Reborn as a Reluctant Demon Lord

Chapter 16 - Boss Fight

What kind of dungeon designer makes a dungeon that you can clear only 3 rooms and then fight the boss?

A bad one. Possibly one that's as bad as the designer of the tutorial dungeon.

I'm not saying that they were made by the same person, but... Who am I kidding. Yes, I am. AltSys did a terrible job, and he should feel bad.

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As we walked out of the tunnel, we realized that we had entered back into the forest. The party immediately went to high alert and looked for signs of enemies. We didn't see anything.

Eventually, Jake motioned me over, and I walked over to him quietly. He whispered. "You're the only one that has fought a boss. What should we expect? Normal video game boss fight?"

I frowned and whispered back. "I only fought the one, so no idea if that fight was normal. As for what to expect, I did have a relatively safe zone that I started out in. We might be okay here for a bit. The boss itself didn't show up until after I had defeated hundreds of ads, though. The ads also came in waves."

Jake was silent for a bit, and then the rest of the party huddled up with us. He whispered a bit louder, and I don't know if it was for my benefit or if he wasn't able to communicate that much information through the party link. "Okay, guys. Here's what we know. We're trapped in here until we beat the boss, so we'll have to take it down. It has elemental in its name, so I bet that we can do extra damage if we hit with opposite types. Hit fire with ice, earth with air, and the other way around too."

Sam grinned and fist-pumped. "Avatar [Sorcerer] is paying off already!" She went to give me a high-five, but a glare and a shush from Emilia, along with the fact that we were currently trying to hide from a boss, shut her up. "Sorryyy.." she whispered.

Jake continued on like it didn't happen. "We probably should also avoid hitting with the same type if possible. Tim that means stick to [Mage Bolt] if they happen to be fire elementals."

Tim sniffed and looked like he was about to say something condescending, but he stopped. Instead, he went with a simple, "Of course."

"Okay, now the main question. Do we stay here and try to get some resources back, or go into the boss room?"

I felt a bit left out at that point since I had no idea what their health, stamina, or magic pools were looking like, and Jake either forgot to tell me or didn't care about my opinion on anyone else's resources. Either way, a decision was reached fairly quickly that we would try to get as much of a rest as we could since Tim was down to about 3/4 of his MP, and we had no idea how long the boss fight was going to take.

Megan and I were assigned to watch the perimeter as the rest of the party sat or laid down to rest because both of us were basically topped off (me because of my regen that never slowed down, and her because she had little to do in most of our fights that day). We both quietly circled the camp, but we didn't notice anything before Jake called us back in a few minutes.

"I started regenning, but Andrew and Tim didn't. Not even their stamina is going back up." Jake whispered to me. He looked over at both of them as they were fidgeting and looking around. "Because of the boss room?"

"If so, then it's different than the one I fought," I whispered back. "I was able to regen SP just fine when I was in a boss fight as long as I was safe. Also, why would it only do that for those two?"

Jake frowned and thought for a moment. He finally whispered, "Okay, I have something I want to test, but it could be a bit dangerous. Do you mind doing it?"

I was really not a fan of how he worded that, especially in the middle of a boss fight with the boss' HP bar looming in our field of vision, but I took the bait and answered anyway. "I guess. What's the plan?"