja.

A chill crawled down his spine.

He recognized that look, which was precisely why it was so disturbing.

It was the look of someone who had finally found something interesting in the midst of crushing boredom.

She had fought countless demons, taken countless wounds, and surely brushed up against death more than once. For that very reason, this might have been the first time a single attack had made her feel something.

"What an amusing child you are."

Instead of a grimace, a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

At the same time, he felt a powerful force tugging on the sword in his grip.

Rather than letting him pull the blade out, she was actually dragging it deeper into her abdomen.

Without a moment's hesitation, Kim Buja let go of the sword. He could always resummon it later.

What mattered more was refusing to play into her hands, especially when he had no idea what she was planning.

However, the moment he saw Beneila still watching him even after he had released the sword and retreated, he understood.

'Too late.'

This wasn't a problem he could solve by simply dropping his sword.

[The Final Banquet is now beginning.]

His vision flickered again, and the scene changed.

* * *

Everyone has an experience like this at least once in their life.

"I had a dream inside a dream."

You're dreaming, and then you have another dream within that one.

You wake up and realize it was a dream, only for that to turn out to be a dream as well.

You end up in a situation where you aren't sure whether what you experienced was a dream or reality.

Even then, you can still be confident about what was a dream and what was a dream within a dream because you retain enough judgment to distinguish reality.

Humans can tell the difference between what could realistically happen and what couldn't, allowing them to say, "Oh, that was a dream," and dismiss it.

Beneila's "banquet," however, was nothing like that.

"What the hell? This is insane."

The vast banquet hall had turned into a wide, cavernous chamber with only the lord's throne rising up in solitary splendor. The countless nightmare legions and demons had vanished without a trace.

The only ones here now were Kim Buja and Beneila, who was still brazenly sprawled in the lord's chair.

A hollow sense of futility washed over him.

'Was everything I experienced in the first and second banquets a dream?'

That was the first thought that came to mind.

Otherwise, how could battles on such a massive scale have continued one after another?

Before long, he even began to entertain the reasonable suspicion that this space itself might be a dream.

'Did I fall victim to a "nightmare"?'

He hadn't even considered the possibility, but he couldn't deny it either.

It wouldn't be strange at all.

A succubus's specialty was dreams, and the entire dungeon was themed around them.

The curse of the "Castle of Nightmares" also increased the probability of being afflicted with a "nightmare."

On top of that, there were additional penalties. In this situation, it would have been stranger if he had somehow remained immune without any defenses.

"You look confused."

Beneila spoke in a leisurely tone, as if she had read his expression.

"Since when?" he asked.

Had it been from the very beginning?

He hadn't felt anything that would make him think something had changed.

If he assumed Beneila had created this situation, then it meant that from the "first banquet" onward, he had been fighting inside a space she had constructed.

He had known that in theory, but in practice, it meant that none of it had truly hurt her.

He only had to look at her unscathed appearance to see that.

Furthermore, the fact that none of the other demons were visible suggested this wasn't just a simple, isolated subspace. It meant she had a much stronger form of control.

"A succubus's dream is sweet, but also deadly," she intoned with satisfaction, watching Kim Buja struggle to distinguish what was real from what was a dream.

"Anyone who has fallen into a dream can never harm me from within it."

That single line contained the secret to this situation.

"But you did."

Her fingers traced along her jawline, brimming with interest.

That was why, in the middle of her little game, things had suddenly jumped ahead to the final banquet.

"You really are fascinating. So I brought you here. You are going to be my toy."

As she spoke, her gaze roamed over Kim Buja, dripping with lust.

He frowned and took a step back.

"I asked you, since when?"

Hearing the frustration in his voice, Beneila graciously answered.

"From the moment you stepped into the castle, every child here, you included, became my slave."

"Is that so?"

At that answer, which was exactly what he had wanted to hear, Kim Buja's expression shifted for an instant.

"Funny, I was clearly immune to the curse when I first entered the castle," he remarked, his tone now just as relaxed as hers.

"If I didn't just step into a temporary space but actually fell into a Nightmare state, then the only possible timing was when the first banquet started, right? I had a rough idea, but if it were just a matter of moving to another space, I figured I could just kill you without ever leaving, so I didn't even think about escaping. But you just kindly explained everything to me."

Nothing in this world was perfect.

At the end of a world gone mad, in a 10-star dungeon, he might have faced a situation so hopeless that there truly was no answer.

This, however, was not that.

No matter how powerful the demons had looked, no matter how he had watched Beneila trample over them, this was still only a 3-star dungeon.

Aside from its Legendary rank, it wasn't an impossible dungeon for Kim Buja, who had already fought disaster-class monsters of 5-star difficulty and above.

That was why he had taken on the challenge.

The problem wasn't the dungeon itself, but finding the right solution—the key to the puzzle it presented.

And Beneila had kindly spelled that answer out with her own mouth.

Of course, it might have just been arrogance.

Confidence.

The indulgence—or mockery—bestowed on a bird already trapped in a cage, one that had already fallen victim to her ultimate technique.

"You know what happens, right?" he asked.

Naturally, she had no idea.

"The fate of villains who think they've already won and then blurt out their weaknesses without a second thought."

Everyone thinks it.

'What kind of childish setup is that?'

'Who would ever do something that stupid?'

Kim Buja had thought the same.

If he ever wrote a novel, he would never pull some ridiculous twist where the villain reverses a sure victory with a move so idiotic it was infuriating.

Finish it when you can finish it.

It's not over until it's over.

Whether in games or in reality, doing your best until the very end was the most basic of basics.

Especially answering questions about your own weaknesses so freely—that was the same as asking to die.

He reached into the air and pulled out a bracelet.

"You know what this is?"

Since she had revealed her weakness without hesitation, Kim Buja was more than happy to explain in return.

It was an item he hadn't worn for a while.

"It's a completely busted item."

Beneila, sensing that something was wrong, reached out her hand, but unfortunately for her, she didn't have the authority to twist the world with a wave of her hand and seize control of his entire body.

In other words, she couldn't stop him from putting on the bracelet.

[You are now immune to all status ailments of (★★★) rank and below.]

[You awaken from the Nightmare.]

The holograms announcing the end of the banquet snapped Kim Buja awake.

* * *

The banquet had begun in spectacular fashion, but its end could not have been more pathetic.

When he opened his eyes, the demons who had been fighting alongside him were all staring blankly into empty air, and Beneila was gazing into nothingness as well.

Once he understood what had really happened, it all felt almost laughably hollow.

If he had just thought it through a little more, he could have realized it easily.

Succubi in stories didn't rely on brute force. They were monsters that played to their strengths through mental domination.

The fact that a Special-grade "Purification Bracelet" had been enough to dispel the status effect reminded him once again that this was only a 3-star dungeon.

"No wonder status immunity items sell for so much."

Of course, this wasn't the end.

The dungeon's clear condition wasn't simply to escape Beneila's nightmare.

The Castle of Nightmares still stood, and the number of nightmare legions waiting outside the banquet hall was enough to make him want to throw up.

However, now that he knew the dungeon's true nature and had seen the real extent of Lord Beneila's power, there was nothing left to worry about.

Beneila was completely defenseless.

Dismantling a dungeon built on three interlocking penalties was no longer a difficult task, now that he'd removed the cornerstone.

* * *

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