Chapter 14

  At the end of the last investigation, I made the decision to upgrade my Read the Room ability. Increasing the level would give me a larger range to sense hostile targets, but that wasn't the primary reason I'd chosen to level up the ability. The new level of Read the Room claimed to have the ability to show me a hostile target's level in relation to mine. I didn't know exactly how it would present itself, but I hoped it would allow me to make an educated decision about which battles we could easily win and which ones we'd have to flee. In the event that an opponent proved to be out of my league, we could always run to live another day.

  For the first time since increasing the level of Read the Room, I was able to witness how the new mechanic would work. Aside from the obvious red outline surrounding the massive abomination, two glowing red skulls floated over the beast's head. Two skulls wouldn't make sense for a default, which made me believe that one skull meant the target was significantly stronger, and more skulls showed an even larger gap between my abilities and the eldritch terror aiming to snuff out my life.

  When I leveled Read the Room, it was a no-brainer to interpret any significantly stronger foe as something to flee. I planned on standing behind that belief... Except I was trapped inside an icosagonal cage with no realistic means of escape.

  Initially, the cage seemed to be more than spacious enough for a proper fight. Enough room to move around and strategize, but not so much room that space would be wasted. With the imposing horror standing in the center of the ring, it felt impossibly small. If this suffocatingly constricting feeling was what a Poké Ball felt like, I could understand why Ash's Pikachu had an aversion to being trapped inside one.

  I've put off describing this thing for too long. I didn't avoid it because I was scared to look at it directly or anything. That would be something a coward would do, not me.

  Even when it was hunched over like Quasimodo, the Dimensional Shambler stood as tall as Shaq with Peter Dinklage standing on his shoulders. It wasn't excessively wide, given its height, but the way its arms hung gave off an illusion it was much bigger than it really was. Its legs were thin and sinewy, coated in what appeared to be exposed muscles and veins, but compared to the rest of the body they seemed oddly short. All of the extra terrifying beast material that was saved by making the legs shorter was added to the arms, because they would drag on the ground if the monster let them hang naturally. The arms were similar to the legs in their composition, surprisingly thin, but at the end of each of the arms were massive hands that would put the aforementioned Shaq to shame. Like pretty much everything in this awful world, the hands contained terrifyingly long and sharp claws. The creature's torso made it seem barrel chested, while the typical location for abs appeared much more like intestines connecting the chest to its hips. The abomination's lack of a neck made Danny DeVito look like a giraffe in comparison. Perched atop the lack-of-a-neck was an eyeless head with a massive row of sharp teeth, making it look like if Junji Ito decided to draw a Chain Chomp from the Mario games.

  Standing before this beast, facing impending combat, I wished my drink had been much more martini and less chocolate. Even Dalos, my fearless eldritch pooch, was cowering in fear from the monstrosity preparing to... do whatever it was planning to do to us.

  In the first investigation, this beast was supposed to act as a final boss. We needed to defeat it in order to complete the investigation and move forward. Joan and I had put together a brilliant plan involving narrow tunnels, a psychopathic punk, and a grossly underappreciated brilliant musician with green hair. This time we had a wider space, which negated the advantage we would have had in the narrow corridor. The creature could teleport, so even though it didn't look fast, it could appear anywhere. A narrow hallway would have limited it's teleportation to a straight line, which made battle formations much easier to plan. With an open space, it could appear in a blind spot and pick us off. With a wider space, we'd need more members in our party to compensate, but instead we had one less (two if you considered Dalos' cowering as a sign that he wouldn't be helping much). All things considered, this was as close to a worst-case-scenario as possible for a showdown with this creature.

  We didn't even really know if our initial strategy would have worked. When it came time for the epic showdown a series of events led to two of our party members tying us up in an act of betrayal, the eldritch god of chaos appearing, our party splitting-up, and everyone being incapacitated. Somewhere in the tunnel, the Dimensional Shambler appeared, and somehow it was absolutely obliterated. By the time we found it, it looked more like a homemade protein shake than a physical being. We never did figure out what had killed the final boss in our stead. From the opening announcement of this fight, it appeared that god also didn't know what had felled its chosen champion.

