Chapter 52: The First Floor Boss

***

[You have Slain a Goblin]

[You have obtained 1 Soul Core]

[You have obtained Crude stone Battle Axe]

***

It was fast, instant and rewarding. The system’s calm messages felt surreal next to the brutal stillness of the body collapsing.

Kael simply took another breath, feeling he no longer needed to use the Rune of Presence, the rune itself deactivated. The dull gray of his sight began to lift slightly, sound creeping back in like water filling a drained basin. The burn on his chest eased from sharp to simmering, as if the rune settled back into its brand, satisfied.

A small feeling of nausea soon appeared and disappeared. It came like a quick wave, a reminder that even “cheap” rune use costs something. He felt that befor,e when the Rune fully exhausted him. That’s mana being used. Though he can’t use magic, he never lost his mana. And that was good, since he needed that to power the Rune on him. The thought grounded him. He was crippled in one direction but not empty. Mana was fuel, and fuel meant options.

Kael thought about using the Rune of Anchor, but decided against it. The idea flitted through his mind the way bad ideas always did when you were stressed: “what if legendary helps.” But he shut it down immediately.

For a legendary rune, it had far too many demerits to be used. It simply had negatives, which begged the question, why was that even a legendary rune? The question didn’t have time to settle. It was a problem for later, when he wasn’t sprinting between survival tasks.

Kael couldn’t think of that for a long time, he needed to obtain the rune of fire. Which is right outside the building he is in right now. That proximity felt like a cruel joke. Two goblins down, two cores gained, and now the “easy” rune waited outside like a prize on a stage.

Peering from one of the windows of the second floor, Kael was able to see the location he needed to move to. The glass was cracked and dusty, but it offered a view over the broken street into the square ahead. He leaned in carefully, keeping his silhouette low, crowbar still in hand, eyes narrowing.

And immediately his heart dropped. The arena wasn’t just a square. It was a scar. Heat shimmered above it even from this distance, distorting the air. The light around it looked wrong, too bright and too unstable, as if the ground itself was angry.

He gulped hard as he saw what awaited him.

And this was the ’easiest’ rune to obtain?. The thought tasted bitter. Easy compared to what? A basilisk? A hundred goblins? The Tower’s definition of easy was always attached to an asterisk.

In the middle of the large square opening that was surrounded with broken down buildings, there was nothing but ash and fire.

It wasn’t a normal fire either. It looked like something had burned for days without dying, eating air, and refusing to go out. The ash was thick, coating the ground like gray snow, and in places it swirled lazily as if moved by heat currents rather than wind.

The earth itself felt like it was smoldering with a few patches of walkable ground. Kael could see darker strips where stone hadn’t cracked, narrow paths that might support footsteps without crumbling into glowing cracks. But most of the square looked hostile, like it wanted to blister skin through boots.

And in the middle of the arena-like structure, there was a hole of flames. Or so it would appear at first. The “hole” wasn’t just a pit. It was a mouth. A circular opening where molten light pulsed, and the fire above it moved like breath.

***

[You are the first to discover the First Floor Boss, Ifrit. ]

Unlike before, there was no bonus obtained from simply discovering something first. The basilisk offered the best possible loot upon kill, but here… Nothing.

Kael inspected the creature from afar.

***

Name: [Ifrit- Guardian of Flames]

Monster Power [C-]

Class: Field Boss

Status: Dormant.

Abilities:

[Fireborne]: Cannot be damaged with fire abilities.

[Minor Inferno]: Occasionally releases a shockwave of flames outward that deals damage to everyone present, might cause a [Burn] effect on affected targets.

[Summon servant]: Occasionally summons two fire golems to assist it in battle.

Lore:

A Djinn Type Creature that is highly resistant to physical attacks. It is rare to see an Ifrit roaming the outer world as it is highly suppressive of their fire nature. They are masters of fire control and can grow more powerful when close to flames.

***

“Shit…” Kael cursed as he realized that the rune might be the reward for killing the Ifrit. The word slipped out before he could stop it, a small, ugly sound in the back of his throat. Floor Boss. Field Boss. C-. Those labels weren’t just information. They were warning signs painted in system text.

The creature itself was ablaze. Now that Kael’s eyes knew what to look for, he could make out shape inside the flame: stone horns, a heavy head, a chest like carved rock, fists resting like pillars. It only had three parts of its body. The rest was all flames. It was casually dozing off like a cat atop its arms. The image was almost absurd in a terrifying way, something built to devastate, sleeping like a pampered beast.

The fire that made the rest of his body wasn’t random. It shuddered occasionally with purpose, like muscle. Like tendons made of flame. The creature itself didn’t move from its place but simply slept, and its body crackled like overheating coal.

This was probably the ’dormant’ part. Dormant didn’t mean harmless. It meant waiting. It meant one mistake away from waking up something that would turn the whole square into an oven.

Kael cursed inwardly again. The irritation was sharp enough to cut through fear. How is this ’easy’ to obtain rune if he needs to kill something like that? He didn’t even want to imagine what its “Minor Inferno” looked like in practice. A shockwave of flame in an arena with one entrance? That sounded like a plan designed by someone who hated survivors.

Not to mention, this is a field boss that requires the help of many, many climbers. He pictured a swarm of people charging in, shouting, coordinating, dying. That was the kind of fight you did with numbers, with preparation. Not alone, not on day three, not with a crowbar and stubbornness.

But when Kael checked the map, he saw something different. A golden dot was right next to the red dot, not superimposed. Not on top of it or part of it, but just next to it. His eyes narrowed, and his heartbeat steadied in a strange way, the same way it always calmed down whenever his heartbeat went past a certain threshold.

The map never lied. It was showing separation. It was showing a prize adjacent to danger, not contained within it.

He couldn’t see it from this far away but he realized immediately what he needed to do to obtain the rune. It wasn’t to kill the Ifrit since it wasn’t a part of it.

But to steal it from under his nose, as it was close to the Ifrit. The plan formed like a blade sliding out of a sheath, simple, sharp, terrifying. Get in, grab, get out. No heroics. No prolonged fight. Just theft from something sleeping in lava.

He thought about it being passive, but shook his head. Passive is when it is possible, and you turn your head. Fighting this thing is the definition of foolish suicide.

Grow today, and fight tomorrow.

He began formulating a plan and retraced his thoughts. Reading the boss’s Lore part again, he realized the reason the Rune was there. Ifrits can only exist for a prolonged period of time if there was a source of fire nearby… so isn’t the Rune of Fire his own source of fire? The thought clicked into place, and it made the whole arena feel like a trap designed around that logic. The rune wasn’t just loot. It was fuel. It was a battery sitting beside a machine that would love to eat it.

The thought formulated in Kael’s mind as he once again confirmed his resolution from earlier. His jaw tightened.

His hands flexed around the crowbar, and he could feel the [Legend] stats in his body, steadier breath, stronger grip, a subtle readiness that hadn’t been there before.

“I can’t kill it, but I can’t be passive about a power-up option,” he muttered to himself as he looked at the Ifrit from far away. The words were small, but they felt like a line drawn in blood.

“Guess it’s time to do some stealing…”

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