Boss fight

After walking along the tunnel for quite a while, Aya saw plenty of small animal bones. She kicked them aside, and the rooster behind her stopped to peck at them before she pulled him along by the neck again.

"Don't eat dirty things. I promised Hagrid I'd bring you back alive," Aya said earnestly, looking back. Then she tightened her grip on the rope and continued forward.

After rounding a bend, Aya followed Xiaohua step for step. As she watched the tabby tail swishing back and forth ahead of her, she suddenly glimpsed something big to the side-something that wasn't a wall.

Aya turned her head and saw a massive coiled object, a vivid shade of green—the kind of green that made an animal look poisonous at first glance. She hadn't recognized it at first, but Xiaohua hadn't reacted, so she knew it was safe. She went closer for a look and casually stashed it in her backpack.

Wow, a golden legendary!

Delighted, Aya carefully checked its description: Basilisk shed skin.

Oh, no wonder she hadn't recognized it. In her old world, there had been plenty of bizarre, terrifying-looking bosses. Most had been disgusting, but they had still been humanoid. Snake-shaped monsters really had been very rare. Her strongest impression of the creature had come after she arrived in this world, from the snake on Slytherin's crest.

But it's a golden legendary! It was an orange item on the same level as Phoenix Feather. Phoenix Feather was tiny, but this thing went on farther than she could see!

Aya's tail immediately perked up, and she looked forward to the boss ahead even more. Of course, she also pulled out her staff. Now that she'd seen the shed skin, did she even need to guess what the boss was?

Following Xiaohua around bend after bend, Aya felt her brain tying itself in knots. She had never paid attention to the route, and now she had even less idea where she was.

After yet another bend, she finally saw a solid wall. Two entwined snakes were carved into it, with emeralds set in their eyes.

Aya stared at the two snakes and sneakily looked back. Seeing that the only one behind her was still the rooster pecking away everywhere, with no suspicious white-bearded old man in sight, she immediately straightened up. "Xiaohua, nobody's going to appreciate the beauty of those two emeralds in a place like this. We have to help them!"

Xiaohua acted on her thoughts. Like any cat capable of scaling walls and leaping across rooftops, he clung to the wall and gnawed at the two carved snakes, easily prying the emeralds loose with his fangs.

Now they were blind snakes.

Aya took the two emeralds, each bigger than her fist, and held them up to admire them with curiosity. Gems back in her world could increase attack power, but the ones here were so expensive that she'd hardly ever seen real ones up close. Now she had two of her own!

She wiped them on her clothes. The gems were clear and bright, and their quality was excellent. Aya couldn't judge gemstones, but she could tell whether they were pretty.

Not bad. I haven't even entered the dungeon yet, and I've already got loot. But...

How do I open this door?

"Xiaohua, can you dig this door open?" Aya asked, looking at his claws. She had no doubt about how sharp they were, but Xiaohua didn't move.

That made sense. The construction here looked solid and plain, and the wall bricks looked half a meter thick.

"Hmm... how about you dig through the wall next to it?" Aya suggested tentatively.

Xiaohua moved.

Huh?

The wall here isn't as thick as the door?

Aya was a little surprised, but she soon happily led the rooster over and waited for the crawl hole to take shape.

"...Xiaohua, shouldn't we be scratching through this side?" Aya asked, watching Xiaohua dig into the wall perpendicular to the door. She pointed at the wall on the same side as the door.

Xiaohua couldn't answer and just kept digging.

"Is this whole wall a door?" Aya didn't need him to answer; she could mutter to herself just fine.

Since he needed to get around the door, Xiaohua dug a fairly large C-shaped hole around that side of the wall. As Aya crawled through, a system notification sounded.

[Dungeon activated: the Basilisk boss is awakening. Please prepare yourself, player.]

Gripping her staff, Aya looked cautiously from side to side, searching for the red name. But the room she had entered was still dark, and she couldn't see a single living thing. Her large cat ears swiveled like radar dishes, but all she could hear was the occasional drip of water.

Stone pillars carved with giant snakes stood along both sides of the room. When she looked up, the light was too dim to make out the ceiling. A greenish haze hung everywhere, and if she hadn't been losing no health, Aya would have thought it was miasma.

She crept forward on tiptoe. Since she was a cat, the clearest sound in the whole space was the rooster's occasional clucking. Even when she reached the end of the room, there was still no sign of the Basilisk boss.

Aya stood before the statue at the end of the room and looked up at it. The statue was rather ugly, with a wrinkled face and a sparse beard. It wasn't even wearing shoes. Aya moved a few steps to the side. There was no magical basis for it, but who said a statue couldn't have athlete's foot?

