Johann picked up on it faster than the others. When they finally reached the entrance to the dungeon, Hana tried explaining what happened to the proctor, but she was a mess. Overcome with worry for her brother. Seah calmed her and explained in detail what had happened and what they’d seen.

At first, the proctor listened with concern. The cave-in. The argument about the mid-boss. Then, Seah told him about the incursion. And finally, the shrine. It only flashed across his face for a moment before he masked it, but Johann saw it. Fear.

Now they were back where they had left Cyrus and Jinyoung. Jinyoung was gone and Cyrus’ only explanation was the flash of light from the shrine itself which was dull now. Only a few symbols etched onto its surface were visible.

“Damn you, Cyrus! You were the team leader!”

Hana was jabbing her finger at Cyrus who could only look away.

“You were supposed to take care of us! You were supposed to take care of him!”

They all felt the weight of those words. But the proctor knew better.

“That’s enough of that. He did what he could and probably saved all your lives.” The proctor had seen this before. Grief drove blame. And blame fed guilt.

“Maybe if we had stayed together…” Seah started.

“Then you’d all be dead,” the proctor stated firmly. “We know what this is. And we know what it does. Frankly, if it weren’t for your team leader here, you’d all be dead.”

***

SCREECHHH!!

The golem swung wide, but Jinyoung didn’t have enough time to bring the sword up to parry the blow. He could see chips of the sword-edge breaking off so he immediately [dashed]forward and between the golem’s legs.

He moved quickly and put some distance between them so he could catch his breath.

Perfect Parries: 5/50

Perfect Dodges: 5/500

The stone golem stumbled. Parrying against an opponent that didn’t have a weapon had the added bonus of causing it damage. It’d been hours, but he’d dealt enough damage to it so that over time it had lost its ability to defend itself. And, in the process, he’d had to use his [dash] to avoid strikes which had inadvertently triggered some perfect dodges as well.

QUEST: The PATH of the STARS

OBJECTIVE: Complete one of the following:

- 500 Perfect Dodges or,

- 50 Perfect Parries.

REWARD: 1 CLASS SKILL point (computing error…)

It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad, Jinyoung thought to himself.

To his benefit, Jinyoung had learned much during his hours in the quest. He knew that the golem had a set attack pattern that it always followed. The first strike was always telegraphed, while the second one came in at the same angle. Then a slight pause before the golem finished with a downward strike.

The golem walked closer still and wobbled a bit once it was in range. It drew back and…

CLANGGG! The first strike was perfectly parried.

FWISH! Jinyoung used [dash] to dodge the second blow which came in at an angle too difficult to parry.

And finally, CLANGGG! Jinyoung parried the last blow which staggered the golem.

Everything exactly as he had planned. Except for one thing. After the final parry, the golem was sent off-balance. It staggered for a moment before righting itself and approaching Jinyoung.

It hadn’t staggered before. Before whenever Jinyoung was able to parry an attack, the golem would be knocked off-balance but immediately recover. But that could only mean-

“You’ve taken damage, haven’t you?”

Of course the golem didn’t respond. It couldn’t. But the stones that held together its body were sagging and the limbs looked looser. It was losing control over its physical form. It was very nearly dead.

The realization struck Jinyoung in his tracks. Quests had a success metric, but also failure metrics. Completing the quest successfully meant that he would receive the rewards but if he failed?

Then the quest would end.