  "Joan, put your back up against the cage! Dalos, go with Joan and watch her blind spot." As terrified as I was, I could tell that Joan and Dalos were too shaken to fight for the time being. I figured I was probably just too stupid to fully grasp the danger of the situation. "Now that I've got a belly full of ramen, I'm going to test out my new Parkour! Parkour! ability."

  With its impossibly wide reach, my options were extremely limited. Luckily for me, I had the perfect ability for this situation. Focusing on the back of the Dimensional Shambler's head, my Pathfinder ability created a yellow path for me to follow. Taking into account the enemy's movements the path was incredibly complex, running up the cage, leaping, sliding, utilizing every bit of space to maneuver myself to my destination. With a path laid out, my body practically moved on its own.

  Instead of traveling along the edge of the cage, I charged directly forward. For a brief moment, the Shambler was caught off guard. By the time it registered my movement and thrust its hand in my direction, I leaned back, sliding along the ground. Its claw grazed my cheek, drawing blood, but not enough to slow me down. Momentum carried me between its legs.

  Hooking my staff on its left ankle, I made a quick turn to my right. I pushed off the the ankle with my staff, giving me just enough momentum to lift myself back to my feet. The moment I reached my feet, I was in a dead sprint to the side of the cage. I performed a wall run, easily climbing halfway up the cage before back flipping off the cage toward the beast. I released the chains of the staff as I passed over its head. The chain wrapped around its neck, allowing me to spin around to its back.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Standing with one foot on each of its shoulders, I gripped each of the end segments of the staff. I pulled back with all my strength causing the center segment of the staff to jam itself in the Shambler's mouth, preventing it from biting down. It looked like a really ugly version of that girl from Demon Slayer that had that thing in her mouth. From Joan's point of view, it must have looked like I was attempting to pilot the monster.

  Before I could celebrate, one of its hands grabbed me by the head and spiked me face-first into the ground. The entire world threatened to go black, but thanks to my godly constitution I not only maintained consciousness, but I also avoided a big hit to my total health.

  Unfortunately, the creature didn't release me. It lifted my entire body off the ground, gripping my face. Something was wrong... The world around me started to twist. I managed to jam my staff into its side, luckily forcing it to release me.

  My body fell hard onto the ground, and I quickly launched myself backward against the cage. From the center of the icosagon, it would not be able to reach me. A simple movement would erase that distance, but the Shambler stayed planted directly in the center.

  "Obvious suggestion... But avoid letting it grab your head!" I yelled to Joan and Dalos. At the moment, they hadn't moved. They were standing pressed against the cage a ways to my right. "It's not a physical attack! It was doing something..."

  "It's how they kill! They drag you into their dimension and kill you there!" Joan shouted back.

  Memories of the previous investigation filled my head. The missing townspeople left nothing behind as if they had just disappeared. We'd deduced that it had to be the Dimensional Shambler because of its unique way of hunting. It hadn't clicked until I saw it for myself. This fight was less about having to avoid its claws and teeth, and more about staying out of its grip.

  "I'm going to draw its attention. We're going to need to keep attacking until we find a weak point. Does your Critic ability give any hints?" I moved along the edge of the cage, causing the Shambler to slowly turn to watch me. Why wasn't it moving toward me?

  Joan's Critic ability allowed her to see stats and skills of players, NPCs, and monsters. It was one of the abilities she'd leveled up after the last investigation. I'd recommended upgrading that ability for situations just like this.

  "It doesn't give any weaknesses, I think the journal said next level will show weaknesses." She answered. I could see her staring intently at our opponent, so she must have been trying to decipher its information. "Its dexterity is really low, but its strength and constitution are high. It has two abilities... Dimensional Leap and Abduct. It looks like Abduct was what it tried to use on you."