She couldn't risk catching it.

But where was the Basilisk...?

Aya went from nervousness at the start to having nothing to do. In the end, she even let go of the rooster's rope so she could search everywhere for another door. After rummaging around for ages and finding nothing, she finally turned her attention to the ugly statue.

Forgive her: in the dungeons she had run before, no matter how magnificent and beautiful the surroundings or how majestic the scenery, they had only been background. The monsters were all that mattered, so at first Aya had treated the ugly statue as just another backdrop.

But now, aside from that ugly statue, the room was full of pillars entwined with snakes. Those pillars were even more background than the background!

Aya had no choice but to pay attention to the ugly statue.

Fine, then there was only one thing to do-

Take the statue apart and have a look.

Renovating hadn't been part of Aya's original plan, but plans couldn't keep up with changes. She could only have Xiaohua try some renovation.

To get a better angle, Xiaohua climbed onto the statue and started sharpening his claws on its head.

The statue had looked very hard, but unexpectedly, it was more brittle than Aya had imagined. At least it wasn't as hard as the wall he'd just dug through. Xiaohua scratched at the statue's neck, wearing it thinner and thinner. Aya found a raised platform beneath a stone pillar and sat down. She took out her late-night sandwich, bit into it, and picked out the vegetable leaves in the middle to feed the rooster.

"You should hop up and sit too. I don't know why I had to catch a live rooster, but this is definitely the most exciting day of your whole chicken life. Since you're already here, you have to cheer me on from the sidelines when I fight the boss later. Be the hype team, got it?" Aya tore off a little piece of toast crust and offered it to the rooster.

"If you're going to slack off, you should at least know you're slacking. Sweet-talk me a little, and you'll get a share when I open the treasure chest. Of course, you're only a rooster, so a treasure chest wouldn't do you any good. I'm just saying."

"A rooster's voice should be pretty stirring for cheering. This place is so empty that even a couple of clucks from you sound like they'd echo. Then, if you crow when the time comes, wow—I'll recover all my internal energy and be raring to go~"

"Of course, you'll have to cheer from somewhere safe. I don't know if the boss here has a range limit, and if you accidentally get swallowed... hmm, then I can only have Duoduo find another rooster to substitute for you. Hopefully Hagrid won't notice." At that, the rooster pecked Aya again.

"They say you should strike a snake seven inches from its head, but where's the seven-inch point on a snake that big? And..."

A tremendous bang made Aya's hand jerk. The pork cutlet in her sandwich fell into the water, leaving a small slick of oil on the surface. The rooster jumped down and pecked at it without the slightest hesitation. Aya looked toward the noise and saw that Xiaohua had dug through the statue's neck. Another opening had appeared where the back of its head had been.

"How many more holes do I have to crawl through?" Aya sighed. By now, she felt as though she smelled of stale water.

Aya was about to climb onto Xiaohua, who was covered in dust and stone chips, and jump up to the opening when a rustling sound came from inside the pipe.

It sounded like a snake slithering through the pipe.

Aya hurriedly planted her feet again, gripped her staff, and stared at the opening. Xiaohua also stood up, then crouched in an attack stance.

[You have died]

Fuck.

Aya uttered her first swear word since coming to this world.

What kind of boss kills you the moment you meet it?!

That's not how a spawn kill is supposed to work!

Aya curiously took in the sensation of floating in the air as a ghost. Xiaohua shrank and hid behind a stone pillar, the rooster was still pecking at the cutlet, and her own body lay peacefully on its back on the floor. Watching the pitch-black opening, she saw a gigantic emerald-green snake-like creature slither out. Its eyes were wide open like great yellow lanterns, and a tuft of scarlet crest feathers crowned its head.

The Basilisk slithered out from the top of the stone statue and landed on the floor with a splash. The commotion was so great that centuries-old dust sifted down from the ceiling. Once the Basilisk's head had passed Aya's body, Aya directed Xiaohua to use his resurrection skill.

Lotus Rebirth, a summoner's resurrection skill, was the only resurrection skill that could be used on oneself. The price was sacrificing the cat.

Xiaohua turned into specks of light and scattered into the air. Aya climbed to her feet and moved her somewhat stiff limbs a couple of times, feeling a little unnatural.

She had been lying in a puddle just now, and most of her clothes were wet and a little cold. She rummaged through her backpack for a red potion she hadn't drunk in a long time and downed it in one gulp. After feeling her body warm up, she activated Dandelion the instant the Basilisk turned its head.

When Dandelion was used, the first attack received could be nullified, and the user would enter a state of invisibility. It lasted only a few seconds, but that was enough for Aya, who didn't know why she had just died, to put some safe distance between them.