  If its dexterity was low, that might give me an advantage. Testing out my theory I took a step into its attack range. It swung its arm at me, but I was easily able to dodge. As long as I kept its arms out of my blind spots, I shouldn't have any trouble dodging.

  Was I making this battle harder than it had to be? Would it really be this easy?

  "It shouldn't be able to hit me if I keep using my high dexterity to dodge! Slip in behind it and attack!" I shouted to Joan as I dodged another swipe from the Shambler. "How is Dalos doing? Does it look like he'll join the fight?"

  I leapt over another swipe. Its attacks were slow compared to my current agility, and they were surprisingly predictable. If we could chip away at its health bit by bit, we could win this without taking too much damage.

  "He's shaking. I don't think we can count on him right now." Joan replied. My heart ached for Dalos. He was really struggling and I couldn't do anything right now to help him. The best thing for me to do was finish this battle as soon as possible.

  "I'm going to keep it distracted. Land a quick attack and flee back out to the edge." I said as I slid under one of the Shambler's monstrous hands. "It's not going to be quick, but I'd rather be safe."

  Moving closer to the monster, I drew attacks from both arms. It was slightly harder to dodge, but at no point did I find myself in any real danger. It had only grabbed me the first time because I had gotten too close and had its hand in my blind spot. Joan landed a quick jab to its leg with her pen before retreating to the cage. It swept an arm in her direction, but she was able to get out of its range long before the arm reached her.

  After the first stab, it started to turn in her direction so I landed a quick shot to the side of its head with my staff before jumping back to a safe distance. If we kept up this pattern, victory was guaranteed. I'd draw its attention, Joan stabbed, Joan retreated, I attacked to grab its attention, I retreated... We repeated it until Joan commented that its health bar was less than half. I'm not sure how much time had passed, but we were still in good position to keep going as long as it took.

  Joan buried her pen deep into its back while I leapt over an unusually slow swipe. In midair, I swung my staff to connect with its head. The swing was wider than normal with the intention of landing a stronger hit than usual.

  I was too careless.

  The massive, slow moving abomination flickered out of existence the moment before my staff struck home, leaving my staff swinging through nothing more than an after image. Since I had been airborne at the time, the missed swing caused my body to twist in the air uncontrollably. Before I had a chance to land, a strong blow knocked my prone body across the cage. My staff slipped from my grasp, toppling to the ground far from where my body would land.

  Before I made contact with the ground or cage wall, my body was caught by a massive hand, trapping my arms in its powerful grip. The Dimensional Shambler was no longer planted in the center of the cage, but seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once.

  It had all been a trap. I made the mistake of showing my trump card early when I used my dexterity to acrobatically fly around the cage. From that point, it lulled me into a false sense of security. When it manipulated me into being caught in the air with no means of evasion, it finally played its own trump card. Joan told me it had two abilities. We were doing our best to avoid Abduct, but I'd been too distracted to consider Dimensional Leap.

  Using the full area of the cage, the Shambler was teleporting instantaneously and launching attacks from all directions. Joan had noted that its dexterity was low, so I'd interpreted that as meaning slow and easy to dodge. In reality, its Dimensional Leap didn't rely on dexterity, it could move much faster than me by teleporting instantaneously to its desired location.

  While I was trapped in its grasp, Joan made a desperate attack at its arm. Before she could connect, the Shambler's other arm connected with her body, sending her crashing into the side of the cage before she crumbled limply to the ground.

  Locked in the Shambler's grip, I watched in horror as its second hand closed around my head.

  Reality twisted, blurring with fiction. The concept of up and down ceased to be. I was still in the cage with the beast, but I was also somewhere else entirely.

  When I opened my eyes, I was back on The Love Craft. The deck was empty except for a single man standing in front of me.

  "Pugsley?"