Stepping on the somewhat drier spots, she quickly retreated several paces and hid behind another stone pillar. Then Aya hurried to use Glistening Tears to revive Xiaohua.

She wiped away tears with an expressionless face. Xiaohua reappeared with a faint glow and circled Aya twice before growing bigger and charging out. As the Basilisk was about to come over, he dropped to the floor and used Taunt.

Aya breathed a sigh of relief. As long as Taunt was active, she didn't have to worry about the Basilisk attacking her. After all, coming back to life took a lot of stamina, and she felt as though her body had become a little sluggish.

Xiaohua tucked his head down and curled into a ball in the middle of the room. The Basilisk circled around him, seemingly quite interested. It swished its tail twice and struck Xiaohua. Although summoned beasts took reduced damage while Taunt was active, he still lost quite a bit of health. Aya hurried to heal him, then tried to wear down the Basilisk's health bar.

"Ding-" The skill sound effect rang out, but the Basilisk's defense wasn't breached.

"Buzz-" The skill sound effect rang out again. The Basilisk's scales were as smooth and pristine as ever.

"Pfft-" The skill sound effect rang out once more. The Basilisk was completely unharmed.

Aya felt that every time one of her skills hit the Basilisk, all that floated up from it was "miss, miss, miss."

How was she supposed to fight this?!

Aya planted her hands on her hips in anger. A morning glory bloomed above her staff, maintaining her and Xiaohua's health bars. "How am I supposed to beat this?! Is this a boss I can fight right now? If I can't beat it, why open the dungeon? Have the designers lost their minds again?!"

While Aya stood there cursing, the rooster that had been pecking at the cutlet finally sauntered over, belly out and head held high.

Seeing how leisurely he looked, Aya couldn't help taking her anger out on him. "All you know how to do is eat! You don't even help! Everything I just told you went in one ear and out the other. A chicken who's just here to loaf around should know his place, and you won't even crow once to cheer me on! Watch it, or I'll give you some oil when I get back from the dungeon! I'll braise you, you slacking chicken!"

The rooster wasn't happy about being yelled at. He was the leader of his flock, after all. He'd been led such a long way by the neck today, and pecking only a few times had already shown how good-tempered he was. Now that he'd been scolded, he stretched out his head and pecked Aya.

"Hey! You're not happy about me telling you off? Which part of what I said was wrong?" Aya jumped to dodge his sharp beak. "If you peck me again, I'm telling Hagrid. You'll have hurt a student, and Hagrid will definitely send you to the kitchen!"

Xiaohua was wrapped up by the Basilisk in the middle of the room while Aya and the rooster chased each other around behind them. Finally, the rooster flapped onto Aya's shoulder, his claws gripping her hair and collar tightly. Aya shouted and tried to shake him off, but the rooster fluttered his wings and crowed at the top of his lungs in celebration of returning to the peak of his status.

The piercing crow echoed through the enclosed room, again and again. As Aya covered her cat ears, her face twisted in pain, and dodged the Basilisk's tail as it suddenly began thrashing violently, a system notification sounded-

[Dungeon completed. Congratulations, player, you have reached level 30]

[Capture a live rooster: 1/1]

[Find information related to the boss: incomplete]

[Find the dungeon entrance: 1/1]

[Defeat the boss: complete]

Aya blinked. The rooster on her shoulder was still flapping his wings, but the enormous Basilisk in front of her had gone still.

"Huh?" Aya's eyes widened. "So you can clear the dungeon just by holding out long enough? Was that a scripted kill?!"

Then she and Xiaohua were amazing!

She stopped paying attention to the strutting rooster. He was a farm animal, after all, and his claws didn't hurt when he grabbed her. She bounded over to the Basilisk and took quite a while to find its head.

"Wow-" Its head alone was taller than she was! Aya wandered around for a while without finding a treasure chest and rubbed her chin. She really hadn't seen a treasure chest since coming to this world, but based on her experience over the past year, she just had to strip everything bare.

Aya wandered around the room for ages, touching every part of the snake-entwined pillars. Finally, she stowed the Basilisk's corpse in her backpack as well.

Wow—a red legendary!

This was Aya's second red item. Although the Basilisk's corpse was as big as a small hill, it occupied only one slot—the very slot Aya had just freed up by eating her sandwich. There were still several empty slots after it that she had saved for the dungeon run, but they hadn't been needed.

Although she had been dead for a while and still had to crawl through the hole on the way back, Aya couldn't help feeling happy.

When Aya crawled out of the hole in the third-floor bathroom with the rooster on her head, the first things she saw were four feet, two black and two white.

Aya's face fell.